Chartreuse & Co.

About an hour west of Baltimore, in the small town of Buckeystown, there is an occasional event I finally got around to attending! It’s the bi-monthly (or so) barn sale at Chartreuse & Co. As you wind down some country roads, in a county that is rapidly becoming more suburban than rural, you see an historic brick house and a collection of barns.

Each of the barns is filled with loads of goodies, some in small shops that various owners have set up and others filled with furniture or architectural artifacts.

A lot of the shops veered a bit too far towards the faux shabby “chic” side for me, and if I saw one more 20-something clutching a Ball or Mason jar like she’d just won an Emmy, I was going to slap someone.

But there was enough to make me happy including two of my passions: old silverplate pieces, and some good collections of ironstone.

It’s just beginning to feel like autumn here and it was fun to see the wide varieties of pumpkins used for decoration.

It was fun seeing how people had styled their shops. The barns are styled using some of the inventory, like this one paneled in old shutters.

On the way home we popped into Frederick for little while, and soon realized that it was best left for an all day trip up to visit all of the great antique shops and restaurants, including Brian Voltaggio’s Volt Restaurant. We stopped into one shop that both Andrea and I thought was just beautifully decorated.

It was a beautiful day for a drive to Frederick,

and we’re both looking forward to visiting again.

The Adventure Continues

As you might know, one of my favourite places in Baltimore is The Book Thing, the place where you can get as many free books as you can carry… in you book bag or in your tractor trailer!  I hadn’t been in a few weeks, mainly because it’s not air-conditioned and it’s in a one-level, flat-roofed warehouse and it’s hot enough to make you pass out. Not a fun experience. Of course, it’s not heated, either, but I can deal with that!

As I poked around, I had a feeling I might find something good. As I turned to look at the one odd shelf of biographies, I spotted a zebra in the midst of all of the books.

It was the famously zebra-covered book, I Married Adventure. But this one had part of its original book cover, something which I’d never seen before. ith th

Actually, as I have since found out, this is the back cover of the book. Of course, I realized immediately that only half of the cover was with the book, and I searched around for the other part of it, to no avail. Both of the inner flaps were there, as well as the back cover, not even attached to anything.

When I got home, I did a little research and found what the original cover looked like. There’s barely anything to let you know about the sublime cover lurking below the blue and green.

There is another cover, which is much less awful, and was from one of the early editions.

The newest editions feature a completely different cover, but still with the same image of Martin & Osa Johnson on the cover.

In searching, I found that there was a movie made of their adventures, and because the Johnsons were film-makers, much of their own footage was used.

Earlier this year, on the 75th anniversary of the original release of the movie, it was re-issued on DVD with this cover.

And then to keep things really classy, there’s an advert that Osa did for Blatz beer!

The Book Thing is one of the many things I love about Baltimore!

Remembering…

It’s so hard to believe it’s been 14 years since that gorgeous, absolutely perfect September morning when the first hints of fall were in the air and everyone was in great spirits.

There are still stories to be told of the heroes of that dark day.

On September 11, 2001, more than a half a million people were evacuated from the lower end of Manhattan Island in just nine hours. This is the largest boatlift in history. In contrast, during WWII, over 330,000 people were evacuated from Dunkirk, but that was over nine days. Yet few people know the story of the 9/11 boatlift.

I hope that you will take a few minutes and watch this video. Then you will understand that countless unknown people were heroes on that sad day.

If you remember September 11, 2001, you will never forget it.

Long to Reign Over Us: 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes

On the evening of September 9, 2015, HR Queen Elizabeth, II will have served 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes. Once she hits 24 minutes, she will have surpassed Queen Victoria’s 63 years and seven months. The date had been thought to happen between the 8th and 12th of September, due to leap years, not knowing the exact timing of Victoria’s uncle’s death in his sleep, and some other pesky details.

However, Buckingham Palace has fixed the date and time as the evening of September 9th. There won’t be the pomp and circumstance that there was for the Jubilee in 2012, but HM will launch a new train in Scotland to mark the occasion.

Naturally, there are those who wish to make a pound or two on this solemn occasion, like Kellogg’s who is promoting Queen Flakes, only available at a cereal bar (!) in Manchester, England.

A little more elegantly, a special series of £20 coins are being produced that show her profile as it has appeared on the currency over the past 60 years.

Royal Crown Derby has a mug which goes for the queenly sum of £115

In conjunction with Johnstons of Elgin, the Queen’s Scholarship Trust is producing cashmere blankets for a cool £495. Elgins holds a royal warrant from Prince Charles.

Mappin & Webb Silversmiths are producing a limited edition silver picture frame (photo not included) for £225.

As for me, I will be sitting at my desk at the appointed hour (12:30 EST), and will rise and sing the British National Anthem:

God save our gracious Queen!
Long live our noble Queen!
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen.

And I am flying my flags to celebrate!

God Save the Queen, indeed!

Long Weekend

I had actually set aside the weekend to bond with my new dog, but alas that didn’t happen. The dog I had picked out was sent to a rescue group and it was no longer available. I was terribly disappointed by this, but then rationalized that it probably happened for a good reason. I am keeping the faith that the right dog is out there and will arrive at the right time.

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It was this weekend in 2011 that I lost Connor for 24 hours. I had zipped out for a coffee and somehow he got out of the house – not a big shock to anyone who knew his history as Houdini. As much trouble as Connor could be, I miss him every day.

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Since I had cleared the calendar, I figured this was a good weekend to “get things done”, which happened more or less. Lots of reading, puttering around, etc. I listed some new pieces of the mother of pearl cutlery on my Etsy Shop, including a spectacular and perfect set of 24 knives and forks,

a dozen wonderful forks,

and some lovely knives from France.

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I had some peaches that went from rock hard to squishy in the blink of an eye, so I whipped up a very small batch of peach and brandy preserves. I have done the same recipe with bourbon, but I was out of bourbon and liquor stores in Baltimore aren’t open on Sundays (whose crazy idea is that??). I told you it was a small batch! You can find the recipe here from a few years ago. Of course, I had to change it a wee bit. Seriously, who in their right mind would use 1/2 teaspoon of bourbon?

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As I was doing laundry, I noticed that I have a few stripey shirts! So I decided to stack them up to see how many I have!

They’re just so easy to wear and you can dress them up or down. I even have a Pinterest board dedicated to Stripey Shirts!

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Historic week coming up and I was glad I remembered the banners that I had picked up in Wales last fall.

You can see that the gardenia is blooming again, as it has for the past month or so, just a few blossoms at a time, but that’s fine with me!

Hope you weekend was great! Tell me about what you did!

I’ll Take This: Studio in London

When I lived in the UK, I initially worked at King’s College in the Strand doing fundraising and at the weekend, I’d go back to Wales. My route took me west along the Talgarth Road, past a row of houses called the St. Paul’s Studios, that I always looked forward to seeing with great anticipation.

One was for sale a few years ago, and I wrote about it here. The house had been completely transformed inside, and not much of the original charm was remaining. Now another one is for sale, and this one has great provenance. It was owned by Dame Margot Fonteyn, the English prima ballerina, and she used it for her practice studio.

This row of houses was designed by Frederick Wheeler in 1891 and each features a huge north-facing window, perfect for the artistic types.

Each house features such amazing detailing but they’re on a major route out of London, and some are looking a bit run-down. This one still has it’s original fireplace, although it looks like the surround has been nicked.

Here’s the other side of this room. Scary kitchen, but fabulous balcony!

This house has four bedrooms, two baths, a south-facing garden, and a servant’s flat in the lower ground level. There’s a tube station close by, but unfortunately, the line runs right behind the garden.

Here’s a great sketch of one of the houses from the blog, Remember the Window, by a resident of one of these special houses. It hasn’t been updated in ages, but there are some great images.

So, there’s a ton of traffic out front, and trains going by in the back, but they’re still charging £1,400,000 for the property.