rain...

Rainy and grey. Fire, tea, blanket, dog, Dorothy L. Sayers.

Gorgeous pristine French Cafetière.

I do love a good log pile and am looking forward to reading Lars Mytting's surprise bestseller Norwegian Wood.  Those Norwegian's take their log piles very, very seriously...

Take a look here and here.

make do and mend # 2

I think I'll start a little series for the patched, darned and mended.

My Mum remembered tinkers visiting her Scottish village in the 30s and 40s and mending pots and pans.

make do and mend

A very battered old home made needle book.

I have admired boro textiles for some time but only recently discovered that not only did the Japanese save every little scrap of fabric they could but that fabrics were also unraveled or picked apart for the thread.  Everything was precious and reused until it fell into dust. It's so unlike our buy it cheap, chuck it out world. 

I find things like this little needle book very touching

we ate it all...

cranberry, apricot, almond and hazelnut biscotti

mince pies and walnut puffs

Christmas cake

so for a number of reasons it's high time for more like this!

The plate is an oval W. Guerin serving dish from the 1930s - one of several lovely, matching serving dishes I acquired last week and which are now in the shop.