anyone for tea in the garden ?

I’ve just got back from my week’s visit to the UK. It was damp and green unlike here, which is dry and baked brown. However, last night the heavens opened and it rained consistently for many hours leaving the earth soft and claggy. Now it’s raining again. I hope it isn’t going to have a bad effect on the grape harvest vendanges which appears to be underway. As I drove home from the airport yesterday afternoon, I passed several tractors with their little trailers bumping along behind – I’m sure our local wine co-operative is getting really busy.

Whilst I sort myself out and make some retrospective posts, I just wanted to put up these two photos I shot in Whittards of Chelsea.


The garden sets are : mugs in the shape of a terracotta flower pot with a coaster on top, presumably to keep your tea hot whilst you are gardening (I like what’s written – ‘I don’t go to the gym ... I garden’ & ‘You’ve got to propagate to accumulate ...’); tall mugs like long toms; sugar and creamer set of small pot with a spade-shaped spoon and watering can milk jug; and I believe the tea set has a watering can for a teapot.

I love Whittards and think these are so cute. Perhaps they are rather twee, but they made me smile even though I resisted the urge to purchase anything other than some teas.

here comes the rain

Just about to go off to bed, switching channels (as you do !) and turned on to Arte to see, who I am sure was, Ravi Shankar playing two numbers with his other musicians. Then on come George Harrison & Ringo Starr and a bunch of other people who get introduced later on. It turns out to be the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 and now I can’t go to bed because this is amazing.

Then it starts to rain, torrentially, between George Harrison singing “Here Comes the Sun” and Bob Dylan’s “It’s a Hard Rain that’s Gonna Fall”. The roof over the terrace is leaking and I get soaking wet trying to move pots out to where they’ll get some of this rain. Watering this evening was almost a waste of time but everything will benefit even though it’s not for long. It may not have rained a few kilometres away, so we’ll be extremely grateful and listen to the rest of this concert through the thunderclaps.

There’s obviously a ’70s theme to Arte tonight. The next offering is a French film called : What a Flash. There are painted bodies, breasts and willies everywhere. Just before I switch off, there is a scene of a naked man (there is no reason to assume !) in an hammock with his lunch or casse-croûte in his lap. A man, full face to the screen, is eating and then out of picture comes a hand to help themselves to the picnic baguette. With that image in my head, it’s definitely time to switch the dishwasher on and get to bed !