A Little Box of Cosy Hugs

Hello Friends!

Thank you to everyone who left such lovely comments on my last blog.  Your words and kindness touched my heart.

Much as I enjoy playing with fonts, I like this one, Eagle Lake, the best, so I shall stick with it for a while.  It is a nostalgic reminder of my schooldays, when I loved my art class, especially when we had calligraphy days!  We only had black or blue India Ink, but oh, what fun making all those deliciously swirly marks on paper, and the joy of creating small panels of words was inspirational.  I was good at calligraphy, and was a much favoured pupil as I was allowed a pot of both blue and black ink!

We've had some lovely sunny days, mostly a little windy, but, oh! my! the temperatures have dropped like a stone, and my lovely neighbour over the garden wall and I are in full agreement, it's time to put away the Summer clothes and bring out our cooler weather things.  Sad, but true, although I see it as an opportunity to indulge in hygge!

When I first encountered that word, hygge, I didn't know it was pronounced hoo-gah, and I kept switching between higgie or hugger. Well, my pronunciation was off, but the concept was already here, for hygge, to me, is like living in a cosy box of little hugs that comfort us in the colder, darker days of Autumn, right through into early Spring. I have always lived a hygge life, it just didn't have a name before.

Someone is playing Peek a Boo!

I think hygge is a different thing for different people.  Some of the delights of hygge that are special to me are my warm, cosy living room with its heavy curtains that keep out the long, dark evenings; sitting by candlelight and burning aromatherapy oils; snuggling under soft, cotton quilts and pillows; sipping mugs of steaming hot chocolate; a nip of home made sloe gin from my hip flask on a long cold walk; the scents in the kitchen of pumpkin spice, cinnamon and nutmeg; reading books {especially revisiting the old, familiar stories of old}; and quiet, slow activities such as painting and colouring in, knitting, or sewing a cosy quilt.  

Hygge is a full cake tin or two, and baking my favourite cakes, such as Madeira Cake, rich and dense, full of ground almonds.  The kitchen fills with the fragrance of almonds and lemons when this is baking.  Madeira Cake is so called as it was once a favoured thing to eat with a glass of Madeira wine.  I'll second that!  

 My other favourite cake tin filler is Seed Cake. Another one that when baking fragrances the kitchen with the scent of Caraway seed and oranges.  Although both cakes look similar, they have their own unique qualities, and both are a perfect accompaniment for a mug of tea at Elevenses or Threeses.

It's taking a long walk along the Welsh country lanes, wrapped up warmly in a knitted hat, scarf and gloves, wearing my hiking boots with chunky socks that wrinkle around my ankles keeping out the cold as it nips at my feet, then coming home, rosy cheeked and red nosed, into a warm and welcoming cottage for a hot drink with a piece of cake, snuggling in my favourite chair by a toasty warm fire. 

I can tick the boxes for all of the above, except the toasty, warm fire, and that is something I miss so much, although the older I get I don't miss cleaning out the ashes and chopping the wood!

It's filling the kitchen with the fragrant scents, and hustle and bustle of baking for the freezer, and cooking up the hedgerow harvests.  I love making applesauce for the Winter days ahead, from my own homegrown apples.  This is a favourite gizmo of mine.  It's a very old design, although mine is new, and has remained unchanged for many, many years.  A true testament to "If it's not broken, don't mend it" if ever there was. Come apple season, I wouldn't be without it.  In under ten seconds, it peels, cores and slices a large apple.  Incredibly time saving when you have pounds and pounds of apples to process.

It's so many more than those things, and it will be uniquely different to all of us, so I hope you'll share, in the comments, your own personal hygge.

Over the years I seem to have accidentally fallen into collecting woollen blankets.  I don't know how it happened, it just did, and now I have quite a few, all travel and throw size so very useful to keep on my sofas and arm chairs if needed.  Some even roll up quite nicely to fit in a picnic basket or back pack too.  I'm saving the blankets for another blog.

Maybe Henry "Bomber" Hedgehog has one in his backpack? What do you think?  He's certainly all set for a day out rambling across the byways and country roads, with his binoculars and pipe, and his red beret.  Quite the dapper chap indeed.

Autumn days means time spent in the garden, when the weather permits, of course!  There's always lots of work to do, clearing and cleaning, and generally tidying up to tuck up and put the garden to bed for the Winter. Just the other day, I snatched a few hours between the winds and horizontal rain, and hidden away in a corner where I keep old pot and bits and bobs, I found this joyful bloom!

It's a deep pink Kaffir lily!  I already have the paler pink, and plenty of it too, for it spreads like wildfire, but I have always wanted this deeper pink, and it looks as if it's volunteered itself so I must find it a spot in the borders. 

Until next time

Stay safe and stay well

Deborah xo