Have Gesso, Will Journal

Hello Friends!

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i chi gyd

Happy New Year one and all

How was your Christmas?  Did you stay up to welcome in the New Year?  I am sure we all found strange and alien ways of marking these days, but we did it, and now, with hope on the horizon, more than ever, diligence and respect for others is so very important if we are to get through this.

In my home, for as long as I can recall, and that's a long, long time, a jigsaw has been part of our Christmas festivities.  Always at least a 1,000 piece, but in truth that is about the largest that is manageable on my coffee table.

This, rather last, year I had two from which to select.  Of course, by "select" I mean which to do first, because finding and placing the pieces does become rather addictive, a truth universally acknowledged by anyone who loves jigsaw puzzling.  If you care not a jot for jigsaws, then look away now!  {or simply scroll by to the next bit}

Here are the two boxes

Both are paintings as opposed to photo images.  I picked Dawn Flight to do first as it's been in the cottage the longest.

I found it truly tried my patience, for it is full of very odd shaped pieces indeed, some curved, some pointy, and even some with straight edges in the centre which caused great frustration during the initial sorting out of the edge pieces! 

I would get them in place, then before I could secure them with proper interlocking pieces, they would slide apart and have to be brought together again.

I persevered and, et voilà, done!  {apologies, image in two parts, due to Instagram formatting}

One of my favourite books that I read this past Christmas was this little gem

It's called "Home For Christmas" and is penned and illustrated by the inspirational American writer and illustrator, Susan Branch.  It is her memoirs of her particular childhood Christmases in the 1950's which  Her muse for the cover image of Santa Claus is her husband, Joe Hall.   I think he makes the most perfect Santa!

I found it to be one of the happiest, joyful, and most uplifting reads I have had in a long time. I laughed, I cried, I shared her pain of suspense, and excitement in her anticipation, and more as she shows us how love and family are the most important gifts of all.  

Now on to 2021.  Wales is back in lockdown and so I am looking for ways to entertain and amuse myself for a few weeks.  I came across this book, a lovely hardcovered almanac I bought in a January sale from 2019 {how long ago that seems now}.  

I have mixed feelings over it, as it is packed with information, but I found some of it wholly irrelevant to me {for example, hard to calculate tide tables information} yet other things, such as recipes, quite useful. Some of the pages are quite beautifully illustrated too.  However you look at it, it's as out of date as last year's chocolates.  So, what to do?  Well, I'm seeing a trend for altered books, so I am jumping on the bandwagon.  Have gesso, will journal!  

There are around 260 sides and I would guess about half of them are now irrelevant so I shall lightly gesso these, one at a time, keeping some of the text visible, and then journal with my own information, whatever I decide, keeping within the general theme of almanac. I might even use it to keep a record of the garden as it progresses through the year.  We'll see how it goes and I will share regular updates on here, Twitter, and Instagram.

Just for fun, here's a picture of my Christmas dinner.  I made nut roast, roast parsnips and potatoes, braised red cabbage, bread sauce, and cranberry relish.  Normally, I also have a mixed root mash and mushy peas, but really didn't feel like a Christmas Day blow out.  As it was, I was too stuffed for pudding.  After snapping this, a red wine vegetarian gravy was added.  I enjoyed it a lot, and the left over nut roast did well for a few days of left overs.  Sometimes, I think left overs are better than the meal!

Until next time

Stay safe and stay well

Deborah xoxo

Christmas Countdown and Traditions Day Five

Hello Friends!

Here is today's Advent calendar picture as we progress towards Christmas ~~~

Today's tradition is one of my own personal Christmas traditions, which I would like to share with you, and maybe encourage you to bring this little piece of Welsh literature into your own traditions. It is to read {several times over the days leading up to Christmas} a most favourite tale "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by one of Wales's most notable poets, the genius that was Dylan Thomas.

I just love this gentle, humorous tale, a nostalgic image of a Christmas from a simpler time, told in Thomas's own inimitable style. I especially love the passages about the "useful presents" and "useless presents"

"There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths; zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking tribes ~~~ "

"Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by a mistake that no one could explain, a little hatchet ~~~ "

 ~~~ I always wonder about the little hatchet!

If you have not read it, please do, it isn't long, it won't take up much time, for I'm sure you will love it as much as I do and will want to read it over and over as you are transported to that very special world. Copies are readily available, to buy, or to borrow from your local library, and can even be found to read online, although if you can find a sweetly illustrated hardcover copy then that is the best. You can even listen to it on audio CD if you want, read by Dylan Thomas himself, recorded in 1952 and let yourself drift with the words, falling snowflakes into his imaginary world. Curl up in a comfy arm chair with your book, light some candles, wear Fair Isle socks and snuggle under a quilt to escape to the small Welsh village of Thomas's imagination on a snowy Christmas tide ~~~

Until next time ~~~
~~~Deborah xoxo

Curling up with a Good Book ~~~ or ten ~~~

Gentle Reader ~~~ Winter {hopefully} must surely be exhausted.  Days spent in luxurious hibernation, snuggling under a comfy quilt, sitting by the fireside with a cup of tea, a slice of cake, and a good book while winter rages outside, are coming to a close for another year.  The sun, when not hiding behind clouds, is rising higher in the sky with each passing day.  The days are lengthening. This is the point where I'd like to say they are getting warmer, drier, and less windy. They are not. However, work is slowly being resumed in the Garden in the Shire ~~~ probably not as energetically as I should, but {forgive the moan} age is catching up with me and the garden, much as I enjoy puttering, seems bigger and more out of control than ever before.

The onions and garlic that I planted late last Autumn are progressing, albeit slowly, and will hopefully gather some growing momentum with the lengthening days.  I will write more on these in the coming days, for slowly this journal must return to the garden ~~~

I can only stand by and watch weeds grow for so long. I had enough of seeing how rapidly some are already growing, so I went out in a thick, damp sea fog, well wrapped up, and dug up by the root many Evening Primrose, Dandelions, and Borage before they become established and difficult. Oh! if only the onions would grow like the weeds have done ~~~ but that is asking too much, isn't it?  

It was so lovely out there, shrouded in the comforting grey fog ~ you may consider that strange, but I grew up by the sea, salt water is in my blood, and sea fog comes with the territory.  I enjoy time spent, alone, sitting in the still, early morning quiet of the house where only the tick tick tock of the mantel clock disturbs the heavy silence of a sea fog blanket outside ~ oh, how my heart years for the sound of the fog horn, long gone now. 

As a child, I would listen for the deep, echoing booms carried on the air, that muted sound that carried through the fog blankets that hid the coast and dangerous reefs that sit beneath the surface of the sea. There was something deeply comforting in the sound that warned sailors of the dangers ahead. 

Here are links to two of our local lighthouses ~~~

Smalls lighthouse paragraph three 

South Bishop lighthouse

I digress ~~~
Are you sitting down?  If not, find yourself a seat quickly ~~~ for I have mowed!  Up off your fainting couches ~~~ 

Yes, I have mowed!

I do not think I have ever mowed the lawn so early, but did so on the divinely sunny afternoon of February 17th. 

It felt so amazingly good after the near onset of Cabin Fever as the long, dark months of winter approach their end ~~~ although I do love those shorter days of winter, for it affords time to visit faraway lands; catch up with old friends; discover new recipes to try; take a glimpse into the lives of others; and go on many a grand adventure; all from the comfort of my own armchair ~~~ 

Sometimes, just sometimes, a book passes into your hands and something magical happens as it stops you in your tracks ~ time suddenly stands still; more than the usual joyful feelings that come with a new book begin to happen ~ as you carefully open the pages, the goosebumpy thrill of knowing that you are the very first person to peek inside this copy washes over you; you smell that indescribable new book smell that you love so deeply; sometimes, just sometimes, more than simply lovingly stroking and caressing the covers, turning the pages, and looking at the pictures, before you start to devour the magical words that are written just for you, you close it back up and hug it to your chest, because sometimes, just sometimes, you find a book that is so exceptionally special you begin to coo and wax lyrical over it ~~~ just sometimes ~~~ and then the adventures begin!

Such books are the books that, if they do not build empires in the greater scheme of things, certainly build empires in my heart ~~~ they are the very stuff that speaks so loudly to me, and here are some of those authors who have greatly influenced me, and who speak in the most gentle of ways the loudest of all to my heart ~~~

Louisa May Alcott

L.M. Montgomery
Susan Branch

Tasha Tudor

Beatrix Potter

and here are some hints at the books I have enjoyed getting to know, and some old friends I've revisited, over the past winter months ~~~

I've held the hands of the March girls through their many joys and heartbreaking sorrows, and taken tea with them, and fallen in love with Jo once again ~ for when I was a child I wanted to be Jo March when I grew up, more than any other girl whose lives I shared ~~~

I've experienced the humiliation of red hair and the trials of an imperfect nose, and being called "carrots" by my future husband; sharing secrets with my best friend Diana as we sit by the Dryad's Bubble, or stroll, daydreaming, making plans for our perfect futures, along the White Way of Delight or by the Lake of Shining Waters ~~~

I've gazed, in pure amazement, up to the stars at night from my bed of sweet hay in a chalet perched high on the side of a steep Swiss mountain, while waiting for morning to come so I can run over the mountain with my friend Peter the goatherd as he takes the goats to pasture and I've known the horror of being estranged from the people I love, unable to reach out to them or return to my home in the Alps ~~~

Long afternoons spent wandering and exploring gardens in the company of a quintessentially English lady who loved her gardens and found such inspiration therein that she wrote and illustrated some of the most charming of all children's books ~~~

I discovered Pear Ci~dah {a traditional English drink made from pears, formerly known as Perry} as I toured the countryside of merry England in spring time with a Girlfriend who is a self~confessed Anglophile with a love of sheep ~~~

There was a very special visit to Martha's Vineyard with a tiny, adorably cute mouse named Eliza ~~~

Eavesdropped on an inspiring collective of creative souls and spirits that became one of the most legendary and influential groups of the twentieth century ~~~

Someone must have decided red was a very good colour to bind books with this season ~~~

I have read recipes, tried recipes {let's not go there today} and consumed copious amounts of hot tea in any number of varieties and flavours {winter is a good time to experiment with new flavours of tea} and some of my new favourites are made by Twinings, especially their fruity green teas, such as Apple and Pear, or my top winter time drink Gingerbread Green Tea ~~~

I love the new Twinings Tea advert, it is so happy ~~~ makes me smile each time I see it ~~~ too sweet not to share ~~~ it will make you smile too ~~~

I have fed birds on my feeders, and spent many a wistful hour just watching them flitting and feeding ~~~ I am sorting out my photographs to tell you all about them soon ~~~

~~~ there are books of one sort or another in every room in the cottage ~~~ and on a diverse variety of subjects as you could want to find anywhere ~~~ I love books, I just can't help myself ~~~ and there is always room for one more book ~~~

~~~I wonder where I'll be voyaging to next?~~~ 

What are your favourite books to visit time and again? Where are you off to on your next adventure?