Colouring in the days




There has been a whole lot grey here in Suffolk and it is cold, cold, cold. Thankfully my studio, though cold, is very bright, so even on the darkest days I don't feel entirely daylight deprived and a table full of floral prints is sure to make me smile.




In the kitchen my citrus inspired baking continues and provides an excellent remedy to these dregs of winter.




Therefore, it seemed only sensible to apply the citrus remedy to my clothing.




A bright orange skirt cuts through the dullest of days and when I add a purple beret and my favourite purple knitted toast I feel instantly cheerier.




So I am sure you can imagine how thrilling it was when the rain came down and I pulled out my yellow wellies.




Orange skirt, purple tights and yellow wellies = huge smile. Yes, I am still about 6 years old deep down.

When winter declares




It really has been the mildest of winters here in Suffolk, barely a frost, no snow, none of those long icy days of the last few years.




So the last week has been rather a surprise. A sharp, cold snap.




The sun so low and bright.



The landscape edged in frozen lace. On my daily run the trees seem frozen in the very moment. As though someone hit pause.

I rather like it. I am certainly glad we haven't had weeks of ice and slush but this, right now, this is perfect. A short declaration of winter.



That glorious feeling of a frozen woodland floor crunching beneath you. The frozen fields are bright and glistening under the low January sun.

Days like these are made for kitchen pottering.



And as it's January, the citrus fruit rules supreme. Orange and almond cake. Dense, damp sponge, the sort of slightly grown up cake that begs to be eaten early in the day with a big bowl of coffee. That oily orange zest feels positively restorative and the almond sweetly whispers of Mediterranean nut groves and summer sunshine.

I used the Orange Blossom Cake recipe from my very well thumbed copy of Nigella Lawson's How To Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food (Cookery)

Vanity demands




I love having soft, shiny blow-dried hair.



For about three days.

Every six weeks or so.




Because no matter what my vanity demands, I simply have not the patience or skill to achieve shiny, bouncy hair at home.



My natural curls are left to their own devices and travel through each day on a wing and a prayer (though no amount of praying will help my hair on high humidity days).



But every six weeks or so, I visit the hairdresser (for reasons of greyness) and the most wonderful junior wrestles my hair into silky submission. I walk out feeling rather like one of my childhood heroes - a Charlie's Angel.

Love in ink




Right now I am loving January. I know that in a few weeks time I will feel much less gracious towards this wintry month, especially as the spectre of February, a month still so very far from Spring, begins to loom.



However, right now, I am full of the joy of January. It starts with the clearing of the decks, taking down the cards and clearing away the decorations. Dusting the surfaces and vacuuming up the pine needles. It's such a very satisfying form of housework. The results so immediate.




Then there is the new year's diary. Clean, crisp pages ready to be filled, the satisfaction of marking fresh pages with ink.



This year the pleasure is enhanced by the new love in my life. It's a pen.




I like to use a fountain pen, I feel this will not surprise you.

For Christmas this year I received the most excellent of fountain pens, a vintage Parker 51. I am not sure I have mentioned it before, but I should tell you that The Technical Advisor rather excels at present buying. I didn't even know I wanted this pen but now I have it I may never write with anything else. It feels so comfortable in my hand and writes with incredible fluidity, the forming of each word becomes a tactile and pleasurable experience. As with all things old I love to think of who may have owned it over the years, I like to wonder about the offices it may have worked in or the love letters penned.




To add to its charms, it doesn't even take dull old cartridges. It uses the thrillingly named Aerometric filling system (a refinement of the original Vacumatic system) and simply suctions up the ink straight from a glass bottle.

I can hardly wait until filling time.

Today




I can hear the kettle whistle loud and clear, only the gentle hum of Radio 4 to accompany its urgent screech.




Once the lunches were made, the bags packed, breakfasts eaten and buses caught I returned to this quiet house.




I contemplated silence and the settling into a new-old routine once more.



As with each new term come my mixed feelings of peace and sadness.




For a little while I played Jenga with the minature Green & Blacks and photographed their tiny charms whilst considering which should accompany my quiet coffee. Hazelnut won out. Easing myself into 2012.



Happy New Year to all of you. May it be kind and gentle upon us all.

Restoration sunlight




These last few weeks have been quite mad.




Orders have filled all moments and between times there has been frantic shopping, hastily prepared meals, school concerts and fairs.




I have run from here to there and back again. My head a whirl.




There were moments when I thought I might not cope. I have often been snappy and distracted.




In the midst of utter chaos of order packing last Friday the sun suddenly appeared and cast its glow across the kitchen table. It lit up cracks and danced across the polished wood. The walls moved and dappled in its light.




And I paused. I turned my face towards the sun and paused. I breathed deeply and slowly in its light and remembered just how much I have to be thankful for. I grabbed the camera and gazed through its lens, prolonging the moment. The joy of that warm, bathing light and what it meant to pause and count ones blessings.




It was the corner turning moment. This week has been bliss. School is finished. Orders all up to date and my virtual shop doors shut for now. There is baking and reading. The house is clean. It is time to enjoy my small patient people. The sun has not returned but if I close my eyes and pause a moment I can almost feel its regenerative power.

Tick tock



Goes the clock. These last few weeks my eye is continually on the clock. I dash from computer to printer. From sewing machine to iron. From packaging to post office.



Family time has been poor.



There has been very little baking.

It is wonderful to be so busy, and every order is still a thrill but my goodness, I was not prepared and I am frantically treading water.

Somewhere amongst the blur of work my little girl turned nine and once again I wonder how? How can it be nine years? How can they go so fast?

Right now she is a sassy nine year old, she can make us laugh and make us want to cry. She is smart and funny and still a little vulnerable beneath that sharp exterior.

There was a sleepover of many girls, they giggled late into the night. There were roller blades which she is determinedly conquering and which fill me with terror.

There was a small amount of baking. A many layered chocolate cake. Decorated with... chocolates.



And the birthday decorations are still hanging high, gathering dust, perhaps I shall just leave them for now. Declare them to be the beginning of Christmas.