Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Boleslawiec Tea Party

(Click on photos to enlarge or to "embiggen" as Country Girl says!)

After being hauled around in the Colonel's carry on luggage through several airport layovers, these little Polish beauties are safely on my table. I have admired Willow's Boleslawiec mug often featured in her sidebar. And more than once, I have passed up one of the mugs at T. J. Max. I do struggle with my I-Need-New-China habit. I recently visited a unique gallery, The Cat's Meow, in Pine Mountain, Georgia which offers very handsome prints, framing, and a huge collection of Boleslawiec pottery! I oohed and aahed for a long time, but I was strong, and left empty handed. Shopping for a gift in Ramstein, Germany, my dear  husband came upon a similar stunning display and confessed it was hard to make a decision. The Colonel knows me well. "Hmmm, blue and white, teapot: dishes!" Trifecta! Yes, this lovely set is a big hit at Graystone Cottage this morning! Cuppa tea?

(Click on blog title to visit the official website for the pottery.)

Thursday, June 16, 2011

My Father

John Patterson

He did not go gentle...

My father has been dead for forty years as of this month. For the last ten years of his life, he suffered from cancer, likely caused from radiation poisoning that he experienced while doing post WWII research at the Pentagon in 1951. I was eleven when he had his first surgery and ironically, radiation treatments. All during my early teens and, as I was becoming an adult, he was dying -- and quietly raging. He never complained or said anything about his suffering to me. He stayed busy, kept his sense of humor, and took in as much of life as he could. He was a wonderful dad. I was twenty when the "dying of the light" claimed him. Click on the the image above to hear Dylan Thomas read his famous villanelle. I never teach or read  the  poem without thinking of my father.

NOTE: The link was taken down from YouTube. Sorry if you missed it. 10/18/13 MPL

Monday, June 6, 2011

"Who hath desired the sea? -- the sight of salt water unbounded..." Kipling

We had been at our favorite Gulf Coast haunt since Monday, and I had yet to pick up the camera. Just before 7:00 on Friday evening, I stepped out of my second story bedroom at Greenpeace cottage to snap a few pictures. I wanted a closeup of the oleander.


The lense fogged over, but I liked the effect.



Here are the same blossoms against our neighboring cottage once the lense was cleared.
...and its second story porch.

More cottages across the road...

Then I set off for the beach: out the front door, turn right, pass one cottage, step across Highway 30-A, a two-lane where all traffic stops for the beach bound pedestrians.
And as the sign says, just a few feet away...

The West Ruskin Pavilion where I stood to take the photo on the header.

Beauty to the left of me...

..and once on the pavilion...beauty to the right of me...
slightly marred with a yellow caution flag ...

and the last of the day's beach combers paddle around under a crescent of clouds...


...turn around, stroll back to our cottage...



...and to the peacefully suspended --slowed motion of Seaside.



(Click on any photo to enlarge; then click again for an even larger image)

About Me

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Recreational scholar, former high school and junior college English teacher. Animal lover (especially horses, dogs, and people), lives in the South, sometimes poet and essayist... "Ireland, Scotland, Britain, and Wales...I can hear those ancient voices calling..." Van Morrison from Celtic Heartbeat