Did you know that Franklin patented a type of peach? 
And the bobby pin (kirby grip)? And the odometer? 
Commenter Gail reminded me that today’s Baltimore’s 280th birthday. The city was founded in 1729 and is named after Lord Baltimore who was the first Governor of the State of Maryland. 
Soon after that, my family arrived and gave birth to the first white child born in Baltimore. I am the 12th generation of my family to live in this city.
As I’ve said before, Baltimore gets a bad rap, mostly as a result of The Wire, a HBO show filmed here, which explored the drug culture of the city. But I’ve also said that The Wire only represents a small portion of the city.
I’ve worked hard to show you a lot of the good things about Baltimore including the beautiful architecture, the vibrant cultural life, the great restaurants (oh, that’s my food blog), the 300 years of history surrounding us, the great people and much more. 
Like any city of its size and age, Baltimore has some problems, but there are so many good things about the city that I try to celebrate in my posts.
Baltimore is one of those places that just sucks you back. I am still friends with people whom I’ve known since I was a child, and there’s a short-hand here natives know by heart. There’s a family history here that assures me that I belong here. I will probably move back to England one day (the other half of my family is there and I am first generation on that side), but for now, Baltimore’s home.
Happy Birthday, Baltimore, and many many more!
The Life is a Bed of Roses bed linens by Lulu Guinness. I love the bedroom, too!
Abso-lulu!
If you were like me and a lot of my friends, you got up before the crack of dawn and turned on the television to watch the wedding of the century. Charles and Diana. Prince and Princess.
One of the places I like most of anywhere I’ve been is the tiny Kilpeck Church in Herefordshire, England. I was looking for a picture and came across some of my old photographs of this church.
The earliest reference to this church is from 650 AD, but the current church was built around 1140 AD. It is still used as a village church and is correctly called the Parish Church of St Mary and St David in Kilpeck. 
It sits on the Welsh borders, close to the Severn and Wye Rivers. The church is tiny, not holding more than a few dozen people, but it is still used on a rotating basis with several of the other local churches. 
The most extraordinary thing about this church are the 89 carved corbels below the roofline. 
Although some are missing, the ones that remain are just incredible. 
They are carved from red sandstone, which is not a hard-wearing material, but over nearly 1000 years, they’ve acquired a shell that protects them from the elements. He looks like something Picasso might have sketched, doesn’t he?
This is a ram’s head.
The carvings are very detailed, especially considering how old they are and the tools which were used to carve them. 
Just the logistics of figuring this design makes my head spin!
Of all of the carvings, this one is the one that stole my heart! It’s almost contemporary in its style, something out of a comic book!
Here’s another view:
That I am getting such joy out of something that was carved so long ago, by some unknown craftsman, fills me with wonder. Time marches on.
Two of the other bloggers, Architect Design and Things That Inspire have written recently about steel windows, so this morning at breakfast I noticed the building across the street had steel windows.
This is actually an old building on the 200+ year old campus of the University of Maryland’s professional schools. The have retained the original façade on the first two levels and then added a parking garage above it, which you can see in the upper right of the image above. This is sort of the opposite of what usually happens: the street level changes, but the upper floors stay the same.
I love the Palladian-style arches with the pebbled glass, the basket-weave brickwork and the details on this building.
I am so excited to see the upcoming movie, Julie & Julia. I think that Meryl Streep will do a brilliant job as Julia Child and it will be fun to see how the movie imagines France in the late 1940’s. 
I read the book, Julie & Julia, which was based on the blog, the Julie/Julia Project. You probably know the story by now: Julie Powell takes on the task of making each of the recipes in Julia Childs’ book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year… in her small NYC apartment.
The Julie/Julia Project book is interwoven with My Life in France, Julia Childs’ autobiography, written with her husband’s great-nephew, Alex Prud’homme. 
Julie & Julia is the first movie based on a blog. Click here for a preview of the film.
I was looking for a book on my shelves the other day, and came across a book I had picked up at Book Thing, called Kennedy Weddings. It’s by Jay Mulvaney, with a foreword by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The book is mainly photographs and catalogues three generations of the weddings in this famous family, including Jack’s wedding to Jackie. I’ve written a couple of stories about Jackie Kennedy’s wardrobe, here and here.
I had recently found a biography of Kick Kennedy and learned a lot about her marriage to Billy Hartington, the heir to the Devonshire family estate, Chatsworth. They spent their honeymoon at one of the “cottages” on the property.
They were not married long, as he was killed in WWII and she died in a plane crash a few years later.
The wedding of Jacqueline Bouvier and John Fitzgerald Kennedy took place at the bride’s step-family’s farm in Newport, Rhode Island. 
One of the quotes in the book comes from Caroline Kennedy who said her mother felt like she looked like a lampshade in her wedding dress. The dress was, and may still be, on display at the Kennedy Library in Boston.
It’s hard to think of how the world would be different if JFK had lived. 
She looks a little scared here, doesn’t she… Does she know what she’s in for?
Caroline Kennedy married Edwin Schlossberg in 1986 in Massachusetts. Her white silk organza dress was dotted with shamrocks as a tribute to her father. It was designed by Carolina Herrara.
Last, but not least, the wedding of John F. Kennedy, Jr. to Carolyn Bessette in 1996 on Cumberland Island Georgia. Who can forget how beautiful the bride looked as she was leaving the church. It’s been ten years since this couple died in a plane crash… 
Such a beautiful but tragic family.
I’ve been carrying around one of the beautiful spoons I received last week and have been showing it to friends and family. It’s just such a special gift and I am so proud to own them! It is like a talisman of good things, which I’ve needed this week.
This evening, when I returned from a little dinner, I pulled the spoon out of my handbag and put it together with a knife and fork from my collection. As you can see, none of the pieces are identical. The hasp, or where the “working part” meets the handle is joined in a different way in each piece. As I look at the 40 or so pieces I have, they all have some variation. 
My chef friend said that the bowl of the spoon was the perfect size to make a quenelle. I think she’s right!
I love learning new things, whether it is figuring out how to create something special or reading an interesting book. A number of years ago, I read an article on different types of people, and came to a clear realization about myself.
Some people are product people and others are process people. Product people love having the finished item to show off. This could be a piece of needlework or an incredible dish that they have cooked. They love getting to the end point and having something to show for their work.
Other people are process people. They love figuring out how to do something. They revel in the creative steps involved in making things, but could care less about the finished product. They just know that they learned how to do something new and now they can move on to learning something else.
I am a process person. I adore figuring out how to do myriad things like knitting, sailing and cooking. But once I finish with what I've done, I don't care about it anymore. It's the challenge of acquiring a new skill that's the draw to me. Right now, I am making jewelry with the amazing pieces of glass that I've gotten from Housewerks, and which illustrate this post. I am working with a diamond-tipped drill bit to smooth and shape these gorgeous pieces and then am making necklaces from them.
Do you know which you are? Are you a process person or a product person?
PS… Here’s Connor with one of his babies. He’s all tuckered out.
As I was browsing the Guardian, I found a small Georgian House for sale in Bath, England, one of the most beautiful cities in the UK. From there, I stumbled upon the Georgian Group Awards, which I’d never heard about.
The Georgian Group was founded in 1937 as a sub-group of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, which was founded by William Morris. The group exists to preserve and protect the Georgian buildings in England, Wales and Scotland which were disappearing at an alarming rate. After many years of struggling, by law, any Georgian building (1700s or later) that is being significantly altered or demolished must be reviewed by the Georgian Group. This also includes residences, commercial buildings, monuments and parks.
The Awards, recognize exemplary conservation and restoration projects and reward those who have shown the vision and commitment to restore Georgian buildings and landscapes. The award categories are Restoration of a Georgian Country House, Restoration of a Georgian building in an urban setting, Reuse of a Georgian building, Restoration of a Georgian Church, Restoration of a Georgian garden or landscape, New building in the Classical tradition and New building in a Georgian context. I used to have meetings at the Georgian Group’s HQ at Six Fitzroy Square (above and below), so it was fun to come across these pictures.
Let’s look at some of the past winners, shall we? 
Belmont House on the Shetland Island of Unst, before (above) and after (below)
Blackburn House in Lothian, Scotland, before
and after.
Moggerhanger House in Bedfordshire, before
and after.
Christ Church in Spitalfields, before
and after.
Danson House, Bexley, Kent, before 
and after.
Last but not least, a house I knew well… Clifton Hill House in Bristol. 
For more information on the Georgian Group’s 2009 Awards, to be held later this year at Christie’s in London, click here. Nicky Haslam will be one of the judges.
My brother chided me for consoling myself with mojitos when my internet was down, instead of throwing back a few Southsides. I should have been guzzling Southsides, because these summer cocktails combine three of my favourite things: mint, lemon and Mt. Gay Rum. 
The story of how Southsides were invented has been lost in the mists of history, but the Wall Street Journal gives credence to their origination at the Southside Sportsman’s Club on Long Island in the 1880’s. There’s some discussion about whether to mix this with gin or rum, but with the mix our family prefers, Mr. Lee’s, Mt. Gay Rum is the drink of choice.
My mother and I went to Virginia to celebrate some birthdays with my brother, and he had several bottles of Mr. George Lee’s special Southside mix hand-delivered to my mother by Mr. Lee himself, still mixing up batches at the age of 88 or so. 
Mr. Lee was the long-time bartender at the Greenspring Valley Hunt Club and in his retirement, he goes through more than 100 pounds of mint a week to create his own special blend of Southsides, which he recommends mixing with Mt. Gay Rum.
On a hot summer day, regardless of where you are, there’s nothing that quenches your thirst like a cold Southside. 
The only recipes I could find on the internet called for gin, but if you Google Southsides, you’ll be able to find a recipe that suits you. Here’s a story NPR did on Southsides a few summers ago and the reporter gives you a recipe.
I saw a piece about a number of houses for sale in some of the more rural parts of France, including Brittany. I loved taking the Eurostar from London to Paris and watching the wonderful country houses flash by. I would take any one of these.
This house has two bedrooms and is a 20-minute drive from the coastal town of Vannes, and 10 minutes from the market town of Malestroit. It’s €117,000 ($164,000) plus notaire’s fees. I love the blue on the shutters! WOW!
An attractive old farmhouse with outbuildings in Côtes-d’Armor, 20km from the coast. It is on the market at €141,750 ($199,400) plus notaire’s fees. The long French windows are great.
This spacious four-bedroom former convent near Puy l’Evêque, on the market for £376,415 ($614,860), would have cost 20% more two years ago. It has its own pool too. Check out the niche with the statue to the right of the front door. Too bad about the cheezy plastic furniture. 
This two-bedroom house with a small garden may need quite a bit of tender loving renovation, but has had its price cut to €50,020 ($70,529) plus notaire’s fees. It’s located in a small rural hamlet in central Brittany.
Which is your favourite?
Do you believe in ghosts?
That happened to me today when I received a package at the office. I've received two other packages in the past week, one containing Jamie Drake's lovely book from Little Augury, and the other with Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden from Maxminimus, which, if you're not reading, you must. Both were lovely and generous gifts, and I appreciate them tremendously. 
HOBAC was extremely thoughtful and creative, and had some spoons made for me from the French Ivory handles of some old knives and forks, and European-size table spoons. 
The detail work is just perfect. They are just gorgeous, and feel amazing in my hand. They are a gift that I will always treasure. 
Now, and when I am old, I will think fondly of this wonderful man, whom I am privileged enough to call a friend.
Aujourd'hui est jour de bastille en France. C’est le jour le Français célèbrent donner l'assaut à de la bastille en 1789. Le premier jour de bastille était un événement énorme de régal et de fonctionnaire pour célébrer le soulèvement de la monarchie constitutionnelle de courte durée en France et quelles personnes ont considéré la conclusion heureuse de la révolution française. L'événement a eu lieu sur le Champ de Mars, alors en dehors de Paris mais maintenant de l'emplacement de Tour Eiffel. L'endroit avait été transformé volontairement par la population de Paris dans ce qui a été rappelé comme brouettes de Journée des brouettes.
Today is Bastille Day in France. It is the day the French celebrate the storming of the Bastille in 1789. The first Bastille Day was a huge feast and official event to celebrate the uprising of the short-lived constitutional monarchy in France and what people considered the happy conclusion of the French Revolution.
The event took place on the Champ de Mars, at the time outside of Paris but now the site of the Eiffel Tower. The place had been transformed voluntarily by the population of Paris in what was recalled as the Wheelbarrow Day.
J'espère que vous avez un jour merveilleux, écoutez la La Marseillaise, qui est vraiment une chanson tout à fait sanglante, et pense à toutes les choses françaises que vous aimez !
I hope you have a wonderful day, listen to La Marseillaise, which is really a quite gory song, and think of all of the French things you love!
The article in the TImes specifically discussed a blogger called "Classymommy" (ugh) who has reviewed more than 1,500 products on her blog. Alghough she does acknowledge which posts are "sponsored" and which are her own, many bloggers do not. I think at this level of "sponsored posts" in a blog, then it becomes one big commercial. In journalism, there's always been a sharp line between the reporting side and the advertising side, so that there's no influence. 
I had a rather sharp discussion with a food blogger who was sent sushi-quality fish, high grade meats, kitchen utensils and small appliances and much more, without ever acknowledging that she had been given the items in hopes that she'd write a positive post about them (which she did). I thought that this was unethical. When I do talk about a commercial venture, I am doing it to share information and no other reason.
I receive loads of PR e-mails and always refuse to post about them, for several reasons. Most of what I am sent shows that the person hasn't really taken the time to read my blog. I write about what I think is interesting, and am not willing to flack for someone else. I also know that lots of the other bloggers are receiving the same e-mails, and I tend to follow my own road. I have also received offers of product, but I have turned that down as well, because I think that it puts the blog on a slippery slope towards becoming an advertising vehicle.
I had lunch with my mother today and she told me about a story that she’d read in the NY Times yesterday. There are 30 pianos scattered about London and they’re available for people to play at any time. The project is called Play Me, I’m Yours. Some are in very touristy spots like Portobello Road (Hi HOBAC !) and others are in places not familiar to tourists, like St. Mary-le-Bow church. I think that this is a brilliant idea, and I love this picture of a group of businessmen singing around a piano in Liverpool Station. Here’s a video of a man playing at Portobello.
I was at Book Thing today, twice actually. The first time, I couldn’t even get into the parking lot, so I went back later and was able to find a spot. I thought the shelves would be empty after all of the morning’s activity, but I got about a dozen books, including a copy of “The House in My Head”, which I will give to one of you. Over the past two years, I have found a few copies of both this book and the other book Dorothy Rogers wrote, “My Favorite Things”. If you’d like this copy, which is in excellent condition, just leave a comment, and I’ll put Connor to work reading the comments and picking one on Friday.
Even though this book is nearly 50 years old, it offers amazing insight to building a house from scratch. Leave a comment if you’re interested in it!
Right now, they're running a story on words that make you wince. Not as much for being gramatically incorrect, but because you can't bear the sound of them. Most of the words are not obsene or disgusting, but ones that just make people squirm. One of the most frequently cited is:
That doesn't bother me too much, but wound does.
It is usually prefaced by gaping or open, and it just turns me green. Same as this word:
I had a friend who couldn't abide the words snack or sneaker. The combination of those sounds made her crazy. (In an e-mail, she told me that with an eight-year old son, she can now tolerate snack.) What makes me crazy is the practice of morphing a perfectly good noun into a verb. The worst example for me is gifted or gifting. What's wrong with gave? 
What is the word that just makes your skin crawl? Why?
Do you know Little Augury? She's relatively new to the blogging world, just starting in January. She's currently doing a series of interviews about books with some of the most influential bloggers, including An Aesthete's Lament, Mrs. Blandings, JCB and my friend, the late, great House of Beauty & Culture. 
In honour of the 500th anniversary, there are gardens for each of Henry VIII's wives. Do you know the rhyme to tell them apart? Divorced, beheaded, died; Divorced, beheaded, survived. Simple, no? This is the garden for his wife, Katherine Howard (beheaded, round two).
As you take the train into London, you can still see a lot of these old gypsy caravans in gardens. It's a reminder of older times. 
Wow! If people have issues with clotheslines, can you imagine what they'd say about these planters? 
I love the way they've used an old postbox as a fountain. When you see these old boxes, you can tell their age by the initials on the front. This one is probably from the reign of King George VI. You can still see some with Queen Victoria's initials. 
This is a topiary of the shop Mary Rose, which sank in 1545 and was raised in 1982. 
I wish that we had shows like this here, but we don't have the gardening tradition that the UK does.
So, the guy from Verizon just left – he arrived about 3:30 p.m. I got several auto-calls from VZ, as well as a two-part text, all telling me that they would be at my house before 7:00 p.m. The service guy was delightful and apologized to me for VZ’s crap customer service. He told me that they hear it all of the time from people and that the frustration level with the customer service is out of this world.
As I was driving home from work yesterday, I realized that I didn’t have anything for breakfast this morning, because I usually pick up a bagel and coffee on the way to work. So I stopped at a store that I am unfamiliar with and had a little accident. 
The front part of my car, which is very low, got caught on one of those cement things at the end of the parking space and ripped my radiator’s bottom. Anti-freeze gushed out. It was horrible. I had to have the car towed to the service station.
So, with the two days of work that I missed and have to take vacation to cover, and this repair, the bad service from VZ has cost me a lot!!! I still hate them, even though my service is back on.
Their final sale is from July 8th to 12th and they're advertising savings of from 75% to 95%. I have gotten some incredible deals there, including crystal ornaments, originally priced at $12.99 for 49¢. I bought some pewter vases for $2.00 that were originally about $25 each. Here's a post about some of my great deals. Most of their furniture is too big for my house, but their smaller things were great deals!
Here are the details of the sale, with times and directions.
It’s the 4th of July and I am at home with Connor, who is deathly afraid of fireworks and is drugged to the gills. He’s joined by his puppy-pal, Halas, who is a bit better with fireworks.
I am pirating a signal from a neighbour’s unsecured wireless service, and it’s nice to have some access – even if it is limited.
This morning, I went to a local parade right in one of the downtown neighbourhoods. 
Even though it’s in the middle of the city, it had that small –town feeling. 
Everyone in the neighbourhood, along with their friends, parades around the block, 
up on to Federal Hill 
and then back to the starting point.
After the parade, there were games for the kids, including egg races, limboing and water balloon tossing and hula-hooping contests. 
Everyone dresses for the day in red, white and blue 
and decorates their houses accordingly. 
I hope you had a safe and happy holiday!
As the United States celebrates its 233rd birthday, I'd like to wish everyone a safe and happy day, regardless of where you live!
When I got home yesterday, my internet wasn't working, so I did all the things that usually re-start it, and it still didn't work. So I took a stiff drink and called Verizon. After about 10 minutes of voicemail hell, I finally got "Joe" who is probably really Sidhar in India. He was perfectly pleasant, according to his script, but couldn't solve my problem.
After several mojitos, I finally called back, only to be disconnected again. The third time, after more than an hour and a half on the phone, I got the service person to agree to come tomorrow, and to even narrow down the time to a four hour block, instead of the original 13 hour time-frame they offered. 
