salad days

I have mentioned this salad bowl and Clare McDermott before (asparagus pie). I was scanning some pictures for Telling Tales who is writing a story about Mum and Dad getting married in Grayshott. One of the pics Mum gave me to scan was of the famous Clare. Here he is with Mum in March 1959.


He met up with Mum and Dad on the Paris part of their honeymoon. He spent the day wandering with them. On their wander, they saw the salad bowl in a window and admired it. When Mum and Dad got back to their hotel, the salad bowl was waiting for them with a note from Clare. I never met Clare but I think of him every time we have salad.

happy birthday dad

wedding day memory

This is another picture of my parent's wedding day. The guy in the foreground is Mel Morris, the best man who lent Dad money to buy a suit for the wedding. They are in Grayshott, the village where Mum grew up. Her mum and dad are at the far right. The bridesmaid is my cousin Jill.

At Ant's birthday, Dad told this story about his wedding day.
Then we talked about Grayshott, shot, clover, daisies and dandelions :P

UPDATE: The plant that grew because of the iron in the soil was watercress :P

happy birthday ant

Kellie brought balloons.


Ant's friend Irene came to dinner.


We had a chocolate cake.


Ant loves purple. There was lots of purple at the party. Irene wore purple. Dad wore purple. Ant wore ORANGE!


In 1964, Ant took me to see Mary Poppins. She tells me that after the movie I would not leave the theatre and cried, "I want my very own Mary Poppins." I do not really remember the crying but I remember the feeling. Ant is a pretty good Mary Poppins for a girl to grow up with -- lots of treats and fun outings. And lots of love. I found this little music box that plays Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious for the party:

why i call her ant

Here is a picture from 1962 of Ant and me in the backyard of the house at Dovercourt and Bloor where we all lived. I have been told that I am playing with a sparkly, dangly thing on her shoe.


At that time, one of my favourite books was Bobby the Dog, beautifully illustrated by Pierre Probst.


When Bobby waters his garden, a little ant has to put up her umbrella to keep dry. My dad told me that the little ant was an ant like my Aunt Beulah. So Aunt Beulah became Ant.

first photo

Mum and Dad celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in March.

My dad lived with Paul Chisholm in London around the time he met my mum. Paul was just visiting from Australia and he brought my sister and I a gift for the anniversary -- copies of a picture he took of the happy couple in 1955. My mum says that this is the first picture of them together.

father's day

Kellie and Mum and Dad came over. We had lunch in the garden. The cake was a frozen cake filled with semifreddo.


Then Dad dressed up as the guy from the Milagro Beanfield War.

decorating

flower swan

Our landlady used to decorate the garden with birds and plastic flowers. Every spring she used to hang pots of plastic flowers from the trees and the hooks outside the coachhouse and stuck stems in the flowerbeds in the winter. She wanted all parts of the garden to look pretty and I liked it that she included the coachhouse in the colour scheme. There are still some flowers in the garden and the other day I found this swan hidden under the ferns.

lettuce for lunch

lettuce for dinner

goodbye fred

As my sister said, he was a good friend of flowers. Thanks for all the good cups of tea, the good laughs and bringing so much colour and life to your corner of the world.

asparagus pie

Just in case you were wondering what Joan was serving this Sunday...

We started with champagne cocktails made with Grand Marnier and Ontario strawberries.








And then we had this...






































My plate (round one).
















Dad's plate.
















And the famous green salad in the famous salad bowl that Clare McDermott bought Mum and Dad as a wedding present when he met them on their honeymoon in Paris.

newly charded

The expansion team put in their plants today. Ta dah!

first fruit

I had a glass of lemonade this afternoon ...


















with mint from the garden!
















No rum in this one but I feel a mojito party coming on.

expansion team

Another housemate joined the garden this weekend. Her friend and his daughter helped. They are going to plant a crop of Swiss chard. They lifted out the sod from a patch that measures about 4 feet by 4 feet. Ooops. I mean 1.2 metres by 1.2 metres.

Last week I dug out a strip about a foot (30 cm) wide and was pretty fed up by the time I finished. I was filled with admiration for this ambition. They worked hard and it took a long time.





















Our housemate made us a beautiful meal: blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs with cheese and sausages. It was delicious. We ate under the pear tree. I did not take a photo but somebody left this flower on the table so I photographed it instead. You'll have to imagine the feast, dubbed 'brinner' by the daughter because it was brunch and we ate it between lunch and dinner.
































The expansion team got arty with the landscaping. This is the new territory. Frank Gehry has nothing on us. We are now world class for sure.

Yay expansion team! You rock.