As I wrote last post, “we had friends over for dinner the other night.” Wonderful, casual sentence we often used to toss around, right? And to be able to use it again is such a boon.
As was being able to arrange to meet my friend for breakfast and some sketching two mornings later. The last time we were able to do that was back in February, 2020 (that’s a longish post; scroll down to see some of the sketching. And click here to see another post with more sketches from that session.).
No idea what I wore all those months and months ago, but it was February so there would have been coats and boots. Yesterday, the sun was shining, a high of 21C predicted, and there was a pleasant, light breeze. The 9-kilometre there-and-back walk mandated my old black walking trainers (I have hopes for a more colourful pair, as soon as I muster some shopping energy).
Cotton-linen T-shirt, Armor, ordered online a few weeks ago — from Paris! — and a cotton-linen skirt I bought a few years ago at COS in Bordeaux.
Probably because I always feel self-conscious doing these #OOTD/What I Wore posts, I goofed around a bit . . . Overall, though, I must say that this outfit made me feel rather jaunty. True, it’s not a word I use often, but it just seems right. I looked it up to double-check: Yep, “having or expressing a lively, cheerful, self-confident manner,” and the example provided? “there was no mistaking that jaunty walk.” I’m grinning just writing this. Grinning, blue-and-white stripes, and jaunty walks apparently all connected. . .
I’m trying to wave at you here; It just looks as if I’m doing some kind of clumsy dance?!?
Have I ever mentioned how much I love pockets?!
My sketchbook and mini paintbox, a waterbrush, a few pens, pencil, etc. are in that backpack/bag. Keeping it light for a long walk.
Finally, I waved good-bye to myself in the mirror, and got my jaunty walk on.
And because I’m, well, Me, I stopped to snap a few photos along the way. . . Thinking of all of you, of course. Not too many, because I’d only left myself enough time to walk at a good pace.
Still, when you’ve been thinking about the gorgeous Italian word scarabocchio — a (masculine) noun meaning “scribble” — and you see this bellissimo esempio di graffiti (an Italian word we’ve borrowed, obviously, and which means, essentially, scratchings, scratches . . . very close to scribblings, I’d say). . . . well, you have to stop, on the bridge, to take a photo, don’t you? I did.
As I walked, I was trying to listen to a French podcast, La Poudre, but the traffic noise made that too frustrating for a while.
Better once I got to the West End, where the borders of a park and neighbouring elementary school were filled with Community Allotment Gardens. . . such creative and lush mixtures of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. . . . 
And then there were flowers. . . so many delightful boulevard gardens as well as gardens in the traffic-slowing circles, all tended by volunteer gardeners in the neighbourhood. I must admit I kept getting too distracted to listen attentively to my podcast. . . I mean, seriously . . .
No more dallying, though. Time to get to the little cafe I discovered a few months ago, where I’d suggested we meet for breakfast.
And once we were seated at this Euro-flavoured gem of a family business, the camera stayed in my bag, but I found a few photos I took there a few weeks ago, in case you’d like a quick peek inside. . . The walls are hung with lively portraits.
You can see more on their Instagram page, but I do have another photo to share (again, from a few weeks ago when I had a solo lunch there after a dental visit). All the breakfast/lunch dishes are named for various artists, and I’ve landed on the Munch Shakshuka as a personal favourite. Alison followed my lead, and we enjoyed a happy hour or so of noshing and sipping coffee and trying to catch up on eight or more months of each other’s news.
After which, we packed up and walked the two blocks to the beach, where we found a conveniently placed bench and got out our sketchbooks. I should have asked Alison if I could photograph her page because I would love to show you the landscape she sketched so deftly, capturing so evocatively the trees bordering a grassy slope, pointing out to me as she did the gorgeous shadows they cast. So much inspiration in watching her build a composition — and to see the ease with which she mixes colours and lays down layers, intuition refined and fortified by countless hours of craft. . .
Perhaps just as well I didn’t get that photograph, comparison being the thief of joy, and all that. But, you know, I’m happy with what I got down on my cold-pressed watercolour page. Mostly just because it’s suffused with memories of sunshine and friendship, a touch of salt air, the sounds of seagulls and passing pedestrians.
Happy with the page, even though I can see that no one else will be able to tell that’s a stroller in the panel on the left, that a mom (in a baseball cap) is crouched over, just beside it, tending to her toddler whose baseball-capped head you can just barely see over the top of the log he’s leaning against. . . It’s the first time I’ve taken my watercolour sketchbook outside since last August, and I’m so pleased to have been coaxed back toward that practice by a friend’s company. Hoping she might have kick-started something, now that I’ve gone my grab-and-go sketching kit sorted again. We’ll see. . .
Your turn now, if you don’t mind. What have you been up to or what have you planned for this weekend? Any long walks in favourite outfits? Or to favourite destinations? Any meet-ups with friends you’re finally able to see because Covid restrictions have been lifted? Activities you’re returning to as the season (and the lifted restrictions) invite new rhythms and schedules? If you have a moment, I’d love to know. . .
xo,
f
We’ve had a few cases of community transmission of Covid, mostly in the eastern part of Sydney (I live in the north) so we’re watching and waiting to see if the outbreak will be contained without the imposition of major restrictions – we’re back to masks being mandatory on public transport across the city and masks being required indoors in “hot spot” suburbs. So, it’s knitting, reading (currently enjoying The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams) and cooking for me and not venturing out anywhere unnecessarily. I’m due for my second Covid vaccination at the end of this week, which I’m looking forward to. I easily identified the mother, baby ipand pram in your sketch and I was particularly taken with the sketch of the woman wearing blue and yellow.
Author
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you and hope that outbreak is contained and that vaccination will roll out quickly for you. Knitting, reading, and cooking all good ways to stave off impatience and stay slow for now. Thanks for the kind words re the sketch. . . May immunity kick in quickly for you. .
I loved catching up with you last week, the fabulous dinner in your terrace, the breakfast at the Portrait Café and sketching on the beach. It felt like such riches! The long months for of isolation making it all the sweeter!
The sketches are wonderful— little gems—nice to think you might be inspired to do more. I also appreciated the tips I got from you on the journaling you’ve been doing lately!
Author
It was such a good morning—sweeter, as you say, for having had to wait so long for it. Thanks again for the company and the mini-lesson and the inspiration.
Thanks for the peek of the beauty around you! It struck me, looking at the graffiti, that when I was young, there was none, even in urban areas. Now we live with it everywhere and I still am not sure it is art, but it it’s inescapable.Fully-vaccinated friends are busy arranging meet ups—our vaccine rollout has been efficient, though the city has not yet fully opened.
Author
Graffiti was very, very rare when I was growing up in a small, provincial city. There’s a wide range to it, and I see some as art, some as vandalism, and overall, a kind of expression from many who must feel excluded from ownership, investment, franchise — citizenship, I guess — in the cityscape.
Frances, “jaunty” is such a great descriptor, and applies well to your style, I think. Your sketches are always infused with such a sense of delight and are charming.
Author
Thanks, Sue! I don’t that I’ve ever felt particularly “jaunty,” but somehow the word kept insisting itself. . . 😉
I am very glad to see you, and Alison, do not have a strange unspoken rule about not ordering the same dish. Brave (i.e. a ‘brava’ to each of you) 🙂
Author
Ha! In fact, I’m usually annoyed if my husband orders the same dish as I do (what’s the point? We lose the benefit of trying a second option), but I don’t mind at breakfast — and it never bothers me with a girlfriend. I guess that’s because we’re “brave donne.” 😉
Looks wonderful! I greatly enjoy your posts and you brighten my day.
Author
So thoughtful of you to tell me that — I appreciate the kind words!
Jaunty is an apt description. I am in awe of your courage and your selfie skills. The paintings are delightful and what fun to dine and draw with a friend, especially after the long spell of isolation. I am going out for dinner with a friend this week-can’t wait. My eldest granddaughter came over from Vernon last week and we HUGGED 💜 AND went to our favourite family restaurant where we don’t need menus and they know what we want to order. It was bliss! Otherwise, I am still mainly knitting and walking my sweet little dog. In two weeks, as restrictions lift, my 2nd vaccine is established and some follow up appointments are complete, Prim and I will hit the road to visit friends and family and hug to our hearts’ content!
Author
Thanks Jennifer. I don’t feel particularly courageous, although often vulnerable and, I guess, a bit silly, at putting my “outfits” and my activities out in the public sphere.
So good to hear you’re beginning to meet with friends and family — you’ve still got a new grandchild to meet, if I’m not mistaken, although, like me, you have some trickier borders to cross for that. Still, we seem to be moving in the right direction — one step at a time. . .
Sounds like a lovely day! I met with 5 friends this past week for a dinner in the courtyard of a local restaurant, catching up on everyone’s life, for some of these women it has been over a year since we have been able to get together. Today the barn where my family and I stable our pony had a horse show. I was asked to be dressage steward. basically it’s just telling each entrant when it’s their turn to go into the ring and do their thing. Some have compared the level of excitement to watching paint dry. Since I love horses and like being outdoors on a nice day I enjoyed myself. One of the young girls has been riding our pony, Riddle and showed her. she won her division! Those look like peonies in your photo. I think they may be my favorite flower but their season is so short and when they finally come into bloom it always seems to rain and crushes them. anyway, they are beautiful!
Author
Wonderful! Dinner for six friends, all the closeness, so much joy around that table, I’m sure. And the pony show sounds much more interesting than drying paint. 😉
Those are roses, very wilted in the sunshine, but I can see they do look peony-like. I love both flowers, for their lushness and fragrance, but you’re right about the short season — perhaps that causes us to appreciate them even more?
Hello, Frances! Hi to Alison! I’m sure you two had much grandma news to share! I finally stepped out to join a group of women from church for a three mile hike along the bluffs of a small nearby coastal town. Though I do run errands, this was my first social outing outside of my tiny sphere. This week is to be quite exciting as my siblings and their families and our 94 yr old mother gather for some long-awaited family time. One family flew in from Indonesia. Shortly thereafter, Mother, daughters and granddaughters head off on a five day getaway. Lots of anticipation as our older son and family arrive to help care for their dad so that I may have a little getaway! Utter bliss just thinking about it! May your week be blessed, too!
Charlene H
Love this post – you can hear a smile through your text. We’re just back from our first trip off the island to hug grandkids on the mainland after 9 months ! FaceTime just isn’t that same. The 12 ( almost 13 year old) is now inching into his dads 6’3 shadow with a voice almost indistinguishable from the other male adults in the room. It was beyond wonderful to be seeing them in person.
I too took my sketchbook, but only had time for a short draw at a soccer game practice one evening. The people watching was so much fun after all these weeks of being closed in to the hustle of the city .
So great you were able to catch up with a special long time friend twice in one week.
I love that you looked up the word jaunty for clarification. It’s the exact word I would have used. Special photo with your farewell, heading out, departing grin. A perfect twinkle and a smile.
And your sketches are a wonderful capture of time well spent.
Author
I saw that sketch of your soccer player—so good! And I’m so glad you got those hugs—we’ll be grabbing some tomorrow.🤗
That little cafe & your breakfast is my kind of thing . It looks like our favourite local place – small world . We’re cautiously getting out & about again here too but there are still sadnesses . A friends husband is seriously ill , not covid , & she is only allowed to visit him twice a week & their adult son not at all . Whilst the vaccine procurement & vaccination programme has gone well , cases of the new variant are flaring . It seems the young adults are most affected, though not too seriously so they are being vaccinated now as quickly as possible . They seem keen to have it done too which is good to see .
Meanwhile we fully vaccinated oldies feel safe enough to meet friends & family again & we’re even having a little heatwave – UK style so not too hot .
Author
Those illnesses are so tough now. A friend’s husband was diagnosed with a brain tumour several months ago. From seemingly very fit and healthy to death in fewer than eight weeks, I think, and the time in hospital so isolating for both husband and wife. I contrast that with how much support and comfort my huge extended family derived from each other during my nephew’s illness and death several years ago, pre-Covid. We’re certainly learning some hard lessons about what matters.
Love your outfit and am jealous of your curls. Do you do the dry-in-the-T-shirt method that’s all over TikTok?
Love your sketches. They remind me of my mother, who had a similar style.
Also jealous of your time and your friend’s time. I am reading this while eating lunch, then back to work. Friends seem similarly pressed, with no free time. Everything is scheduled, no room for spontaneity.
Author
I haven’t figured out TikTok, and have no idea about the t-shirt hair styling. Mine is just air-dried after I wash or wet, then add product (a small amount of Curls Rock Curl Amplifier), then scrunch and form a few ringlets. Leave it alone until it dries, at which point I pull some volume with a hair pick. Lazy ‘r’ us!
Scaraboccchio! That is such a lively sounding word. I’ve been wearing items in my closet in unpredictable ways. A little erratic dressing is fun. I’ve got to pare down my art supplies so that they fit in a daypack. That breakfast looks delicious. I must look it up. My friend and I have just started visiting gardens (Van Dusen and Queen Elizabeth Park for now) but I’m always looking for European style restaurants. Today, it’s already quite warm so I think that I’ll do a flower walk around the complex.
Author
Of course you fastened on that word too, another language-lover!😊 You are sure to like Café Portrait as well!
Wonderful! And cool!
We are at 34°C……I’m slowly started to have coffee with friends ……..
Dottoressa
Author
34! Too warm for me. We’re at 27, 28 this week, and that’s already too much 😉 But coffee with friends, that sounds good! Enjoy!
Inquiring minds want to know: what’s in your grab-and-go sketching kit? I love the results – so immediate and intimate.
2nd COVID vaccine down, so am venturing out and meeting new people. I’m off for a walk and lunch today with a small group of interesting expat women – I seemed to have “clicked” with a couple of them at our last get-together, so I’m looking forward to expanding on that.
Author
Enjoy that walk and lunch — that sounds so good to me, the possibility of new friends that you’ve already clicked with. So expansive, your life right now!
And I thank you for the kind words re the sketch, and perhaps I could share the contents of my kit in a post. Mine is very spare. . .