I almost missed a brilliant exhibition, and I did miss an afternoon tea! 

Last Christmas I was given a voucher for afternoon tea for two at Patisserie Valerie, so a friend and I set off for Edinburgh for this lovely treat.  However  we decided to look foirst at this exhibition

It was so wonderful, with lots of work I had not seen before that we completely lost track of the tme and discovered we had left it too late for the afternoon tea! We will just have to go again.

Here re two of my favourites. An exquisitely balanced composition by Vuillard, and a joyous Dufy which is about 2 m x 1.5 m.

I hope you were able to read the text of the Matisse I posted on Friday and I am  sorry the quality of the photographs is not very good.

With gratitude.

Thank you to Susan in Dorset who recommended this programme on BBC Radio 3. I particularly love Music For Growing Flowers in 10 October episode, and Hana Rani's Safe Haven from 31 October - the sound of rain on the roof of the attic in her home in Poland. (The programmes  are available for a  limited time.)

Each episode features a different theme and has a different guest who shares their safe haven.  Delightful!

I love that the blog is a two way process and that over the years you have told me about wonderful books, music, films and videos, events and places. You enrich my life and I thank you.

Here is an interesting idea

Pay attention to what you're paying atention to.

My apologies if you are having problems leaving comments just now. I am trying to sort it out!

..and make no apology for showing it again. It's beautifully crafted and I find it very moving.

But it's the music too, and I have adopted the first line of the song as a kind of motto since I first heard it - Take all your chances while you can..

Do you have a motto to inspire you?

Watching the moon rise, examining a flower, planting bulbs or sweeping leaves or having a soothing bath, I find I need to focus for a little time every day on something calming to counteract the world of the news media (which to me recently looks on the verge of hysteria).

What do you do to stay sane and calm?!

..of the pandemic lockdowns. Confined to the house for a week now, though with nothing worse than a bad cold and cough, I am feeling very isolated.  Amusing myself with photographing things..

Video calls and text, TV and podcastss, radio, online shopping - of course the technology is brilliant in it's way, but nothng, nothing substitutes for being out in the rel world alert, engaged, alive!

Alert because you have to be - it can be danagerous out there.

Engaged because you are interested in how the world works, in the people you meet, in what's current.

Alive because you don't know what will happen next and you have a bit of an adventurer in your soul.


I am almost recovered - meanwhile can you recommend any good podcasts?

..in a wondrously starry sky last night was jaw-droppingly  beautiful. Don't you find that looking up at the star-filled sky puts everything in a diffenernt perspective? The deep silence of it too. Spellbinding.

..for whom the bell tolls.

On the mrning after the Queen's death, Great Peter, the largest bell of York Minster tolled every thirty seconds for the whole of the morning.  I found it very moving in its simplicity.

What's next for you? More of the same? Something new and different? Something better?

 In answering the question What's next for you? another useful question might be Where and when do I feel mosst alive?

This month's As the Season Turns podcast got me thinking about fresh starts...

Opera and cake got me out of this morning's lethargy and dismay at yet another dull weather day.  I watched all the episodes of Take Me To The Opera, and made a cake for my visitor who is coming to stay this week. I had to taste it of course to see that it is ok. (It is.)


What gets you out of a low mood?

..the net, I found  an intersting interview with poet Mary Oliver.

I liked this well thought through piece by Marie Kondo about Staycations.

And I am still pondering this from Brenne Brown

'When people start talking about privilege  they get paralysed by shame.'

Thank you Grace for drawing my attention to this exhition. I will definitely be going to see it. Meanwhile I am enjoying this litle film. I hope you do too.

(Click on View Films, then click on Lizzie Farey The Song Of The Willow.)

I remember someone pointng out that wherever you see an accident or disaster, you also see helpers. We may not be able most of the time to help the helpless, but we can usually help and support the helpers. The fundraisers, the charities, volunteers...

There have always been wars but we have not always watched then live in our homes.  I dom't think humans were designed for this! Watching war as it happens, beaming it into our lives. Is this intelligent behsviour? Moreover is it helpful?

 As well as helpers you will also see people at the scene of an accident who are there to simply gawp. Television footage from Ukraine makes me feel like one of those people. It's alsmst voyeuristic.
So I am switching off and switching my  focus to helping the helpers. The florist who is selling sunflowers wrapped in black paper and tied with blue and yellow ribbons who has raised £400 so far (my sister). The busy woman who finds time to raise £20,000 to help settle refugee families in her community - a house ready and translators and English lessons lined up (my daughter). The child who donated his month's pocket money (my grandson).

The world is full of helpers.  Maybe you are one. Courage, compassion, kindness and plain and simple goodness save us from despair, don't you think?

What helps you keep despair at bay?

I have just come across this wonderful phrase (which doesn't just mean living a quiet life in your garden as I first thought!...).

Focussing as I am on gardening, I found myself thinking 'Je dois cultiver mon jardin' as a kind of justification for ignoring the rest of the world for a bit. I knew it came from Voltaire's Candide  but little else, so I spent an absorbing evening looking it up  ('Google it Grandma' says my grandson if I ask him somehting he can't answer!)


I skimmed words by Julian Barnes, Thoreau, Wittgenstein and more, and landed on the site of  Austin Klein who linked to The School Of Life. Scroll down to see the short video here. All well and good I thought, but  didn't Plato say that if good people ignored public afffairs the price we  would have to pay would be to be ruled by evil people?

Everything is about balance and the point of balance is different for every person. Maybe we all struggle to find our own place, our own opinion and our own way to do something good to counter the bad.

AND culitiver notre jardins.


I don't intend to write  much about this topic here, but it seemed wrong not to acknwledge it, and writing helps me think thngs through. As do your always interesting comments which I really appreciate. Thank you so much for making the blog a conversation.

..through photographs I came across these - a random selection! Perhaps you will enjoy browsing them too..

That's me at the foot of the tree.

You may remember I decorated the litte 8 x 6 greenhouse for Midsummer laast year. See  here. 
I plan to do the same again and some of the gypsophila will be brought on in pots to add to the frothy pretty effect I am after.  I will have schizanthus too , and perhaps gaura lindheimeri, and there is a tender euphorbia called frosted something that would look very dainty along the front edge of the staging. I will have candles and tiny lights and we will drink Bellinis......plans and dreams, I love both!

Do you?

These were courtesy of M&S but it is even better for our spiritts to go out into nature, wrapped up and waterproofed if necessary, to observe nature's gifts with out own eyes and ears, to feel the wind and sun and rain on our skin, a balm for the soul, and a respite from the all too pervasive media.

Be sure to try it this weekend.

In her book Winterings Kathleen May says 'I had to find the most cmfortable way to get through till spring'.

This is what I am doing. Making plans and trying not to be too upset if they don't come to fruition!

There is a lot going on and I am taking a blog break for a bit and enjoying the small signs of spring approaching through the teeeth of gales and a lot of rain!

Stay well and I hope all your plans work out.

More here from Tattie Rose

Here we are in uk being told yet again to stay home! I have got off ligjtly this time with sleety snow in the morning and winds, but not too strong, so I have been enjoying looking up videos on gardens and gardening. I was pleased to see a stack of potting compost at the supermarket - it can't be too long mow before we can start sowing seeds in anticipation of the soil drying out.

In a way I am 'wintering' in the sense that Kathleen May uses the word in her book of the same name. Resting, recuperating, waiting till the time is right to get out into the world again and have a few adventures!

Are you wintering?

Valentines Day is tense on a personal and a global level...

Valentine Day and the anniversary of Barry's death come close together in February. It's an emotional time and tears were shed of course when I looked at the collection of lovely cards he sent me over the years. I found one, unsigned, after his death. Beautiful, sometimes funny, always with a thoughtful and loving  handwritten message inside.

It felt like a small romantic gesture to tie them toghether today in a red ribbon. Precious memories. I am lucky to have them.

It is always a good thing to celebrate love.

How do they fare when so few peope carry cash now?

Have you chosen a word, or a phrase for 2022? (Mine is Lovingly - see yesterdy's post.) A friend who longs to be lighter of heart after a difficult year has chosen Fun. Do share your word here!

York Minster was closed last week. I was disappointed  as I like to light a candle for my husband Barry, who as a historian of the late medieval period, and volunteer in the Minster Library loved York and it's cathedral  Next time...

Meanwhile I took a closer look at the doorway. So beautiful!