Sunday 8 March 2009

AUTHENTIC PORRIDGE

This morning I found that the little milk I had left in the fridge had gone off, so I mixed up a small quantity of organic powdered ewe's milk that I keep as an ingredient for making milk bath. It was very good, and eating it on my porridge, I reflected that this was probably the combination that crofters of old probably used, since they would have been far more likely to keep sheep than cows. There, my authentic Sunday morning moment...


I brought back dozens of tiny champignons de Paris that I had made in pottery this week. Why make mushrooms, you may wonder? Well, I'm blatantly copying an idea I saw on etsy.com, but not for sale, of course. I'm making a moss garden for my old Mum for her birthday at the end of the month. Difficult to know what to give a mum of her age, and I thought she'd appreciate the "I made it all by myself" feel. In fact I've made several. I bought glass containers of all shapes and sizes on ebay in January, some with lids, some without. I made the mushrooms (an essential ingredient: one tiny mushroom) in February. And the other day I raided my local nursery for attractive moss I'd seen growing on the earth around repotted saplings. And the result is rather fetching, I think! Very "I made it all by myself", in any case.



I also crocheted a cotton oven cloth yesterday, to replace the one I've been using these twenty years and which, although I was very sad to put it in the bin, really had to go. This one is nice and bright and springlike, but the photo is a little pale.



My camelias have suffered a little from the frost these last two weeks, but I managed to get a couple of photos before they did. Camelias are lovely, their fallen blooms, which go squishy and stick to everything, are not. I'm being very careful to pick them up as they fall this year.

The first early cherry has started to flower at the bottom of the garden. Its flowers are so very small that you have to be within a couple of metres to see them at all, but they are another sign of Spring and it's all very heartening.



Oslo has been very ill but is better. She looks quite normal again except for lumps and bumps all over. I may even, weather permitting, try taking her to the beach this week.

Sunday 1 March 2009

NEW POTTERY, NEW KNITTING





Here are a few of the things I've completed recently in my pottery class. Doesn't look like much, but I really needed soap dishes at home, rather than leaving sludgy bars of soap on the edge of the sink/bath/washbasin. I made three, but I think I could have made half a dozen. They also helped me to do a few colour tests. And they've got little feet like japanese dishes.



I also made a "boîte à trésors" for Marius in the shape of a big fat mushroom.











And I've finally listed a couple of pieces of knitting on etsy: http://shahdlou.etsy.com/ . More listings to come.








Which all explains why I don't get out into the garden much.