Deco Debrief

On Saturday Lord and Lady Raglan hosted a magnificent deco debriefing.  Also in attendance were El Valentinos, other deco devotees (and expert swing dancers) who had enjoyed the experience with us.  Really this amounted to an excuse for us all to share our photos and spend a happy evening oohing and aahing at them all.  The fact that we had three sets of very similar shots mattered not one jot because we were happy to gaze repeatedly at them and relive our former triumphs in Napier in February.  We also sallied forth to the local club where there was a band playing, and attempted to swing dance to the not entirely suitable music, which gave the locals something to wonder about.  Poor Lady Raglan will be having to explain for weeks now what we were up to, I hope her good name is not damaged forever. 

What a beautiful day Raglan turned on for us.  We went for a walk round the town,

out to the harbour and then to the wharf and played that ever-popular game along the way where we would each select which house we would have for our very own (should we ever unexpectedly come into a large fortune and be able to afford such a luxury).  Ruthless criticism of anything not coming up to our high standards meant that we were able to narrow down the field very quickly but there were still enough desirable residences to go round. 

My all time favourite - a deco house and what a beautiful position

But this one would be hard to fault in the cuteness department

Then it was out to the surf beach where the surfers were putting on a brilliant display for our delectation.  How skilful and daring they were!  

How agile and fit they must be to control their boards in that way, we were very much entertained and only dragged ourselves away when we remembered our delicious picnic, which we devoured high up on a hillside by the sea so we could still watch the surf rolling in and see the sea birds wheeling in the air.  

This garden fascinated us.  The assortment of objects hanging in the tree and around the garden is astonishing

But I have to say that a personal highlight for me was when Lady Raglan bestowed the great honour upon us of taking us to the local dump, where there was a fabulous shop.  What an excellent idea this is, I think all councils should have a dump shop because there were some wonderful things there which would otherwise just have been destroyed and not reused.  About 35 years ago I read The Good Companions by J B Priestley and have always wanted my own copy to see if it is as good as I remembered, and here I found a lovely edition for $1.  The original owner’s name was in the front (1953 was the year she obtained her copy) and this made me value it all the more.  Also there was a knitting pamphlet with six (yes, six!) art deco twin sets and instructions on how to knit them.  Each twinset had a name ("Headliner", "Tourist", "Wayfarer", "Mosaic" "Preview" and "Talisman" ) and I am captivated by them.

Lady Raglan pointed out to me that even if I had the twin sets I do not possess the pointy bosoms of the ladies modelling them, but I am sure that is not a major setback.  Going to the bother of trying to reproduce 1930s lingerie is above and beyond the call of deco duty, even for a devotee such as myself I fear. 

 Magnificent Max the Wonder Dog demonstrating his "noble" expression beside a statuette

My obsession with all things avian continues.  I was very jealous of this beautiful bird's nest Lady Raglan had in her garden.  The construction of this nest is so skilful - it really can't be compared with the couple of twigs the pigeons deposit on the bridge near Shoestring and use as a nest!

And here is this week's "frugal challenge".  These botanical images were found in a bargain bookshop years ago and clever Mr Shoestring has cunningly used them to create a headboard at the apartment where we formerly only had a blank wall; we will get a lot more pleasure from them displayed in this way every day.

Weekend Pleasures

The biggest local monthly market was on again thisSaturday and what a lot of pleasure was to be had for a very little financial expenditure.  There was this Queen Elizabeth II silver jubilee brooch (1977), plus a diamante flower to dress up a winter hat and some interesting beads which may be used on another project. 

I have been making a few brooches with old beads and buttons for friends, these could come in very handy on some of those.  Then there was a pink silk scarf for the next crazy quilt with a “second hand rose” theme, and a fondue set for our son who has been muttering away about wanting us to make fondues.  (I suspect that he favours the chocolate sort, rather than the savoury variety.)  Also another piece of pink glass for the collection – really the line must be drawn now and no more pieces added, but this one was so reasonably priced that it cried out to be taken home and put with some sympathetic friends. 

Mr Shoestring found very little to catch his eye but he is still fondling his new Bakelite tape measure so was not despondent. 

In the garden we planted the new michelia (port wine magnolia), and what a wonderful addition it promises to be.  It only had one blossom on it, but the perfume was so strong that I feel sure eventually the whole garden will be flooded with the smell of wine gums when it is in bloom. 

Being on a frugality drive it was time to look around for some plants which could be divided or for self sown seedlings, and there were quite a few.  The most surprising was a lot of tiny cyclamens which had come up very close to this parent plant, so close that there was definitely not going to be room for them all to thrive together.  I wasn’t sure whether they would transplant well but they seem to have survived and be happy in their new homes. The tiny seeds look like small translucent pearls, they are very fragile looking but obviously much tougher than they appear.  Also lots of baby’s tears and a heuchera or two were divided, plus some new geranium cuttings popped in and lots of mystery viola seedlings.  (I always hope they will be my favourite “antique” shades but the basic “Johnny Jump Up” colours seem to be dominant.) 

Then it was time to speed off to Lady Raglan’s for a debriefing following art deco weekend.  More about that soon, I must away to prepare a chocolate fondue.  We have been loving the apple pies made with the "foraged" apples, I will put up a copy of our favourite recipe which we have been perfecting for the last 30 years or so.    

---

The Foragers

I was having a cosy chat with Monsieur La Poste this weekend and describing to him the tree at the wetlands where the chestnuts could be found for roasting, which Mr Shoestring was keen to try.  When I mentioned the tree at the side of the rail trail where we scavenge for apples Monsieur La Poste corrected me on my description of the activity (in the nicest possible way, of course).

The venerable apple tree, perhaps grown from an old core thrown from the train

He described our activities as foraging, rather than scavenging, and I am only too happy to concur.  Don't you think that scavenging sounds like something a pack rat might engage in, while foraging has an altogether more attractive sound - picturesque and almost romantic, a much more alluring pastime!
Anyway, we roasted the chestnuts and forced Lord and Lady Raglan to try some when they visited us over the Easter break.  Gentleman and gentlewoman to the end, they were very polite and endured several mouthfuls after Mr Shoestring had smoked the chestnuts over wood chips, but probably a little drop of wine helped wash the chestnuts down and made them more palatable.  We strolled up the road for a delicious meal at the local Indian restaurant, then gently wobbled home groaning softly as we contemplated just how many dishes we had sampled and how delicious they all were.

Lord and Lady Raglan had been to an art deco sale and regaled us with tales of the magnificent new top hat Lord Raglan plans to wear to art deco weekend next year (winning the prize for best dressed art deco golfing gentleman has increased his ambitions in the direction of male sartorial elegance), but Lord Raglan had also made the ultimate sacrifice and bought a magnificent bakelite tape measure which he presented to Mr Shoestring!  Mr Shoestring admires everything about Lord Raglan and I believe this gift was the final confirmation that Lord Raglan is the ultimate in all things Lordly.  We were very surprised upon close inspection to see that the tape measure was made in China!  Even in those distant days China was obviously exporting her goods around the world.

I told Lady Raglan about the day of bulb planting I had spent, enjoyable apart from the fact that my trowel seemed to have an unerring instinct for where the bulbs I had planted last year were located, and constantly plunged itself into them, probably destroying them forever.  It got to the point where I despaired of any new blossoms in the spring time as I was only replacing the bulbs I ruined with the trowel.  Lady Raglan came up with the interesting theory that I was a bulb diviner, rather than a water diviner.  A gift perhaps, but not one welcomed by spring bulb planters!

The "frugal challenge" for this week was an enormous selection of tapestry wools which had been donated to me after Bobby had completed a huge wall hanging.

These are only some of the "left overs", what a sumptuous collection of shades

There are a lot of skeins, but not much of any one shade, so I was looking for a project which used many tones but none of them in a large amount.  Across the road at the library I found this wonderful chart for a bowl of pansies (yes, my favourite flower!) which could be adapted for the multitude of shades available.

It is spread across two pages of the book, hence the break you see in the design 

This chart should be suitable for the random selection of multi coloured wools.  I can't wait to get started, my fingers are itching.  Here is a photo of the finished cushion, from the book which is called Glorious Interiors, by that icon of modern knitting, patchwork and canvas work, Kaffe Fassett.

We went for a very long ride on the rail trail to celebrate the wonderful summery weather.  Congratulating myself on my ability to cycle over the narrow (or at least they seem narrow to me) bridges, I managed to hurtle myself and my cycle down a steep hill at the side of the trail when remounting after a cattle stop, and ended up under the bike with nasty thorns poking into me.  Grimly I continued on and decided this cycle trail will not defeat me - if it takes the rest of the year I am going to master it.  We had already got off to a shaky start because daughters number two and three accompanied us, and rapidly sped off into the distance and became dots on the horizon.  The whole endeavour seemed much more difficult and onerous than it had been formerly.  I was peddling twice as fast as everybody else but only making half as much progress.  Why?  Why?  I knew my stumpy little legs (or leglets as they would more properly be called) were new to this game, but they were certainly working very hard.  Was it the selection of Easter delicacies I had partaken of?  Why did it seem so much harder?  It wasn't until we had to dismount to cross a road that I realised the front wheel wasn't turning freely - after some investigation it appeared that the newly installed mudguard was stopping the wheel from turning properly, thank goodness I wasn't imagining the whole thing.  Once that problem was overcome the whole ride was a lot more enjoyable and pleasant.  But I still needed to lie down on the grass and gaze up at the sky once we eventually returned home.