One swallow does not a summer make ....

Any one flicking through the pages of the July edition of Country Living while waiting in the queue at Waitrose, cannot have failed to notice the number of swallows (or swifts, or house martins) it contains.  So I decided to knit one.  Here it is ... looks rather like it wearing jodpurs but it was the best I could do ....

Some weeks ago I bought this box.  It's marquetry floral decoration was missing from the top so I painted on some flowers to replace it. 

 The real reason I bought it is inside ....

Isn't that lovely?

At the same car boot sale I bought another item.  I happen to love it but Northern Man and Youngest Child were appalled.....

It's all done in the best possible taste ....

Boxes, birds and bubbling mud ....

Pity me, dear RR, I am a broken woman whose fragile but fondly held illusions about not looking her age have been thrown to the floor, smashed and casually stamped upon.  'Why?'  you ask.  Well, this morning's jaunt to the car boot sale was going quite well: I had bought enough goodies to put me in a contented, complacement frame of mind and was quite unprepared for the ego-denting one-liner that was about to come my way.  I came across a stall which had some nice silk and velvet fabric pieces on it and I was admiring the same wondering what I could do with them when the (male) booter said 'you could take those silk pieces home and make a waistcoat for your grandson'.  Now, I know I wasn't wearing any make up and the morning sun, when it's in my face, really shows my age, but 'grandson'?  Surely not!

I did, however, score a small victory over the male sex at another stall.  I picked up two jugs, asked the price and was told '£2 each'.  As one of the jugs was quite badly chipped I offered £3 for the two instead but the owner counter-offered with 'no, but I'll take £2.50'.  I paid and left ....

Now for the latest buys....

Lots of boxes, chocolate (empty), fabric covered and carved  ...

And birds ...

The shawl is hand-embroidered wool.  These bird pictures are painted and then feathers are added - there's a fine line between artistic and awful and I think these pictures may just have slipped over it.   Here's a close-up so you can make up your own minds ...

And more birds, this time embroidered onto silk and framed ...

and ...

Finally, some lovely vintage wooden salt and pepper sets.

That takes care of the eponymous boxes and birds, but what of the bubbling mud?  Half term was two weeks ago and Northern Man and I were off again, to Iceland this time.  When  told that we were going there most people said 'why?' or even 'what for?'  and I have to admit it wasn't my first choice but I was quickly smitten.  Landing at the airport was not unlike arriving at Inverness after leaving London - such clean air and so much sky.   Having spent so much time in the north of Scotland, the absence of trees and the harshness of the rock-scape didn't worry me but I can imagine it is a shock to many visitors.

We stayed in Reykjavik, very near the city centre.  It is far more like a large town than a city, compact, clean, very safe and almost cosy.  The older buildings are covered in what Northern Man referred to as 'crinkly tin' painted in lovely colours ...

We swam in hot pools, gasped at geysers and hot springs, walked through open air saunas made by steam fumaroles and  picked our way over lava fields.  Unfortunately there was no bubbling mud and I didn't get to see a glacier but we did visit the City Museum in Reykjavik where I found myself wondering if I'd been transported back to Colonial Williamsburg ..

The early population of Iceland must have been very hardy and inventive.  The earlier houses had turf roofs and great stone buttresses on either side to keep out the weather and stop the wind blowing away the building ....

And some ingenious beds ...

which extend and contract depending on how much room is available and, presumably, how tall the occupant was.  There were also some that could be widened to make room for two people to sleep together.

My favourite Icelandic idea was these ...

... knitted woollen shoe liners - brilliant!

What is the collective name for a group of gargoyles?

A pandemonium?  A Notre Dame? A threatenting?

This is the latest addition to the collection bought yesterday at the car boot. 

He bears an uncanny resemblance to Northern Man working on his new ipad.  Obviously, Northern Man generally keeps his wings folded unless he needs to shield the screen from the sunlight to stop any reflection .....

I can resist everything ... except temptation

New Year's resolutions are for sissies .....

What would you do if you were offered all these hours of amusement for £10.20?  I thought so ....

NOTHING is so beautiful as spring –

NOTHING is so beautiful as spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

Gerard Manley Hopkins knew how to write a poem:  he could take some alliteration, add a few metaphors, mix in a sprinkling of similies and put it all down on a page in a way that makes my heart skip like those racing lambs.  GMH obviously didn't have the dreary, depressing, drizzling April we've just endured!

I have a hen party to go to this afternoon and I am required to wear a pink sash.  I haven't worn a pink sash since I took my Grade I ballet exam four and a half decades ago and I don't intend to do so today.  However, by way of apology, I have made the bride-to-be a little something which I hope she will like ...

I have managed to get to a couple of car boot sales so I'll show you the best of the last few weeks ...

Embroidered pictures and some more china.  I seem to buy china every time I go out at the moment.

Lovely vintage boxes ...

Vintage bags and more (non-vintage but pretty) china.  So far so good on the only-buy-it-if-it-will-fit-in-a-shopping-bag rule but then I weakened and bought these ...

Boring at the moment but I have plans ....

I am a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles ....

It's lovely to be back car-booting again after such a long winter shut down, but I must say that there has been nothing of any great pith and moment to buy so it has had to be beauty before age.

I bought the tray from the lady who made it forty years ago when there was a fashion for such things.  She told me how cross her mother was when she went to take a bath and found the wicker in it soaking until it was pliable enough to use!

Pretty things on a theme of white and cream ...

These lovely little cottages are made from paper and matchsticks then painted and varnished. 

Roll on tomorrow's car boots ....

I scorn to change my state with kings ....

I've always felt myself to be a lucky woman and our latest trip to India just confirmed it.  If you are of a jealous disposition I recommend that you stop reading now.

We got to the airport to find that we had been upgraded to posh class which meant that, after the champagne and four course dinner, we could go to sleep in flat-bed comfort.  When we arrived in Dehli we found the car we had ordered had been upgraded to a very spacious Toyota.  On the way to the hotel I spent much of the time with my hands over my eyes - Northern Man had warned me about the traffic but it has to be seen to be believed;  there is no such thing a lane discipline - a two lane road will have at least 3 lanes of traffic on it and a four lane road might have as many as seven lanes.  There are cars, coaches, motor rickshaws, bycyle rickshaws, scooters (often with dad driving, mum sitting elegantly side-saddle behind sometimes holding a baby, and a small child or two packed in between the adults),  pick up trucks converted to taxis (always overloaded) and pedestrians.  The only rule seems to be that traffic stops for red lights, otherwise it's every man for himself.

On to the splendid Taj Mahal Hotel in New Dehli where Northern Man was asked for his business card when we checked in.  We can only assume that when the hotel saw the name of the company on the card they targetted us as potential future business;  the next two days there was a succession of treats and presents - delicious confectionary and wine arrived unbidden in our room, there were gifts from the restaurants and bars, a behind the scences tour of the hotel, etc, etc ....

Our room was on the top floor and we had a panormic view from the Rashtrapati Bhavan (Presidential Palace) all the way to India Gate over the surprising green of New Dehli which has trees planted all along its wide avenues.  


My favourite place in Dehli was the Lodi Gardens which contains several garden tombs all in a rather dilapidated state.   The flower beds are crammed with familiar flowers but the petunias grow to the size of small bushes, dahlias are as big as dinner plates and the buzy lizzies reach up to your knees!  

Then to Agra, a trip of about 200km which took nearly 5 hours - that traffic again!  Outside towns the traffic is spiced up a little by the addition of lorries (which park outside the towns and cities as, we believe, they are only allowed in at night) camel carts, wandering cows, and donkies laden with goods.  Sometimes, just for light relief, a vehicle will come at you the wrong way down the carriageway and have to be avoided.  Dinesh, our very talented driver weaved his way through the traffic without so much as a scratch on the car.  Most vehicles carry the scars of driving  wars and some, the coaches in particular, are held together more by filler than actual body work.   


The lorries and trucks are painted brightly with birds, flowers, trees, scenes, patterns and beautiful lettering.  The fronts are decorated like old Romany caravans and often they have garlands of flowers or tinsel decorations.  All of them have 'Blow Horn' painted on the back, an instruction which drivers in India take very seriously!  


I have to admit that having seen several garden tombs, I did not expect great things of the Taj Mahal.  We've all seen numerous pictures of it after all so it's not going to come as a surprise is it?  Well, silly me.  The first glimpse of it is from the great gateway inside the complex so that you look through a dark space into the light beyond and there it is apparently floating ....

The decoration on the outside gives it a slightly textured look from a distance and  it came into my head that this great building was actually made from stiffened lace.  It is, quite simply, the most beautiful building I have ever seen.   


Because the complex contains a mosque, most people leave their shoes with a minder before they go inside the Taj Mahal itself.  There is a large notice which says that the service is free.  But, like every where else, a tip goes a long way;  when we returned to collect our shoes they were produced like magic, with the dust of Agra brushed off them, ready to wear again.  Pretty impressive when there were thousands of visitors there!

The next day it was on to Jaipur, another hair-raising trip with the music of the horns in our ears all the way.  Here we stayed in the Royal Heritage Haveli, a hide-away so understated that it doesn't even have a sign outside.  We ate on the terrace with lovely live music and the largest, fattest basset hound I have ever seen looking hopefully at us, we breakfasted in the loggia, we swam in the pool and we were sorry to leave.  We saw the Pink City, the City Palace Museum, the Hawa Mahal, The Amber Palace, Naharagarh Fort and elephants.

Then off to Gurgoan for our last night because it is conveniently located for the airport and Northern Man wanted to show me the Trident Hotel where he has stayed before.  Here he chanced his arm and got us upgraded to a pool room with a view .....

This was a trick he repeated at the airport the next day when he managed to get us upgraded to posh class once again!


India is a splendid, exciting, colourful, vibrant, buzzing place but there is plenty of poverty and squalour.  Tiny, half-naked children beg at the junctions for money, people live under plastic sheeting supported on poles in shanty towns and there is rubbish in piles everywhere.  We saw it from a clean, safe, comfortable,  five-star view point and that is how lucky I am - to be born in this country at this time in history.