lunch, tea and dinner

chanda stopped by after class and we had lunch together. 

after which i had dessert and tea with janet! (actually, she made a blueberry basil lemon drink inspired by what we had the other week at mah ze dahr cafe. it was very good . . and i brought raspberry and pistachio financiers from the cafe we went to last week. they were out of the tahini cookies we liked so much.) i then went to the library to return a book and to pick one up that was on hold.

a view from janet's upper floor.

and i made a soup from a recipe by ukranian cookbook author olia hercules - a simple chicken with vegetable soup, but the chicken was boiled separate to create a broth and then the vegetables were added after sautéing in a pan. it was very flavorful.

more birthday celebrations and other things

janet treated me to a lovely birthday tea today.

salmon and avocado tea sandwiches and egg salad tea sandwiches, along with olives, pickles, crackers with several cheeses, a sparkling peach cordial and hibiscus tea.

i think my favorite were her homemade, gluten free lemon curd tarts with blackberries.

she finds the most interesting books . . this one is a biography of artist ruth asawa. i'll have to take a pic of the cover later. i know i'll enjoy reading it. 

 

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chanda had stopped by earlier as she was in the neighborhood checking on the neighbor's cats. we watched ketanji brown jackson's swearing in ceremony together.

greg came home very dusty and tired. his workplace volunteered with habitat for humanity for the day and they all worked on a house together: putting in insulation, planting a garden, breaking up a driveway and hauling rocks from one end of the property to another where they were needed as filler. it sounds like they all had a lot of fun working so hard.

last, but not least, it was this little one's birthday today! he's now two.

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my gift from janet:

a beautiful biography of artist ruth asawa

coffee and travel pics; tea in janet's garden

greg and i drove out to queens to see korrina this morning for a photo fest of her trip to london.

i love the canopy of trees . . 

coffee . .

and bagels (my fave, made by josh) and strawberries . . (and mohair and buttons.)

a full tour of the london trip which was very fun to hear . . 

the new lizzie line was much discussed as it was a highlight, as were the buses which all ran so timely and well. the museums were amazing ("you can just walk right in" . . ) and the food was delicious (morgan took her to all the favorite places). camden market was a favorite too, as was the globe (much ado about nothing), the yarn stores, the mithraeum, docklands . . dinner with morgan's friends, morgan's little studio . . everything was a favorite, really. even the weather obliged with blue skies and no humidity.

 

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here's a picture from the globe theatre along with several canal photos . .

(camden market)

korrina has a video of the canal boat owner pulling his boat through the locke after it fills ever so slowly with water.

the narrow boats are so picturesque . . 

as are the canals . . 

 

parliament buildings?

st. paul's?

st. paul's . . 

 

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and back to saturday afternoon at korrina's:

 

her loop yarn store purchase: daughter of a shepherd ram jam! i was very excited to see this as i have rachel atkinson's pattern book one, beginnings. i figure one of these days when i finally complete several of these current knitting projects, i'll pick up a few skeins of chocolate ram jam and knit the lovely skipwith cardigan . . or maybe first the lovely hollicarrs scarf . . !

the pretty blue and grey balls next to the ram jam are from onion yarns (denmark) and are 70% superwash wool and 30% nettle fiber (sock yarn).

 

stones, shells and seaglass from the thames.

heading home over the kosciusko bridge . .
 

calvary cemetery with manhattan in the background . . 

greg's father's day gift from morgan and korrina . . skateboarding bulldog socks . . !

 

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at five pm i walked to janet's for a visit with carol:

the three musketeers . . we used to plan our homeschooling group's craft fair every december. carol would get us talking about sewing owls, printing tags, decorating candles with beeswax from the small cookie cutters . . one year janet was ambitious enough to set up a beeswax candle dipping station! such amazing crafts . . (they are all listed under the "craft fair" tag). today we caught up with our own doings, and our children's . . lately i get this strange feeling whenever i look back at the past days of our children's growing up into adulthood years. it's a slight out of body type of feeling . . along with a particular color or aura surrounding specific decades (brown for my own high school years . . blue for my children's younger years . . ) and then each section has it's own music . . there's classic rock . . reggae . . raffi . . sheryl crow . . debussy . . bach . . saint saens . . duke ellington . . etc.

the tea was hibiscus and tulsi basil.