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Saturday, January 25, 2014

Gone Fishin'...and stuff...


Just a reminder that I am on holiday with family which includes my 23 year old fishing fanatic grandson....


And our son and daughter-in-law.  They all fly in today from Utah!!!  WooHoo!!!!!  But that means things will be hectic, wild and wierd...so will probably not be posting again until Feb. 10th when they leave...

Will miss you all...but am excited to spend time with them...especially grandson Sam, whom we haven't seen for 2 to 3 years.....cool!  That's assuming we survive keeping up with a 23 year old!!!
Cheers!


Sunday, January 19, 2014

Tuesday Cuppa Tea, Burns Night, New Royal Birth, Family Break, Rose Chintz Cottage Anniversary

Hello and welcome to my house...my honey is watching our local Seahawks play the 49ers, so I figured I'd do my post for Tuesday Cuppa Tea!



As is often the case, this is a mixed bag of things! This week includes January 25th, the birthday of Scotland's most famous author and poet Robert Burns, so I have a Scottish theme for my teacup. I think I shared this once before, but I love it and it's apropos, so....



This is a Shelley, England cup and saucer in the Thistle pattern and in the Cambridge shape made between 1955 and the closure of the pottery in 1966. Thistle and tartan are such quintessential Scottish themes, and Shelley paid homage to them with this pretty teacup!





Shelley was great at giving patterns and versions a number kept in pattern books. This is pattern number 13820. If you have the pattern books you can look it up and find out if any other info was given, which I really appreciate. For more info on the Thistle teacup at Antiques And Teacups,  just click on the photos.



The Scottish Thistle seemed so appropriate with it being Robert Burns birthday. Burns was born in Ayrshire on January 25, 1759 and lived in the cottage below....which is a popular destination. 



There are loads of souvenirs associated with him. Below is a tea towel I got years ago honoring Robert Burns with one of my favorite quotes at the bottom...







The poem says:
Then let us pray that come what may
As come it will for a' that...
That man to man the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a'that.


As a way to celebrate Robert Burns birthday, Burns Night is celebrated in many places where whiskey flows and haggis is eaten and generally both the poet and Scots ancestry is celebrated. 


So Happy Birthday to Robert Burns!


In a bit of Royal news, on January 17th, Zara and Mike Tindall presented Queen Elizabeth II with her 4th great grandchild, who is 16th in line for the throne. Zara is the daughter of Princess Anne and Mark Phillips. Congratulations!



And as stage royalty, Maggie Smith received the SAG or Screen Actor's Guild award as best female actor for her roll as Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey. No surprise there...that woman could NEVER be upstaged!



And the last bit of royal news, artist Andrew Leipzig released this stunning portrait of Queen Elizabeth II as Wonder Woman...an apt title, I think, last year to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee. I found it by chance in a BBC photo archive of the celebrations. Marvelous!

I  wanted to let you know that I will be on a blog break for the next 2 weeks, because our out of state son and daughter in law and our 23 year old grandson are flying in on Saturday. We haven't seen him in 2-3 years, so we are very excited! He is a real outdoorsman and a fishing fanatic, so we will be kept busy finding things of interest to him. So...I figured the best thing is to have a break so we can try to keep up with them! I hope to be back on the blog for the Feb. 10th post...but it will be late because of them flying out, etc, and the scheduled post I tried last didn't work. So...I'll be back soon...I apologize in advance if I am late visiting or returning your comments...



I will be joining Sandi at Rose Chinz Cottage for her special 4th anniversary tea...so make sure to go visit. I have a linky below for your tea related posts and a list of some of the blogs I hope to visit this week.


Terri~  http://artfulaffirmations.blogspot.com/ 
Teacup Tuesday
Teatime Tuesday
Tea With Celia
Kathy~  http://blissfulrhythm.blogspot.com/
Victoria - A Return to Loveliness
Tea On Tuesday
Miss Kathy ~http://www.thewritersreverie.com/
Tuesday Tea
 Just A Little Southern Hospitality ~ http://justalittlesouthernhospitality.blogspot.com/
Tea On Tuesday
Tea On Tuesday
Time For Tea
Tuesday Tea Time
Tea On Tuesday
Bernideen’s ~ http://blog.bernideens.com/
Tea In The Garden Tuesday
Lavender Cottage  Tea Time
Tea In Texas
Playing With My Camera Teatime           
Tuesday Blog Shop
Poetry In A Pot Of Tea

What’s It Wednesday                                           
Home On Wednesday
 Coloradolady  ~ http://coloradolady.blogspot.com/
Vintage Thingie Thursday
 Mrs. Olson ~  http://jannolson.blogspot.com/
Share Your Cup Thursday
Tea Time Thursday
Pink Saturday

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Happy Birthday British Museum - 255 Years Old

Happy Birthday to the British Museum. Only 255 years old! 


The Grand Court is every bit as grand as it looks with this central building area and staircase. But I'm getting ahead of myself....


After entering the wrought iron gates, you see the front of the museum....


And just before you enter outside is a wonderful sculpture...


In 1967, I spent a month in London when I was 20 with my dear Aunt Ruth, whom I was named for, my father's sister, as she spent her sabbatical year in Europe. We spent 8 months all over, but a month in the UK, based in London.  We stayed at The Bonnington Hotel, reccommended as fashionable and safe for two single women.  The photos of that trip aren't digitized yet, but I found this old postcard of the hotel....


and a 2 press photographs of the hotel from the Daily Mail archives...



I remember it as elegant and pretty stuffy for me in the 1960s who couldn't wait to get to Carnaby Street and get my Mary Quant white eye make up! The lifts...or elevators...had fancy metal lift doors and were quite creaky....Anyway, we loved it because it was quite close to the British Museum...the hotel is now a Doubletree where we stayed a few years ago. Notice the change to the lobby...it was amazing! These 2 photos are from the hotel website...last time we stayed, I wasn't in the photoing everything mode...



Anyway...I was a Physical Anthropology major with a minor in Archaeology at the time, which is why I loved the British Museum....


a 5th century Greek 24 karat gold laurel wreath....



A sculpture of Ramses II....and lots of things in the Egyptian gallery including mummies...I was in heaven!


And for a bit of controversy...the Elgin Marble s collection from the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens, which is was to hear much about a few months later in 1967 when we spent a month in Greece. Lord Elgin "collected" the statues, supposedly to protect them....but the Greek's say "looted" in 1801 and brought them to England where they are still a bone of contention and have been since...


My favorite as a horse person...worked at a stable in high school and owned a horse...is this exquisite marble horse head from the frieze...


If you can tell from the photo above this, the marbles originally were placed in a tapering installation from the top of the Parthenon, just below the roof.

So happy Birthday British Museum, one of my most favorite haunts in London. All the photos unless noted are mine.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Go Seahawks, Tuesday Cuppa Tea,Art Deco Teacup Trio, Smiley's Birthday


Okay, okay, this is not a sports blog....but the Seattle Seahawks won Saturday and are in the division playoffs on Jan 19th against their West Cast rivals the 49ers on Jan. 19th.  This is the Seattle Space Needle just before yesterday's game with the 12th Man flag up. Unfortunately, we had such a strong storm blow through that 30-40,000 folks in the local area were without power. The Seattle Library moved a huge screen in and opened it's doors so those without power could come watch the game.   Just saying....




Okay...back to our regular programming! Happy Tuesday Cuppa Tea! Been a big soggy here, and VERY cold in many of your "there"s. Warming cups of tea will have been in great demand!



PG Tips and an apricot scone were consumed while keeping my honey company during the game yesterday...Moving right along, my teacup today is a 1930s art deco favorite of mine in a hand colored on transfer landscape pattern by Melba, England.



Melba China Company, Ltd had a short life from 1948 to 1951, but produced fabulous art deco inspired bone china designs. The short life was due to the fact that their main artists were recruited from other potteries and the artists, although excellent at the hand colored on transfer designs the art deco favored, didn't seem to be able to adapt to the new designs and modernism coming into prominence at this time.




Sadly, they began in hope and exuberance in a struggling post World War II Britain, but the GBP, or Great British Public, wanted something new and modern and they couldn't adapt.  A great shame. 




So Melba pieces are especially appreciated by me.... I love this landscape design with the bright color accents against the grey transfer. 




Okay....you've seen this EVERYWHERE....the Smiley face! But...do you know it's history? Where it came from and when?????



In January 1964, commercial artist Harry Ball came up with the ubiquitous Smiley in Worcester, Massachusetts to head up a morale boost campaign for Worcester's State Mutual Life Insurance....



Here's the back of an original smiley button. Since then there has been Smileys on everything, Smiley variations as emoticons, a National Smiley Day, a postage stamp in 1999 and more. You can visit the following link to the News Online article with more photos besides these and info where you can visit the Worcester Museum's exhibit in honor of the little guy....
For the article and more info, click HERE

Okay, enough of this frivolity...I have a cuppa and a snack for tea today, because I found a package of my favorites....Jaffa Cakes!



If you aren't familiar with this English teatime treat, they are a plain biscuit or cookie with a lovely orange jelly center covered with a layer of dark chocolate. They are lovely! Orange is one of the only flavors I like with chocolate...the rest ruin it! But then, if I am going to have something I'm allergic to and use some of the antihistamines I live with it had better be worth the antihistamine! Lol!

 I also need a few more followers on Networked Blogs on the upper right sidebar so I can claim my blog back after the blog scraping incident last spring, and thank you so much to those who have helped me!!!!

The linky is below, and I'd be honored if you linked your tea related post. Also, a list of some of the blogs I am joining. Thanks so much for joining me for Tuesday Cuppa Tea!


Monday Marketplace
Terri~  http://artfulaffirmations.blogspot.com/ 
Teacup Tuesday
Teatime Tuesday
Tea With Celia
Kathy~  http://blissfulrhythm.blogspot.com/
Victoria - A Return to Loveliness
Tea On Tuesday
Miss Kathy ~http://www.thewritersreverie.com/
Tuesday Tea       
Tea On Tuesday
Time For Tea
Tuesday Tea Time
Tea On Tuesday
Bernideen’s ~ http://blog.bernideens.com/
Tea In The Garden Tuesday
Lavender Cottage  Tea Time
Tea In Texas
Playing With My Camera Teatime           
Tuesday Blog Shop

Poetry In A Pot Of Tea

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

January Hot Tea Month, Mind The Gap for London Transport's Birthday



Here I am celebrating January Hot Tea Month in the way I know best...a cuppa in my Royal Doulton Rosebud china with my favorite Darjeeling tea from Twinings. Tea has just been announced as one of the top 10 food trends for 2014...what else? We knew that already, didn't we???


I love this photo from an ad for heart shaped sugar cubes, but I take mine without cream or milk....what is called clear...how about you?


January 10th is the birthday or anniversary of the London Transport System, which came into being in 1863. 


Last year was it's big birthday, but I love the system, so here are some photos I have of it from visits...





A favorite museum in London is the London Transport Museum by Covent Garden which chronicles the history of the system...




You can even rent the museum for private parties...for more info about the museum and a video about the museum visit The London Transport Museum



This week the Daily Mail Online did a fun article about all of the lost property on the Underground, trains and buses...over 220,000 items are left on the trains each year....





These envelopes are filled with keys, phones and other documents....but the most intriguing is....


I wouldn't you think folks would have noticed leaving these?????

Anyway, for more info and photos. go to the Daily Mail Online article by clicking HERE


And for those of you snowed in or experience the "Artic Vortex", that's my suggestion for you! Please visit the blogs below...and have a cuppa!

What’s It Wednesday                                           
Home On Wednesday
 Coloradolady  ~ http://coloradolady.blogspot.com/
Vintage Thingie Thursday
 Mrs. Olson ~  http://jannolson.blogspot.com/
Share Your Cup Thursday
Tea Time Thursday
Pink Saturday