All Things Bright and Beautiful

The clocks have been "fallen" back, the rains have come... and stayed, the children have finished their first school term, chestnuts are falling and Easter slides in upon us.

Margaret Tarrant Chestnut Candles 1928

While we were out walking during the week (between showers) we happened to take a random turn & quite unexpectedly found ourselves passing an entire front "garden" of fallen chestnuts...real ones!

The house had a slightly unkempt air & the garden had been planted with full hope, many years ago. Knocking on the door several days in a row yielded no result, so I wrote a large note (large because I didn't want to risk it being thrown away since the writing on the letterbox stated "No junk mail"). I asked if they would mind if we had a few chestnuts if we raked up all the prickly bits too?! 

Sure enough, that very evening I received a frank & friendly phone call from a Greek sounding man. He was most happy with my suggestion as lots of other people had simply been taking them (the Chinese he was sure). We soon learnt that you need to handle chestnuts with more than kid gloves! Just as we got started in our foraging quest a breeze got up & began to shake the trees all around, chestnuts started to fall from the sky...ouch!! "Feels like being hit by angry baby hedgehogs" cried Rob and he was right!

We gathered up a whole wool phage of prickles & nuts which took a bit of processing. Quite sure that the Chinese wouldn't have left us enough nuts & delighted that we had tidied things up, our Greek man duly arrived the next evening with yet more chestnuts for us. As it turned out, he is the minister of the Greek Orthodox Church in town..

I wasn't home at the time but Rob assures me that he looked much like this...only without the hat! (maybe not the dog either)

(However, this fellow is in fact, David Wasley artist, shepherd and maker of coloured windows & Fellow of The British Society of Master Glass Painters) 

I didn't know that chestnuts have tails.
 They really are very hedghoggy don't you think?

We have forgaged all kinds of nuts in the past few weeks (even hazelnuts right by the footpath)..still perfecting the art of roasting the chestnuts.

I had never noticed how Christmassy our Easter actually is before. Just around the corner outside Eversley...a lovely Eldercare Home, I noticed a handsome holly tree in full regal berry.

Clyde (Potter) grows the finest organic produce.

 I'm so glad he brings some to our Farmer's Market

Lesley form The Squirrel's Pantry grew these delicious little kiwi berries.

 They are tiny kiwifruit without fur!

I found these wonderful sundae dishes at the People for Pets Op shop this week. All six in perfect condition... might have to make something delicious to put in them for Easter.

My sweetest find in ages came from Trade Me.

There are pictures in here that I have never seen before.

"Queen of the Brownies" 1926
I was a Brownie once but not in 1926!
At The Mart I found zinnias.

It's quite hard taking pictures of pictures!
I love the colours.

Our lovely South Island city Christchurch, still has a long way to go in rebuilding & reinventing itself after more than a  year of vicious earthquakes. The much loved Cathedral has had to be be demolished except for the very outline of the foundation. Coming up to Easter I remembered the precious pictures that my friend Leigh had sent me of the inside of the Cathedral & the commissioned angels that hung in it in the weeks before the first earthquake. 

 Amazingly, no one at all was hurt in the Cathedral itself at the time of the first quake.

 There had also recently been a Festival of Flowers.
So beautiful!!

They make you feel like this..

"Welcome Spring" by Percy Tarrant c 1925 (Margaret's dad)
I always loved the sentiments in the hymn "All things bright & beautiful" as a child (still do).

On Tuesday there was a knock on the door (& it wasn't someone wanting to buy fruit) it was Barbara our lovely neighbour across the road. She came bearing this...

and instructions for making Pope Pious's bread.

You nurture & feed the dough for a week or so, divide it in to 4, keep one part & give the others away. With the 1/4 that remains you get to make a delicious cake...for Easter.

I love the concept...the rising & the nurture & the kindness & the sharing.

I am hoping those things might crown your Easter dear ones...a time for sharing & remembering & giving thanks.

Thank you so much for coming by!

MUCH

 ♥♥♥♥♥

The Joy of a Hand-crafted Life

Do you find that?

 That there is a joy & a satisfaction in living a well hand-crafted life that just doesn't come any other way? Add a bit of vintage style & life seems to acquire a richness that truly nourishes.

Rob has just gone back to work after a couple of weeks of annual leave. His holiday time has been so richly satisfying & fun we are both quite chuffed. We have built a certain flexibility into our lives so that we can rearrange things when opportunities arise & spend as much time as possible doing things together.

We went over to the market on the Marine Parade last Sunday...just loved this vintage basket & found the Swift beater later in the week.

 There was a lovely lady selling some interesting bits & pieces, like this long length of Sanderson linen.

 After so much moisture recently & with a bit of a quirky, leaky back porch, I had a clean out of the old hospital tea trolley that I keep up in the corner..thought this oil cloth might work.

 I am so glad to have a pile of old washing baskets...they are so useful for all kinds of jobs.

That's a bit better now. It seems that with all my cultured food projects & homemade stuff I need a large range of glass jars & bottles.

 I thought perhaps a cover might help & found this old sheet for $3..then decided to anchor the corners with some past their use-by-date kitchen tools.

One fine day, Rob did a bit of trimming of/in our mental old plum tree. 

It might all come crashing down one day...meantime we've propped it up & trimmed it best we can.

 We spent time in the larder...just needs a little more work, but I adore this space.
It's like playing house!
Rob has rebuilt the grottiest old shed you have ever seen & now it's the loveliest most useful, larder-y sort of room. The bed is still there for when David needs to stay. It used to be a bed settee in my grandmother's house. One of those metal fold up jobs.

 My wreath found it's way out there. I hope David doesn't figure out that I put Ginger Bons inside the gingham parcels!

  Might be quite a nice place for a wee afternoon nap.

 A spare fridge or two...so useful when there is extra fruit in the summer.

 So much better having easy access to my Ranzware.

I love finding stray, out of sync blooms...especially friendly ones like foxgloves.

 With our daylight saving coming to a close tonight I guess the late season flowers will begin to pack themselves down to sleep.

 I came up with a wee idea for after school hours...the boys especially just love it! Now I hear shouts of "Thanks Miss!!" most afternoons..works brilliantly. Probably should just let the Stormers' know a few doors down, that they will have a plum forest in a year or two!

 I have been half-heartedly looking out for another wheel barrow as the old one has to have a sack in the bottom to stop everything falling through. Amazing what you might find in an Op Shop these days!

 Now I can stop pestering Rob about the dead animal under the house...think it might have been my sheep manure after all...fund raiser for St Luke's church! Best I move it down the back tomorrow I think.

Deciding that it was time for another little adventure, we checked the weather for the week, shuffled things around & on Wednesday set off for what proved to be one the happiest of days in the "country".
Rob was so sweet to screech to a halt every time I cried STOP...& look what we found! The biggest, juiciest blackberries sitting in a hedgerow.

 There were others keeping a look out for us..

Next stop was Puketapu Domain (about 20mins from home). We really went out that way because we recalled seeing large walnut tree. We also discovered...

 the coolest flying-fox ever!

We did pick up a few walnuts that we can sell at the gate along with the fruit & that will all help pay for the petrol.

Next stop was when I spied this patch of nettle. Stinging nettle no longer stings when cooked & is in fact, the most delicious green I have ever tasted. It also makes a medicinal tea reputed to be most useful through menopause.

 I find it fascinating that if you should get stung by nettle the best antidote is to rub a dock leaf on the spot...you will almost always find dock growing near nettles.
 When I got home I ate some for my dinner & made tea with the rest.

 Now, our true destination that day turned out to be the most wonderful place possible..but quite where is a secret (well, just for now as it deserves a story all of it's own so marvelous it is!)
Along the tracks we found rosehips..real ones!

 & all kinds of foragey things...more blackberries too!

The story I wish to tell you..very soon, involves the celebrated New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield. In her letter home from this location she wrote"...Grubby, my dear I felt dreadful- my clothes were white with dust- we had a accomplished 8 miles of hill climbing- so after dinner (broad beans cooked over a camp fire and tongue and cake and tea) we prowled around and found an 'aged, aged man' who had the key...."

See you again soon!!

MUCH 

♥♥♥♥♥