Christmas books...

We decided to do my Christmas books from Jim a bit like an advent calendar so I have been getting a book a day.  One is Claire Tomalin's biography "The Invisible Woman" of Ellen Ternan who was the mistress of Charles Dickens.  We watched the film on iTunes last night with Ralph Fiennes and Felicity Jones.  The film was excellent and really captured Victorian England and Dickens as a person.

From Wiki:

Dickens was forty-five when he met Ellen Ternan and she was eighteen, slightly older than his daughter Katey. Dickens began an affair with Ternan, but the relationship was kept secret from the general public. Ternan was clever and charming, forceful of character, and interested in literature and the theatre. Dickens referred to Ternan as his "magic circle of one". Matters came to a head in 1858 when Catherine Dickens opened a packet delivered by a London jeweller which contained a gold bracelet meant for Ternan with a note written by her husband. The Dickenses separated that May, after 22 years of marriage.

Dickens is thought by many scholars and commentators to have based several of his female characters on Ternan, including Estella in Great Expectations, Bella Wilfer in Our Mutual Friend and Helena Landless in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and others may have been inspired by her, particularly Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens left a legacy of £1,000 to Ternan in his will on his death in 1870 and sufficient income from a trust fund to ensure that she would never have to work again.

I

Brighter days are ahead....

'This is the solstice, the still point / of the sun, its cusp and midnight, / the year's threshold / and unlocking, where the past / lets go of and becomes the future' -- Margaret Atwood. 'Shapechangers in Winter' #WinterSolstice

No luck at TJ Max today but picked some fruit.

Well,  the fruit was free.  I wonder what the price of lemons will be at home.  I probably won't be able to bring myself to buy one in the three weeks we'll be there.  These paintings were inspired by fruit collecting another year.

Now to make some orange juice.  I already have cut up a number of lemons.

Andrew Dashburg....another artist in my Sante Fe Art book

I'm so glad I picked up this book...loving his style!

Today in Vancouver....

John sent me this photo this morning and asking if we really wanted to come back.

I replied:
Well,  it looks very cosy and Christmassy and can’t wait to walk in the snow to the pub:)
Just came in from swimming in the sunshine,  sunbathing viewing the mountains.  Now for lunch on the patio.

Today in Palm Springs....

 Swimming...

Enjoying the mountain view...

Sunbathing....

And just for good measure,  a sunset photo from last night....

Christmas reading

It was great fun to read the recently published P.D James.  I think the selections in Sleep No More  were more "vintage" P.D.  Some of The Mistletoe Murder selections were a little more mechanical.  I think she was deliberately trying to imitate Agatha Christie for a bit of a writing exercise and to honour her.  I believe I read this somewhere.

Jim has been dispensing my Christmas books like an advent calendar so I have started on a Jeffery Archer,  Honour Among Thieves.  I wouldn't normally be interested in reading him but we watched The Dame Edna Experience on a DVD recently and he was a guest on her "talk show".  He seemed like an interesting guy and he certainly has had an interesting life.

I have just started it and so far it's fairly interesting.  Time will tell.

Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is an English novelist and politician.

Before becoming an author, Archer was a Member of Parliament (1969–1974), but did not seek re-election after a financial scandal that left him almost bankrupt.^[2] He revived his fortunes as a best-selling novelist; his books have sold around 330 million copies worldwide.^[3]

Archer became deputy chairman of the Conservative Party (1985–1986) before resigning after a newspaper accused him of paying money to a prostitute. In 1987 he won a court case and was awarded large damages because of this claim.^[4] He was made a life peerin 1992 and subsequently became Conservative candidate to be the first elected Mayor of London. He had to resign his candidacy in 1999 after it emerged that he had lied in his 1987 libel case. He was imprisoned (2001–2003) for perjury and perverting the course of justice, ending his elected political career.^[3]

Catfe open for two years now.

This memory came up on Facebook.

Olivia Canlas, cat mom to three flurries and co-founder of MeowBox.com was invited to see Vancouver’s first cat cafe before the public (it officially opened this past Monday), and gives us a preview of this stylish cafe complete with adoptable cats! I only wish it had been open when I was in Vancouver this past October! Perhaps this will require yet another trip!  Hope you enjoy this inside scoop, and be sure to visit if you are in the area! 

******

In a city know for being dog-centric, Vancouver is finally home to it’s very first cat cafe. Last weekend was the soft opening of Catfé, founded by local entrepreneur Michelle Furbacher (note the fuzz reference in the last name – perfect!).

http://ihavecat.com/2015/12/16/inside-catfe-vancouvers-first-cat-cafe/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork

Christmas with The Crown

Along with lots of other people we have enjoyed the second season of The Crown.  Linda posted how the Royals spend Christmas on her blog.  Here's an excerpt.

There is a Christmas Eve tea at 4 p.m. in the White Drawing Room. Since Meghan has already met the Queen, she has probably already been schooled on the proper way to hold a tea cup. But just in case she’s forgotten: royals hold a teacup handle with their thumb and index figure and using their middle finger to gold the cup in place. It’s just as uncomfortable as it sounds.  After tea, gag gifts (the cheesier the better—one year Kate reportedly gave Harry a “Grow Your Own Girlfriend” kit) are given out in the Red Drawing Room where the staff has already laid them out on trestle tables (not under the tree). Prince Philip already has a pepper mill that lights up, so she’ll have to be creative.

The royal family and their children attend mass at the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Norfolk every Christmas morning. There is a private service where the Queen receives communion first. Then, at 11 a.m. the family makes the traditional walk to church together. Only the Queen arrives by car and is accompanied by a different royal every year. Pregnant Kate is an odds-on favorite to score a ride this Christmas.

Royal women wear conservative coats and, of course, hats to church. The most stylish thing Kate has ever worn on Christmas Day was over-the-knee boots. Princess Diana once incurred criticism for wearing a bright purple coat and matching wide-brimmed hat. “This isn’t a fashion show,” reportedly sniped Princess Margaret at the time.

The Queen’s menus are always in French, regardless of the occasion, and Christmas Day luncheon is no exception.

For the full post:
http://linfish69.blogspot.ca/2017/12/the-british-royals-and-christmas.html

Just ahead of my time...

"Pantone picks deep purple "Ultra Violet" as colour of the year"

"The colour wasn't chosen because it's regal, though it remsembes a majestic shade.  It was chosen to evoke a counter-culture flair,  a grab for originality, ingenuity, and visionary thinking."

So there....for anyone who thought I was crazy choosing "Royal Purple" for my carpets last year.

Chilled Calvados cocktail...who knew?

"In the little farmhouses of my village you generally open the front door and find yourself in the main living room. At Marie-Claude’s, that’s the kitchen, the warmest room in the house, heated by a huge coal oven. Coming in from the crisp night air in which bright stars sparkled in a velvety dark sky and the ground twinkled as frost was already forming – it was sweltering. Marie-Claude had the answer to that – a chilled cocktail made with Calvados. If you’ve never had it before, beware, it’s an apple brandy from Normandy, the region that neighbours mine and it can knock your socks off, and I can tell you we were all pretty much sockless after a couple of hours."

This online newsletter arrives every Saturday and and is always such fun to read.  We have Calvados around in the winter as a special little warm up treat.    It really is to savour and never thought anyone would mix it with anything.  However,  one year we bought a bottle of Calvados for $10 at Trader Joes's that was pretty harsh so certainly mixing it with something would have been a good idea.  This year the $20 Calvados was very good...probably even better than the one we have at home waiting for us that we paid over $60 for.  They only seem to import the good stuff at home.

I googled "Calvados cocktails" and brought up lots of recipes with ingredients we don't ever have around but one was with ginger beer.  We do have a bottle of ginger beer in the fridge so perhaps I'lll keep it around in case we want to make a cocktail one day.  I bought it at World Market so it's a high quality one.

One of the tours mentioned in this newsletter is The Ultimate tour of the best of Provence.  I was curious to take a look at the itinerary.  Yep,  hits all the great spots and we've been to them all.  I like the touch of some of it being in a Deux Chevaux.

Cassis, mon amour.


https://www.thegoodlifefrance.com/the-ultimate-tour-of-the-best-of-provence/

Crawford Killian in The Tyee today...always thoughtful ideas

I always assumed Crawford Killian was a local British Columbian but I see he grew up in LA.  I generally avoid politics in my blog but the ideas in this article are worth taking a look at.

When Morality and Politics Collide

Winston Churchill loathed everything Joseph Stalin stood for — but was quick to embrace him as an ally against Hitler (with Franklin D. Roosevelt). Photo from Ur Cameras, public domain.

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2017/12/15/Morality-And-Politics-Collide/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=151217

Biography[edit]

Born in New York City, Crawford Kilian grew up in Los Angeles and Mexico City. He graduated from Santa Monica High School in 1958 and moved back to New York to attend college. Kilian completed his undergraduate career at Columbia University in 1962.^[1]

After graduation, Kilian was drafted into the United States Army where he completed a two-year tour of duty.^[1] After his tour of duty, he became a technical writer for the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California.^[2]

Shortly after he moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he began his education career. Kilian taught in two British Columbia community colleges between 1967 and 2008, of which five months were spent in China from 1983 to 1984. Kilian's first teaching position was at the Vancouver post-secondary institution, Vancouver Community College. Shortly after in 1968, he moved to Capilano College for its inaugural year. After 40 years at Capilano, he retired in the spring of 2008.

Kilian has published hundreds of articles on a wide range of topics including education, science, environment, politics, webwriting, and books. After retirement he became a part-time writer-editor for The Tyee, a online newspaper based in Vancouver.  He currently lives in North Vancouver.

More new P.D. James

Yesterday at Rancho Mirage Library we picked up this other volume of P.D. James short stories that have recently been collected and published.  Jim and I are both enjoying them a lot.

This note on Amazon gives some background:

"Throughout her illustrious career as the Queen of Crime, P. D. James was frequently commissioned by newspapers and magazines to write a special short story for Christmas. Now, for the first time, four of the best are collected here. In “The Twelve Clues of Christmas,” James’s iconic Scotland Yard detective, Adam Dalgliesh, is drawn into a case that is pure Agatha Christie. In “A Very Commonplace Murder,” a respectable clerk’s secret taste for pornography is only the first reason he finds for not coming forward as a witness to a terrible crime. “The Boxdale Inheritance” finds Dalgliesh reinvestigating a notorious murder at the insistence of his godfather—only to uncover the darkest of family secrets. And in the title story, a bestselling crime novelist describes the crime in which she herself was involved some fifty years ago.

Playful and ingenious, shot through with narrative elegance and sly humor, The Mistletoe Murder is a treat for P. D. James’s legions of fans—and anyone who enjoys the pleasures of a masterfully wrought whodunit."

A Paris Year

I was thrilled to find this book recommended as a Christmas coffee table book selection in The Desert Sun.  It is something Elaine would have bought for us....delightful.  It's so colourful and like a blog.  I've put it under the Christmas tree for myself.

Skyping to Sanary

Jim was on Skype today with a fellow in Sanary who is putting together things for the Huxley Symposium in 2020.  Looking at the bougainvillea while I'm composing this it almost feels like we could be in Sanary.  Certainly one reason we love our desert home is because there are so many things that remind us of the south of France.

To think now how it is free and so easy to communicate with email, sending photos, talking on Skype.  When we were doing our house/car exchanges beginning in the early 80's,  it was a question of writing letters,  sending hard copy photos,  and expensive long distance phone calls...no pennies a minute as you can do now.  For our 1997 exchange to London,  I remember the bill for the call was around $75.  And that's not counting the $80 or so we had to pay to register in Intervac for the privilege of listing our home for exchange and receiving  a printed catalogue of listings.  All worth it for the wonderful experiences we had!

Canary,  no dear google correct...not Canary but Sanary is where Huxley wrote Brave New World.

A wonderful treat!

A "Hot off the Press" book at the Palm Springs library was "Sleep No More" by P.D. James.  This is a collection of six short stories that were published individually.  It seems she has written 12 over the years according to this article.

https://somethingisgoingtohappen.net/2016/02/10/playful-ghoulishness-of-a-crime-queen-by-r-t-raichev/

I expect the others weren't included because they aren't that good but who knows?  I have read the first one and loved it.  What a delight to get something new by P.D.

And it is a break from Annie Proulx's "Barkskins" which is quite a saga from 1693-2013 and runs 713 pages.  I have read 568.  I have been tempted to stop reading it then she gets me interested again.  She is quite a story teller to be sure.  I did love The Shipping News and never wanted to stop reading that.

More posters....

 I'm not sure all of these are "vintage"...certainly this  London one has very contemporary images.

Monday at Bill's....

Palm Springs Art Museum...wonderful as always.

“When one comes away from an art gallery with a sense of being irradiated, often it is as much from the colors one has absorbed as from the visions of the artists. Much of the thrill of spring, I think, is because of the return of color.”

-- Ross Parmenter, The Awakened Eye

We spent time in the Make it Modern exhibit.  These are part their permanent collection and we had seem quite a few of them but not all.

Love these Calders.  I'm looking  directly at my "Calders" while I'm doing this post.  I loved doing them.

And some other modern artists.

These are all plates by Picasso.  We had seen some of them but the whole collection is on show at the moment.

Another Picasso we hadn't seen.

These Man Ray portraits were rather fun.

We hadn't seen these Matisse drawings.

And two more of my Henry Moore's were hiding out here.  These used to be outside at the entrance.

And I can never get enough of this glasswork by Chihuly.

We finished off by going to the Latin American section.  Some very interesting old stuff along with some new.

These little paintings from New Mexico were very appealing to me.

The old....

Well,  as I said...can't get enough of this glasswork.

I remember seeing the original installation of 250 glass rocks.  I'm glad they have some of them.

When we first saw this,  it looked completely black.  As you get further it becomes this shimmering blue.  It's made of paint,  glass and metal.

And yet another Picasso..."Angry Crow" I think it's called.