Long Island light and shade
December 6, 2011
I feel the air miles when a man with a festive beer in a plastic cup offers a seat on the packed late train to Ronkonkoma and questions with some incredulity ” You’ve come all the way from England for Thanksgiving ?” I have and it’s my first. The blazing fire, turkey with a turkey flavour from a North Fork organic farm and the warmth of the Foley family to whose Long Island Thanksgiving I am invited the next day will meet all of my expectations and more.
With my body clock somewhere after lunch, I wake rather suddenly to the crack of gun shots from the duck hunters across the lake. ( It is never wise to think the countryside is peaceful) But it’s tranquil enough, absolutely blissful in fact, drinking hot coffee on the porch ,watching the melting pale pink early morning sky and all around the earthy woodiness of damp leaves. I’m at the white house, the simple white wood clad home (and location space) of Trish Foley the American queen of white and natural decorating. Her first book the Natural Home published in 1995 was ahead of its time, and is as inspirational today.
Trish’s 3rd pop up shop event for her New General Store takes place with soup cider and cookies over the Thanksgiving weekend. It features white and natural home ideas on sale in Trish’s studio and white cabin tucked amongst the surrounding winter thin woods.
There’s a gang of us to pull the last minute threads together: stirring the spicy pumpkin soup (cumin, coriander, chilli, toasted pine nuts and croutons make this a particularly delectable pumpkin idea), wiping down the thick glassy beads of overnight dew from the outdoor benches and sweeping leaves off the huge outdoor plank table. The sun feels warm again on my face, a remnant of summer and as in London, everyone is saying how unseasonable the temperatures are.
Matthew Mead sets up his stall in the White Shop, and signs copies of Holiday magazine- his brilliant and visually inspiring take on crafting and making that comes out quarterly.
I have my eyes, on white pots filled with bulbs and moss, but can’t exactly see getting past airport security A narcissus- scented candle will do very nicely instead. And there is a gorgeous collection of vintage white Ironstone china, platters, cups and bowls, that I could also happily pack to take home – if only.
We say clothes pegs you say clothes pins.
As well as delicious flavoured vinegars and olive oils, there’s flowery and scented Rugosa Rose jelly made by The Taste of the North Fork. I have some dollops of it on toast with butter for breakfast to keep me going.
I am on duty signing books in the studio, suffused with the scent of flowering paper white narcissi, and bathed in the long low sunlight pouring through the south facing wall of glass window panes. It’s good to meet the New York/Long Island crowd and find that there’s common ground – simpler living is as much on the agenda in the economic downturn as it is at home. I’m glad that all my favourite things: parrot tulips, rhubarb, roses, chestnuts and lemon meringue pie seem to be appreciated across the pond. The books are a sell out and so I celebrate with walnut shortbread baked by Michael Jones.
The next day I’m 0n the road again, heading to my next signing at Loaves and Fishes, in Bridgehampton. This is a wonderful treasure trove of a cook shop with the best of its type, from coffee making machine and shellfish picker to sharp knife and dinner plate. Run by the charming and welcoming Sybille van Kempen Loaves and Fishes is also noted for its food shop and cookery school and is as much a Hamptons landmark as all the gorgeous beach houses*. It’s Sunday lunchtime, and so my samples of chocolate and chestnut cake are a great crowd drawer, and another of the book’s recipes that seems to travel rather well.
* Ralph Lauren designer, Ellen O’Neill’s heavenly red and white house ( American country house style meets Bloomsbury ) is another Long Island location shoot’s dream.
Time for some R and R and I head off to the City via the Long Island Rail Road ( it’s all so American- the toot tooting of the train when it passes the unmanned barriers reminds me of every cowboy movie I’ve ever seen) and Penn Station. The avenues of Manhattan await me and my wheelie bag.
See Pure Style on Design Sponge!
October 5, 2011
I wanted to show you this great piece on my home that’s just gone live with Design Sponge. Thanks so much to Keiko for taking such glamorous pictures!
Things I like this week…….
October 3, 2011
More brilliant ideas from the Pure Style design files.
Mellow yellow: simple Daisy pattern wallpaper from The art of wallpaper. Also comes in a good sludgy blue, brick red, and charcoal.
The clocks will be going back soon and there will be a great excuse for investing in a really good desk lamp – I love this one from Anglepoise.
Blue and white striped Cornishware mugs feature in all the kitchens that I have lived in over the years. I love their utilitarian cheerful feel. From recently rescued TG Green – and also in red.
Indian summer’s over – it’s time for tea and toast. This smart glass jar comes with spiced fig jam, from Toast. Recycle it for your own jam making efforts.
More autumn leaf yellows (THE colour this season) in wool knit by Danish company Kvadrat cover this 50’s Scandinavian style easy char in oak, from Heal’s. It also comes in leather, but I’m not so sure that works so well.
Yes I know linen sheets almost need a mortgage, but treat them like investment dressing and save up for a set from Volga Linen to last and last.
I love the way denim fades when you wash it. Get the look with this squashy bean bag made in the UK and covered with indigo denim woven in Lancashire, from Ian Mankin.
Things I like this week …
September 28, 2011
This is my new weekly post where I share inspiring pictures and ideas from the Pure Style design files.
Retro look for keeping warm this winter: wool blanket ‘Madison Gold’ from Melin Tregwynt.
With 20% off from 1st October Scottish fabric designer Donna Wilson’s Eadie armchairs at SCP are potentially more than just a textile-dream.
Just launched at the London Design Festival is Studioilse’s Companions bedside table in oiled chestnut and cork for De La Espada.
This olive oil crushed from Arbequina olives, by Spanish food specialist Brindisa is really mellow and nutty – I think it’s brilliant for making mayonnaise.
I’ve had my Le Creuset cast iron casserole pans for over 20 years – but wouldn’t mind adding a cream coloured one to my kitchen kit.
Feathery white parrot tulips are essential in my spring garden. Definitely putting in another order this season from Crocus.
It’s time for dealing with the fading roses. Great for pruning are Swiss made Felco secateurs.
Local paradise
May 16, 2011
Suffused in pools of light and shade this May afternoon the garden seems to take on an air of secrecy and serenity. It is my place of shelter and repose from the roaring traffic and sirens on the South Circular, just two streets away. I turn on the hose and give everything a good drink (drought conditions continue, and gardeners are being asked to create mud pools so the house martins and swifts can build their clay like nests). The arc of water plays like a silver stream over the last tulips, rosemary, alliums and clumps of purple chives. It leads my thoughts to a piece I have read about Islamic gardens, and how we owe a huge debt in the West to the Muslim ideal of paradise. This is encapsulated in the design of the Persian ‘chahar bah . This enclosed garden has a central fountain which flows into water rills which represent the four rivers of Paradise. Famous examples include the Taj Mahal garden in India and the Court of the Lions in the Alhambra, Granada. In his book’ Gardens, An Essay on the Human Condition’- the academic Robert Pogue Harrison argues that it also provides a key to understanding Islam in the modern world. He suggests that where paradise is imagined as a garden of perfect tranquility our incurable Western agitation takes on a diabolical quality. It would be wonderful to have world peace and understanding through gardening.
On a personal level, working in my garden takes me away from just about every mental annoyance that happens to be swirling around. I enter a calm non judging head space when having to concentrate on the delicate and precise task of lifting fragile radish and bean seedlings into position for the next stage of development. My senses are energised: bad or dull feelings float away with the smells of damp earth as the hose plays across the beds, and I feel more in touch with the elements as my legs are lightly tickled by lavender that has spilled voluputously over the brick path.
The Constance Sprys, are in themselves a vision of petally paradise, tumbling luscious pink blooms over on both garden fences. Not only visual balm, but with a scent that is so light and sweetly fragrant that I feel I want to drink it .
Then there are the equally fabulous frilled and frothy pink peonies, (below) the ones I lifted and divided from my childhood suburban garden after my mum died. It is reassuring that she lives on, in a way, through this yearly renewal in the garden.
I’m always coming up with ideas for Pure Style this and that – one dream is a heavenly little hotel with a walled garden and bright white bedrooms. If there was to be a Pure Style scent, of course ‘rose’ would get a first look in, but I have to say that if anyone could help me bottle the delicate vanilla fragrance of my wallflowers this spring( see below) I am sure we could be on to a winner, too.
Falling petals
May 9, 2011
The party’s coming to a close with the tulips. Like beautiful young things who’ve been up all night their petals are languid and flopping. Somehow the curling and dessicating parts aren’t cause for gloom, but give the flowers an extraordinary wild and anarchic look. The tulip’s decline is an elegant one. I must remember to pick off the seed pods and later in the summer I will lift the bulbs and dry for planting out again in the winter.
There’s so much more about to happen in the garden, and I am being kept on my toes with planting out vegetable seedlings, mowing the grass (only roughly I have to say, just to make it look refreshed rather than obsessionally neat and titivated) and weeding, weeding, weeding. My gorgeous Constance Spry rose are on the point of bursting forth, so in next week’s post I can show you these and the other summery beginnings which are so very early this year.
Blossom days
April 27, 2011
I wake early with the encouraging limpid blue of an English Spring sky. Since I’ve been away in Olhao the apple tree has blossomed in a candy floss of fluffy pale pink petals.
The morning sun warms the worn red brick paving tiles and spills across the newly opened array of tulips. I can’t remember planting quite so many gorgeous varieties. (Not that surprising because when I did so, the garden was coated in a thick white icy coat of snow and it was all I could do to force the bulbs randomly into snow rimmed earth holes before it all became too cold and unpleasant and I had to scurry inside, toes and fingers numb.) It is so exciting to watch this blast of petally colour unfold.
See above from left to right: Spring Green; Black Parrot ( a straggler from bulbs that I planted three years ago ); Lilac Perfection.
The purple and white striped ‘Triumph’ tulip reminds me of the purple and white colourings of red onions; it has to be the most stylish of my tulip flock.
Hardly have the bags been unpacked and the weeds attended to, then our spring jaunt continues with a large family get together in Suffolk. By now the air feels midsummer balmy and the weather people are in high excitement about the early heatwave that is hitting northern Europe. Whilst I am ambling along dewy lanes, alive with cuckoo song , lilac, and wild asparagus (see above), a subdued text from our tenant in Olhao describes great winds and rains and a request for wet day activities in the area. Wow, we had a narrow climatic escape.
We visit Walberswick, rather like an English east coat version of the Hamptons, on Long Island, all beautiful picturebook, wisteria-clad houses and cottages with immaculate picket fences. There is a village green with swings, well behaved children and a horizon with simple beach huts. We crunch along the pebbly beach and some of the party, plus the dog, embrace the unseasonal warmth and swim. Of course, the sea is still winter cold and we drive home with the heater full on to keep hypothermia at bay.
I negociate a detour to Wootton‘s nursery which has everything from agapanthus to old fashioned cottage garden plants, and the most amazing selection of auriculas (see above) all massed together in a light white greenhouse. I come away with a box of cat mint and lavender for the potager beds, blue geraniums for ground cover, and an exquisite lemon secented old perlagonium called Mabel Grey which I shall keep in a pot to sit on my desk through the winter.
Sufffolk (and going over into Norfolk) is also very blissful with its wide flat watermeadows around Harleston and Beccles, where cows swish their tails in the shade of ancient willows and the river Waveney is cool and meandering. We bike past hawthorn hedges frothing with white blossom and look over to into fields where hares leap across the furrows. The county’s vast field aspect can be overwhelming, as are the electric yellow swathes of rapeseed. Sometimes I catch the whiff of a more industrial and stinky smell than anything with more rural connections. There are clues in the anonymous green lorries thundering past gnarled greening oaks to what is probably hidden away landfill.
We eat well on Suffolk honey, the new season’s asparagus, cod landed at Lowestoft and rhubarb for pudding. The Ship inn at Dunwich serves the best fish and chips of the week, and is also a only a few minutes walk to the beach , where it is said that divers can hear the ghostly clang of church bells that succumbed to the sea.
Arriving back in London through steamy streets where the thermometer is hitting 27C, I am almost bowled over by the riot of colour (see above and below) that that has taken over the garden. All the tulips are now full and voluptuous on leggy stems. I watch their cups open up lazily in the sunshine and close in the shade as as if to keep warm.
New this year to my bulb order are ‘Silver ‘ parrot tulips (see below right) which when they first came out weren’t in the least bit silver, more bright raspberry ripple. Now that they’ve matured, the pink has faded a little and is rather fabulous.
Sweet mint and oranges
April 16, 2011
I wake to the mass twittering of sparrows and a distant bell. The air is sea salty, the breeze warm and the sky is bright morning blue. Olhao. We’re here again for the spring holiday with a case full of books for revision and fabric to make cushions for summer. Breakfast is toast with soft springy sourdough-like bread which they slice for you from the café on the corner. I have a jar of orange flower honey from which I spread a thick coating onto a slice along with curls of butter. We eat outside in the quintal and squint at the sun which is glowing with promise for the day ahead.
Oranges are so good and fresh here; so much sweeter and more intensely orange flavoured because they’re not long picked from a tree. We squeeze juice with the 13 euro juicer – a definite qualifier for what I think is a ‘best buy’- and pour it into small glass tumblers. So much more of an enjoyable experience than opening up a carton.
I throw black jeans, sweater and thick socks to the back of the wardrobe and feeling expectant for a first of the season session at the beach pull out last summer’s floaty cotton dress, sandals in which to brave winter feet, and straw hat. I’ve been through quite a few hats here, one or two have blown into the sea whilst on a boat of some sort; one was washed away by a rogue wave, and another met its end with an uncontrolled puppy.
The fading terracottas, yellows, and greens of Olhao’s crumbling façades are balm to my tired city eyes. Most luminous are the pale cobalt blue lime washed walls that give the buildings a mediterranean seaside flavour. My friend Piers mixes blue pigment with white cal (lime) to create this timeless effect.
At the Saturday market the senses are hit with the aromatic smell of mint and the fragant childhood summer smell of strawberries. Wrinkled men with flat caps look after stalls groaning with oranges, pumpkins, broad beans, and peas. Cages with live rabbits and uncomfortable looking hens are clustered by the sea wall. I want to take to take it all home, all of this colour, and sensation. We settle for eggs, a bag of plump peas shelled by the vendor, a bunch of radishes with pink roots slashed rather stylishly with white, more sweet oranges and a kg of plump and richly coloured strawberries for the picnic.
Natural beauty
April 9, 2011
The garden is growing growing growing. The warmth and sun of the past week has kick started the spring juices and the little beds in the parterre/potager are greening and filling out fast. The tulips that started as a flop of leaves have developed slender stems with tight buds. The first to flower is the variety Lilac Perfection (see above) in fabulous bowls of fuschia pink petals.
This natural beauty in my backyard is a kind of antidote to all that’s commercial and mass market: ads that make us want more even though we don’t need whatever is being pushed, or the TV mush of American teen soaps and celebrity dining shows. This, and my desire to live more simply and without so much fuss is also where I am at with my Pure Style philosophy. I think I must be on the right track when I read that my design hero Terence Conran has a buff label on his desk with the words ‘Plain, simple, useful’ and says that we should apply this attitude to everything we own and use.
I am also a fan of John Lane’s Timeless Simplicity – in which he explains how to live more creatively in a consumer society.
It quite a revelation, to see that it’s not the first time there has been a reaction to the consumerism in society. Go and see the V&A’s exhibition Escape into Style, ‘The cult of beauty: The aesthetic movement 1860-1900’ which is about the late nineteenth century revolt against Victorian industrialism by artists and architects who wished to create a new ideal of beauty in wallpaper, painting, architecture, textiles and poetry.
NB: Although it’s really all about middle class family angst – and a rather too close to home portrait of it too, I recommend the film, Archipelago, to see some truly mesmerising visuals of the natural beauty on the wild and windswept island of Tresco in the Isles of Scilly.
New blues
March 26, 2011
It’s been a whirlwind of a week in location house land: the walls are purple one minute, then lavished with paper in stylish patterns, the next. And that’s not including the 15 people who organise the Queen of Craft’s natty cushions and heart shaped jam tarts.
It’s good to get out of the way of drying paint and have the first hits of the season on the tennis court. I like Fabian the coach because he says lots of ‘well dones’ unlike the slightly tutting new accountant who I meet to discuss the bulging packets of receipts.
The air is marzipan-and-lemon-scented. Spring has gone into overdrive in the last few days, and the white beads on the apple tree might blossom too early if this luscious warmth continues. Gardeners are always paranoid about the risk of frost at this time of year, but I for one, can only luxuriate in and enjoy the myriad hues of blue in skies that have been leaden for too long.
As well as enjoying the bundles of grape hyacinths (see last week) I walk the dog through glades of delicate blue Scillas (above, and another cousin of the hyacinth family) that is so much a part of spring. I’m a blue girl as much as a green one when it comes to having splashes of the colour around the house. I love old faded blue and white floral china (above) it looks great against white walls. Coastal blue and white Cornishware stripes are always smart. I buy it both new, and secondhand when I can find it at a good price.
Readers of my books can’t fail to notice my passion for blue and white checks. I think small check patterns are easier on the eye for accessories such as cushions and pillow cases. See an example here on the new Swedish style bed from Feather and Black. This is the one that replaced the vast low slung circular Ikea number that was great for 12 year olds on sleepovers, but hopeless for arthriticky relatives.
PS. No thanks, I don’t want any more royal wedding paraphenalia in my inbox: “A bed that is fit for a Queen, King sofa and Queen armchair’, or, believe it or not ‘Knit Your Own Royal Wedding’ etc etc. But I don’t mind reading the low down on clever Emily Chalmers of Caravan whose new book, Modern Vintage Style, is out soon.
