Floridian Shell

This lovely shell is part of a collection I display in my bathroom, picked up along a beach in Florida during my holiday last year. I’m not a sunbather, I prefer to wander and gather.

Family Recipe

This recipe is mainly going out to Maria, in exchange for her dad’s lasagna recipe. This is my dad’s cheshire cheese dish recipe. It is so local I have never found a recipe for it written down. I used to love it as a kid.

Fry or grill sausages or bacon.
Place in individual bowls.
Heat up a good amount of milk, melt cheshire cheese into it.
Pour into bowls, it should be runny about the texture and quantity of a bowl of soup.
Serve with dipping bread.

Narnia Wardrobe

Following up from my earlier post on house history, here is a piece of furniture reflecting history. This is a linocut of a Victorian wardrobe (very eccentric, very Narnia) which my parents bought in the 70s and I recently retrieved for my new house from my old bedroom. The wood is pine and has been stripped and waxed, removing the now unfashionable dark Victorian varnish. It may also be a composite piece, made up of parts of several pieces of furniture. The Victorians did this to earlier furniture especially from the 1600s and then it was also done to theirs! 

Bathroom Leaves

Another print of leaves. I love plants with exotic leaves and this is a new one for my bathroom windowsill. In the US this is called an Elephants Ear and Otherwise as Alocasia. The plant has big leaves with thick white veins. In Florida I found them growing outdoors. 

Living Evolves

This week we have visited two friends who live in the same street in the same houses as us. This was really interesting to see how the houses were the same or different. All the houses were built in 1935. No photos sorry for privacy...

Houses in 1935: the houses were built as terraces with a drawing room/ parlour, dining room and galley kitchen. Entry through an internal porch. Upstairs three bedrooms and bathroom pretty standard.

Evolution of our house:
Upstairs the layout remains the same with a shower now joining the bath in the bathroom, original wood doors surviving and one fireplace blocked up, one fake decorative one put in as central heating became the thing. Downstairs the hall was opened up removing the internal porch and the kitchen and dining room were knocked together with a new patio door to garden. In the garden the original walls survive on two sides and a deck has been installed. In the downstairs, an open fire has been reinstalled in the living/ drawing room and a second toilet has been put in under the stairs, Surviving features include decorative cornicing in the drawing room and less appealing asbestos lino and old wiring fragments in cupboards.

House 2:
Living room enlarged with large television. Fireplace has log burning stove. Open plan kitchen diner extended out into garden with glass wall to outside deck. Kitchen has island unit in middle of space. A more recent revamp than ours.

House 3:
Small living room with huge wall mounted television and wrap around sofa. Open plan kitchen diner.

Evolution:
From about the 70s living areas become open plan with a social kitchen area. Televisions grow larger once flatscreen technology is developed.  Fireplaces, Replaced by central heating, become more popular again especially with log burning stoves. Hard floors in wood or tile are now more favoured again than fitted carpets, which were ubiquitous in the 70s even in bathrooms. Recessed ceiling lighting is used in living areas rather than previously pendant or wall lights. Showers join or increasingly replace baths. But the bidet did not survive as a popular feature! A second bathroom or toilet is desirable. Gardens become low maintenance living areas with decking instead of patios. A focus on getting more light into the building and use of light colours and hard surfaces. Wallpaper, hessian, cork tiling etc are all in decline. Often blinds instead of curtains. Interestingly, bedrooms are the last bastion of traditional decor in a home.