Summer scents and sweetpeas
August 15, 2010
Packing up for the hols’ may be palpitation inducing: thundering down the motorway to take the dog for her summer billet with my sister, racing through a month’s paperwork in the early hours, and making the house ship shape for a magazine Christmas shoot . But boy it’s worth it! Exchanging city shorts for beaten up espadrilles and t-shirts is as good for the soul as the summer diet based around grilled sardines and hunks of watermelon.
Just scraping under the 20kg limit as usual, my suitcase is stuffed with books for long spells of reading under the beach umbrella. Favourites include The Surprising Life of Constance Spry by Sue Shephard; Outliers ‘the story of success’ by Malcolm Gladwell, and The Algarve Fish Book by Nic Boer and Andrea Sieber. I’m also inspired by Reinventing Letter Press by Charlotte Rivers, a stylish little book with fabulous printing ideas.
Along with the reading matter, there’s just enough room to slot in a few bars of Green and Blacks chocolate bars. It will head straight to the fridge as soon as possible after we meet the sauna temperatures of Olhao in August.
I’ve also tucked in the dolls house sized Indian terracotta pots that the returning traveller produced from her mighty backpack. Perfect for salt, pepper, and chopped herbs, they are also a tangible reminder of just how far my middle born has spread her wings in the last six months.,
1’m counting on the Spanish lodgers to nurture the courgettes and tomatoes all swelling nicely in the warmth and damp. One of them is a specialist ham carver, so I hope his talents for precision extend to the vegetable patch. They’re already under instructions to feed and water Miss Bea, the cat who will lord it over the sofas, spreading her black fluff, with the dog safely out of the way..
One last look around the flowerbeds, to enjoy the sweetly scented white nicotiana- another unexpected success from last year’s seeds, which in turn were produced from the previous year’s blooms that i collected. And even the agapanthus managed to defy the winter’s ravages and has just put out some glorious blooms. I’ll miss the sweetpeas, too, their delicate soapy fragrance is so much part of an English summer garden.
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Before I snap the case shut I must tell you about three new finds: Feitoria.com.pt sells a cleverly edited collection of Portuguese accessories, such as leather slippers, donkey milk soap,(yes, honestly) and cork ice buckets – so much more inspiring than the usual souvenir stuff. Closer to home ther’re simple Welsh blankets and other celtic home ideas from Blodwen And molly-meg.co.uk sells stylish child sized chairs: a good idea for anyone want ing a nice bit of scaled down Ercol in the nursery.
Seaweed Prints and Sourdough
March 28, 2010
Only a few piles of dog eared admin remain before we can escape to Olhao and the new room on top. On the way to the post office, mimosa and forsythia are fizzing with yellow. It seems a little wasteful to be leaving behind the first budding and greening signs of spring but the draw of sand between toes and sardines are tantalizing too. And after more technology malfunctions (I won’t even go there) parking ticket angst, missed train connections, and near hospitalisation involving clogs on a down escalator, I’m ready to walk there, let alone fly .
Just have to get in a session of dough making for pizza (artichoke hearts, green olives and parmesan, is my current favourite) and other homemade creations (see here my sister in law’s divine rye sourdough bread) to illustrate my new book. The four legged paparazzo is enjoying the cooking sessions too, hanging around the worktop for crumbs, and helping herself to the subject matter of a flapjack shot when no one’s looking. It’s all go putting together the pages, and the deadline is no tiny speck in the distance anymore. But that’s good, too, because it means the weeks are slipping away until the backpacker daughter returns.
When I’m back first stop will be gorgeous fabrics at the V&A exhibition, Quilts 1700-2010. Might even get round to a spot of quiltmaking with pretty seaweed prints from the museum’s collection of archive printed cotton. Check out more print ideas from Printand pattern.blogspot.com and Liberty prints at knockdown prices in the new range for American chain store Target .
Spring garden notes:
Divide agapanthus: I have an extended family of agapanthus plants that came stashed in a suitcase from Spain and are now packed tightly in a pot like chocolate fish in a tin, which is how they like it. This year, though, division is necessary to keep the plants vigorous and I cut them down the middle with a fork and plant the new half in a fresh container.
Feed shrubs and climbers: I started with the standard roses, and have now worked in more compost and bonemeal around the shrub and climbing roses, and gorgeous pale lilac wisteria at the front of the house.
Sow seedlings half hardy under cover: Nicotiana and zinnia seeds saved from last year are germinating in a tray on the windowsill. Sow less than think as a pinch of seed goes a long way.
Prepare trenches for beans and ‘chitted’ potatoes and dig in muck or compost (on another sea salty note, I remember my grandmother lined her bean trenches with seaweed and newspaper to conserve moisture).
Bulbs in the shed
November 26, 2009
It has been a glorious Indian summer of an autumn: crisp golden leaves catching in my hair and tumbling across the grass as I walk in the park. But now the clouds have burst to soak the leaf fall which pastes the streets like papier mache. London is good at this time of year quieter, more mellow. In the deepening shadows the city squares and churchyards seem more secret, invitations into the past.
At weekends it’s hat, scarf and ribbed tights weather. Dark sunday afternoons are for eating cake and idling at an exhibition. I really really recommend the visual magic at The Museum of Everything, showing unseen artists, who create their work outside the eyes and ears of the art world. Take Judith Scott, who made sculpture from household objects entirely hidden by being wound-about over and over by wool and yarn. Scott had Down’s syndrome, and only communicated through these things. They’re very convincing, together with the spirit drawings of medium Madge Gill, and the ceramic recycled kingdom of Indian roads worker Nek Chand. The works are unintentional, delicate and profound.
What a contrast at Tate Modern where Pop Life: Art in a Material World is billed as a foray into the world of the celebrity artist. It includes Andy Warhol wallpaper, Damien Hirst’s golden spot paintings, a reconstruction of Keith Harings’s Pop Shop and some unappealing top shelf stuff in the over 18s’ room. The artist as commercial brand continues to flow into the shop where Tracey Emin white mugs are a whopping ¬¨¬£15.00. It all left me feeling rather flat and anxious to go home and do something nourishing like collect the bean and nicotiana seeds from the pods I’ve been drying by the boiler.
I wake up to the door bell and a postman (something of a rarity during the recent post strikes) bearing a cardboard box with perforated holes from Crocus. It’s the tulip bulbs: Lilac Perfection, Tulipa White Parrot and Tulipa Violet Beauty. All to be planted asap. Six inches isn’t too deep too keep out the the foxes and squirrels who enjoy a crunchy bulb or two..or three….or more. By the way, bulbs are poisonous if eaten by humans and can be irritating to the skin.
A couple of weeks ago I planted up of bowls with specially forced bulbs of hyacinths, paper whites, and crocuses so we will hopefully be surrounded by gorgeous scent and colour over christmas.The secret is to keep them cool and in the dark to let them develop good roots before bringing them into the warmth and light.
Now for some trumpet blowing: Remodelista editor, Sarah Lonsdale has voted my blog as one of her top ten eclectic design blogs. And I’m ‘Queen of Simple’, no less, in Grazia magazine where there’s a piece on the house in Olhao. Speaking of which, hooray! hooray! almost a year to the day, we have the licence to start work on The Room on Top. Who knows what will be in store, once Mr Martinho’s gang arrive and start the heavy work? I will keep you posted.
A room isn’t a room without Farrow and Ball’s ‘Teresa’s Green’, it’s my current passion, having just re-painted the tv room. A room isn’t a room without a dog, but unlike paint which can be painted over if you get fed up with it, a dog is for life. Should be, but round here ‘weapon’ dogs roam the streets with hoodied youths who can’t look after themselves, let along something on four legs. We found a sad, abandoned and emaciated staffie with sores and trailing claws who clambered wearily into the back of the car and let me take her to Battersea Dogs Home. If you want to rescue her she is Brindle/White SBTX
What with all the leaves pouring off the trees it seems a little unseasonal to be to picking remnants of a summer flower garden: a few rose heads, nasturtiums and so on. I hope it’s not because of climate change. But then Pepys describes roses blooming in his London garden in the middle of December, and that was hundreds of years ago before we’d begun to stifle the planet. Anyway, it’s good to press the petals between the pages of the telephone directory for simple decorations that you can stick on your christmas cards.
The warm conditions followed by wet this autumn have been a fungi foragers dream. My family really got into searching for porcini, (penny buns) field mushrooms, chanterelles, blewitts and parasols when we lived in Spain. These are edible mushrooms that are quite easy to identify. The locals there were crafty so and sos and thought nothing of raiding their neighbours’ fields before daylight.
On a stroll through Berkshire parkland we found parasols (actually umbrella shaped) poking up beneath gnarled trunked oak trees. They’re very tasty fried in a little butter with parsley, but as with all edible mushrooms you shouldn’t eat them in large quantities because they’re hard to digest.
Wild swim
July 14, 2009
Good news! Elle Decoration, July Issue, has voted my blog as one of the best style blogs on the web: ” British style journalist Jane Cumberbatch’s blog is a feast of gorgeous photography and inspiring ideas, on everything from Ercol furniture to making shortbread. Her style is simple, relaxed and recession-friendly”. I’m in sartorial male blog company too, from Mr Peacock who offers tips on how to customise an Ikea sofa, to James Andrew a NY designer who dresses as hip as his surroundings and Jonathan Adler who’s mad about blue.
It’s sweatingly hot and steamy in the city but at Hampstead Ladies pond , spreading trees shade this North London oasis and swimmers become part of nature as they move between floating water lilies and small fleets of ducks with ducklings. It’s my first ever dip here, and it feels like heaven, so peaceful, and even though the dark water seems eerily bottomless, it is fresh and free from tangled weed.
Ben and Jerry’s or Haagen Dazs might be what the teenagers prefer to spoon into their wafer cones, but I live in hope that student budgets or even ennui with the packaged stuff, might nudge them towards making their own ice cream. It’s dead easy. See my latest YouTube for proof.
As all bee experts will testify, the global bee population has recently entered a catastrophic decline, in a syndrome despairingly known as “Colony Collapse Disorder”. Thriving bee farms are being turned overnight into ghost towns as workers mysteriously desert their queens and everyone is quoting Albert Einstein to the effect that if the bees go, the human race will perish four years later. Well you wouldn’t think there’s a buzz crisis in Tulse Hill the bees are positively crowding out my pom pom thistles and lavender bushes in their pollinating and honey making efforts. In fact, this year. Nevertheless, I’m going to do my bit and offer up a quiet spot by the shed to host a hive a brilliant initiative for urban beekeepers who need more space.
I’ve been communing with more bees at Das Kransbach spa where you can get stuck into some serious treatments or idle away the day in buzzing and knee tickling Alpine wild flower meadows. The boxy hives passed on the walk home are the source of sticky golden chunks of honeycomb for breakfast. Just as energising for the soul are the sublime rooms designed by Ilse Crawford and the simple back-to-nature saunas, and pools that lull guests into bliss. No spartan spa this is, either, with delicious cakes on trays at teatime.
A packet of bulbs
November 9, 2008
Autumn’s performance continues to spellbind. The park is decorated like a natural film set, dressed in toning themes of yellow, golden brown and berry pink. Wading through layers of papery leaves is sensual, like eating a Bendicks Bittermint or lazing on hot sand.
It was good to get out in the fresh air as my kitchen was steamy and busy, booked for a team photographing food by Australian chef,
Bill Granger. I watched the refreshingly ego-and-expletive-free, maestro conjure up gorgeous baking one minute, then exotic oriental fish flavours the next. The dog had a field day escaping to lick up whatever tasty crumbs might fall. Bill’s take on chicken curry, with aromatic coconut and chilli, was among the divine leftovers that upped the ante on our everyday grub after the shoot departed in the evening.
The house has been working hard for its living. As soon as the cooking gang left, knitting heroine Debbie Bliss arrived to take pictures for the second issue of her smart new knitting magazine. My knitting skills are restricted to never-ending scarves in purl and plain, but I’m feeling inspired after drooling over Debbie’s fabulous ideas: I fancy the apricot coloured long cardigan, a groovy alternative to a dressing gown.
I’m laying down the dust sheets for the next job, a recycling ad that stars a dustbin, plus all the clobber and fuss that accompanies film making. Hey ho, all in a day’s work.
RETRO LOOKS
The fifties’ were not all about kitsch. It was an era of high quality design classics that were meant to last. I have a passion for the simple elm stick back chairs and tables that Lucian Ercolani designed for his company Ercol . I grew up eating my mum’s sphag bol around an Ercol table. I must admit that Ercol didn’t make it into my first home; I was trying out new ideas and anything associated with parents was uncool. I re-discovered the simple shapes a few years ago in forays to junk shops (see an example above, with one of the paparazzi seated) and intensive searches on Ebay, one of which led me a garage in Bedfordshire and a set of Windsor table and chairs in fabulous condition. Even the flat tyre on the way home didn’t dim my excitement. For more fifties’ ideas visit the exhibition, Designer Style: Home Decorating in the 1950s at the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture.
MORE JOBS
On gardening matters, I really must get out to finish the weeding, rose pruning, (remember: clean secateurs and slanted cuts to let rain run off and prevent infection) and bulb planting. The most important thing about bulbs is to make sure you plant them the right way up: the hairy root bit at the bottom, and the pointy shoot at the top. If in doubt plant them sideways as the shoot will find it’s way to the light. The next most important thing is keep the squirrels out and plant the bulbs at a depth of 10cm. I’m looking forward to seeing what these white and green flamed tulips bulbs from the local garden centre will look like next spring.
On ‘the room on top’ in Olhao, we’ve submitted the planning application to the camara. Now all I have to do is wait, and send out positive vibes so that the word from on high will be positive and in the not too distant distant future. I know that I’m supposed to be on the slow road to less instant gratification, but I can’t wait to get out the roller and finish the walls in pig fat and lime a tried and tested traditional recipe, would you believe, for lime wash. I sense, though, there will be one or two hurdles to leap before that day arrives.
During my visit there a couple of weeks ago, the chestnut vendors had arrived with rickety metal wagons to sell paper twists of roast nuts from the smoking coals. Everyone from old men to young children are customers. We roast chestnuts over an open fire at home in winter by slitting them first and then tossing amongst the embers for a few minutes. One year a friend gave me a chestnut roaster, a pan with slotted holes that was much less messy, and more suitable if a novice.
Flower power
July 20, 2008
Florals are back, proclaim the catwalk shows for autumn and winter 2008. As far as I’m concerned though they’ve never been out. My childhood bedroom was papered in a groovy sixties’ daisy print, and as teenagers my friends and I wafted around in sprigged Laura Ashley smocks with Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark side of the moon’ as the soundtrack.
I always have a dose of florals around the house: a fabulous flowery plastic cloth that looks good for teatime or faded floral print cushions to go with striped ticking on a sofa. You could take a tip from the society decorator Nancy Lancaster who let her chintzes weather in the sun and rain. Not so practical in the average back garden me thinks. I’d rather hunt for authentically aged florals in a secondhand shop. Oxfam might yield somebody’s cast-off Sanderson slip covers, or a pair of curtains,in a classic Colefax and Fowler motif.
Some of my favourite prints are Liberty tana lawns. They’re expensive but I think it’s worth splashing out on a few beautiful things. As a student I worked at Liberty and stockpiled remnants that we were allowed to buy on discount. I’ve used them over the years to make pillowcases, dresses for dolls, or scarves for the beach. The Hille chair below, another junk shop find, has been given a revamp with just one and half metres of Liberty print. See how to make this really simple slip-on cover in my book Sew Easy.
It may be early June but damp pavements and low skies don’t bode well for this week’s planned pool excursions. Never mind, I shall pretend that its like a hot morning in Spain and make toasted bread rubbed with garlic, oil and fresh tomato(scoop out and use the insides only). I use a really good nutty extra virgin olive oil which I keep in a little metal jug with a thin spout, a basic kitchen staple from any Spanish hardware shop.
Photo by Vanessa Courtier.
Spring greens
At last the clocks have gone forward. I’ve got a spring in my step like the milky lambs, part of the four legged contingent, at Alice Douglas’ gorgeous b and b where we spent a few days at Easter. It was worth the slog driving to Snowdonia in North Wales and her cleverly converted chapel. Even the urban teenagers coped with long walks in blustery wilderness when compensated by Alice’s snug beds, underfloor heating, hairdryers and, outside, steaming hob tub with a vast mountain panorama.
Now that the evenings are light there’s time to spring clean in the garden: clearing dead leaves, weeding, and setting up my wigwams of peasticks. The latter are for French beans (soaked in water to help germination) which I’ve just planted in trays of rich compost, along with rocket, basil, leeks, and sweet pea seeds. I’m not a particularly organised gardener but my pick from the seed packet displays usually include the above because they’re usually successful . That is, of course, the dreaded slugs do not get their way. This year I’m going to use the beer trap method: digging in shallow plastic containers and filling them with beer into which the slugs will fall on their way to my precious young seedlings. The only other alternative is organic slug pellets but the slugs here in south west London seem to have quite a thirst for a traditional pint, judging by the daily catch last summer.
For conquering Welsh mountains we set out each morning with a picnic stuffed in a rucksack; smoked salmon sandwiches with a thick slab of oat flapjack and a clutch of sweet clementines. These were picnics eaten on the move. It was too cold to sit still and admire the view. I will picnic anywhere but it is releasing to lie under blossom soaking up some early spring rays. If the weather is fine at the weekend we’ll picnic in the local park which is blooming and budding and all over. I’ll load up a basket with the papers, flask of coffee, plates(only if I can be bothered) bread filled with feta, cucumber and basil and whatever is left of the chocolate cake made for my son before he leaves on his gap year travels.
It’s one thing to perk up an outfit with a little cardigan or scarf say, in this spring’s fresh lime green or powder blue. (The local charity shop has been looking quite stylish lately with a window done out in a great green theme, so I might head off there for a snoop).
Doing something about your interior is another matter. I don’t have the cash for a whole new spring look, and neither would it feel right changing my home with the seasons. I like the familarity of all year round colours and textures. However, spring time is appropriate for a general refreshing such as cleaning the windows, washing loose covers, dusting off blinds, filling jugs with hyacinths or daffs. And if you want to inject some fresh colour without spending a fortune, why not run up a simple chair cover in lightweight cotton like the floaty little number show below from my book Sew Easy. I recommend John Lewis for a good choice in fabrics.
Simple, easy, real
More and more of you are getting in touch via the wonderful internet so I have cranked up the technology to start an online conversation. My forthcoming posts will hopefully inspire and help you to make your spaces a little more divine. For those new to Pure Style here’s some info:
My style has always been simple: more flip flop than high heel. I feel happiest in rooms that are informal or gardens that grow unselfconsciously. I prefer natural textures and ordinary everyday things around the home ( the humble pudding basin is a favourite ) and the minimum of fuss or pretension.
Well that’s the theory. I have to admit that living with three teenage children puts my visual narrative to a daily test. The current plea for wall to wall carpets is happily out of the question financially so that’s where the argument ends. Their bedrooms are excluded from my clutches, and reflect the fact.
When I wrote my first book, Pure Style (1996), the idea of simplicity and being deliberately economical was considered rather odd. Interior decoration then was much more about being posh and showing off. The wider the pelmet the bigger the ego, that sort of thing.
I ran the gauntlet when styling features. Editors were bemused, why is there so much white, where are the curtains and why are there so few pictures on the walls? Even our lovely old creaking house which appeared as a cover story in Elle Decoration was criticised as looking poor – in the monetary sense that is.
But the issue was a best selling one, so I must have been doing something right. I think its success reflected the growing number of people who were tired of the swagged and draped look which costs a bomb and only really works in the sort of grand country house from which it is derived. (By the way, the luscious chintz interiors in the film of Ian McEwan’s Atonement are fabulous examples- do go and see) Country house style in suburban sitting rooms, however, is a harder act to follow. I felt that there had to be another way. Design should be democratic, for everyone, not just those with fat wallets.
My look is all about making life luxurious not in a costly glitzy sense, but in a more matter of fact, practical and natural way. It’s not supposed to be perfect either. It’s more about being creative with what you’ve got and reining in expectations. What with all the talk of credit crunches, recession and going green, it’s right in step with the move towards less consumption and more concern for the environment. Hooray for simple spaces, eco paint, jumble sales and less clutter.
Pure Style’s time has come? Let me know what you think.
Jane
PS. The picture below is the tv room in my house where I’ve painted junk cupboards in white eggshell and covered the biggest tv friendly sofa I could find in striped cotton ticking. Just so you know, the screen is lurking out of frame becauce I’m a typical stylist and think it would spoil the shot.
