More goodness.

Locally during November we have a literature festival, so far I have been to two talks, Ian went to one alone as I wasn't feeling up to it, tired and sinusy so coughing which wouldn't have been good for the audience to hear.  First talk was by Emma Bridgewater, well it was more a question and answer session, none the worse for that for she was so enthusiastic in her encouragement of British industry, of design and doing something that was against the trend by manufacturing in this country. What other products could gain from her insight?

Emma stressed the importance of craft, patchwork is for relaxation in the evenings, so she can be with her children whilst watching TV, or rather as she says listen and sew. We learnt her degree was in English literature, medieval I think, the ceramics appeared at first to be something into which she drifted whilst living in a house share in South London.  Certainly I would like to visit the factory, maybe try my hand then at decorating a bowl. DS and DiL have done this and praise the experience highly. 

A complete contrast was the talk about Ancient Greeks by Peter Jones, I believe he was on TV and has written about the Romans too.  Just hearing about the Greeks, the alphabet, language and just interesting snippets about the expansion being limited to places accessible by sea rather overland travel, about how women didn't count in their democracy, about their architectural designs still in use today left me wanting to learn more. There never seems enough time for craft, reading, domestic stuff, volunteering and socialising. 

Now we are booking another talk, keeps to my mantra of continuing to learn. 

Another good piece of news, today I made our Christmas cake, using a recipe from the Stork Cookery book that we were given in the sixth form at school, the same recipe I have used over the years, for my wedding cake and for Christmas. Only difference from the recipe is that I used unsalted butter rather than margarine, a product we never buy nowadays. Cake took over 4 hours to bak at Gas mark 1.