PRETTY FAR WEST

bring me sunshine with your duvet cover cover

2012-01-31T12:43:00.000Z

A recent present of a Toast duvet cover was very gratefully received: it was pretty and soft and peacefully striped and had the feelgood 'organic' label attached, but, best of all, it came in its own matching duvet cover cover.

There's been a trend in recent years to label everything round the house - soap bowls, string holders, bread boxes, jam pots, tea and coffee jars and all that vintage glory stuff. I've campaigned tirelessly against this, led marches, organised petitions and sat in for sit-ins, as I don't like being patronised by my groceries, but somehow it's different if you use containers for the wrong purpose.

a fine cover for my Macbook

As though any greater delight were possible, the matching pillowcases came in smaller, even more beguiling bags. I don't know what I'll do with them yet but just having them makes my life complete.

I wish I could make curtains

2012-01-26T00:07:00.000Z

Most curtain fabric is horrible, either glaringly retro-modern or populist posh with shades of tobacco in the background. It also seems to cost 87 euros per metre, which is not what one wants to hear when one's window is rather large, at a time of year when the Chevy will soon need tax, insurance and a replacement left sidelight bulb before it can be legally driven to the levee.

[stripey sheets from Cologne & Cotton]

I should hoist out the sewing machine, buy these attractively striped sheets, line and interline them, casually add some heading tape and there we are, Heaven On Earth for a fraction of the cost of Made To Measure, just like the wonderful Jaboopee.

That's what I'll do. Right after I've made the bag that came free with Cath Kidston's Sew, two and a half years ago. The bag will be perfect for my trip to the levee, to carry handkerchiefs, perfume, little essentials that they might not sell in the levee gift-shop and café. Maybe some photos of my curtains to show new people I meet there. Very few people aren't interested in curtains.

curtains just so

2012-01-23T23:27:00.000Z

The samples of curtain fabric

have been arriving so furiously here

that we hardly have time to eat,

and still the postman struggles up the drive with more.

[a mere few of the many rejected fabrics]

I plan to continue with this fascinating topic tomorrow.

When a former colleague has been awarded an MBE

~ while oneself INEXPLICABLY has not ~

it is more important than ever to get the curtains just so.

the little dresses

2012-01-09T22:59:00.000Z

Am I the last one back after Christmas? Is there a prize for that?

These little dress paintings by Permanent Magenta on blocks of wood were my Christmas present from me to me.

As you can see, I've sprinkled them fetchingly among my dried hydrangeas and my china, to give the place a certain lovely eccentricity.

Scottish Husband likes these too, he says. At last we are finding common ground. Normally he asks me to come and have a look at a photo and specification of a fascinating new technical gadget and I reply that I would love to but unfortunately am So, So Busy, and he says, "but look, there is an interesting cushion in the background behind the technical gadget, slightly blurred", and I bestir myself from my So, So Busyness and have a glance, but only a quick glance lest he should think that I am interested in anything beyond blurred cushions and segue from describing the technical gadget into an opinion on Tier One Capital Ratios, in which I never claimed to be interested, not even in the dizzy days of Young Romance.

In fact, all recent visitors to the house have admired the dresses. Why be the odd one out? Bring on the glowing praise. I have been very ill (only somewhat very ill, no need for concern) for the past week and mostly unable to read your blog but I long to do so.

the spoilsport sort

2011-12-19T23:43:00.000Z

I have long been the spoilsport sort

who isn't interested in going to Graceland while I live

or to Heaven when I die,

who gets tired of the Christmas tree

after a few days

and would prefer a large pot of hyacinths.

But it is good to live with a household of people

who are enchanted by the fairy lights,

swathing themselves in wrapping paper,

inventing chestnut roasting devices,

and constantly counting how many sleeps till Christmas -

Six! Only six!

And it is also good to be here among you bloggers,

you who so zealously,

so admirably,

are baking mince pies,

the good ones with suet

and the good ones without suet,

sewing miles of red and gold bunting,

applying glitter to everything in sight,

stalking the robin for your snowy image,

adding the last jelly to the gingerbread house,

and mulling batch after batch of wine

to get the ratio of cloves to sugar just so.

Yes, I'll sample a glass. Sure, why not?

Thank you, bloggers.

a sad day for the Lead Rabbit

2011-12-14T22:42:00.000Z

The tearing winds flung so much salt from the sea up against our windows during that latest storm that we can barely see out.

Indeed, we can't go out either, as Pink Daughter is poorly and staying in bed. She was to be the Lead Rabbit in tonight's school play, but some other rabbit will be first to the lettuce-field instead.

[angel, not relevant to rabbit]

It's a sad day for a six year old who had memorized everyone's lines and schemed long and hard to be allocated the best ears, who is peering feebly through the salted white windowpanes at the headlights making their way west: carloads of unfeverish rabbits and their proud parents heading for the parish-hall stage, and glory.

"Life will yield many opportunities to be the Lead Rabbit," I assure her, but she is not convinced.

an illustrated gift guide

2011-12-09T19:23:00.000Z

I'm honoured to feature today in Shell Sherree's series of illustrated What I'd Like for Christmas Gift Guides.

Shell, whose enchanting drawings exist at the point where the worlds of Audrey Hepburn and PG Wodehouse meet, has been my comrade almost since first I tentatively tinkled a vintage silver fork against my crystal glass here in Blogtopia. She does the colour pink justice like none other while never neglecting the other important pastels, and her lightness of touch with words always elicits a smile.

[click here for a larger version and links to all the items]

Vicki Archer was the first person to get the benefit of Shell's gentle idealism with her choice of gifts, then came me (Me!)...

[Me (Me!)]

... and I'm eager to see who will be next. You'll be rushing off now, I know, to see where you can buy that dainty little milk-pan, but do take a moment first to say hello to Shell and admire her Tom Ford frock.

a Hidden Hurt

2011-12-07T23:32:00.001Z

I was tweaking a wonky quatrain in a newly composed Blogtopian poem in which I hint at a Hidden Hurt when the phone rang.

It was X, wondering what progress I'd made with her present and why I'd unfriended her on Facebook.

"In fact," I told her, "that was another X, as I have two best friends, but the present I haven't got for you yet is even better, albeit undeliverable."

It's true. The French company from which I ordered it got in touch yesterday to say that my address doesn't exist. This came as a blow to me, as I've lived here for six years and received packages from all over the world in that time, including several incredible giveaway wins and, only last week, a Lifetime Achievement Award all the way from the Taiwanese High Consulate, as I told France vehemently.

And I hadn't unfriended X, but rather deleted my account on Facebook during the summer. You should see the great peace that has descended on me since then, no longer in the thick of things, unaware of everyone's sprightly activities unless they themselves tell me about them. I've ceased to be pressured into Liking everything and can revert to my sullen self, not liking most things very much, except, as ever, your lovely hairstyle.

So that leaves X with little prospect of a present from me, down from 367 to 366 in the all-important number of dear Facebook friends, and forced to listen to the Blogtopian poem in which I hint at a Hidden Hurt. "It's not hidden enough," she said. Who can blame her?

your Christmas present

2011-11-29T10:25:00.001Z

I was hoping to have purchased your Christmas present by now. It was to be such an organised year, with everything chosen and wrapped by the end of November so that I could sit around with the decanter and cheeseboard in December instead of trampling out into the good cheer.

[ginger heart, blue icing; 2011]

But town was dispiriting on Friday. Clothes shops full of synthetic party-wear crackled as I walked past. Plastic toys in non-pastel colours made loud noises. Stacked shelves of gift sets signified mankind's primeval need for two soaps, some talcum powder and a lilac wash-mitt.

I don't want to buy the disposable junk; I want to inflict my taste upon future generations. "Oh yes, our Great Great Aunt Mise gave us that sturdy cushion. It's very nice. She says we're mentioned in her will."

So I decided to shop online instead. I have my credit card beside me here, and any minute now I'll type "present for my friend X and her lovely family" -"terrible tat" -"garish plastic" -"acrylic OR viscose OR polyester" +"exquisite" +"pass off as homemade" +"delivery to Ireland", and then I'll click on "I'm Feeling Lucky." I'm not Feeling Lucky, but one must put up a brave front.

a modest sourdough

2011-11-17T22:08:00.001Z

What a struggle it has been to get any work done this week. Meetings and moments of quiet reflection were constantly interrupted by the ping of imagined incoming emails from readers imploring me to share a photograph of my homemade sourdough bread.

Feed no shop-bought bread to progeny, battalion or beast

(Don John of Austria is measuring the yeast)

Hesitantly, modestly, humbly, I do so.

At airports worldwide, illusory demands came plaintively through the Tannoy, seeking only a single close-up shot of the inside of the loaf, displayed, ideally, on a cheerful cottage-style pink tea towel.

Pause the ruin of Europe and be deaf unto its dread

(Don John of Austria is buttering the bread)

Blushingly, I comply.

Moroccan painting - giveaway winner

2011-11-16T09:42:00.001Z

One of the most terrible days of my life was when my sister won a cake. A prize in a spin-the-wheel parish raffle, it was fully iced and presented on one of those wildly glamorous disposable silver foil trays. I'm not sure, through the fog of years, but I think it might even have been a gateau, in an era when cakes were cakes and not yet gateaux.

I'm pleased that the random winner of the Moroccan painting giveaway is commentator number 12, Jane, who will get to choose her favourite one of Margaret Owen's Moroccan series.

To everyone else, I'm ever so sorry you didn't win with your lovely comments, but it would have been worse if you hadn't won a cake. Even now, 33 years later, I still have never won a cake.

Margaret Owen painting - giveaway reminder

2011-11-13T17:09:00.001Z

"There are so many colours you'd think a parrot had flown into the room,"

says one commentator in her evocative description of

Margaret Owen's Moroccan paintings.

More paintings have been added to the series during the past week,

and here are a few of those currently available.

If you haven't commented yet, you have about two more days to do so

before we get organised and select a random winner,

who will get to choose a painting.

The giveaway details are here

and I wish you luck.

becoming that sort of person

2011-11-11T09:44:00.001Z

So I was talking about yogurt, and still am, as I have further weighty thoughts on the matter. I realise it's a niche area and I shan't mind at all if you hum or twirl your hair.

First, I have given up the electric yogurt maker, as yogurt-making on the range works just as well and generates a more holistic smugness.

Second, I don't see that there is a need to be fussy about heating the milk first; it seems to work just as well if you start with cold milk, and it cuts the preparation time down to one minute. Is that terribly reckless?

Here's what I do now exactly: in a Bonne Maman jam jar (from a hot dishwasher, so that it is very clean), stir together one generous tablespoon of powdered milk, a tablespoon of nice yogurt and enough milk to almost fill the jar. Put on the lid and leave on a corner of the range overnight. In the morning, place the jar in the fridge. Eat it later that day, or whenever suits, with fresh or cooked fruit stirred in, or jam. The yogurt seems to keep nicely for at least 5 days (I've never managed to not eat it for longer than that.)

I hear that you can even sieve it through cheesecloth to make cheese; there's no stopping me now. My sourdough bread is rising as I type. You will soon find me writing articles for the Guardian newspaper on how to live well on 72 pence a day, or seven good reasons to keep a pig.

A Moroccan adventure and a giveaway - CLOSED

2011-11-06T23:08:00.001Z

Artists Margaret Owen and Elizabeth Hutchinson are off to Morocco in March, for a drawing and painting adventure in Marrakesh. They'll be running a week-long workshop, Moroccan Sketchbook, at the famous Peacock Pavilions hotel. The schedule includes enticing talk of fresh local cuisine and cocktails, tours, explorations and outdoor movies. Perhaps you'd like to join them? Full details are in the trip brochure here.

Don't rush off to pack just yet, as Margaret, who blogs at Permanent Magenta, is kindly offering a Pretty Far West reader one of her Moroccan paintings to celebrate finalising the arrangements for the trip. My favourite is the tranquil and exotic Breakfast in Marrakesh below, but the winner will get to choose his or her own preferred painting from Margaret's vivid Moroccan series.

[Breakfast in Marrakesh, by Margaret Owen]

Click here to see the paintings currently available to choose from in her shop.

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment here. For a second entry, post about the giveaway on your own blog or website, and comment again to say you have done so.

Margaret tells me in passing that she has recently learned how to count up to ten in Irish. A haon, a dó, a trí, a ceathair, a cúig, a sé, a seacht, a hocht, a naoi, a deich. For a third entry, marvel suitably at this.

Ramsign giveaway winner

2011-11-06T21:54:00.000Z

The winner of the classic enamel house number is commentator number 7, Sue of The Quince Tree, as chosen by dear reliable random.org.

If you're not Sue, that's not you and you are naturally inconsolable, facing into a bleak and signless future. Never mind. There'll be another giveaway coming along here in a few moments. I really, really hope you'll win next time.

bona fide commenting tip

2011-11-03T20:30:00.000Z

[you will recall that every post must contain an image]

Scottish Husband doesn't read lifestyle blogs or heavyweight handbag analysis groups as I do; he prefers to participate in online discussions about the global economy and motorcycles. I tend not to pay much attention to anything he says on these subjects, but he looked up lately from composing something pithy and apposite about all-terrain approaches to fiscal government and shared what is surely a Top Commenting Tip:

It's important never to read the blog post on which you are commenting in order that you may maintain a high-level perspective on the matter.

I know you would never do a thing like that.

fancy pancakes

2011-10-30T18:34:00.000Z

When the children come home from school, full of subtraction and the urgent need for a multi-compartment fairy pencil case such as their second-best friend Aisling has, they like to eat fancy pancakes. These are very easy to make and are a good Friday treat.

To make them, whizz up your usual pancake batter - I use 250 ml milk, 4 oz white or wholemeal flour and 1 egg.

Good fillings are raisins, chocolate chips or chopped glacé cherries (rinse off the syrup). Get these ready in little bowls in advance. It's best to sprinkle the fillings individually onto the pancakes as they cook rather than mix them into the batter; otherwise they tend to distribute unevenly.

[glimpse of the wonderful KitchenAid Blender, perfect for pancake-making]

Pour small pancakes (saucer-sized) into your pan. Once the first side is nearly cooked, sprinkle a little of your chosen filling on top. Give it another 30 seconds, flip over, cook lightly and flip onto a plate.

Children will clamour for all three fillings in one pancake; that works well too, as do Smarties. The panel of tasters here has demanded experimentation with hundreds & thousands or chocolate vermicelli during the mid-term break, so they have been added to the shopping list.

giveaway: a classic enamel sign CLOSED

2011-10-25T22:21:00.000+01:00

The kind people at Ramsign in Denmark got in touch to ask whether I'd like to offer a Pretty Far West reader one of their traditional enamel house number plaques. "Ah sure, why not?" I said to myself in my engagingly upbeat way, hoping that a little giveaway would bring some joy to Number 68 Cakestand Boulevard or wherever you live yourself.

The winner will get to select one of five different styles, up to a value of $99, and Ramsign will manufacture a number plaque of his or her choice.

The giveaway is open to readers anywhere: just leave a comment expressing interest.

For a second entry, post a link to the giveaway on your own blog or website and comment again, and put yourself down for a third entry if you've never quite got used to not living next door to Alice.

one important thing

2011-10-21T21:20:00.000+01:00

If I have learned one important thing during my time on Earth,

it is this:

that smallish objects on surfaces should be grouped together

on trays or other receptacles

so that they are not forlorn.

no platform

2011-10-17T22:02:00.000+01:00

Karen has pointed out that a blogger should have a platform. How true, and how wise, and how speedily I rushed to write a conspicuously placed little sentence explaining what Pretty Far West is all about so that the busy reader knows what's what before she clicks briskly away.

It's all a sham, of course, as I don't have a platform, and merely want to talk about myself. Today, for instance, exhibit A is the pink ring Scottish Husband gave me to celebrate 10 years together, and exhibit B is a few of the many bracelets Pink Daughter has crocheted for me to match every possible outfit.

The sorry truth of the matter is, I suppose, that I am not even waiting for a train.

cheese & spinach puffs

2011-10-13T13:19:00.003+01:00

If you add some baby spinach leaves to the blender while making these delicious and easy cheese puffs, you get green cheese puffs.

They are very tasty indeed, and if you place them beside the most reserved person at your stylish drinks party, he or she will soon be deep in conversation with everyone who happens by about what they could be and whether it is safe to try one.

Indeed, by the end of the evening, he or she will probably be engaged to be married, and all because of you.

the sliding shelf

2011-10-09T22:13:00.000+01:00

I never was able for hearty people. I met such a person lately, and after she had told me hearty things in a hearty way I had to go home and seek reassurance in the sliding shelf of my bedside cabinet, so useless yet so beguiling.

[I thought it would be handy for cups of tea]

Days later, I still don't feel quite right. I worry that we'll just have to keep being cheerful, that I will be assigned a role, that it is a good cause and that everything will be for the best.

[but it isn't]

I live in fear that someone will tweet at me.

Welsh Cakes

2011-10-04T20:17:00.000+01:00

Warm welsh cakes are the sort of food to serve when your jolly house party returns from its bracing walk along the seashore, exclaiming that they think they saw a seal and also possibly Jeremy Irons only they aren't sure because he was wearing a trapper hat. While they tread seaweed into your rugs, you can bustle authentically about the kitchen, having the occasional cherry soaked in sloe gin as you make these.

Make up your regular fruit scone mixture (I use 8 oz flour, some baking powder, 1 oz each of sugar and butter, an egg, and a splash of milk, along with some sultanas and glacé cherries)
Pat it down to 1 cm thick and cut into rounds

Fry on a heavy pan or directly on the hotplate of the range until both sides are golden and cooked. It is best to cook them slowly on a low heat so that their centres are fluffy and light.

From start to plate, they only take about fifteen minutes.

Internal Memorandum: Staffing

2011-09-26T22:03:00.001+01:00

Following the recent expansion of the team, here's how the Pretty Far West staffing situation stands at the end of September, 2011:

Self

Beatrice, my imaginary assistant, who fields the complaints

The outsourced commentators, who comment on other blogs on my behalf (24/7 bunker-based, meagerly recompensed, quality service)

Speccy the Mascot. She has brought us much good fortune, and it is safe to say that without her benign and alert presence Pretty Far West would not have become the International Juggernaut of Good Taste you see before you today.

Consultant Jar Filling Designer: the redoubtable Jacqueline. Note to HR: Jacqueline has filled jars tirelessly and with unfaltering grace. Her loss at this stage would be one of cataclysmic proportions. Commission a short opera around this theme.

[how to store leftover paint in Blogtopia]

Senior Sofa Manager and VP of Shelving (non-stipendiary): Paula. To our considerable sadness, the lovely Paula moved to London earlier this year. Since her departure, our sofas have become utterly unmanageable.

Senior Senior Design Consultants. This position has recently been offered on a freelance executive consultancy basis to the Hattatts, glittering socialites, able raconteurs, and the latest darlings of the Blogtopian intellegentsia. We hope their presence will bring a touch of continental flair to the team.

Junior Senior Design Consultant: Vacancy to be advertised once the Hattatts have taken up their duties. Conceived as a fetching and carrying support role.

Vice Junior Senior Design Consultant: Lucille has kindly volunteered to take on this responsible and demanding position.

I trust I haven't inadvertently omitted anyone. The role of Queen Mother to the team will shortly be readvertised, due to certain irregularities in the recruitment process last time round.

We had hoped to offer Jane the position of Global Director of Flowers, but I missed her Flowers in the House gig today so now is not a good time. The matter will be sensitively broached in due course.

A Yellow-Framed Talking Point

2011-09-22T14:50:00.003+01:00

This image from the new Heart Home online interiors magazine gives me hope.

[image: Heart Home]

It makes me aspire to transform the family Odds & Ends Drawer into something like that yellow-framed picture, incorporating the bicycle lights and cup hooks and theirs of the 27th inst. re mine of the 11th inst. and Scottish Husband's device for starting a fire when one is stranded on a desert island. It would be a Talking Point. A Talking Point sounds so much better than an Odds & Ends Drawer.

One should never, of course, admit in Blogtopia to the existence of an uncurated Odds & Ends Drawer, but now that you find me in full-blown confessional mode, I have a question for you:

Since we took up the carpet, our study floor is bare concrete - not artistic, polished loft-living style concrete, but a mottled dusty grey abomination (undepicted). One day it will be tiled, but it is part of a larger project, tentatively scheduled for the vague future. I thought I could paint the floor as a stopgap, but no; the internet tells me quite vehemently that tiles will not stick to paint. Can anyone suggest a temporary solution that will make the place look decent without considerable effort?

custard fairy cakes

2011-09-17T22:57:00.001+01:00

With the autumnal chill, our thoughts turn primevally to custard. We wonder how fairy cakes would turn out if we were to make them using some custard powder, so we adjust our old reliable recipe accordingly.

They emerge from the oven more buoyant than usual, with an appealing golden colour and a delicate custardy taste. The daughters, always suspicious of New Food, are initially merely Willing To Eat Them but soon, as they familiarise themselves with the unknown, they are telling me that they have been very good and Must Have Another.

Preheat the oven to 180-200 degrees.
Measure 50g self-raising flour, 50g custard powder, 100g sugar, 100g butter, and two eggs into a bowl. If, like me, you don't trust self-raising flour, add a teaspoon of baking powder. Add a little vanilla or rosewater if you wish.
Beat with your electric mixer until light and fluffy.Spoon into little paper cases in a tin, and bake for 10-15 minutes.
To make the icing, gently heat a little milk and butter in a saucepan until the butter has melted. Gradually add some of it to icing sugar until you have a spreadable consistency.
Add Smarties, or whatever suits. You may wish to raise your game with crystallized violets.

And now we wonder whether we could abandon the flour entirely and make these with custard powder alone. Bakers among you, what do you think?

Was Nancy Mitford wrong?

2011-09-14T22:22:00.000+01:00

[Hold that pose, Pink Daughter!]

"And yet, when I consider my life, day by day, hour by hour, it seems to be composed of a series of pinpricks. Nannies, cooks, the endless drudgery of housekeeping, the nerve-wracking noise and boring repetive conversation of small children ... their absolute incapacity to amuse themselves, their sudden and terrifying illnesses, Alfred's not infrequent bouts of moodiness, his invariable complaints at meals about the pudding, the way he will always use my toothpaste and always squeeze the tube in the middle."

Thus says Fanny, the fictional narrator of 'The Pursuit of Love' by Nancy Mitford. Can it really be the case that people lead such lives? It seems so different from my own experience here in Blogtopia, where my imaginary Nannies and Cooks are loyal treasures, toothpaste is packaged in unsqueezeable dispensers, and the children look up from their Improving Books only to ascertain whether their dearest Mamma would like them to recite a little poem. Mais bien sûr, mes chéries, once I have photographed my artless pie.

I've heard it said that Queen Elizabeth II of England has a gin and tonic at noon every day. How that must help.

roast peaches

2011-09-11T12:38:00.000+01:00

Allow 1-2 peaches per person. Wash them and cut them up into large chunks.

Place in a casserole dish with a spoonful or two of sugar and a knob of butter.

Put the dish onto a lower shelf of the oven while you are cooking something else. They will be cooked when they have a slightly caramelized colour and are bubbling away in their own syrup.Serve warm or cold, with some nice vanilla ice cream.

(If you like rosemary, add a sprig to the casserole dish and remove it when the peaches are cooked.)

how to store apples in Blogtopia

2011-09-08T11:26:00.000+01:00

Several issues have worried me lately: climate change, of course, and instability in the eurozone and dissatisfaction with my passport photo and whether my breakfast cereal provides me with the essential vitamins and minerals I need to fuel my busy lifestyle and how to provide for myself in my old age and whether I am missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime to buy a standalone egg-scrambler with free toast-warmer, but mostly I have been concerned about the comfort of the apples.

Now that Mags of the Tearful Strawberries has made me this lovely pink apple cosy, all those other problems seem less overwhelming. I will tackle them one at a time. Thank you, dear Mags.

Tea with Helen Tilston

2011-09-04T21:31:00.000+01:00

"What a kind person that was," said Blue Daughter, lining up the chocolate bugs Helen Tilston had given her in a neat row ready for orderly consumption. "When can we have tea with her again?" Good question, Blue Daughter. Helen is off on her travels round Ireland and then back home to Canada so it may be a while.

"What can we do about that?" asked Pink Daughter, as she negotiated the exchange of one chocolate shoe for two chocolate bugs. That's the spirit, Pink Daughter. We don't just sit back and let companionable people go; we get in touch with the Ambassador.

[Helen Tilston and me, with thanks to Helen's husband for the photo]

OK, so Helen has her busy life across the ocean, her career as a well-known artist, her friends and her lovely house there. Nonetheless, in the formal application of the people of Ireland to the Canadian Ambassador to have a congenial fellow Galwaywoman returned to us, we counter any foreign claim to her by mentioning her obvious Irish background: the touch of a Galway accent, her thoughtfulness and lighthearted conversation, her versatile talents and her look of someone who has plenty of smiling done and more to do.

[self-portrait by Helen Tilston, one of my favourites of her paintings]

We will send along ordnance survey maps in evidence that we too have a decent amount of Plein Air such as would be suitable for painting in. As is the way of the Irish, we will include with our application for her repatriation a small bribe, perhaps 12 dollars, in a plain envelope to show that our intent is serious. The Ambassador will be able to buy about three packets of Mr Kipling Cakes with that. We would recommend that he goes for the pink and yellow iced French Fancies, but that's up to him. He may prefer Cherry Bakewells.

all pencils sharpened

2011-08-31T11:43:00.000+01:00

During the summer, Blue Daughter attained the rank of Station Officer in her imaginary fire station and is eager to meet fellow (but subordinate) firefighters in Junior Infants. Pink Daughter mastered skipping, crochet, cycling and rock & roll. The merry old round of early mornings, packed lunches and hustling people about resumes tomorrow. Now that I make my own yogurt my nerves will surely be up to it.

Dear Meredith

2011-08-28T21:34:00.000+01:00

Dear Meredith,

Does this small display of coloured glass on my kitchen shelf constitute a vignette, or not?

I worry that a selection of similar items may not suffice as a vignette, and that the whole could be considered more of an honorary objet, if that. Should I add a heap of vintage cookbooks or perhaps an orange? I am fearful of going overboard and turning it into a shelfscape, so the whole situation is fraught with tension. I bow to your expertise in these matters. Please advise.

Your blogging comrade,

Mise

Queen of Fudge speaks

2011-08-26T15:31:00.002+01:00

I've received more emails in response to my salted fudge recipe than most other posts: people very sensibly want clarification on how they will know when it is boiled enough, and how they will know when they have beaten it enough.

[make vanilla and chocolate fudge in one batch by adding the vanilla first, beating it and pouring half the mixture out, then quickly adding a few squares of dark chocolate before you pour the rest]

WELL:

it will be sufficiently boiled when the bubbles subside such that the level of liquid retreats back to where you started, and, more precisely, when it is at the 'soft ball' stage, i.e. when a spoonful of the hot mixture dropped into a glass of cold water forms a lump of soft caramel. This caramel is very tasty, so you may wish to try more than once to be extra sure.
it will be sufficiently beaten when the colour changes quite suddenly - it will become opaque and have a grainier texture. At the very point when you start wondering whether you have beaten it so much that you'll have difficulty pouring it out before it sets, then it's time to stop. Your arm will be tired by then anyhow.

[is this enough fudge?]

And another tip: always use a round plate or dish in which to leave the fudge to set. This will conveniently leave lots of non-square bits round the edge which pride would prevent you from serving to visitors.

the last hydrangeas

2011-08-24T18:17:00.000+01:00

It's always a bit sad when the last bunch of hydrangeas of the year comes in from the garden. Another summer nearly over, and the Blogtopian autumn rolling in as the late light retreats.

Not a grave sorrow, such as would be caused by losing a giveaway or not being nominated in someone's list of Breeziest Blogging Buddies, but just a still, small tristesse that brings on a mental flash of an emergency bar of chocolate.

They say these are the best years of my life, and they surely are that, adorned by the best hydrangeas.

all the cushions in my house, every single one

2011-08-19T16:49:00.000+01:00

OK comrades, we're back to the important stuff again: cushions. These are all the specimens in my house, exhaustively catalogued (Dewey class 749).

"never knowingly undercushioned"

Now, fair's fair: when may we see all the cushions in your house?

that's all I ever wanted: a ceramic birdbath

2011-08-15T19:12:00.000+01:00

We're having an old-fashioned summer. There will be time enough for drama camps and treks to ruined empires and visits to friends to compare tiaras when the daughters are older; this is a year for a timeless two months about the garden and beach, making huts and secret paths, singlehandedly running a large imaginary fire-station, assembling collections of significant leaves under the pillows...

... and not heeding the world outside until it is time to send them off to school in their new shoes, clutching the usual kind but stern notes for their teachers stating our wish that Blue Daughter and Pink Daughter should receive no religious instruction. Should this wish not be adequately heeded, it'll be closely followed by another note mentioning in a heightened font that the school cardigans are Not Very Comfortable. O time ward off those bustling clangorous days and leave us here on the sun-strewn stone with a glass of golden Sancerre and our ceramic birdbath full of flower-petal soup.

Which is all very well until the old-fashioned rain falls on our old-fashioned idyll. When the poet spoke of "an arrow-shower sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain," that somewhere was right here, plink-plonk into the ceramic birdbath and its environs in the wettest summer for years.

Reader, if you are the sales representative of a wallpaper manufacturer who sells a design incorporating pictorial suggestions for things that children can do when it rains, fax me now. Keep faxing every five minutes until your sample roll reaches me and you have signed me up as your showhouse customer in Blogtopia. Our fancy rose-scented wallpaper paste is at the ready.

Useful or Beautiful

2011-08-10T23:32:00.000+01:00

I've been pottering through Useful or Beautiful over the past few weeks, enjoying its temperate pace and gentle Englishness as an antidote to the immediacy of everything. It's engagingly written by Lucille (House Captain), who has nothing to sell and whose special subject is the way the light falls. She is looking after important Japanese visitors just now.

[my wildflower plates]

I think I've had these lovely wildflower plates for over six months now without showing them to you; I'm sorry about that. And that's not all. Once the rain stops, I can show you my new ceramic birdbath, or, if you wish, talk about it on the radio.

making yogurt in secret

2011-08-08T18:07:00.000+01:00

Speccy and Jane must never know that I'm still making yogurt. Jane says it's one thing that's not meant to be homemade, while Speccy says I'm ruining good jam by adding it to something healthy. They must surely be right, being wise and wonderful women both, but what about my fragile self-confidence? What about that? Besides, if the Railway Children have to make do with butter or jam, but not both, while their father is in prison, accused of a crime he didn't commit, the least I can do in sympathy is to be frugal. Who is with me on this?

[secret homemade yogurt]

My first attempt was in my mother's 1970's electric yogurt maker. It's the perfect electrical appliance, utterly simple, has no controls and does not threaten to download iYogurt apps. The yogurt turned out beautifully, creamy and with a natural tinge of fresh sourness.

So then I tried to make yogurt on the range, the old-fashioned way. You can do it too! Here's how:

Heat some milk until it is starting to simmer.Let it cool down, pour it into a glass jar along with a tablespoon of powdered milk and a tablespoon of your favourite natural yogurt. Sit the jar on a corner of the range overnight. By morning, it has become yogurt. Cool it in the fridge, add some jam or fruit and sugar, and serve.

[wonderful Scottish Husband has bought a copper saucepan so that I may heat milk in great dignity]

I like my homemade yogurt a lot. Shop-bought yogurt can be a bit unctuous and samey; this tastes more natural and always turns out differently. Once the initial excitement has worn off, I'd better not make it too frequently in case medical science later finds that overconsumption causes complacency.

Permanent Magenta

2011-08-03T00:39:00.000+01:00

Casapinka crossed the ocean bearing gifts from Permanent Magenta, who is certainly as kind as her paintings are beautiful and vivid. The bird, now known as Bird Bird, looks very happy hanging in our kitchen...

... and the charming little dress sits on the shelf.

Her blog of daily paintings is here if you would like a regular uplifting dose of colour.

The incongruous pot of HOMEMADE YOGURT (with raspberry ~~compote~~ jam) is ostensibly intended to show scale, but in fact it really serves to draw your attention to my recent mastery of yogurt-making. Engaging in lifestyle blogging for over two years without making my own yogurt has felt like Living a Lie, and now at last I can shake off the guilt and have a sign made up: 'Pretty Far West, featuring HOMEMADE YOGURT, depuis 2009.'

ensuring adequate pinkness for an important visitor

2011-07-30T15:12:00.000+01:00

While you've been empathising assiduously in the comment boxes, bless you, we've been bustling about here making sure everything is dainty and sufficiently pink for the arrival of Casapinka and her daughter. In truth, I have done most of the bustling myself; other family members have spent the time standing around remarking that the visitors might like afternoon tea after driving all the way to the pretty far west. They're probably right.

So, while the oven heats, I thought I'd show you my latest purchase - Coming Up Roses in the Drawing Room by Shell Sherree.

Is this picture beautiful, I ask you, or is it doubly beautiful? I plan to hang it across from my favourite armchair, so that I may live in an internally consistent world.

theoretically giving up chocolate

2011-07-26T09:56:00.000+01:00

I sometimes wonder whether the greater sense of wellbeing is achieved by temporarily resolving to permanently give up chocolate or by permanently resolving to temporarily give up chocolate. It was while grappling with this purely theoretical question the other day that it occurred to me that I'd never shared with you my Philosophy of Food, viz.:

Don't eat food that has an artificially low fat content. Eat the full fat version in moderation instead.
Don't eat anything that contains artificial sweeteners.
Bake your own cakes rather than buying them. They will taste better, and the effort of baking will limit consumption.
Never bother with biscuits (cookies to the US reader). They are not as nice as recipe books would lead you to believe.
Don't buy ready-prepared meals. Have a boiled egg and toast instead.
Puréed young spinach leaves added to choux pastry will make interesting green canapés.
Rosewater fudge is delicious and will gain you points amid owners of mismatched vintage china.
Never order from a restaurant menu that does not mention goat's cheese. You don't have to actually order the goat's cheese, but its presence is reassuring.

Have I covered everything there or do you have anything important to add?

the pace, the pace

2011-07-13T12:08:00.001+01:00

A SLOW BLOGGING CONTRACT

As balmy summer takes hold here and the white butterflies flit about in the clover, I undertake to publish a new post STRICTLY EVERY TWO WEEKS or when I feel so inclined, and to reply to email messages and comments STRICTLY WITHIN SEVEN DAYS or when I feel so inclined.

In return, I'd be grateful if you could fling my name into all your giveaways if you feel so inclined. Should I have to choose between wonderful prizes (a), (b) and (c), please put me down for (c), or the one with most pink or cobalt blue. If your giveaway is geographically confined, remember that you and I are fellow citizens of Planet Earth and pop "so lovely!!! Mise, Ireland" into the hat anyhow, there's a dear.

I shall continue, of course, to comment on your blog A PICO-SECOND AFTER YOU HIT 'POST' or when I take a break from watching the fluffy clouds above, and I'll certainly be at the launch of your on-line shop, clamouring for something stripey.

YOUR SIGNATURE HERE:

what lovely handwriting you have

MY SIGNATURE HERE:

home is where I want to be but I guess I'm already there

2011-07-05T15:23:00.001+01:00

Photographic equipment took over our house yesterday, as Marie and Ashley from Home Interiors came round to take a set of shots, destined to appear one day in Delightful Domiciles with Affable Owners Monthly, or somesuch.

My role was to dash out into the wild every once in a while to gather flowers from the fields, then dash in to arrange them in pretty little jugs before the camera clicked. My dashing, indefatigable in the morning, became increasingly defatigable as the day wore on.

[Pink Daughter with a mere fraction of my flower-picking oeuvre]

Marie, the stylist, was a wonder. A cushion and a throw here, a stack of books there, a necklace carelessly flung on a bedside table, and the house took on a composed, elegant new life.

[Marie works her transformative magic on the bedroom]

You can see some of Marie's accomplished Before & After work in other houses here.

[the bathroom windowsill needs a small touch of pink - cameras are abandoned as we all go on a quest for the Right Thing]

[Ashley and Marie at work in the guest bedroom]

Despite being the quiet, retiring sort, I appeared in a few photographs, looking ~~hungry and bewildered~~ casually at ease. We all agreed that it had to be me, as Scottish Husband leaning against the range, proudly holding his unpink motorcycle helmet, might not be of great interest to the influential teapots & florals market sector. Some market sectors just don't think outside the box.

By evening, 19 hard-won shots were done and dusted, the girls had heroically not tripped over any wires, and we got to settle down with a large gin and tonic on a styled and repositioned sofa, planning to invite all the commentators to a cucumber sandwich served crustless on our imaginary rolling lawns whenever the feature is published. I hope you'll be there yourself.

every time you go away

2011-06-28T22:32:00.002+01:00

The Special Commission for the Investigation into the Unfortunate Loss of a Follower, established by myself in 2009, submitted its final report (20 pages) and its itemised expenses (29 pages) today.

[curtain fabric 1: Rosemist Seacrest; possibly my favourite]

I only had time to glance briefly through the file, as I'm busy choosing fabric for the new curtains, but it appears that the Commission's Investigatory Subcommission for Sleuthing finally tracked the former follower down to a pub in Donnybrook, where, when challenged, she stated that she ceased to follow Pretty Far West on the 23rd of October 2009 because she "couldn't be doing with any more of this Lifestyle carry on" and, besides, had become engaged to marry a geography teacher.

[curtain fabric 2: Meadow Rose; serene but perhaps genteel]

Fair enough, fair enough. The Special Commission thanked her for her input, and, as the Irish Constitution enshrines the right to Be Like That Then, bought her a double vodka and coke to show that we bear her no illwill. Upon leaving, the Special Commission fed enough coins into the jukebox to play Every Time You Go Away on repeat for an hour, and there the matter was allowed to rest.

[curtain fabric 3: Beach Petal; more vivid than you'd think]

As we are hardened to follower loss and cannot pay any further sleuthing expenses, the Special Commission is hereby disbanded. Thank you, good and faithful servants.

a colourful house

2011-06-22T13:23:00.000+01:00

My colourful house ...

... contains Pink Daughter's colourful house.

Where can I buy Lego in Blogtopian ice cream shades of rose, pale green and blue?

No, I have no self-help books

2011-06-18T17:18:00.002+01:00

My affliction, an urge to Make Things Better, gives me no peace. Intent on sitting in the sun with a book the other day, I caught a glimpse of the outbuildings and realised that something was wrong: when I'd painted the doors five years ago it had never occurred to me to paint the windows to match.

Sorted, at the expense of the book-reading. It's ok to have cobwebs on a shed window. No one will pass judgement.

Painting is much more harmless than the curtain-purchasing element of my Making Things Better affliction, which can be very expensive. You know that sinking feeling you get when you sense that you and your carefully chosen silk curtains have grown apart? I feel it coming on. The green just isn't right. It isn't a pink green.

Next week: the quest for world-class new curtains, fuelled by a passion to open and close, committed to the highest standards of draping, striving for excellence in complementing the other stuff in the room. Go, Team Curtains (that's me), Go!

Particularly Proud

2011-06-14T22:35:00.001+01:00

Sometimes, when posting a blog entry, I think to myself, "I should make this interesting for the sake of the Reader."

And other times, I think, "Ah, to Hell with the Reader, I just want to post my new linen rose cushions, of which I am Particularly Proud."

So when you see a post like this, self-centered and with no attempt to convey a broader message or to remark that one should seek beauty in the small things or to disseminate a recipe or a subtlety of experience, you must understand that it isn't that I don't grasp the conventions of my genre; it is rather that like a bird on the wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free.

letting Jane down

2011-06-09T00:37:00.001+01:00

When I undertook to join Jane's 'Flowers in the House' bash on Monday, I'd forgotten that it was a public holiday and that I'd promised to go to the fun fair.

[Flowers. Two days late. An excuse in time saves nine.]

So I sped round in the dodgems thinking of how miserable Jane would be without me, rode on the dinky train wondering whether she'd ever speak to me again, listened to children's laughter as the wind rose and the rain blew in from the west, where Jane lives in America, far from my heavy heart, and ate a chocolate brownie while hoping against hope that she wouldn't cut me out of her will. By the time I got home, I felt that my friendship with her was already beyond repair, and so the whole thing languished.

[further away from the flowers]

Better late then never, they say, and of course that's not true; it's one of those cheerful remarks to which there's no response. You just mutter something and back slowly away, wondering whether the hip-flask is in the pocket of the other coat, the more flattering one.

would anyone in Ireland like some fabric?

2011-06-03T14:18:00.001+01:00

Some lengths of fabric have been stashed away in my domestic goddess drawer for so long that I've forgotten what I intended to make from them, if anything. Would anyone like some fabric?

*** UPDATE: All fabrics have now been claimed ***

Brunschwig & Fils, "Big Sky", a wild west toile

Sanderson, "Etchings & Roses" from their Empire collection. This is quite a heavy fabric, perfect for recovering an office chair.

A red toile on a light gold background - the cream is a bit more golden than it looks in this image. Good for cushion covers or suchlike.

I'll post these to anyone in Ireland who wants them - just drop me an email (the address is in the sidebar over there) and let me know which one you would like. I have two or three metres of each and will send them to the people who are first to express an interest.

things I have noticed about blogging

2011-05-29T18:00:00.000+01:00

This isn't an important post, like my important posts about cushions or my important posts about how I am feeling today. I thought you might like a break from all the importance while Blogger is playing up. I can't seem to leave comments on your blog just now but you know that I ~~love~~ ~~admire~~ read you.

Here are some things I've noticed about blogging. They are highly technical so you may want to move right along.

1. I suspect many Google Friend Connect followers don't read the blogs they follow, whereas the rss subscribers and the darling old-fashioned bookmarking people do. And yet the follower count is an international mark of honour. Whoever has most followers when the music stops will win their own chat-show and a handcrafted floral headdress. I hardly dare to hope that it might be me.

2. My preference is for bloggers who post once or twice a week. Any less frequently and I worry that their quest for the perfect shoes has led them into unsuitable company; more frequently and the breakneck progression from their chandelier revamp to the new slipcovers for their sofa makes me feel faint.

3. The perfect number of comments for a blog post is 10-20.

[chocolate guinness cake]

4. Blog posts should ideally include an image. This is so that a commentator can leap straight to the breathless admiration without struggling through the text.

5. Word verification tests for posting comments are pesky. The easiest way to deal with moderation is to set it so that comments will appear with neither verification or moderation for a week, and thereafter are moderated. The occasional alert marketeer will slip through with a link to their once in a lifetime yoga mat offer during the first week, but that's no great matter. Sure you might even need a yoga mat yourself. Moderation after a week is in case one gets struck by a bus and lies in hospital worrying about all the pathos piling up in the comments, or not piling up.

i like you better now, office chair

2011-05-21T23:54:00.001+01:00

Inspired by Amanda's lovely Mad Men office chair makeover, I thought I'd finish the long-neglected task of recovering mine.

I don't have the heart to post the plebian original version, a boring burgundy chair that hung round grouching that it wanted to be in a call centre with its friends, discussing reality tv and the price of petrol.

I pulled the chair apart with my superhuman strength, tacked on some heavy cotton upholstery fabric, and clicked it together again. The frame holds the fabric taut. Ideally I should paint the black bits white, but I've run out of steam and doubt that anything would stick to the hard plastic. Maybe one day some of those busy guerilla knitters one hears of will happen along and sort out chair-leg covers for me in a dashing red and white stripe.

the beauty of the soul

2011-05-16T23:37:00.000+01:00

In recent years I've become inclined to buy stuff, even though I have stuff already. Lately, for instance, I spotted a metal napkin-holder and dished out the requisite euros for it, even though my unheld napkins had never really been an issue in the past. I guess that sort of reckless consumerism makes me ideal prey for the shops that sell polka dots.

I didn't give myself a hard time over it, though, but innocently delighted in the thought of the napkins enjoying extra security, UNTIL I unwrapped it, removed the packet of charming napkins that it contained, and realised what the blighters had done to me. Look what was written underneath:

Let me just stand back a bit and let you have a better look at that in context:

What if a guest were to take the last napkin and spot this egregious piffle? Surely they'd think I'm a bit soft in the head. According to trusty old Google, it was St. Augustine who came up with the sentiment, ever alert for an opportunity to preach to napkin-users of yore. Imagine how he would have lost the run of himself if given the broader canvas of tea towel design, or wallpaper.

So what I'm wondering is threefold:
1) Should I discard it?
2) Or paint it?
3) Or go with the flow, wear purple and healing gemstones, and commission a set of Lake Isle of Inisfree soup-bowls?

fair and square

2011-05-12T18:30:00.000+01:00

My strategy in life is to keep doing something, anything, in the hope that one day everything will be done and I can sit down and have a nice cup of tea and one of those delicious homemade florentines you'd have sent me if only you'd thought of it. It never works, but the something I just did was to visit random.org, which rose to the occasion admirably by choosing Janis of Pinecone Camp, excellent photographer and nice person, as the winner of the bag giveaway.

[Embroidery to be saved for a later post. That's me in the middle. I'm looking well.]

I was thinking of showing you the lovely picture my friend Annie embroidered for me lately of my Dublin friendies, but then it occurred to me that you'd be a bit cross with me, not having won yourself, and Janis would be the only person to pop graciously along to the comment box at her leisure and say it is beautiful. So I'm just going to set it aside for a later post when the Hurt has Healed.

Harley

2011-05-08T17:40:00.000+01:00

With the help of some valuable and considered advice, Scottish Husband has finally chosen a motorcycle. It counteracts my raffish shed doors to give the place some gleaming petrol-fuelled dignity.

I'm too demure for motorcycle rides nowadays, although of course one stands around admiring the sound of the engine, but I may join the general vibe with a pair of white biker boots. They'd look well with a white cotton lacy dress, no, for the bohemian look? Daisy-chain in hair, straw basket containing rescued baby hedgehog, always a bit late for lunch, that sort of thing.

[image: bikersden.com]

And you may wish to dash off to add your name to the Permanent Magenta painting giveaway before it closes. Margaret, creator of my sunlit dress, is giving away this lovely bird.

The bag giveaway is still on the go here as well, and I'll draw a name as soon as my very next fit of enthusiasm and goodwill towards humanity strikes, more than likely after a smallish glass of wine.

wave wave and a giveaway

2011-05-02T14:27:00.000+01:00

The important lesson I learned from the Royal Wedding is that I don't do enough waving. Ever since Catherine said "I will," I wave and smile whenever I enter a room or walk down the street, trying to strike a balance between distant and approachable, affable and eccentric. As I type here, briefly managing with the left hand alone, I'm waving with the right. I know you'll wave back; you're that sort of person: friendly, indulgent, willing to join in, eager to show off your new ring.

And it's because you're such a dear that I bought two of these bags lately. One for me, as I suffer from bag-buying compulsion, but I doubled back to the display stand, thinking you'd like one too. It's made of canvas, lined, with a magnetic clasp and a small zipped pocket inside, the perfect size for carrying your Prada sunglasses and the proofs of your soon to be published book to the beach while your security staff lumber along behind with deck-chairs and battery-powered refrigerators.

If you have the slightest passing interest in it, or merely want to show your support by not rejecting my bag with hasty disinterest even though you intend to accessorise only with bold lemon and aqua this summer, just leave a comment to enter the giveaway. Please don't become a follower unless you want to, or tweet about it or mention it to your famous friend so that she can talk about it on daytime TV. It's only a small gesture. One day I'll do more, perhaps name my signature perfume after you unless a last-minute headlong narcissism makes me name it after myself.

Seasons new homewares shop

2011-04-27T11:50:00.001+01:00

Seasons of Skerries, known for their wholesome, home-cooked food and the use of local, in-season produce, have extended their premises with a homewares shop and a new dining area overlooking the Skerries Islands, scheduled for official opening on Thursday, 28th April at 7:30pm.

"Signature dishes include their Creole French Toast with orange & lime syrup for breakfast, Butternut Squash & Parmesan Soup, Sweet Potato Patties and Fish Cakes with basil sauce for lunch and their delicious filled Meringues and Melting Moments."

They very kindly asked me whether I'd speak at the event. I can't make it, and am sad to be missing their Mad Hatters Tea Party with wine and finger food, jazz music by Neil McMahon and games such as Ice the Cupcake, Fold the Napkin (men only contest), Know Your Herbs and more. But perhaps you can join the party on Thursday? Admission is free, if you care to flaunt your knowledge of herbs, and would you go into a small stripe-admiring trance on my behalf?

"Themed gastronomic events and a host of social activity clubs will feature on this year’s calendar. These clubs will include, amongst others, a Healthy Eating Club, an Organic Gardening Club and a Home Crafts Club."

Skerries, where my father grew up and I spent many happy holidays bashing my grandmother's piano, is a lovely seaside town, richly deserving of pretty homewares and enhanced napkin-folding knowledge. I'll be along as soon as possible to try the Creole French Toast and check out the new homewares. Good luck, Mel and Brendan Connors of Seasons.

dum di dum di dum

2011-04-20T22:34:00.001+01:00

When one gets to be my age and firmly entrenched in the project management of life, pottering emerges as a significant hobby. This encompasses light thinking and moving things from A to B to see how they look. Traditionally undertaken in broderie anglaise with a flower in one's hair, it's a valuable antidote to opinion and noise.

Youngsters will raise an eyebrow at me here, but you wait and see: there'll come a day when having a quiet rummage through your fabric swatches is as satisfying as the first breath of fresh air when you leave a nightclub at 3 in the morning, or hopping on the next plane to wherever the next plane happens to be going. By then you'll have determined whether Johnny is The One and also sorted out global oppression and it'll be time to take a lively interest in heaps of beautifully folded white bedlinen, while still of course being fabulous.

It's good to be back home in Jellystone Park for a while after a spell of apartment living. You try to potter in a rental apartment and there's no point having a happy ponder about what shade to paint the cupboards as they're not your cupboards and they are the wrong sort of cupboard anyhow. And the light thinking is defeated by the TV in the kitchen that makes Pink and Blue Daughters giddy and and drives me to campari & soda with a delicate twist of lime and a futile cocktail umbrella. No wonder the modern world has a headache and needs calming balms and pricey carrot elixirs.

And I have a pottering type of problem, viz: I've rather taken to Glenilen Farm's Raspberry Pannacotta, but I no longer buy them because of my stockpile of the little glass ramekins in which they are sold. I can't throw the ramekins away as that sort of wanton behaviour just isn't in me, nor can I think of anything to do with them beyond boring old candle-holders or baking individual things that would involve Effort. Can you suggest anything that wouldn't make young people laugh cruelly at me?

a zealous pursuit of displacement activities

2011-04-14T12:35:00.001+01:00

It's a sure sign that someone has an important piece of work with an impending deadline on the go when they start fiddling about with Blogger. I've been happily pottering with the following:

1. The new Blogger 'Popular Posts' feature, which shows the most read posts of the past week (on the sidebar to your right). It tends to display recent posts, as you'd expect, but it's good to see an occasional blast from the past rocketing senselessly up the chart.

2. The new views. The flipcard view, my favourite, is rather like meeting oneself unexpectedly in the corridor and being given too detailed a response to a polite 'how have you been?'

3. I've started replacing the blog list I mistakenly deleted a year ago. Your new post will now be available to me the joyful instant it is published. It'll also be much easier for me to click back in later to see what your sweet commentators have said and indeed undertake a second reading, the better to appreciate your more complex themes and delicate nuances, perhaps even spot a faint, initially overlooked foreshadowing of a planned repotting of your herbs.

You're a star!!!!

2011-04-11T18:17:00.001+01:00

I was backward when it came to bringing up the children. It wasn't until Pink Daughter went to nursery school that I learned about stickers. If a child is very good, their homecoming sticker says 'very good!!' or 'you're a star!!' or 'excellent!!' but if they misbehave badly and expulsion is on the cards they come home with 'very good!' or 'you're a star!' or 'excellent!' instead. Should there be something challenging to be undertaken, such as eating a vegetable, they will do so for a sticker, but if it's cabbage the sticker will have to glow in the dark.

[Scottish Husband leaves an encouraging note]

So, ever eager to be a Woman of my Time, I have bought some stickers. A whole book of them. More than 300! Three stickers each if everyone stays quiet while dearest Mamma dashes off a blog post.

[sophisticated]

I'll also be sticking them onto the envelope when I write to you so that your postie will realise you are a person of consequence, and of course I'll adorn your giveaway win package with them. I sure wish I could add them to comments. Excellent dining-room makeover!! Incredible pigeon pie! Exquisite finer feeling on matters of the heart! You're a star!!!!

now even prettier far west

2011-04-04T11:44:00.000+01:00

Ever on the lookout for ways to overcome my disinterest in the cutting edge of technology, Scottish Husband showed me the range of browser themes for Google Chrome, including Cath Kidston, Kate Spade, Vivienne Westwood, Emma Bridgewater and many more. I've given the Cath Kidston version a shot so that my browser experience will be in harmony with our imagined graceful lives.

[PFW in the Cath Kidston themed browser]

Important stuff, you rightly remark.

My friend Annie mentioned that American readers will think that 'Mise' is pronounced 'm-eyes,' or worse still, like more than one mouse. I'd be grateful if you could amend your mental pronunciation to the Irish 'mi-sha,' and also send me all your money for my collection. I'm saving up for a Cath Kidston themed six lane motorway with matching toll plaza.

if you don't blog, you don't exist

2011-04-01T12:29:00.001+01:00

Jaboopee was telling me the other day that if you don't blog, you don't exist. It must be true. After two weeks of no posting here, the viewing figures start to decline and TV stations worldwide get in touch to cancel my appearance on their showcase hard-hitting primetime thinking slot, as the 2005 Beauty Queen of Athlone is scheduled to appear instead. What a let down.

But my silence is with good reason: I'm not among my own lifestyle accoutrements. While my brother looks after my dear, dear sofas, I'm living in an apartment for the first time since I was a single woman. I don't think apartments have changed, but I have. 'Italian marble,' says the brochure, but it doesn't mention that the appliances nearly work. Just enough so that they are not actually broken, merely ineffectual. Except the toaster, which toasts magnificently.

There was a time when I wouldn't have cared, being out on the town and all. Casapinka and I put up with genteel pelmetted curtains and the wrong kind of tumble-dryer for years in those carefree days in Dublin. But here, once the appeal of the lift wears off, the children start wondering where to employ their superpowers (invisibility, rocket-boosters, fire-breathing). How much fun for the parent, you ask me, is an urban playground? None, upon the second visit. Ditto the library. Ditto Murphy's ice cream shop, though their sea salt ice cream is delicious.

We miss our garden and its snails and daisies and I miss my oilcloth tablecloth. Somewhere during these seven married years I have become Set In My Ways and will have to decline the post of Irish Ambassador to Borneo when next it comes up, even if the roofless embassy there has an equally magnificent toaster that pops sky-high and scares the starlings. Forgive me, Borneo, if your embassies have roofs; Wikipedia wasn't clear on the matter.

I have written a small poem about urban living when one is used to the country. Ahem.

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the puddle
Stoically, stoically, stoically, stoically
Life is but a muddle

It was difficult to work the hum of the air-conditioning unit into that rhyming scheme.

While you're there, do you have a view on how many blogs and suchlike it is feasible to have in one's bourgeois feed reader?

Looking at mine today, briefly neglected, I felt I had too many (30 or so), and yet that things are happening here and there in the world of which I am unaware, important things such as new eco-friendly egg-poaching gadgets. I would never dream of deleting your blog, oh no, but one day I may decide to struggle on without the Daily Telegraph Lifestyle feed. It's all just too upbeat.

pink and blue rugs

2011-03-20T12:42:00.002Z

Designers Guild is often rather dramatic for me, perhaps aimed more at the sort of woman who would take vodka on her muesli and be first off the mark at the traffic lights, but look at these simple rugs they have in lovely shades of blue and pink with a jaunty stripe, perfect for Blue and Pink Daughters. They speak to the still, small presence within every one of us, except men, that yearns for transformative textiles.

Momentarily life-changing rugs. I'm prone to these fits of enthusiasm. I continue to dream of the perfect cleaning product, probably in spray form, that will take away my cares.

A mother's acute discernment suspects that they are not non-slip, but a blogger's yen for the pretty overcomes this, reckoning that instructing the children to be sure not to slip will do.

[images: Designers Guild]

taking comfort in chairs

2011-03-12T22:36:00.009Z

My mother crocheted this cotton cushion-cover for me. It's lovely. You were just about to say so, weren't you? And on such a handsome chair! I hope I haven't blocked off a commenting avenue for you there.

[crochet cushion, ivory, pink border, lovely]

And Julie inspired me to make this semi-slip-cover, suitable for a craftswoman with a short attention span. It looks as though I put in some minor effort but is achieved by sewing a tea-towel onto a plain white pillowcase for an instant French country look, non?

[guestroom chair with slip-cover]

It rains here, away from home, and I need the distraction of fiction. Can you recommend anything, or indeed have you had something suitable published yourself in your go-getting way?

[made using the Catalog Card Generator]

There undoubtedly exist novels that are very readable despite falling into some of these fusspot exclusion categories, but morale is low and I have made so many mistakes with book-buying online that I need to be CERTAIN. I just want something self-assured, intricate and ineffable, preferably with a foreword. Something that fends off dampness and the suspicion that one has packed the wrong shoes.

don't mind me

2011-02-28T22:43:00.006Z

Don't mind me; I'm just quietly posting a few flowers for Jane's global flower presentation.

[heather and yellow rose in bathroom, seven points]

This one below is an old image, but Jane won't realise that. It was only when I started clicking round the other participants in the global flower presentation that I spotted that some of the rotters had more than one flower arrangement. I panicked, of course, and shot back through my archives to put on some sort of a decent showing.

[small daffodils in the Miss J. Hunter Dunn memorial egg-cup, nine points]

Sixteen points in all; not bad, eh? It's not that there's a prize; it's a matter of Self-Respect.

bowls, potatoes, the state of the nation

2011-02-22T23:52:00.004Z

I broke the second of these pearlescent bowls today. My sister gave me the set, and I like them so much that when I imagine the film of my life (silent, black & white, low-budget) it is as a series of stills of me holding a bowl of muesli, then of raspberries, then of ice-cream, and so forth, as the seasons change and I age, looking wistfully hungry throughout.

[image: dotmaison]

Seeking to replace them, I go online. A set of the bowls costs 16 to 25 pounds sterling, depending on where you buy it. Shipping to Ireland costs about 32 pounds. 32 pounds is quite a lot, agrees the retailer whom I contact, for such a small package, but in fact, he tells me, I can buy up to 10 kilos of goods for this same shipping fee.

Ever conscious of Value For Money, I calculate that I can buy 50 bowls at a cost of about 250 pounds, and have the lot shipped to me for 32 pounds. Is this Value For Money? Or not? I only want 4 bowls.

I'm asking you because we here in Ireland are not good at Value For Money. What we've been getting in return for our tax contributions are some extremely generously pensioned politicians and senior civil servants, now retiring gracefully from the scope creep they've presided over, but it's only lately that we've stopped to think, "hmmm, are extremely generous pensions that aren't for us really what we want?"

During the boom times, we never bothered to ask as the misallocation of our money was covered by the general gloss of success. Now that the gloss has given way to low-sheen times, we're emailing our public sector to ask why it has awarded itself benefits that tend to be considerably greater than those of the private sector that finances it. Robert from the Deflection Desk has forwarded our query to Christine, who is on sick leave till April.

At least our potatoes are in good shape. I stood in the supermarket the other day and had a good close look at them, under the bright lights, and there was no sign of blight. Do you find supermarket lights are particularly bright in the vegetable aisle, so that extra mascara is needed to look one's very best while checking for signs of impending Famine?

In the Meadows and Byrne accoutrements section (less harshly lit), I spot these jam-jar covers. Ah, how Blogtopian, I think with delight, but the Value For Money alarm rings in my head and I wonder whether 5 euros is a bit much for 5 squares of fabric and 5 elastic bands. I could make my own, if the trade unions don't mind. Then I recall that I own no pinking shears, so buy them anyhow. I hope the manufacturers get the sales and success they deserve for correctly identifying our nation's lack of a pair of pinking shears.

chest of drawers before and after

2011-02-17T14:21:00.003Z

Today I'm over at Garrendenny Lane, with a guest post for Lorna, who was one of my very first blogging friends. I suspect she is the most energetic and dynamic woman in Ireland, with a farm, an interiors shop and two children to keep her busy.

The chest of drawers makeover is part of my mission to turn the world from pine to shades of white. Note carefully, people, that this photo is the AFTER of the before and after. Not the before. The AFTER. Just in case you inadvertently say the wrong thing. Here's the link.

from the dressing room to the shed roof

2011-02-14T16:23:00.002Z

This is my dressing room and haven, the furthest point from the outside world.

"The Artsy Cousin would perch on the dressing room steps with a vodka cocktail, speaking of chiaroscuro and the New Poetry."

Today I'm guest posting over at Amid Privilege, entertaining Lisa's Style Archetypes: the Sturdy Gal, the Artsy Cousin, and the Grande Dame. They're on their tour of Europe; Lisa and I are on the shed roof. Do call over and wave at us.

a small domestic post

2011-02-09T20:59:00.004Z

This is Blue Daughter with pinkish-red carnations, for Sinead and flwrjane, who always post such pretty flowers.

[Image: Jim Lawrence Traditional Ironwork]

And I've taken to this style of clear glass pendant light, and am wondering whether I could make something similar but bigger for the hall using a goldfish bowl and Scottish Husband's electrical skills. Now that he has affixed the magnetic knife-strip to the wall, anything is possible.

surely everyone is interested in tiles

2011-02-03T16:46:00.003Z

The wall behind our kitchen range was tiled last week while we had no Internet access. I couldn't post a photograph of it, couldn't read a minor flood of admiring comments and the occasional quibble from maverick commentators who would have said that I should have chosen pink tiles, or perhaps something more country-style with pictures of roosters. It was as though it had been tiled in vain.

Scottish Husband says he is going to fix the magnetic knife-strip back into place. I merely mention this in case he reads this post.

miniature jam jars and stern resolve

2011-01-29T17:24:00.008Z

Our broadband stopped working this week and it was all very peaceful here. Scottish Husband went into a bit of a decline, unable to browse for motorcycles, but I found it quite refreshing to be able to call a guilt-free halt to the search for perfect drawer-knobs.

Coincidentally, it happened as I was two chapters into The Winter of Our Disconnect, by Susan Maushart, "How one family pulled the plug on their technology and lived to tell/text/tweet the tale." I purchased this book online, and later saw it described on the back cover as "a hilarious tale." It has long been a stout rule of mine to avoid anything hilarious. It's a good book, nicely paced, full of engaging personal detail and fascinating facts for dotting about in conversation, but the relentless quips are distressing.

[My exciting new discovery: baby Bonne Maman jars!]

Back in the days when I used to lecture in Advanced Why (and sometimes, when my esteemed colleagues were indisposed or swanning off to conferences in the wine-producing regions, Advanced How), I tended to sprinkle my talks quite liberally with quips, so as to keep the attention of the merry souls at the back. How they must have hated me. Perhaps you do too. Here dawns my stately new quip-free self.

[Thank you very much to dear Sinead and Jacqueline, who kindly gave me blogging awards that require me to dish out 7 facts about myself. I'm walking tall as I work on the assignment, proud to be a 7-faceted person.]

Yellow Kitchenaid painting

2011-01-19T11:57:00.005Z

I'm ever so taken with the bright and sturdy dignity of this Kitchenaid mixer painted by Kerry.

[image from A Tranquil Townhouse]

Isn't it wonderful? So much so indeed that my Great Ambition, conceived just a minute ago, is to open the National Gallery of Domestic Still Life, containing pictures of sofas, dresses, books, appliances, forks and other important things, their blunt beauty and practicality made intriguing through paint.

All I need is a grand premises and some wavy-edged tickets that say ADMIT ONE. Some red dot stickers as well, I suppose, to finance the whole enterprise.

Blogger Monopoly

2011-01-17T21:51:00.004Z

It was Meredith who came up with the idea, in the comments to this post.

I think Monopoly should bring out a board aimed at our demographic, with a mini-Kitchenaid, an AGA, an Alessi kettle etc as markers. The properties could be Anthropologie, The Conran Shop, Zara etc. Then cards saying "Your blog is mentioned in the Washington Post, collect 200 followers" etc.

[my new coloured wine glasses]

Others added an iPhone4 and martini-shaker marker, a Kindle and a Hermes scarf, and Naomi channeled the darker side of lifestyle blogging:

I'm ready to invest in the bloggers monopoly set. I'm thinking that instead of Go to Jail, we might have a square labelled - Broadband Disconnection? Chance cards could include horrors such as, 'leave bitchy comment on popular blog, miss a turn' and 'Follower envy renders you unable to post for a week.'

What an inspired business idea, I thought, so I fished it out of the comments and embarked on some Product Development.

[citrus and pot-pourri]

Instead of hotels and houses we'd amass etsy purchases and cupcakes. The unit of currency would be the 'follower,' and counterfeit currency, the 'absentee follower,' would also be much in circulation. One upcycled object would equal seven followers and three thousand followers would equal one Book Deal.

Players would be penalised for posting a poem of their own composition or a photo of their cat. Guest posts and Blog Awards would signal fiendish alliances, and players who weren't always conspicuously pleased for everyone else would miss a turn. When the Giveaway bell sounded all contestants would effusively admire everything in sight.

The overall winner would be presented with a small oilcloth bag, suitable for wondering what to keep in. She would thank everyone and post a victorious photo of her sunlit morning toast.

A bashful, retiring person such as myself wouldn't have a hope, but I'm putting ten euros on you to win.

red dot glory

2011-01-10T22:04:00.004Z

See these beguiling red dot ramekins and the pie dish? I won them from Lorna of Garrendenny Lane by coming up with the new slogan for her lovely home & lifestyle online shop. Me, yes, me, who can't sell the idea of eating dinner to a five year old, and suddenly I'm a confused blend of Nigella Lawson and Mad Men.

[images: Garrendenny Lane]

Now I'm driving proudly around with my sunglasses on whatever the weather, a discreet sticker on my rear windscreen:

Win pie dishes from home in your spare time. Call me now and ask me how.

it's true about the Kitchenaid

2011-01-04T20:07:00.004Z

My Kitchenaid mixer fell on the floor a few months ago.

[not broken]

OK, it didn't just fall; I dropped it, distracted by an item on the radio about using sports psychology to get ahead in the competitive world of blogging. It's a curse, being competitive: I first recognised the trait in myself at college when I took against the earnest lads at the front of the lecture-theatre and set out to out-perform them. From there, through a series of triumphs, fate leads me to blogging. It could have been worse: it could have been golf, or growing giant vegetables. The Kitchenaid was absolutely fine; the floor broke.

I'm a bit sad about the broken floor, but uplifted by the Kitchenaid's magnificent resilience. Surely these people should start manufacturing cars and hairdryers?

So, some resolutions for the sake of conforming with new year blogging norms:

Have the floor mended.
Quit being competitive.
Read up on sports psychology.
Stop adding to my carefully curated collection of unread newspapers.
Mix more cakes.
Post shorter, more focused posts, perhaps including morals.
No, I mean it.
Appear more resolute.

what I own has changed

2010-12-24T13:18:00.005Z

Ten years ago, I owned an inflatable armchair and a see-through handbag. Everyone had them. We used to sit around on the inflatable armchairs planning which arthouse film to see that evening and our handbags filled up visibly with the latest lipsticks and ticket-stubs.

[transparent Prada, inflatable Chesterfield]

Most people had a lava lamp as well. Through some cruel deprivation or disinterest, I didn't, but I proudly owned a pink Romeo & Juliet bag lamp. Does that count? They are all long gone anyhow, my Longchamps handbag so much so that I couldn't even find a picture of it on the great wide Internet, so substituted a Prada for your convenience. Did I give the armchair away? I forget. At any rate that decade of conspicuousness and portability passed.

Walking back to the house a few nights ago after venturing out to kick the bloody outdoor Xmas lights in the eucalpytus by the gate, I thought of Carol Anne Duffy's line, "How do you earn a life going on behind yellow windows?" and noted that what I own has changed. I have a big stout oak front door, a knitted nativity, a tree covered with 10 years of accumulated baubles people gave us (thank you, Lorna, for my lovely latest). I have out-buildings that need reroofing and two stockings waiting for Santa Claus. I have a corkscrew with a lifetime guarantee.

And looking at my own yellow windows, I wonder why such a life should be 'earned'? Surely its attainment is progression rather than progress, and a Blogtopian life as observed by others is a matter of priority, presentation and the luck of the draw. Kicking the outdoor lights had done no good; they were still broken.

Happy Christmas, everyone, and a big thank you to the commentators for entertaining and amusing me so well. I'll be busy turning 40 for a while now but will see you next year.

a salted fudge experiment

2010-12-15T09:47:00.003Z

If anything entitles me to take my place here in Blogtopia, it is that I am the undisputed Queen of Fudge.

Before I awarded myself that title, I used to make old-fashioned fudge by measuring sugar, milk and butter into a saucepan and boiling it with a sugar thermometer. Now I chuck in unmeasured quantities of those ingredients, boil till it looks right, and beat till I feel like stopping, and it turns out beautifully. I could nearly throw a few carrots into a pan and simmer and it would turn into carrot fudge. No need to applaud.

Here's how to make a good basic fudge:

USE: 300ml Milk, 450g sugar, 100g butter

METHOD
1. Grease a glass dish or a plate
2. Put the milk, sugar and butter in a heavy-based saucepan. Heat slowly, stirring once in a while, until the sugar has dissolved and the butter melted.
3. Bring to the boil and boil for 15-20 minutes.
4. When the mixture reaches the soft-ball stage (115°C on a sugar thermometer), remove from the heat. Leave to cool for a minute or two.
5. Beat the mixture with a spoon for a few minutes until it starts to thicken and become slightly grainy.
6. Pour into the prepared dish and leave to set at room temperature or in the fridge.
7. Once set, cut the fudge into squares.

So I thought I'd jump on the current salted chocolate bandwagon and have a go at salted fudge. I boiled up a batch, added a few squares of 85% dark chocolate, beat it till it turned grainy, turned it out and sprinkled it with sea salt before it set. Any salt would have done, but sea salt sounds good and look at that sparkle it gives.

It was pretty tasty. Not quite as blatantly delicious as chocolate fudge with salted peanuts added, but more sophisticated. The children won't like this, I thought to myself, so I ate it all.

Things fall apart; the blogger cannot post

2010-12-03T14:39:00.002Z

I fell off the edge of Blogtopia for a while there. There was such a ferocious amount of work to be done and the days sped by with hardly an email answered. I missed the graceful flurry of commenting wit, the giddy exchange of recipes. Perhaps I'll never know how your poem turned out, or your homemade Christmas mantel centerpiece.

To make amends, I thought I'd pop back here with an image of a teddy bear.

Greater love hath no woman than that she abandons her serious facade to post something like this. The veteran blogger strolls through the dense LA fog with his rookie assistant, their hands deep in their overcoat pockets. "That's the lowest point," he tells her, "when they post a teddy bear."

Amid the scrum, the most charming little bird arrived from Flora. Bless her for taking a notion to stick it in the post and cause international gladness. These little things that people make with care and send with impromptu goodness are the stuff of life. You may have heard that we're all shot to hell here in Ireland and have no theoretical money left. Well what of it? We have the bird.

And while you're here, if you haven't already, would you marvel at Jaboopee's St Brigid masterpiece? Note the jubilant colour, the intricacy, the scale. You mustn't tell her, but I'm hoping to launch the Pretty Far West Yacht (replica) Awards for Achievement in the new year and bestow the very first yacht (replica) on her. That's if I can get the glue to stick on this damned replica.

send no money now

2010-11-17T11:14:00.003Z

The latest thing to delay the Death of the Cupcake is the cupcake in a jar. Imagine how cross this makes me. Blogging has taught me a thing or two about cupcake presentation and jar use, but it never occurred to me to marry both concepts. If I were JK Rowling, I'd have sat there thinking "hmmm, a school story?... or, hmmm, a wizardry story?" and then "hmmm, I'll do some crochet instead."

[Image: Lulubelle's of Dorset]

So others have got there first, and another opportunity for commercialism is foiled.

Increasingly capitalist as I age, I spot all the billboard advertisments for Rite Price This and That and I think to myself that I shan't buy a Rite Price Thing, thanks, in case it rattles, but I'd like to sell them, truckloads of them, so that I could swan around product launches in my Rong Price Rolls Royce Silver Shadow II, never having to worry about where the next roll of beautiful handpainted wallpaper would come from.

[Image: de Gournay chinoiserie wallpaper]

Here's a plan: I'll patent a Rite Price Popomatronic cereal popper, so that the Helped Selves who read the Self Help books can popstart their day with their own organic cereal, freshly popped right in their own homes with an affirming CD playing in the background.

And I shan't forget you guys when I make it big. Not initially anyhow. I plan to send every one of you a platinum-"effect" Popomatronic. That'll be the best one, more expensive than the gold-"effect" and the vintage-"effect" Popomatronic. But totally free to you.

It's hard to see beyond that lovely wallpaper. Scroll up, have another look. Can't you just see the Popomatronic corporate offices with these blithely papered walls, Tom Dixon copper shades and some leggy teak furniture? Perhaps with clocks telling the time in New York, Paris and Tokyo, if I can be bothered.

the indisposable romance of Eilis Boyle

2010-11-12T18:04:00.002Z

A classic is classic, says Edith Wharton, because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness. How true that is of these Eilis Boyle dresses.

I'd wear the white if I were feeling like an ethereal creature of the stony plains, as one does, or the black if Edith and I were popping exquisitely over to tea at Henry James' place. Either, like all of Eilis' beautiful designs, would make me feel as though I'd risen to any occasion.

For Eilis' clear and timeless romantic vision, her careful talent and imagination, and for her kindness, I'm honoured to take part in the international online launch of her 10th collection fashion film.

10th collection from Eilis Boyle on Vimeo.

becoming my sister

2010-11-08T20:13:00.004Z

There I was in town on Saturday, staring intently at a scented candle in a china teacup, when someone came up and asked whether I was the blogging person with all the jam jars.

"Yes, I guess I am," I replied brightly, immediately aware that I was wearing my second-best butterfly clip.

"No, actually, no no no," I continued coherently, "she's my sister, and much nicer than she appears. Much. What a wet day."

And so we left an unsatisfactory encounter. I'll never leave home again without my best butterfly clip.

[image: Paul Sherwood for House and Home]

And here's the online addendum to the print article in House & Home.

Everything happens at once

2010-11-04T13:43:00.003Z

First I was over at Jaboopee (a blog written by Elaine Prunty, glass artist and creative wonder), reading a little poem (ahem) of my own composition to while away the long hours while she finished her St Brigid mosaic.

[the making of St Brigid, from Jaboopee]

And then I appeared in the current issue of House & Home, defiantly disregarding the state of the nation to talk about myself. Paul Sherwood, the photographer, was an easy and affable presence about the house and made even our wellington boots look glamorous.

[House & Home, Nov/Dec 2010]

St Brigid was finished by then, I gladly heard, and I promised Elaine I'd rally the imaginary women of the parish to hold a cake sale to pay for a bus (the Mosaic-Mobile, we'd call it) up to Dublin to admire it. The imaginary women would show up with their crumbling rice krispie buns and banal scones* and there I'd be modestly brandishing my magnificent chocolate cake, one euro a slice.

*the imaginary women are really very good bakers

Magnificent chocolate cake (serves 10)
4 oz butter

8 oz caster sugar

2 eggs

8 oz flour (plain or self-raising)

1 teaspoon bread soda

2 oz cocoa powder

250 ml milk

juice of half a lemon

Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, then add the flour, bread soda and cocoa, alternating with the milk. Add the lemon juice and mix. Spoon into a tall 20 cm (or so) round cake tin (lined and greased) and bake at 180C/350F/Gas mark 4 for an hour. Allow to cool, remove from tin and adorn as you wish.

winter, for Tom

2010-10-31T12:25:00.005Z

Everyone knows that a blogger traditionally marks the changing of the seasons with a wishy-washy Book of Hours post. This, my second blogging year, brings more of the same old icumen in, same old hope and expectancy, same old make-your-own-bag kit that came with Cath Kidston's SEW! this time last year and lies neglected still. Is there anyone else out there who hasn't made their bag yet either? May we meet?

So, winter.

The robin hops outside the window.

The friendly robin hops outside the window.

The friendly robin hippety-hops outside the window as the days shorten in the shadows of the slanting sun, awakening the soul's ancient yearning for cashmere socks and a knitted hot water bottle cover. We walk down these quiet country lanes, mute disintegration surrounding us in the smell of ruined houses, nettles and damp, the abandoned illegally imported cars rusting on the bog. The yellow-lit windows are private worlds, taxed families drawn together to mutter about the banks and the public service pensions and agree that they could have managed the country better themselves for God's sake. Frightening frost covers our car window. We can't see. Sidney? Sidney? Are you there? Sidney?

The well-dressed homme sports a cable knit, the femme a camel coat. Jaded by the lettuce leaf, we move on to undepicted casseroles and warming pies. Australia stirs and bounds about, mentioning its spring tulips. We mutter enviously to ourselves and delete its blogs from our reader.

Not really, Australia.

Please don't judge me, people. This post is for Tom Stephenson, a gentleman of Bath.

the daughters' boots

2010-10-28T11:50:00.001+01:00

the boots came downstairs

and went upstairs again

bring on the winter

2010-10-22T15:51:00.007+01:00

After we had made do with a bunch of non heat-emitting lilies (non-heat emitting lilies? heat non-emitting lilies? where's Stan when you need him?) for a long time, the ivory stove appeared.

[schoolgirl preparing to reveal new stove]

[a hot brandy, anyone?]

back on the bus

2010-10-17T15:10:00.002+01:00

I haven't been current since 2005, when the first child was born. Colleagues around the wine-cooler ask me what I think of the latest bands, and I smoothly change the subject to how best to store ginger (in the freezer, and grate it from frozen) while resolving to listen to Pearl more often. I'm still reading last month's newspapers. Recent authors of gritty novels have wasted their time; it'll be a year before I get round to them, no matter what awards they've won.

[currently reading]

I'm not even current with my blog reading, except of course yours. I rush to check out your latest post every morning, before breakfast. It gives me a little hop in my step. When you haven't posted, the day is a grey swirl, hour heaped upon dismal worrying hour as I wonder why you haven't rearranged a room or bought new earrings or had a go making your own bagels. Should I phone...?

... and then the huge relief and an organic ginger biscuit as you appear in my rss reader.

Sometimes I'm briefly current with the chores, and then a small figure covered in spaghetti and chocolate sauce (not that we serve these proletarian foods) looms out of the household mist, triumphantly saying, "it's your pretend birthday, Mama, and we've made you a cake out of everything in the cupboard."

[current husband]

It's not always that much of a hardship not being current. I've learnt to scan the news and ignore the spectator-sport of farflung human interest that makes up so much of what the media reports. I happily wear the wrong boots, thinking to myself as I walk down the street that those ankle-strap bootlets with high heels worn by the current people look so odd. They surely think the same of mine. My current model mobile phone has just been through the wash. Your text message, "a girl, Daisy Cheriebelle, 7 pounds 2 ounces" may never reach me.

[currently working on a very important guest post]

The question is, how does one get back on the bus ? Will there come a time when once again I can bandy immediacies at soirées or do mothers retreat forever into their own private time-capsule as the zeitgeist bolts heedlessly past?

I have a minor headache now. Stuck in 2005, with a minor headache.

mirror, mirror

2010-10-10T22:36:00.006+01:00

BEFORE: bathroom with gold mirror borrowed from living room

AFTER: bathroom with new ivory mirror from the marvellously helpful people at The Collection by Panfili

Journalists from reputable, slightly left-wing newspapers all over the world ring me up and ask whether I have nothing better to do than getting a mirror just so. "No," I tell them, "no."

the kindness of bloggers

2010-10-06T21:32:00.003+01:00

An impromptu little package arrived today from Amanda of Small Acorns to delight us, a giveaway win of sorts. Someone else won, in fact, but Amanda's daughter decided that I should have a prize too. It's encouraging that young girls in faraway lands are being brought up with such a keen sense of justice.

And a fine prize it was. The lovely fabric teatime stickers already adorn the playroom and the charming purse will lurk in my handbag. Thank you, dear Amanda and Milly!

[image from the Permanent Magenta etsy store]

And you may want to rush along and get your name into Permanent Magenta's painting giveaway, which ends this Friday. It's mightily noble of me to mention it at all, as I have my eye on her Pink Eames Rocker and you're diluting my chances by entering.

So much for the survival of the fittest. Future sociological investigation will show that altruism peaked in Blogtopia in the early years of the twenty first century. Findings will be sensitively validated by peer review, presented in pink floral folders tied with pretty ribbon, and greeted with a flurry of admiring comments from the academic community. I guess we'll all have a small glass of sherry.

fireplace (does anyone know Bruce?)

2010-10-01T21:50:00.001+01:00

For the kind commentators who took an interest in the fireplace, here it is. The vase of lilies is a feeble substitute for the long-awaited ivory stove (due next week, as usual). Would you rather spend a west of Ireland winter of lashing rain and gales sitting round a vase of lilies or an ivory stove alit with a blazing log fire? Yes, me too.

[If you peer closely at the left, there's a white-painted iron hook for a cauldron, so that people of yore could cook their potatoes and seaweed. I have no cauldron and people of yore might scoff at my pink casseroles, but we struggle on.]

Meanwhile, we've bought the Little House on the Prairie box set, season 1. It's the perfect thing for my elder daughter (aged 5-6), full of strung emotion and right & wrong. With the heightened cultural awareness of age, I keep expecting Bruce Springsteen to walk on set and belt out a bleak yet redemptive song, accompanied by Charles on the fiddle.

By the way, if anyone knows Bruce, would you ask him whether he'd write a guest post for me? Something keenly socially and politically aware that would help us rise above the wait for a stove.

a brighter living room, and jelly babies

2010-09-29T17:05:00.008+01:00

It's a long and lonely road, renovating a house. When the bathroom was nearly finished, we thought that as the place was so full of pink dust we'd add to the chaos by replacing the living room ceiling (Artex, lovingly put up by someone in the seventies), the dark grey slate-effect tiles (ditto, but down), and removing the fire surround to expose the original cottage fireplace. Easier typed than done.

At last, the new tiles are down, the ceiling up, and I've done more of my characteristically patient painting while breaking up fights between Pink and Blue Daughters over who has the smartest shadow.

The large old fireplace is uncovered, and all we're waiting for is the ivory stove. If ever you want an ivory stove, forget it. It'll always be on the verge of showing up, but never actually appear. And it's never the fault of the person you're speaking to.

And finally, a proud moment. Scottish Husband bought a packet of jelly babies the other day. No artificial flavourings or colourings. Superfoods, essentially: pure anti-oxidant, dusted with omega-3. We use them as bribes. But here's the thing: he put them, totally unprompted, all by himself, into an empty Bonne Maman jam-jar and placed it on the Bonne Maman shelf. Beat that, lifestylers.

bathroom products styling assistant required

2010-09-22T12:45:00.003+01:00

This is a special post for louloulovesbooks, who commented that she was trying to peer at my bathroom products.

Burt's Bees Radiance eye creme would keep me young, possibly even radiant, if only I could remember to use it.

Lots of soap. Very clean.

Favourite perfume. Wards off ankle boots, socialism and reality TV.

Clean and rose-scented. Bonus points.

Impractical bottles.

A new vacancy for a Pretty Far West Bathroom Product Styling Assistant will shortly be announced. The successful applicant will apply successfully. Ancillary duties will include banishing garish products from the public gaze, monitoring radiance levels, and daily opening and closing of the very labour-intensive Roman blinds. Would suit experienced fusspot.

hoping to be Aunt Dahlia

2010-09-16T22:54:00.005+01:00

My Blue Daughter isn't merely three years old; that would be beneath her dignity. She's 3-4, she declares, just as the labels on her blue clothes state. The 4 gives a gravitas and sense of aspiration, helping her to be within reach of Pink Daughter, who has realised the threat and is now 5-6.

Me, I'm aged 39-40, and it's important to bolster the dignity of that impending 40 by acquiring some more original artwork.

[a delightful meep miniature...]

[...from Shell Sherree, who is a dear]

These pretty ACEOs from Shell Sherree are my latest purchase (I didn't know what an ACEO was until I looked it up on know-it-all Wikipedia). This is surely the perfect Blogtopian art, charming and airy as a browse through the Hermes website. I'm convinced it's what wealthy Aunt Dahlia, proprietor of Milady's Boudoir, would display in her drawing-room along with Ronald Searle drawings and biscuit-tin lids. At 39-40, perhaps I can start turning into Aunt Dahlia.

finished bathroom in sight

2010-09-13T07:57:00.003+01:00

This is the new bathroom, a work in progress.

It needs lights, a different mirror and that's about all. Perhaps fluffy new towels and bath-mats in a delicate sea-green or dinosaur-bone white. More botanical paintings. Sunshine. Helium balloons that say 'It's a Bathroom!"

A stained glass window would be lovely but that's an aspiration too far for now.

As the Duchess of Painting, I'm glad the end is in sight. Boring old painting. I'd much rather read your blog than paint.

win win win (win)

2010-08-29T23:43:00.003+01:00

In the time-honoured blogging tradition, it's a giveaway.

The prize is this necklace, created by my sister (the jewellery-maker & artist sister).

Ideal for wearing to blogger meets, country markets, garden parties, wine-tastings, insurgencies, gala balls and all that Stuff of Life.

It's open to everyone, everywhere. A random commentator will be selected as the winner, unless I decide to choose a non-random commentator based on wit, sycophancy or the ability to rise to the occasion. You know the drill.

taking and giving back

2010-08-24T23:05:00.007+01:00

I've learnt a lot from the good old Information Superhighway.

Well, maybe two things.

The surefire cure for no longer being able to wear my gold jewellery is to boil it. Yes, I too raised an eyebrow at that, because most search results told me I was allergic to things like Alcohol or Chocolate and of course one mustn't fall for that hokey stuff. But I gave the boiling a go and the gold was wearable again. I'm only harping on this point in case someone out there has the same problem and might find this solution in a search. Boil the gold in water for a minute or so. BOIL THE GOLD.

And lately, over at Fun and VJs, I spotted an array of colourful glass on a shelf, and liked the look of it, so I scoured the house for anything jolly I could find and created my own burst of colour on the landing.

How uplifting a sight in the morning as one struggles toward the continental breakfast buffet.

So that's two things, and now it's time to give back. I've made the perfect rose tea, and I'd like to tell you how. No, I insist. Brew a cup of Earl Grey tea (or similar, any sort of light china tea) and add a few drops of rose water (and milk, if you like).

Why did it take years of the quest for a good rose tea for something so obvious to occur to me?

And there'll be a giveaway in the next post for even more giving back.

what does beanz meanz?

2010-08-20T11:29:00.006+01:00

Is this as conveniently tinned as the zeitgeist gets? These ingenious Can Lights, designed by Willem Heeffer of fusefinds .com, suggest Warhol, rationing, catering and quirkily fashionable frugality, and are well in tune with the upcycling mood of our post-bling times.

"With the help of Dublin’s many restaurants and café who collect the tin cans, these everyday waste objects are turned into charming yet functional pendant lights. The lights celebrate the cross over between popular culture and sustainability and look great in sets of three."

[Willem says that he would like you to like fusefinds on facebook]

Maybe one day they'll expand their range and I can have used tins of tomato soup, beanz, pineapples slices and steamed chocolate pudding in chocolate sauce hanging in a row of four above the kitchen island. They'd amuse me when I walked into the room and I'd chop my well-lit vegetables whilst busily wondering what it all meanz and considering the ironies in the commodification of thrift.

spinning to my death in a brand new raincoat

2010-08-14T20:06:00.004+01:00

I'm edging closer to elusive edginess with my latest purchase, the Ilse Jacobsen soft shell rain coat that is half a wetsuit (available in Ireland from Avoca). Don't look so dubiously at me. They are much in demand and it looks very well on me. I know this because the shop assistant told me so.

[image: eshoes]

Worn with biker boots, it gives me a certain metropolitan moodiness, the look of someone who has an angsty blog. Lord knows I must chuck some of the long-promised disquiet in here soon before I lose all credibility. Underworld's Dirty Epic is on loop to help me along. Dated angst is all I can offer, dudes.

But while you're waiting for that, have a look at Kelly Swallow's lovely Squintesque chairs. How about this one, the chic and poised 'Long Leggy'?

[image: Kelly Swallow]

When I die in a helicopter crash (if I die in a helicopter crash) I'd like the interior upholstery to be done in this style, so that I can spin to my death in a kaleidoscope of designer fabrics.

[If there are any lost souls looking for it, I'm deleting the Pretty Far West Facebook account. It was taking a week for the blog feed to reach it. In the feverishly paced world of exchanging pleasantries about curtains, that's useless.]

do you like my new sofa?

2010-08-03T11:23:00.002+01:00

Here in the imaginary Galway branch of the Women's Institute, we like to apply Unwritten Rule 11.6 of Lifestyle Blogging: never show the bad sights.

Through judicious camera-pointing, the reader will be distracted from the PROLONGED UNHOLY MESS and DISTRESSING DIRT of extensive bathroom renovation and the month-long EXCEPTIONALLY RAINY RAIN.

[The much managed new playroom sofa]

[Flowers from Scottish Husband]

See, same old arcadian far west. And the screen fades to pink.

two questions for you

2010-07-27T09:45:00.006+01:00

I like to pop in every day to tell you how fabulous your blog is and how much I adore your new bread-basket, vanity publication, opinion, or hand-embroidered shift. Some days, however, it just doesn't happen. This is because of work, being preoccupied with my preoccupations and, more than anything, the demands of motherhood.

People with no children, feel free to surf quietly away from here now. Book an island-hopping trip in the South Seas or rearrange your headpieces or whatever it is you do before elevenses. It's so long ago that I've forgotten. The rest of you, can you tell me this:

[dressed at last]

a) If a child insists on singing her song, her special song, composed by herself, about how much she likes her Mamma, between every item of clothing, how can getting dressed be expedited? The song is seven verses long and involves arm gestures. A pair of socks counts as two garments. The theory is, I believe, that one should get in tune with the child's schedule, but will that get us to the shops before they close?

b) For how long should a train, carefully made from large cardboard boxes, painted and adorned with a steering-wheel and funnel, be kept after the child starts losing interest in it (yet still assumes that it will be treasured forever)?

Thank you, House & Home

2010-07-22T11:28:00.007+01:00

House & Home have given me a subscription to their magazine,

heralding a whole year of lounging about

on my fine collection of sofas

reading of other people's glossy kitchens

and thrifted chandeliers

while imaginary household members carry tea to me

on fashionable trays.

[Thank you, House and Home.]

This is surely an auspicious thing.

Golfing Weekly will contact me

for a three page illustrated feature on my Swing

(if that is suitable golfing terminology),

my homemade fudge will be showcased

in the Dublin Metropolitan Museum of Homemade Fudge

and the New Yorker will ply me

with foreign dollars.

Great Britain,

in its Great Way,

will name an ocean liner after me, or a beer.

I'll be famous in Blogtopia,

my aura will expand,

ambassadors will court me

and parfums will bear my brand.

My posts will be ghostwritten

as I'll be so in demand

and then I'll give it up for music

and the free electric band.

a new kitchen shelf

2010-07-17T21:59:00.001+01:00

My new kitchen shelf provides convenient and user-friendly household access to hot beverages.

[forever twenty past two]

You're probably diving head first for the comment box to tell me that the clock is all wrong. I realise that it's the done thing to have a large vintage clock face in faded chalky colours with a Thos J. Smythe & Fils logo, but I can't bring myself to do it. I regret that this has to come between us.

OK then, it's not that big a deal. I'll take down the clock. Here's a photograph that will look fine above the shelf instead.

Courtesy of my lovely friend Annie's visit to Brighton, it represents the majesty of the ocean and commemorates former President Coca-Cola of America. A more timeless look, you think?