Such a busy week here that I’m going to make this a “mostly pretty pictures” post (and hope to get it sent out before Monday when an even busier week begins — it’s that time of year!).
The photos are from a visit to our city’s VanDusen Botanical Garden, currently featuring the sensational blooming of the Laburnum Walk (yes, I’ve posted on this before — Spring 2020 when we “just stayed home” instead of having the family reunion we’d planned in Sicily. Interesting to read that post two years later).
First, since many of you seem to enjoy the Outfit of the Day photos, this was me last Thursday — no rain, but still cool enough for jeans, long-sleeved (lightweight linen-cotton) T-shirt, and a light cotton scarf.
And new shoes! Yes, they are! I’ve bought new sneakers over the past few months (as seen in this post), and those yellow Fluevog boots last fall, but I haven’t bought “proper” shoes for a few years. The lack in my shoe wardrobe became apparent as I planned what to wear for last Tuesday’s big event, prime among the week’s busy days. . . .
Finally, two and a half years since “the kids” gave us tickets to Hamilton (and the promise of dinner beforehand) . . . Finally, we were going to the show! And anything I planned to wear needed shoes that I could walk in but also that looked a smidge less casual than sneakers.
To be honest, I quite like these orange Nikes with this skirt (bought in 2008, on sale, a few weeks after I wrote wishfully about it in this post), but the dinner beforehand was in a rather formal setting, and I thought the combo was a Bold Too Far. . The outfit will get an outing soon, I’ve promised myself, but I’ll choose the occasion mindfully.
For a more conservative event, I was much happier with these ochre loafers.
And as you can see a few photos above, they look great with jeans as well as with a skirt.
So let’s continue our walk through the garden. . . .
Yellow and purple and green — superlative!
The plantings here are inspired. . . and inspiring. . .
Those shoes again, just because. . . .
As in that earlier Laburnum Walk post, husband included for scale. . .
While we walk, I’ll tell you what else kept me busy last week. . .
Prepared a presentation for my Italian class — four or five hours, truly, to come up with fifteen minutes on our trip to Sicily. I shared it with my class this morning and it went very well; as anxious as I was, it was exhilarating to be able to share the experience with this group who are as invested in the language and the culture as I am. A great audience, and, of course, I learned a few things I could have said better. When I’ve made a few of the suggested corrections, I might even share it with you (with an English translation, of course!)
Also this week, a dental visit — check-up, x-rays, cleaning. Glad to have that done with no awful surprises.
Those shoes, one more time. You don’t mind, do you? And yes, I think I may have to find pennies for them. . . .
What else happened this past week? Let’s see: I made three rhubarb pies; we had the in-town kids and grandkids over for family dinner (it’s been a while, and it was great!); I had an entertaining Face Time conversation en français with the petite-fille who’s in her second year of French immersion; walked almost 50 kilometres (average 7 kms per day); did a tough strength-training session with my inspiring trainer; managed four or five little sketches (posted some of those here); got to my yoga mat a few times in the encouraging online company of Yoga With Adriene; finally crossed a bank appointment off the list and got a couple of personal finance files organized. . . . and had some very decent afternoon naps because somehow I felt very tired, repeatedly. . . .
Oh yes, and I walked in a garden with my husband. And bought a new pair of shoes. In case you didn’t hear. . . 😉
Now what about you? Have you been busy as well? Or, wiser than I, have you been in a slow-down phase? Have you walked in any gorgeous and/or inspiring gardens lately? Bought new shoes or enjoyed putting together satisfying — or surprising — combinations of shoes and skirts, shoes and pants, whatever? Made anything — muffins, crumble, crisp, pie — with rhubarb? Let’s face it, I’m just throwing out too many question trying to jump-start a conversation. Which probably means it’s time to say
Ciao ciao,
xo,
f
No new shoes, no rhubarb, but I made some travel plans this week. We’re headed to Brussels with friends in December as a jumping off point for a tour of the Belgian and German Christmas markets – this is one of those “probably wouldn’t make a special trip from the US for it, but since we live in Europe now…” trips, so another adventure to plan. Also firmed up our pre- and post-river cruise plans for next month, so can now buy plane and train tickets (to paraphrase Billy Joel: Vienna waits for us). Today is a jaunt with friends – several of the towns along the Linha (the train route from here to Lisbon) are closing off their main drag to vehicular traffic, so we’re going to “walk the Marginal,” which is the road that runs along the coast all the way to Lisbon.
I love your new shoes! I need some new flats – the ones I have are looking a tad worn, so I probably need to do some shopping myself. Basic black, of course, and burgundy, I think, but who knows, a fun color might pop into range….
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Oooh, that’s a fun trip to be planning. I loved Brussels and would love to get back.
As for Vienna — well! Lucky you! I haven’t been yet and would like to get there (don’t suppose any of those train tickets include the Orient Express?)
Lovely shoes & I think they’ll add something new to all your outfits . I very rarely wear patterns but you seem to find some beautiful ones – your skirt !
That spectacular Laburnum makes mine look a very weedy specimen . Well cared for professional gardens often make me realise my own shortcomings . We were wandering around a public garden in central York yesterday which has a wonderful large limestone rockery . All the plants were so fit with just the right amount of space each . Mine fight with each other rather . And aren’t husbands useful in adding scale to a photo 😁
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Thanks — I wouldn’t have chosen this colour exactly (the other choices were black or off-white, and I wanted lighter for summer, but not with the upkeep expectations of white!)
I love the inspiration of a professionally planned and maintained garden. But even more I love the intimacy and casual comfort of a smaller and more personal one and yours, even in photographs, looks like a wonderful example of that. Something about the way a garden can tell much about the gardener’s personality, much as can a wall of books. . .
Love those loafers! After many, many, many tries, I finally found a similar color pair. I find them to be so versatile! I also have a similar color belt that adds a little pizazz to my outfits when comfort allows.
I also like your blue striped, linen-cotton t-shirt, Frances. I’ve been looking for a lighter blue stripe t-shirt. Would you mind sharing your source and brand? Thanks in advance!
Husband’s health has improved enough that we are socializing more. It really improves our spirits and is just plain fun! We are also carefully watching CoVid numbers rising in our area. Thankfully, hospitalizations have not risen.
Thanks for the lovely garden stroll. The colors and healthy blooms are just beautiful.
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Happy to share that info, Charlene. The t-shirt is Armor Lux, and I ordered it from Crimson Cashmere in Paris (my “trip to Paris” when travel was still not possible, earlier last year).
Pleased to hear that your husband’s health continues to improve and you’re able to get out. Smart to watch those numbers, and take precautions, but it does feel good to move with fewer restrictions!
Thanks, Frances!
Oh, I’m so envious of the beautiful (green!) gardens in your part of the world. Those laburnums are amazing.
And love the loafers too! I think loafers are one of those below-the-radar footwear styles that look cool with everything.
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Yes, our lawns and gardens and woods are very green right now — thanks to a cool, wet Spring which is supposed to persist until the end of the month.
I agree with you re loafers — it’s been a while since I had a pair and I’m already enjoying them so much.
Those shoes-so lovely and versatile! Are they comfy?
Beata te…..Hamilton,wow,please,tell us about it!
Congratulations on your italian presentation!
No new shoes,no rhubarbar pies here….I haven’t neither try rhubarbar pie nor make any in my life
The gardens are soooooo beautiful! Your photos as well
Yes,I’m busy….very much so. A lot to do with my projects and my mother has to make some medical tests,everything will be well hopefully…but it takes a lot of time and it takes its toll along the way.
Dottoressa
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Thank you — and yes, Beate me!! 😉
I hope all the projects go well (is it any easier this year to find the skilled workers you need to get things done?). And I hope all will be well with your mother’s medical tests. Say hello to her for us, please. xo
Those are great loafers, Frances. Are they comfortable with no socks? I love a no sock look but it doesn’t always love me back. Until the shoes get broken in, that is. You have been upping the fitness ante, my friend. Yoga and time with a trainer plus all the walking. I am attempting to up mine in ways that I can sustain over time. Hope your upcoming week is great! xo
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They’re lined with leather and already comfortable even without socks, although I’ll try to wear with those little no-socks socks as much as possible.
The fitness ante isn’t so much upped as trying to get back to the strength levels I was at before my routine had a six-week break with travel, etc. Ditto for the yoga which I’d hoped to keep up online while we were away, but then we were almost three weeks without Wifi! The walking distances are a happy result of the trip, though — they seem easy to do after our city walking in Italy where we were regularly racking up 12,000 to 18,000 steps daily. You know what I mean!
Hi Frances, love your new shoes too! I’m mostly in sneakers these days as well, I just can’t deal with anything else. I love those orange sneakers with the skirt.
I’ve spend the last few days immersed in the coverage of the amazing Platinum Jubilee! I found out that Hello Magazine in the UK had an edition including a cute cloth tote bag with a lovely drawing of the Queen, complete with crown and red lipstick. I asked three different people back home in Scotland to see if they could find a copy for me as my birthday pressie this year – and all three of them did! I’ll gift one of them to my gym buddy. My husband says I should keep one for posterity.
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Wow Patricia! What a haul! Well deserved, for your birthday — and now you can wear lipstick in honour of Her Majesty 😉
Must be something in the air, I’ve been on the hunt for loafers too. Found some in just the right colour to go with new chestnut cords but my size was sold out so the hunt continues. Yours are a nice balance between chunky and slim, just perfect with that gorgeous skirt.
Sicily is an intruiging country, I love to read your presentation. Although Sicily is much bigger of course, there are parallels with my husband’s home country of Malta but the paths diverged when The Knights of St John made Malta their home, then after a brief reign by Napoleon the arrival of the British. On my last few visits to Malta I’ve noticed how British influence is declining and the Maltese are returning to their cultural and geographical roots.
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Oh, too bad your size was sold out! Chestnut was actually more what I was looking for, but this ochre colour is growing on me.
I don’t know much about Malta, but our Italian crew was there for a few days earlier this year and shared photos. I think they were startled at first, that they would be driving (a rental car, so at least the steering wheel was on the right) on the left side of the road. It looks like a beautiful country and perhaps slightly more moderate climate than Sicily’s?
Yes, driving on the right side is one of Britain’s legacies, it suits us as Australia does the same. Parts of Malta are still magical and Valletta is a small gem of a city but in other parts developers have been given free rein, destroying streetscapes and locals lifestyles with looming concrete towers. As is the case elsewhere, tourism is a mixed blessing. I’m not sure that the climate is more moderate. Being so small you are never far from the sea so it can be windy and August is brutal with heat and humidity.
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So true, that tourism is a mixed blessing. I hope we’re all trying to be mindful when we plan our travel.
I visited Malta in February and loved it – found the crossroads of cultures so interesting! It’s very clear that the Maltese are perfectly happy to be done with the British, something I hadn’t known before we went. Looking forward to visiting again – we made some new friends (he’s Irish, she’s Maltese) who are eager for us to return.
The Gardens are beyond gorgeous and really enjoyed the walk. I have alliums in my garden, but in my 3 year old garden in Halifax and a bit later on. Rhubarb pies to follow as well. Your loafers are great, I have a pair I wear in the spring and fall, although not as lovely as yours, but they are a classic. Good for you for getting so much exercise in, I admire that, so good for frame of mind. You’re sketches and painting is lovely as well.
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Glad you enjoyed that Susan — I appreciate the company 😉
Your allium will soon be exploding — they always look like fireworks to me — had hundreds of them in my old garden and I miss their exuberance!
I hadn’t made rhubarb pie in decades and I think I’ll buy and freeze a few bags of rhubarb while they’re around — so good! And yours will be free, right?
Yes, the exercise is as much for the mood as for the fitness. Thanks!
Yay you for the presentation and the loafers!
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Thanks! 😉
The first week after coming home from a trip is always very busy, I find. There is washing to do, papers to sort out, messages to reply to and a slightly overgrown garden to look after. So I kept away from professionally kept green things in order not to be depressed by the difference, and stuck to deadheading roses and weeding. Oh, and I also planted tomatoes, zucchini, and rucola in containers. While doing this, I realized – once more – that June is definitely the best month of the year for me. So I very consciously decided to enjoy every day.
I am not very keen on rhubarb, but I made a crostata last friday, with homemade lemon marmelade as an easy and delicious filling. I also finished a little dress for one of the knitted bears.
Can’t wait to read your presentation about Sicily!
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You are so ambitious! We’re putting much of the gardening on hold this year because the work being down on the building exterior will require us to move everything for a few weeks . . . Annoying to miss a growing season, but on the other hand, a good excuse to scale back for a bit.
Mmmm, that lemon crostata sounds good. And you’ve reminded me that I have a dress to knit for a little bear as well.
I still love that skirt.
Please do share your Sicily presentation (and if I could ask a small favour, if you could separate the translation from the original text by a photo or something so I can’t absorb it while I’m reading, that would be perfect).
Now to your questions. Hm. More busy but not BUSY. Gardening now. And fiercly guarding the routines of mind and body work I developed over the past two years. No new shoes, sadly (yours are lovely, what a good colour); although I like good shoes as well as the next person I am very limited in what I can wear. It’s my feet. My toes don’t bend. I found a pair of leather boots this winter and felt (still feel 6 months later) as though I struck gold.
Rhubarb is finally coming along after a slow start but not there yet. It will be crumble/crisp (oatmeal/almond flour/touch of maple syrup oh la).
Sparkling new day outside. Must cut grass (the urgency of this is almost a novelty after some years of very dry weather) and this afternoon will cycle off to meet my daughter at a new little restaurant for some food and maybe a glass of something. Nice Monday. Ciao 🙂
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It’s a good skirt, isn’t it? And for me, has the bonus of carrying a memory of shopping with my Mom when I first spotted it — it was too much of a splurge and seemed too dramatic/impractical, so I didn’t buy it then, but it went on sale 50% off a few months later In My Size! So. . .
Always much to unpack in your comments. This “busy but not BUSY” and also the “fiercely guarding the routines” — Also, for me, some work discerning which is the right kind of busy and which not, what can be released and what do I want to guard, fiercely.
Yay for those leather boots — Comfortable and stylish footwear is gold indeed!
Mmm for that Rhubarb crumble — (I can’t resist always saying that last word with either a French or an Italian pronunciation, after having seen it on the ardoise/lavagna in those countries — makes me chuckle. . . Your Monday sounds delightful — at least when you get the grass cut and have more than earned your glass of something. Ciao
Beautiful skirt. Here in new York enjoying some lovely weather at last. I have finally completed my small patio garden, a mix of flowers, geraniums, petunias and a bunch of herbs. Wednesday I plan to take a trip to Lyndhurst, a mansion on the banks of the Hudson River. I was there with family several years ago at Christmastime for a presentation of Dickens Christmas Carol, the period room lavishly decorated for the holiday. In the past have attended concerts in the Summer. Looking forward to being there again. Thursday will be dinner with four other friends at a local Italian restaurant. Over the past weekend I was out in rural New Jersey to see the pony, spend time in nature. Walking dogs three morning a week at the shelter. Planning things to cook to use those herbs and the fresh produce I will get from my farmer friends who will open their stand next week. Loving the longer days.
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That sounds like a busy week, enjoyably so!
Question: Do you have a pony?! Or is the pony a friend or acquaintance (or does it belong to a friend or acquaintance)? Envious. . .
I’m impressed by the volunteer dog walking — good idea, surely great for fitness and mood — both for you and for the pups!
Yes, she is mine! You have reminded me of how fortunate I am. A dream which began so many years ago when as a young girl I read” Misty Of Chincoteague”, the children’s classic by Marguerite Henry. A story about a magical island off the coast of Virginia where the ponies run free.
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Very fortunate! Because you honoured a dream . . .
I read all those Chincoteague books — can still easily conjure up the feeling they wrapped me in . . .
I love your new shoes. What a wonderful color.
The photos of the garden are fantastic. I especially like the composition of the one with the alliums in the foreground and the yellow petals of the tree in the background – a little blurry. But, all of the photos are beautifully composed.
Congratulations on your presentation to your Italian class. That is an impressive feat.
Three rhubarb pies! My mouth is watering.
I didn’t make pies, but I did make a strawberry rhubarb cobbler (recipe here: https://seasaltandsailorstripes.com/strawberry-rhubarb-cobbler/). I love rhubarb! I’d love to see your pie recipe.
No new shoes for me recently, but I did make a few clothing purchases for summer. I bought two very flowery, light dresses on Etsy. I was a bit worried about ordering online, but I gave my measurements to the shop owner and she told me which styles would fit. Sadly, the style I like the most was not one of them, but she made a suggestion that was a nice alternative. Now to see if I will actually wear them. I haven’t been out much since Covid began and haven’t had any need to put on a dress. If it were more my personality, I could wear these dresses to the Farmer’s Market or other casual places. They are a little bohemian in style. I tend to be a jeans and tee shirt kind of market shopper.
All of your exercise is very inspiring. I hope that you are feeling very fit right now.
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Mmmm, a cobbler would be good as well — so homey and comforting, these cobblers and crumbles and crisps (and cookies and cakes, for that matter, some yummy alliteration!).
My recipe is just the tried-and-true from a 50+year-old Joy of Cooking . . . and I always make a flaky lard pastry for my pie crust.
I love the sound of those dresses — I would definitely wear them to the Farmer’s Market! You might try that once? You might be surprised to find there’s a Teeny Bohemian inside you who wants out every once in a while 😉 She might have been the one who clicked Buy on those Etsy dresses. . . (#kiddingnotkidding as they kids say)
I’ll jump in on the rhubarb part of the conversation. I hardly ever bake, but picked up a bunch of rhubarb at a farmer’s market on the weekend and then scoured the internet for ideas (having lost the rhubarb oatmeal muffin recipe I used to use). I settled on a rhubarb coffee cake, which was a little bit too delicious. I consumed more than I intended to, but the remainder is safely in the freezer … for now.
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“a little bit too delicious” — not such a bad thing, right? And the freezer as self-rationing is a good idea 😉