The Keeping Room: October 2011

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Oh, Mr. Livsey!!!

Well .....here HE is, and here we are getting off the train near Willow Manor.

The train journey took more time than imagined, but it was so much fun traveling with the oh so ...and ever English gentleman Roger Livsey! So on to the car....and I see our trunk has been strapped to the back and we will soon be there.....

Oh Heavens,,,,where is the chauffeur--- Nigel? Nigel, please hurry we need to get to the Manor house!

Of course this is gorgeous....right neighborhood, but not the right house....keep going...I know she is close to the river.......just over that rise.....keep going, Nigel!

Ooooh.....hhhhh .....Lord what a view....and oh my the road ends.... we must take to the footpaths!!

Here is the river...so powerful and mysterious...just like Mr. Livsey.....

A short time to regroup...and encouraging words to one another....we decide to follow the river...

Maybe this is the right house.....

Or maybe it is this one....

Oh...I know this he right place....this is the barn where Mr. Ed stayed last year!!!

Oh for sure we can change here....I know Willow won't mind....Do you have your velvet coat and dress kilt, Roger, darling? I'll just take my gown from the trunk. Hurry the ballroom is waiting!!

Take your rest Nigel and thanks for carry our things!!

Off to the ball....

It is that enchanted time of year, and after going through my mahogany wardrobe several times, I found this treasure. I picked it up in a London auction house back in June 2010. I did pay a ROYAL price. Someone said it was once owned by a certain princess. I think this portrait of my great grandmother must have inspired me...though I think my dress is .... well... it may be.....just a tad more interesting than hers. I'll be slipping into this after I have had time to freshen up from the train ride from Auburn to Dublin! I think we will be arriving in just a short time. There is a very special person in the compartment next to me. (And we know where we're going.) Be at the station if you want to get a peek at my oh so daaaaaarhling companion for this year's gala along the banks of the Scioto...under a full moon,,,,where the magic has a glow all its own.

Miss Willow is weaving another tapestry of music and dance and romance....don't be late, now!

Next Stop: Willow Manor Ball 2011

Great Grandmother Rebecca Cameron ......I must say she looks ready for any ball!

Here is what I often call Crumbly Gingerbread

I found the recipe on a postcard I sent home to a friend when I visited Grasmere in 1986. This is very close to the gingerbread sold at St. Oswald's church there in Grasmere. This is marvelous with your hot tea. The real secret is adding the sugar at the very last-not blending it with the margerine. I use either a fork or pastry blender to "rub" in the margarine with flour and oats. I have copied it as it appeared on the postcard and added my American interpretation of measurements for certain ingredients.

9 oz brown wheatmeal flour
(1 rounded cup wholewheat flour)
3 oz porridge oats
(1/2 cup Three Minute Quaker oats)
3/4 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 level tsp cream of tartar
3 level teaspoons ground ginger
9 oz hard margarine
(1 to 1 1/2 sticks od Parkay-the less you use, the more crumbly the texture)
9 oz soft brown sugar
(1 rounded cup)

Set oven to 325 degrees or Mark 3. Well grease a shallow tin 14" by 9". Put flour, oats, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar, and ginger in a bowl. Add the margarine cut into small pieces. Rub in well with fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar. Put into tin and press down firmly with a floured fork. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until pale brown. Cut into squares whilst warm and leave in tin until completely cold. Keeps well in airtight tin.

The Secret Heart

Here is my Valentine to every parent who remembers looking on a sleeping child...and lingering in the moment....
Enjoy & linger,
Firelight

by Robert P. Tristram Coffin

Across the years he could recall
His father one way best of all.
In the stillest hour of night
The boy awakened to a light.

Half in dreams, he saw his sire
With his great hands full of fire.
The man had struck a match to see
If his son slept peacefully.

He held his palms each side the spark
His love had kindled in the dark.
His two hands were curved apart
In the semblance of a heart.

He wore, it seemed to his small son,
A bare heart on his hidden one,
A heart that gave out such a glow
No son awake could bear to know.

It showed a look upon a face
Too tender for the day to trace.
One instant, it lit all about,
And then the secret heart went out.

But it shone long enough for one
To know that hands held up the sun.

May 20th is the 400th Anniversary of the Publication of Shakespeare's Sonnets: Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! It is an ever fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
William Shakespeare

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Oh, Mr. Livsey!!!

Off to the ball....

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