Garden Culture and Fine Living

… was the title of the garden and plants fair I went to with Teli yesterday. It was set up in the castle’s park between old trees and even older walls, a very nice scenery for such an event.

Teli came to pick me up an hour past high noon and we made our way to the castle trough the beautiful upper part of my beloved fairytale town.

Well, it was just like coming into a really huge garden, and we didn’t quite know where to look first.

They had a great variety of roses – being a Hedgefairy, I love roses -, but sadly the rose garden of our castle wasn’t abloom yet.

I love the blending of pink and milk-white and light yellow in these rosebuds, I wish I had fabric like this.

These little darlings were right at the entrance. Just imagine a whole valley filled with them!

These blossoms reminded be of little flames or phoenix feathers, aren’t they lovely?

Floxglove are so pretty! Also, there’s this Irish fairy tale about Lusmore the hunchback and the fairies of which I always think when I see Floxglove, for lus mór is the Irish name for the flower.

As the fair was also about decorating and not only flowers and herbs there were many other interesting stalls, too. I wondered why we even saw two sellers with indian stamps. I sometimes still think I need a larger collection of these to print the fabric of a whole dress or mage’s robe for LARP (or even real life)…

I like old enamel signs, and this one especially. The message is so great, because every adventure starts at home, and sometimes people tend to forget.

Fly Amanita! I like them so much as a motif, I think I need some Amanita jewelery some time soon.

And this cow was the funniest yet stylish watering can I’ve ever seen.

For some reason they also sold antique silverware there – I don’t know why, but I liked it!

The silverware wasn’t the only point when I wished I’d host more parties. Garden parties, for example…

… or tea parties! This was by the way the point when it started pouring.

But nobody really cared as we all had brought along our umbrellas. The musicians retreated into the tent of the very British boots-and-landlord-jackets seller who even played along with them (he’s the one drumming on a tin bucket, and he did it very well!). They even had a Chesterfield-like sofa in there, and pictures hanging on the walls! Not to mention that awesome steamer trunk coffee table…

Speaking of coffee, of course there were coffee and food stalls, too. And I’ve got to admit that those they had were amongst the greatest and most stylish ones I’d ever seen.

It’s just so cliché, I wish there was more like that in the real world! Teli even compared it to the design of Chocolatier, a very cute (or should I say “sweet”?) chocolate factory facebook game I used to play some time.

We even bought sweets, too, Teli and I. There was a stall selling imported English fudge, and we both couldn’t resist, especially as one could choose the flavours freely! I mostly took chocolate and some walnut and liquorice, and even the Scoundrel – who’s not very fond of chocolate and sweets in general – liked them. And I love-love-love the old-fashioned feeling I get when I’m able to compose the sweets in the cornet myself!

Not far from the sweets and food alley we discovered a little villa we’d both never seen before. I tend to imagine who inhabits a house like this as soon as I see it, and here I think of an elderly historian and his loving wife (maybe a mycologist) who are visited by their son and daughter in law quite often as well as their lively and cute grandchild or grandchildren to whom they both tell their stories, Grandfather of ancient cultures or bave knights that fought for their king or their hopeless love, and Grandmother of the world the fairies live in, with toadstools as big as trees and moss that reaches your knee… Did I mention that there was the replica of a classic statue stood on the veranda? I guess I’d like these people.

Another building I took new notice of is the tower in the back part of the park. Of course I knew that it was there, but yesterday it seemed so out-of-a-fairytale-like that I just stood and wondered if the narrativum was stronger here in Marburg than elsewhere…
I think it was because of the bird cages that it was even dreamier than usual, it made me think of fairy tales where maidens are transformed into birds by evil mages or witches and get rescued either by their brothers or only true love.

We went off after four hours of strolling around and I showed Teli a way down to the lower town she didn’t really know yet, but it’s splendid, because the people who own the great garden to the sides of the stairs also own some hens that are simply awesome.
And there are wallflowers, too, some kind of small violets.

Of course I also bought something green! It’s an African basil with a great honey-hinted scent, and currently it’s with the Scoundrel to get a larger plant pot and some new soil. Still needs a name, by the way…

Postscriptum: If you wonder what happened to Porcelain Sunday and Matching Monday I can assure you that it’s not entirely gone. I just happened to be not in town during the last weekends, and there are so many other things to write about darting into my mind every Sunday! So I decided rather not to have a weekly feature, but to write a Porcelain Sunday and Matching Monday when I feel like it. Because, as always, there’s no need to do things half-heartedly. ♥

Rose Flower Fairy

Picture and poem by C. M. Barker, as always.

Best and dearest flower that grows,
Perfect both to see and smell;
Words can never, never tell
Half the beauty of the Rose -
Buds that open to disclose
Fold on fold of purest white,
Lovely pink, or red that glows
Deep, sweet-scented; What delight
To be fairy of the Rose!

Yes, I’ve learned another one and so finally did something for my Daring Deeds again! The Roses in my secret garden are still partly abloom, the one in the mint bed in colours like milk mixed with honey or caramel though pale old china amber to bright yellow, the one in front of the shack in deep, dark red like rubies, but even brighter and at last my favourites – the ones at the arch – in lovely pink like told above, partly blending into a yellow similar to the mint roses.

Roses are one of my main themes recently, as it seems – I’m watching MariMite at the moment, dried buds hang from my mirror, the Scoundrel and Bambi had a university project containing roses some weeks ago, I’m thinking about  Briar Rose, Snow White and Rose Red and The Beauty and The Beast designs for T-shirts and pillows and the dried petals fill a cake tin at the window sill… But I think I’ll have to devote another post to this topic. ^^

Treasure Chest

I promised to show you Jules’ present today and so I will do.

I had pondered over it a while and finally came up with an idea suiting a treasure hunt: a chest! And as Jules is complaining about the lack of good male hand bags most of the time I decided to sew one, and this is the result:

An old key works as the fastener

I love the rocailles that I used for the raspberry embroidery, the colour is called "scarab"

I think Sir Ludwig likes the treasure chest, too (and the colours match, anyway ^^).

We also found this really big (about the length of my hand in diameter!) and beautiful flower in the garden while taking the photos and didn’t quite know what it was. I’m going to ask my grandmother when I go and visit her at the weekend, but maybe you can help me, too?

The crafting details are as follows:

• Making time: About 5-7 hours, I guess, including shopping for material, sewing, embroidery and tantrums ^^
• Material: Very thick crafting felt, embroidery floss in six colours (ochre, dark pink, raspberry pink, light pink, very light green, light green), rocailles in scarab (but only the red toned ones) and gold, glitter thread, velvet ribbon, crochet lace, an old key, white crochet cotton
• Success: Perfect, Jules was absolutely stunned. :)

Final Close-Up

Of Plants and Martial Arts

Judo uniforms are really difficult to darn. The story is that Kajal (one of Bambi’s rabbits, just for the case I did not mention her before) nibbled on his jacket, an action that ended with a quite big hole right between the scapulae. I offered him to mend it and so I spent a good part of my mid day break repairing that thick, heavy cotton fabric. Also, darning gets trickier with the size of the hole you’ve got to patch…

I am planning a patch featuring a stag’s head embroidery (little bit pagan, maybe) for Bambi’s uniform to cover the darning. Thank goth the trainer is not too strict about their uniforms…

To stick with the martial arts I may proudly tell you that I successfully passed my first Canne de Combat lesson yesterday, too. French cane fencing is a pretty workout for the thighs, I dare say, and once you’ve mastered the first steps it can be very dynamic and elegant, too.

Also, Teli is going to visit me in the garden again to be given some of the pots I don’t need anymore. Well, she’s got a garden of her own now that seems to grow quite well! I for myself have to go to the market this weekend to look for some pumpkin plants and nasturtium for the lookout point on the city walls.

So much for this moment, but now I’ve got to go. Bye then.

Book Plates and Hats

Yes, very inspired and original, this title. ^^

It is Sunday forenoon, the sky is overcast with a shimmering cover of clouds and my right hand and especially the wrist hurts with every move. It seems that I overcharged it in the garden yesterday, the ache in the hand itself seems more like a muscle soreness, while the wrist shows the same problems as usual. Well, too much cut-down ivy, I guess. ^^ At least the compost heap is rearranged now and seems way less than before (and Simon and the Historian took great fun in jumping around in the other compost bin). My hands are quite rough when I return from the garden but I got me some hand lotion, sea buckthorn and pomegranate from our local wholefood shop that’s only two streets away. Goth, I love my home. :)

But now I’m sitting here with a cup of hot chocolate, waiting for a carrier pigeon (that will reach me in the afternoon, presumably) with the information of a train arriving to bring a certain scoundrel here – Scoundrel, for he stole my heart.

Some days ago, I received a small package from the wonderful Tilliel containing her splendid, perfect (no overstatement) Hats & Headdresses swap gift for me:

She considered my love for corduroy...

... as well as for small details.

The colours are perfect, toned down and kind of vintage.

And I simply adore the fact that she added bells. ^^

I already wore the cap on my visit to my grandparents, it perfectly fits my old cotton ex-sari shawl.

Sadly, the package that I gave to the post office didn’t arrive yet and by now I doubt that it will at all. :(
Tomorrow I’ll go shopping for the material that I lack for the substitute as I really don’t want to make an exact copy of the first hat (maybe it will arrive one day, and having two same hats would be somehow boring, wouldn’t it). I also have to get the materials for the Alice swap, with all the events going on in my personal life and the upcoming term I didn’t find any time for it yet! But I’m all an eager beaver for it, so this shouldn’t be a real problem.

What’s about the book plates in the title?, you may ask now. Well, I love book plates. As somebody who loves and collects books, it is sometimes quite difficult to get those back that I lend to somebody (my beloved rebound half linen copy of Discworld’s Maskerade is still lost somewhere in Hamburg, I think, and I’m quite angry about that). Book plates are a great opportunity to avoid that somewhat ugly inscriptions on the title page. The bookshop across the street was selling some last week, and I couldn’t resist:

I clearly prefer toned down classic motives here, too. And now I’ll go and mark my copy of Northanger Abbey as my own and nothing but my own, just to feast on avocado and corn crisps afterwards. Healthy and incredibly tasty. :)

The First Sprouts

The sugar peas on the window sill are doing quite good as you may see from the title.

I’ll plant them into earth this week as I’m going to visit my family during the Easter holidays and therefore am not able to water the cotton. Putting them into the tub with wet newspaper wouldn’t work either as we don’t have windows in the bathroom and the boys aren’t here, either.

Some minutes ago Bambi dispatched the order for some DVDs and I went along and ordered my beloved Anne of Green Gables and its first sequel. :)

I’m not too chatty at the moment, as you may have noticed, due to my academic assingment that is growing quite pleasantly, by now I’ve got about a quarter of the demanded continuous text.

Along the way I am pondering about a new LARP character. No, not Steampunk this time but purest fantasy as it will be an elf. The biggest obstacle to a good character development is her name, at the moment, but I think I’ll ask IRis for help there… ;)

Well, I’ve got to increase my word count to 2000 minimum now, so

Good-bye.

It’s raining today

Originally I wanted to go to the garden to free it from the weeds after I successfully reached independence from all the ivy. :)

But now I only went to the library to get some more copies for my paper (somehow two pages lacked in my collection) and returned to my beloved home with a terrible headache. I hope it is no relapse of my illness, but it doesn’t feel like it, anyway.

Yesterday I met with the Captain of the HMS Anastasia for the first time in a really nice, old (over 100 years) café in the upper town for a chat and a tea. And speaking of tea: today I received a letter from IRis, containing a portion of a potion (yes, wordplay) of lemon and verbena which I am drinking right now as I’m pondering over my notes, thank you, dear!

These are the yet-to-sprout sugar peas that are on my window sill since yesterday evening. The beans are in Bambi’s room as there is more sun during the day. I hope everything will go well and I’ll keep my eyes open for more seeds.

A Fan and a Book

Today I was quite busy getting my request for a second student ID (as I managed to lose the one for next semester somehow) ready and delivering the parcel for the hats-and-headdresses swap to the post office. I’m pretty pleased how the gift turned out this time, and I hope that the girl I made it for will find this, too.
I also set the structure for my paper at Celtic Studies as I met with my tutor, my next concern is whether I should write the paper in German or English. All my sources are in English, by the way, so quotes will be in English anyway. Hard decision.

At my way home when the sun shone down on my face and the air was warm enough to finally herald spring I stopped by at the asia shop to get some pickled ginger and a new fan, the latter mostly for the upcoming Steampunk events as well as for the summer. I’m quite sensitive to heat sometimes, and as Bambi has noticed long before (he brought his fans from his journeys to China), fans make really sophisticated accessories. Mine is made out of sandal-wood and smells grand when I’m fanning it.

Also, I couldn’t help but stumbling into the book shop across the street that I see every time when I look out of the window when I saw that they had a book about gardening, resembling 211 Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Bunty Cutler (my favourite how-to book ever) quite much in its writing style, containing some really amusing anecdotes and providing interesting and useful garden knowledge all in one.

I think I should do to bed now, but I won’t. ^^

The Ivy Fairy

The day before yesterday, when I was in the garden with Simon and the Imp, we kidded around with one of the ivy wreaths and this Historian, Simon’s flat mate, took pictures with this result:

It was already pretty dark in the staircase at this time, so the photo has been shot without flash and portraits my skin a little darker – aka. healthier ^^ – than normal, but I like the picture very much.

Sadly, there’s is nothing like a Ivy Fairy in the Flower Fairies. :)

Indeed, this is kind of the first “product” from my garden!

My Secret Garden

Yesterday I got a carrier pigeon from Simon the Kobold with the question if I were familiar with plants.
I told him, yes, I were.
Now I’ve got a garden.

My own! Small, but precious.

It’s right upon the old city walls. The boys let me care for it as they are not very interested in gardening and didn’t even know what to sow there.

At the moment it’s still pretty overgrown with ivy, but there are two shrubs of black currant, a plum tree, peppermint and maybe even some wild strawberries. I can’t wait for the first blossoms to open!

Today, with a little help from Simon and Bertie who came over for a visit, I got rid of a lot of dead wood and even more ivy that choked the other plants. Well, there’s more than enough material for bonfires with bread-on-a-stick and gazing for the milky way now! We even slung the ivy twines to wreaths and hung them up to dry in the shed. Why waste something that you can burn later? The prettiest of these fairy crowns now rests on a window sill in Simon’s staircase (and I wonder how long…).

I also added a new one to the categories, Sally Gardens, which will be the one for all things concerning plants, flowers, gardening and the harvest moon, named after an Irish traditional that is loaded with memories for me.