Happy Monday! We had a busy weekend here in the heat (I know, relative!), with one of us turning older and both of us determined to feel sanguine about that (I’m currently reading Ursula LeGuin’s collection of essays, No Time to Spare, many of which focus on aspects of ageing. She’s so clever and entertaining and wise and provocative.) And we watched Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette on Netflix, and if you haven’t yet? Really, do. Now. Entertaining and thought-provoking and, finally, powerfully poignant and poignantly powerful.
I’m sharing this page from my Illustrated Journal — I’ve been playing with the new watercolour pencils (Faber-Castell) I bought last week. I have a limited range of colours and the paper in my daily journal is not conducive to using much water, but I think these will be useful for enlivening the pages. Shall I transcribe?
July 26, 2018. . . And it’s another hot day — 26C outside, but inside all this glass, so much warmer. I swelter, even in breezy linen . . . which is not as tie-dyed as it appears here — the tunic is a dark-wash indigo & the pants, very wide with a dropped crotch, are a much paler dove-grey. “Dreamy” to wear. . . if I borrow that overused, so-trendy-now adjective.
I’ll interrupt this transcription to show you some photographs of the outfit I sketched
You might like to know that when I did, eventually, step outside wearing this, I wore it with my white Birks once and with my worn, old, grey fabric Topsiders another time. Super comfy. . . .
Also super wrinkled. . .
The pants have a pocket — only one! which makes me feel asymmetrical, slightly off-kilter. . .
but I love something that I channel in them, something artsy-street-chic-European? I bought them in Paris, in the Marais (at Crea), about six years ago, and — surprise!! — have found them a bit tricky to work into daily life, so I’ve been making a concerted effort lately to take them out of the closet.
The back view is interesting with that twisted and dropped crotch. . . . I don’t wear them for the figure-flattery. . . š
Top left, on the perpendicular: Such a lazy indoor day — although I did finish and click “Publish” on a blogpost and wrote another to publish later. And (c’mon, give yourself a pat on the back, why not?) will do some more fencing with that memoir chapter — such a struggle! Oh! And I drew this little page, right? Oh! And I made banana bread. Not so lazy after all. . .
Below my left toes (on the right side of the page: Reading the last Ruth Galloway mystery, The Dark Angel.
And then beginning in a semi-circle hugging that little sketch, bottom left: I sent Paul off for a bike ride with Megan and then curving below the sketch: and I ate my breakfast out on the terrace — toast & tomatoes & goat mozzarella all broiled just long enough to melt the cheese & set off the smoke alarm which wouldn’t stop howling, ratcheting adrenaline through me as I flapped a towel uselessly beneath it, hoping to blow the smoke away.
I know that toast illustration is not very convincing, but I wanted to try it — I so admire the food sketches by Eliane Cheung, a Parisian freelance illustrator who posts as @mingou_mango on Instagram.
That’s it for Monday. Now perhaps you’ll tell me what simple, tasty breakfasts you’ve enjoyed at home lately. Or when was the last time you set off the smoke alarm in your kitchen. . . Or what neglected garment you’ve been pulling out of the closet lately. . . All comments welcome, as you know. . .
For more than a week now I have been having a small bowl of fresh white currants with yoghurt (and a tiny bit of sugar) to start my breakfast. For me, the flavour epitomizes childhood memories and holidays by the lake at the same time.
We don't often (ever?) see white currants here — I had to Google them, and it seems they're a bit sweeter than our red (or black ones). Wonderful when a simple food can capture good memories.
White currants aren't very frequent in this part of country either. They used to be fairly widespread east of the river Elbe. We have two plants in our garden because my father asked for them. White currants were a chidhood memory for him, too.
Ah, so they're even more memorable, folding in your father's childhood — even sweeter. . .
Breakfast is usually one of two things: Small bowl of Greek yohgurt with blueberries and slivered almonds or piece of toasted whole wheat bread with a slap of peanut butter (chunky for a crunch) and apricot fruit spread.
Our RV smoke detector hates the toaster, too, even when absolutely nothing is burning. Never use it unless it is outside (so only in good weather).
I like the idea of both those breakfasts — need to re-supply with Greek yoghurt.
Smoke detectors — they save lives but are hard on ears!
An egg white omelette with goat cheese and cherry tomatoes or blueberries on a toaster waffle are my go-tos right now. I hate the smoke detector because I have a horror of being one of those old ladies who causes a needless evacuation prompting the other residents to suspect dipsomania or dementia. I've lived in an apartment for 23 years and it could happen to us. I had given up all earth tones since I stopped colouring my hair but I have rediscovered orange/coral in my closet. I really like that artsy Euro look.
Those are healthy and tasty breakfasts!
Yes! I was worried about the building having to be evacuated — it happens too often here, but not to me, yet. . .
Nice to get those colours back after letting them rest for a year or two. . .
Your linen ootd looks very cool…it has been hot! Thereās a breeze here at the cottage today and it feels much cooler.
I set the smoke alarm off yesterday morning when I made toast! Itās very sensitive and Loud! Breakfast today was yougurt and a sliced fresh nectarine with a few blueberries.
Very little breeze happening here today, except that provided by the fans. . .
These new smoke alarms are so very sensitive– I suppose that's good, but Ouch!!
You look cool and chic. Linen is meant to be wrinkled.
Thank you! And you know I agree re the wrinkles
Oh constantly setting off the smoke detector. Multiple detectors were installed in this house by the local council (not sure what the Canadian equivalent is – municipalitĆ© in French) when my late father became housebound. Part of a free disabled living package designed to allow elderly to live safely in their own homes. I can turn it off by clambering on a chair and pushing the reset button, but getting close to it is murder on the ears!
The raspberry glut continues here, so much overnight oats, nuts and seeds, Greek yoghurt and fresh raspberries consumed every morning.
Strangely for this Le Guin admirer and non-fiction convert, I haven't read 'No Time to Spare'. Must remedy that, but the TBR pile is high. Next up, a re-reading of Ned Boulting's hilarious '101 Damnations: Dispatches from the 101st Tour de France'.
Do you think artsy-street-chic-European is easier or more difficult to pull off now that we're the age we are??
Yes, I could have done the clambering, but I was so jangled by the noise I'm not sure I could have been steady on that chair.
You've inspired me to put some o/n oats out this evening — a healthy change.
As for your question, I think that I'm giving myself more permission again after a few years of pulling my style horns in a bit. And that's definitely ages-and-stages related, but a bit complicated. . . hmmm. . .
I always find your illustrations so charming! The pants look really cool (in both senses of the word). I still find wider leg pants challenging to style, but you're tempting me to give them another go.
Thanks, Sue!
These pants are voluminous, but they do drape fairly obligingly. They're a challenge on shorter frames, like ours — and these were much more reasonable in the Marais quite a few July's ago than they've seemed here until wide-leg cropped pants are suddenly everywhere. In the end, I decided I just had to own them. . . .
Yes, artsy Euro look, I like that. I shall adopt that discription for myself….with the added addition of floaty linen scarf and dangling earrings, to leave no doubt that I live on SaltSpring.
Ali
Ha! Yes! If I ever make it over to visit, I'll be sure to add floaty scarf and my dangling-est earrings (and if I forget, I know there will be many spots to buy an artisanal example or two. . . š
Love the sketch journal — so fun to play around with. And watercolor pencils are fun, too! You can mix the colors in water on a small scrap of watercolor paper, using it as a palette.
Would love to know the make of the top, looks like just the ticket for the hot, humid weather we've been having here in Western MA/Northern CT.
I'll try that with the colour-mixing — makes much more sense than carting around more pencils. . .
The top is Eileen Fisher, and it's been great for the warm summer we're having — not as hot and humid as yours, I don't imagine!
I usually have a smoothie for breakfast. However…last Friday, inspired by a favourite blogger/bad influence, I had a soft-boiled egg and sourdough bread, with garden raspberries and previously-frozen local strawberries. Oh it was good. (Not really a 'bad' influence. I needed an excuse to buy that bread :))
Cute! Such an influencer that blogger must be š
Oh, for garden raspberries, mmmmm. . .
The pants look cool, and I would love them. It is 90Ā° here today, far beyond my comfort level (I think 26Ā°C is about max tolerable heat, but I've never lived anywhere where that is even average. I tend to be out early in the summer, and then sequestered indoors. But today the packers are here and the doors are all open as four young men run in and out, so I turned the air off and am suffering with them, although I feel more disgruntled than they sound. I am wearing a very thin, but airy tee by Lucky Brand and a blue cotton knit skort, with sneakers, since my ancient birks rubbed a blister yesterday somewhere between mile 12 and 14 of my back and forth.
I made scrambled eggs with slowly cooked onions, and a few crumbles of njuda thrown in at the last minute as the eggs cooked for breakfast this morning. It is the closest I have come to cooking anything in 10 days or so. I haven't set the smoke alarm off in the apartment yet, although I did so regularly in the house, especially after the stove vent breathed its last.
I'm no good over 26 either, although it's not so bad if I can find respite for the midday — without A/C and with all these west-facing windows, the afternoon sun shining directly in, it's been enervating! (We've just installed a small portable A/C unit in our bedroom, and that's a game-changer.
Moving in that heat sounds heroic from my perspective — so I'm glad you had a good breakfast (and now I'm off to look up "njuda.")
Oh my! I had forgotten you had west-facing windows! When I lived in Hyde Park the entire west wall of the house was glass — windows and sliding doors. All overlooking the Hudson River to boot, or the pool. Gorgeous and I was so fortunate, but hot as the dickens. The house was not air-conditioned when we moved in, and had a flat roof. We added roof space and insulation and eventually air-conditioning, but even then it was a struggle in the afternoon with full sun. Before all that work, on an 80Ā° day, it would easily top 110Ā° in the house even with all the windows open. Of course the house was cold in the winter too, all those Nor'easters hit us full force.
I guess I am grateful anyway. But it would be wonderful to live somewhere that I actually enjoyed being outside in the summer. I can handle winter and warm snuggly layers, at least if I don't have to trudge off to work every day.
Yes, you know exactly what I mean. . . and it must have been even tougher with those hotter windows back east. gorgeous sunset views, but!!
Our smoke alarm is constantly going off too and we used to do the towel flap, but now we have a long dowel hanging on a hook nearby and use it to push the reset button (handily outlined in red to improve our aim!) and voila, peace is restored!
Frances in Sidney
We are going to adopt that method immediately — thank you!
Figs roasted in melted butter and honey. Could anything be more scrumptious? That tiny window of opportunity when all the figs ripen at once and you just have to indulge yourself. After yoga made fig jam and tonight roasted sweet potatoes and figs with a balsamic reduction topped with feta, courtesy of Ottolenghi. I love summer.
A surfeit of ripe figs — I can only dream!! That's heavenly!
I did find some freefall figs on my run the other morning and brought a few home for breakfast — I think I might swing by that park early tomorrow and see if there are more, before the wasps find them all.
Yummm… breakfast. I am a confirmed breakfast lover. My breakfast lately has been a small slice of an artisanal wheat/nut/cherry bread with a thin layer of spreadable goat cheese and a (generous) dollop of (homemade) strawberry margarita jam). I start the day with a smile on my face.
That sounds delightful!
And may I ask if your accompanying beverage is tea or coffee (I'd have black tea with it — with a splash of milk)
Your journal sketches are charming – so much personality. Breakfast lately has been sliced fresh peaches and organic yogurt from the farmers market with muesli and a drizzle of honey. Lunch has been toasted 21-grain bread with sliced tomato and burrata, again from the farmers market, lavender salt and pepper and drizzled with California olive oil and a sweet balsamic.
slf
Oh My! You have burrata at your farmers market? That lunch sounds absolutely brilliant, a perfect mƩlange of sweet and savoury and salty and creamy and just enough bitter from the olives and intrigue from the lavender. . . Mmmm. . .
Your sketchbook pages are wonderful, Frances. Your combination of text and color illustrations is lovely. My breakfasts are often the same: lemon water upon waking (good for skin), a half-cup of coffee with a dollop of Straus Organic Whipping Cream (a daily luxury), vitamins (I recently added a daily teaspoon of nigella sativa based on this article: bit.ly/2NWo7gk), a plain, full-fat Saint BenoƮt yogurt (from Sonoma), organic blueberries (currently from Oregon), a handful of almonds (from Northern California). Other days, I make a large pot of black beans with turmeric, garlic, and jalapeƱo peppers, take out enough to put in a breakfast bowl and add two poached eggs. I refrigerate the remainder of the beans. On consecutive days I scoop out servings, heat them, add eggs. Other mornings I make an omelet with spinach and a bit of cheese. Lately, it has been yogurt and berries because the weather is too warm for me to desire warm foods. And your linen! I wear a lot of linen tops, pants, and dresses in the summer. I like that one can launder linen once and wear it a few times before laundering it again because it looks better and better as the wrinkles assert themselves. Other than jeans and cotton t-shirts, the majority of my summer clothes are linen. Half my bed linens are also linen. It is a lovely fabric.
Thanks Katherine
Mmmm, all those breakfasts sound good — aren't those kinds of habits so comforting?!
I'm living in linen these days — day and night!
Hi Frances, I really enjoy looking through your sketchbook … great outfit too! Itās always so helpful to see what you pack in your carry on and what worked, or didnāt! I still pack too much, although I do now list what I took and what I actually wore, how many times, how it felt etc. Then refer back to my notes when packing a similar trip. I bought a couple of very loose linen tops this year and they are so cool to wear, yet give good protection from the sun for my arms and neck/chest area. Loving loose linen! lol š
For breakfast Iāve been enjoying either berries with an organic Greek style coconut yoghurt or mashed avacado with chillis, lime juice and eggs. Iāve also tried the recent trend for āovernight oatsā so quick, if youāre in a hurry and they can easily be taken, and eaten āon the runā … not literally! š I realised that itās really just another name for the Swiss Bircher muesli, that Iāve enjoyed for years. š
Rosie
So pleased you enjoy the sketchbook.
It's tough not to pack too much, isn't it? I haven't made lists, as you do now, of what I wore, how many times, etc., but increasingly as I pack I remind myself of items I threw in on earlier packing trips, and then never wore more than once or twice. For the kind of travel we do, variety is just not so important. . .
Now why am I not surprised that one of your breakfasts is something Swiss! š
I love your sketchbook and I think the toast sketch is pretty good. Loose linen is the way to go in this heat (and haze, we're getting smoke from Siberia apparently!).
I am now into Skyr (a kind of Icelandic fresh cheese/yogurt) for breakfast, with berries and sometimes granola. But when I was in Iceland, I had a lovely breakfast of toasted wholegrain sourdough, whipped butter sprinkled with thyme, homemade preserves and tea that was one of the most satisfying of my life. The fact that I had just flown overnight and it was 7 degrees and raining might have contributed my feelings about it!
The linen looks good on you so cool and flowy.
I also recommend "Nanette." Gadsby is an amazing storyteller and she holds the audience in her hands and guides them/us very carefully towards her stunning conclusion, telling us all the way that she knows what she is doing. It is brilliant!
I am reading Rebecca Solnit's "The Faraway Goodbye," first recommended to me by Carol. Here's to some rain next week. Brenda
It's cooled off today here, and such a relief!
Are you able to find the Skyr locally? I'll have to keep an eye out for it. And you have me thinking that my next batch of sourdough needs to be topped by whipped butter (I have some thyme growing on the terrace to sprinkle on top).
I thought the same thing about Nanette — the message was so important but it was her storytelling strategy that gripped me — brilliant rhetorical work. It will be exciting to see what she does next.
I think I need a Solnit reading season. . .
Thrifty's and Superstore both have Skyr. It is low fat but incredibly creamy in texture and taste, even more than Greek yogurt. B
Thanks! Iāve got to try it!
Love the sketches and outfit-it seems so comfortable (and the trousers with the twist-nice!)
31Ā°C outside (near Makarska),29 inside-maybe even higher while cooking the lunch. Only place to be-in the sea! Thank you for returning the hot weather š
Moody internet connection
Belated Happy Birthday to Paul!
Dottoressa
Oh dear, 31 wouldn't do for me, although it wasn't so bad when we were there with the buildings cooler inside — and especially when we were near the sea. I'm so glad you've got yourself to your beloved Happy Place — moody internet is a small price to pay.
Paul says thank-you!
xo