Why groceries aren't robbed in Israel

Hat tip to Margie at Dansey's Pass

Silently absent

I have a weakness for country, cooking and interiors magazines. They are the things that wind me down and make me very mellow. I can dream away, get ideas, be inspired to cook interesting dinners and do creative things around the house.
However, in the UK magazines, the one page adverts for bespoke kitchens, quality country clothing, hand made furniture, designer wallpaper etc all have an alarming omission. At the bottom of the page where all the suppliers are listed by county, I’m not there. I’m never there. The county in the UK where I spent the formative years of my life is NEVER mentioned.
Curious to know why? We’re poor and industrialised. It’s as if we are considered unworthy of beauty or quality or variety. Living there, you would have to catch a train or drive a significant distance to find decent hiking boots or a kitchen designer or a chesterfield sofa. You wouldn’t be able to browse around a china shop or a craft supplier.
Sad really. I’m the girl from nowhere.

Pigs are flying

Leader article in today's Jerusalem Post

Officials from Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Palestinians convene in Jerusalem to coordinate fighting disease (swine flu).

Strange that it takes a piggie to bring them to the talking table.....

Afternoon Accoutrements

I’m not much of a shopper, but I go weak at the sight of anything to do with tea or coffee. I have an eclectic collection of milk jugs, tea pots, caffetiere, stove pots to make Turkish coffee, trays, tray cloths, tea strainers – you name it.

When visiting Hong Kong recently, I found two amazing steel gauze “thingies” to go into the lid of a tea pot, so that you can make the tea with real leaves, at the delightful price of $2 each. In the same shop on Nathan Rd I found a tiny brown stoneware teapot, almost too small for one cup. I suspect it had just arrived from China, as the manager of the shop was still unpacking a box of them on the floor. They were wrapped in a local newspaper; humble beginnings with a price tag to match, $4.

Today, I came home from a local charity shop with a milk jug from an Irish pottery. It is decorated with fruit and each fruit is named in French – don’t ask. This is the same place I have bought a selection of blue pottery cannisters to store a variety of fruit and green teas. I have a coffee tin from Israel, a large yellow tea pot from California decorated with a black cat, a 6 cup pot in the shape of a green aga stove, another in the shape of a white bee hive, and a brass desert coffee pot from Bahrain. This is not including the four day to day tea pots (one cup) and cupboard full of mugs and cups.

When I finally put my feet up in that great tea room in the sky, someone is going to have a lot of sorting out to do!

Leaving Marlborough Sounds behind

Minutes later, we were blessed with rain, fog and rainbows, all at the same time.

Marlborough Sounds

Autumn colours