Summer dreams and recipes

I know it's not officially summer yet, but I've been revelling in the warmth and the beauty of this time of year. June has to be one of my favourite months. I like the dreaminess of it, the sense of being able to relax and luxuriate in the sights of green leaves and flowers, the scents of lilacs and new-mown grass, the sounds of the birds and the drone of the lawn-mowers. Time was when poetry was the only writing I could do during these drowsy months. However, right now I'm busy with revising a teen novel, hoping it'll be good enough to sell.

But that's all by the way, because what I really want to write about in this post is recipes. I've been doing more cooking and baking of late and that got me thinking that I need to organize my recipes yet again. The difficulty is, as I realized to some surprise, recipes are rather like jewellery. They carry sentimental value, and therefore, some of them are hard to discard. I mean, there's the one I acquired years ago when our eldest daughter was still a toddler, and the mother of a friend of hers, as pressed for time as I was, gave me a chocolate cake recipe that begins, "Into your mixing bowl, hurl two eggs!" Then there are others that I inherited from my mother-in-law, and still more from my own mother, all in their own handwriting. Somehow, when I take those out, I feel connected with them once again. Maybe the best solution is to forget about throwing the recipes away and rather to find a good method of storing them .

From the sublime to the... manipulations of fashion

I suppose, sooner or later, we'll have to get used to it. Waists are back. After years of wearing our pants lower and lower and lower, fashion has decided it's time to go to the other extreme and do high waists. Michelle Obama wears her elegant cardigan look with a wide belt. Hey, I got rid of mine at least twenty years ago. And even longer ago, I remember when all of a sudden, the mini was replaced by... the maxi!!

But usually, it doesn't go quite so long. I mean, only a couple of years ago I got rid of my last 80's style, shoulder-strong jackets. And now, whaddaya know, the look's coming back. Argh. I think it's nice to look nice and keep your look kind of current. And that's exactly what the fashion industry banks on. Basically, it's the silhouette that makes the difference, how the proportion ratio works, although I think we do have more flexibility these days. When I was young and tiny waists were in, we either wore our skirts pencil, or full with stiff petticoats underneath. The 80's did full shoulders and peg-top pants.

To go back to the beginning of this post, I found the slightly-lowered waist comfortable. When it came to fitting about almost half way down my hips... nuh uh. Couldn't do it. Now, when I wear the one skirt and one pair of pants that fits right at my waistline, it feels kind of odd. No doubt I'll grow accustomed!

growth and gardening

We have two spruces on our front lawn. Looking out at the tops of them from our bedroom window I see they've got new growth of about a foot skywards and on every branch. Isn't that incredible? And looking at the fullness of the maple tree next door, all the flowers coming into colourful bloom, I have to wonder how anyone can doubt the existence of the divine. I mean, where does the profusion of growth come from? How can it be random? What really are the forces we see manifest at this and other times of the year?

Well, it's pretty much a cliche that we can be closest to God in a garden, but that doesn't make it any less true.

On a slightly different tack, I've been following the Chelsea Flower Show (to some extent). One of the exhibitors had the temerity to smuggle a garden gnome into her exhibit. All the shock and horror at the kitsch of it has been interesting to read. But hey, if she thinks that helps her plants grow big and beautiful, why not?