Monday, September 26, 2022

Jigsaw puzzles, small treasures, chocolate,

 First, to blogistas who observe 


The Freecycling yesterday was a love fest end to end. Such happy and courteous people. All the surplus plants gone and more than one recipient said they're happy in their new homes! Chairs to a very nice person who never fails to get back to thank. Anyway, very encouraging.

Probably more soon. Meanwhile the last piece of the San Francisco street scene goes in 



And the completed image is the one I'll use for Freecycle to show potential takers it's complete.

Yesterday's walk yielded beautiful lichen


And a discarded bluejay feather


There were local thunderstorms, but here just rain with sunny intervals. 

And the front path was getting narrower with sedum, chrysanthemums and spiderwort spilling over it.


So I pruned back the bits catching people's ankles and have a house arrangement



In the afternoon, time for a little something, and I hadn't got around to making banana bread, so I made a  chocolate spread for afternoon tea



In addition to what you see on the counter, I added a drop of milk and a spoonful of confectioner's sugar. Worked nicely. And later last evening, a spoonful blended with a mug of hot milk made a late night hot chocolate drink. 

Meanwhile here's my knitting group

Well, if you don't count the gracious living room, the hats and the knitting of blankets for the troops, that is! Otherwise exactly the same.

Notice the hatless lady near the window winding a hank of yarn off the skein held around her knees. Probably the kids were at school, otherwise this was a classic kid task, holding the yarn and learning to move back and forward to make it easier for your mother or Gran or older sister or aunt, you could be called on anywhere, to wind.

At this period the guests,  even relatives, kept their hats on. My aunts would, in our house. Only the lady of the house went unhatted. And everyone hatted up outside the house, even to run to the corner shop. 

Evelyn Dunbar was more than a wartime illustrator. She was an acute realist social historian. She's worth looking up.

Happy day everyone, tend to our knitting, glad for the friends in PEI who came through Fiona, many thoughts for all our Florida blog and rl friends facing Ian 

Photo AC 


12 comments:

  1. Wow, you made short work of that jigsaw puzzle!

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  2. I don't understand the hat thing, why it was de rigueur to wear hats, not just outside but inside. If not hats, some kind of covering on your hair. I get a kerchief, helps keep the hair out of your face when doing physical labor and sunbonnets, or in modern day straw hats or ball caps, because they serve a purpose of keeping the sun off but hats?

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  3. I had forgotten that is a jigsaw puzzle until I read Debra's comment! That was fast. It sounds like you had a good day with Freecycle. Also, a very pretty bouquet.

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  4. Ellen, I think the hat thing was probably all part of the Hatters and Milliners Full Employment Act! The next generation not so much.

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  5. My grandmother always wore a hat out and about. She was fond of gloves too. She always felt undressed without a hat and gloves.

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  6. I must admit I'm glad I didn't live in the time of hats for every occasion because I've always hated them.
    That's a great puzzle and I'm amazed at how fast you managed to put it together.

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  7. I remember the one time I met my father in my adult years he was talking about men and hats and how no man left the house without one. "My father would put on his hat to take out the trash," he said.
    Things do change.
    I love your flower arrangement.
    I am wishing that I'd made myself (and of course my husband) a batch of brownies. I think I could use a little chocolate therapy this evening. Maybe I'll make some chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies for hurricane supplies.

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  8. That is a lovely jigsaw. I miss my jigsaws but cats ....

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  9. Yes, I have not had cats for a couple of years. For the previous fifty years I had cats, so no puzzles! They just don't mix.

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  10. I love the cat and puzzle comment and smiled at the number of pieces that succumbed to the curious paw at my house.
    Your walk way is more trim and your hearth so cheerful with the discards.
    The men wore hats in my family; the women, babushkas. I remember standing at a street crossing in Cleveland, waiting the green light. It was almost Christmas, the snow was falling, the wind blowing my two year old self from my feet, but for the firm grip I had on my dad's hand and the firmer grip he had on mine. His other arm was tied up in packages and bags and we were working our way against the wind coming off Lake Erie.
    Suddenly he said Hell's Bells!, his most violent curse. His hand had loosened on mine, then grasped again as another gust hit me. "Well, Merry Christmas" he said to his hat, skipping merrily down Prospect Avenue. For the rest of the winter he wore a shabby green hat, trimmed by an even shabbier, rain stained green grosgrain ribbon. Hats were expensive investments in 1945.

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  11. Nice arrangement, from a bit of garden pruning!

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  12. That San Francisco scene is certainly popular. It will make a nice puzzle for somebody else now.

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