My favourite things . . .

 

These are a few of my favourite things, maybe some of them are yours too! 

 

I love LOVE Tacos, especially these Spicy Potato Tacos that I made a while back. They're delicious.  What I don't like is the fact that Photo Bucket is holding all my photos hostage.  I am so miffed with them.  In order for my pictures to show on my blog I will have to pay £39 a month.  That's almost as much as we pay for car insurance.  Oh, I can download them onto my computer from Photobucket and then upload them back into the individual posts from there  . . .  but can you imagine how much time that is going to take me?  I have been food blogging daily (pretty much) for about 9 years, and it is only in about the last year and a half that I have been uploading my photos directly onto the blog, mostly because Photobucket was being a big pain and I couldn't access it half the time.  Obviously they were getting ready for this big freeze.  If you think I sound annoyed, then you are right.  I am ANNOYED! No warning whatsoever.  Just slammed the door.  Shame on Photobucket. As it is I pay £8.99 a month to store my photos there.  Go ahead, take a look at the link up there and you will see what people are seeing when they click on my blog posts from the past.  Colour me annoyed.

 

I adore Holly hocks.  I think they are beautiful and the most cottagy of cottage flowers.  When I lived in Suffield, Alberta, our house had a whole wall of hollyhocks on one side of it and the back of the house was loaded with peonies, which is another flower I love.  I don't have either of those here.  I wish I did.  We did buy a beautiful hollyhock one year and planted it, but it never came back.  No, not ever.  Sigh  . . . 

  

I love colour.  I am so glad I live in a world where there are colours, some we don't even have names for.  Colours are beautiful and you cannot describe them.  How do you explain to a blind man what red is or purple, blue, green, etc.  You can describe how they make you feel, but you cannot describe what they look like, nor is it anything they can "see" by touch . . . 

I love door knockers.  I especially love unsual ones like this one.  I have always loved door knockers.  We have one on our front door, but it is just a simple plain ordinary one, but then again, this isn't the type of house that something like this would suit. 

 

Glass door knobs.  I quite simply adore them.  I think they are so charming and beautiful. If I owned my own house I would have glass door knobs.  The Manor had glass door knobs, even the laundry room had a glass door knob . . . 

  

Pink Depression Glass.  It is so beautiful.   I love it.   I will never have any of it, and that's okay.  I can just enjoy it from afar. 

 

Drinking glasses with flowers painted on them.  These are Greengate.  I think they are just beautiful.  My mom has drinking glasses with deers on them, and some with aces/spaces/etc. They are all glasses she collected through the years from buying mustard or peanut butter.  I wish companies still did that . . . the only glass jars I collect now are Bon Maman.  I know I am not alone in that.

 

Salt and pepper shakers.  I love them.  I was collecting them, but I have started to get rid of my collection.  I have so little storage space and when I die where will they go . . .  I have no way of getting the things I have to the ones I love.  I will have to start mailing stuff to them now, while I am still alive.  On another note however, someone has made cute mini Bon Maman jars into salt and pepper shakers. I so want to do that and I have the jars.  Watch this space.

 

 Cream Teas  . . . with mugs of steaming tea (herbal for me) and fruit scones, with plenty of clotted cream and strawberry preserves.  Nothing could be finer  . . . 

 

Mmmm . . .  clotted cream, with that layer of buttery crust on top and that thick rich cream beneath.  It is impossible to replicate, no matter how hard people try.  You can get something similar . . .  but it is just not the same.  There is nothing like real, true, clotted cream from Devon and Cornwall . . . 

  

Its a bit sappy, but I just love Road to Avonlea.  It is just a sweet sweet show.  The costumes, the sets, the characters.  So much to love  . . . 

 

Susan Branch.  She has been bringing joy into my life since the early 1980's.   Her art, her books, her products, her blog, her Willard newsletters.  Everything.  She speaks to my heart, always.  Its like she knows all my loves and puts them into words/images/etc. Huge, huge fan.   She is a kindred spirit.

HRH Queen Elizabeth.  Long been a fan and a royalist.  I know lots of people don't have time for the Royal family, but I am not one of those.  I love and respect them.  I think they work really, really hard, and their lives are like fish bowls with everyone watching everything they do, ready to jump on every little thing.  I would not want to have to live like that.  I think the Queen is one very classy lady.  She has never had a hint of scandal attached to her.  I think she has been a very good Queen and has set a wonderful Royal example to us all.  The Royal family and the history of Royalty brings oodles of dosh into the UK every year in Tourism revenue.  Lets face it, people don't come here for the weather, cos the weather here is unreliable at best!  Buckingham palace, Kensington Palace, the Mall, Horseguards Parade, Changing of the Guard, The Tower of London, London Bridge, etc.  That's what people come to see, more than anything else.  The history of this country is amazing and it is just a beautiful country, probably more than anything else, because of the rain.  It makes us very lush and green.

 

Scented Candles and yes, Yankee Candles are my favourite ones.  I especially love anything spicy . . .  anything that smells like I have just been baking  . . . it smells like home sweet home to me. The Apple Crumble one is particularly nice.

Notebooks and journals.  I have always loved them.  I loved my new scribblers when I went to school and I loved filling them.  I still do. I need to correlate mine.  They are filled with all sorts.  Church conference notes, spiritual thoughts, poetry, quotes, etc.  There is nothing that pleases me more than a fresh notebook, unless it is a new pen.  I love those too.

And those are my favourite things for this week!

A thought to carry with you . . . 

.° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★
 *.˛.° Be glad of life because 

it gives you the chance to work,

and to love, and to play, 

and to look up at the stars.

~Henry Van Dyke   •。★★ 。* 。

Spiritual Enlightenment  

 In The English Kitchen today  . . .  Creamy Garlic Sauced Chicken.

Have a wonderful Thursday.  Don't forget during the fabric of your day  . . . 

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and I do too!