Peapods

Allium in the garden

I'm going to be away from this space until Tuesday. Have a fun weekend!

On my desk... hat

Ok so this is a cheat 'on my desk'. There is actually nothing on my desk as we have been hoovering the house in anticipation of our VIP guest tomorrow. Instead, how cool is this hat!

 
Image via homebug

So OTT, so fabulous! It's by Philip Tracey. My aunts have some of his creations. He used to have his shop around the back of Victoria coach station in London and when we were youngsters my London aunt would take my sister and I to have a look in the window before dropping us off for the coach back to Oxford. He used to have a little dog which I seem to remember was called something like 'Pig'?

Visiting at dusk

I was at my father's house again, but only briefly. I should go and see him more often. Doesn't everyone say this? I will make time. The weeks rush by. We always have good fun, good laughs. Talking about plants. His garden has exploded in growing things. As much as I like my garden it is nice to hang out in an older garden, so green. The plants are so big. Old trees, and his bamboo plantation is now taller than the house.

The house is atmospheric in a friendly and quiet settled way. You can see the last time I took pictures here. The sound is different there. In my garden it is quiet too, you can hear the puk puk puk sound of people playing tennis, but there you can just hear the rustling of the trees. He has a fox family that have moved in under the summer house. When my sister and I lived there it would have been too noisy for them to have stayed. Teenagers coming and going, slamming doors, cars in the drive, my band playing in the garage.

One of my favourite memories is last from summer when Simon and I stayed there, before we moved into our new house, I remember watering the plants after dark on a hot night, listening to the Mills Brothers playing through the open kitchen window. These moments are good to be filed away, to be remembered, and perhaps shared.

First harvest

This photo is from yesterday when we had our first salad from the garden. It is nice to be able to get a salad together just armed with a pair of scissors. Snip snip snip, a quick wash, and there is a mixed leaf salad :) The first produce. Yippee!

Summer drinks: Iced tea

I am starting out with this recipe from Delia Online (obviously penned before she decided that everything should come out of a can, ha!). And it is pretty good. Citrus, mint, and tea on lots of ice. Something to note if following the recipe is that the tea takes a while to cool down after the brew, so this isn't an instant one. I made this on Sunday evening and it was nice, but I also took a flask of it to work the next morning where it was even nicer. The mint came through more after the longer time. If I was making this for an occasion I might think about making it the night before.

I would give this recipe 7/10. I hope to try a few more iced tea recipes before the hot weather is over. Perhaps a plainer one? Any recipes or suggestions would be most welcome. BTW I have got a little bit addicted to frappes and mojitos ;)

Summer drinks: Mugicha

My exploration of summer drinks wouldn't be complete without mentioning one of my old favourites - mugicha! It is barley tea. The first warning about mugicha is that not everyone will like it, it has a little bit of a bitter taste. I would say that if you like the more unusual green teas then try this.

Recipe:
Mugicha teabag
Water

That's it!

It couldn't be easier to make. All you do is take a mugicha tea bag, place it in a large jug of cold water in the fridge, leave it a few hours, and drink. I use this brand.

There are apparently health benefits from drinking it but I just like it because it is refreshing on a hot day. More refreshing than just water if you know what I mean? I quite often take a flask of it into work to have first thing in the morning. Really what it reminds me of is hanging out at my sister's old place in Brixton.

Odds and ends pictures

Generally it is quite absentmindedly that I have taken a picture of something I have thought was interesting. So it can be a bit of a surprise when I unload my camera. Here are a few of the odd ones that I found from this weekend...

Salt. A group of us went out for veggie burgers. So good. I saw this salt on the picnic table and took a close up of it.

Sink. Where we practice with the band is in a Victorian house. I was admiring the plug hole and plug :D Nicer than the new ones? Maybe that is just crazy.

White flowers. Simon was about 10 minutes late picking me up after my band practice (to go and choose a barbeque) so I was looking about at the flowers and things and took a couple of pictures of this bush.

Light in an alley. A friend was playing a show. Some of us were hanging out on a fire escape as it was super hot. I liked the white light in the alley below.

There! Odds and ends.

Exhibition pieces

Waaay back when I was a real youngster I used to go to after school art classes with my sister, and we made all sorts. My parents still have a lot of the things we made, lino cuts, sculpture, batik, silk painting. Seriously, I don't thing there is an artform we didn't have a go at. So much fun! It is now 15 years later and via Facebook my old art teacher* got in touch (see, Facebook can be handy) and it turns out that it is the 20th anniversary of the art group. Wow! So anyway I was asked to contribute to the 20th Anniversary show as an alumni. Such a fun idea. The exhibition is part of the annual city-wide art exhibition.

These are the pieces I dropped off today; a set of three called Chucks and one other piece called At the library.

Chucks

At the library

I printed all of these on the found paper pages using my Gocco screenprinter and mounted them on white board.

It is kind of weird getting things ready for a show, I haven't done that since I left Central St. Martins. I can laugh at myself a little now that I have a bit of distance on it as I got my typical freak out crisis of confidence where I think every thing I have done is complete rubbish and why do I bother. But now I know that I am going to freak out like that so don't get as upset about it. It is weird that that happens, I would say I am generally a reasonably confident person. Who knows!

But it is fun to have things 'out there' for strangers to look at. Also that is one big thing ticked off my to-do list. Yay!

_____

* When I say 'old art teacher' I just met her again in person for the first time in 15 years and she has not aged a day!!! 'Young art teacher' is more accurate. At the private view I will try and find out her secret! :)

Shoes deserve a portrait too

Chucks

Before I turn in for the night I thought I would quickly share a drawing I have been working on this evening. These are my old Converse that I bought in Tokyo many many years ago, before Converse became Nike, they are still just about viable as shoes although they are really more hole than shoe. These shoes have a history, they have been all over the world, they were on the cover of an EP and more recently on MTV. Go worn out shoes! Your worn out owner appreciates you.

Summer drinks: Greek frappé

Today I looked into the Greek frappé, the truly great thing about this, apart from being totally delicious, is that it doesn't require anything that most people wouldn't have already in their kitchen.

Recipe:

1 teaspoon instant freeze dried coffee
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup of water
ice
milk to taste

You need a cocktail shaker or jar. Plus a large glass.

Add the teaspoon of instant coffee, the teaspoon of sugar, and 3 tablespoons of the water to a cocktail shaker (or if you haven't got one use a jar with a lid). Shake it hard for about 20 seconds until the contents are completely foamy. Pour this into a large glass, add the rest of the water, the ice, and add milk to taste.

This drink has to get a 10/10 as it is delicious, quick, easy, cheap, and doesn't require anything special to make it. Fantastic! I can already tell this is going to be a summer staple. So refreshing.

Now I want another one already.