A fascination with boxes

Along with notebooks, I’ve got a bit of a thing about boxes. And it’s not something I’m sorry about. I mean when the boxes are as pretty as these, why would I? If you’ve seen this one on my Instagram feed recently you’ll know it’s another Instagram purchase from a vintage seller there. This one had me worried a little as it was slow to arrive, but once it was here I was smitten.

It wasn’t my intended purchase. I saw a vintage sign that made me smile, and it was that that caught my eye. Scrolling through more photos I spotted the box, and it was sold. Literally. I had no idea of its size, but that didn’t matter.

As you can see it’s not large, but is a decent enough size - and the amount of work it contains is amazing. MOH predictably asked where it would go when it arrived, but knew that disputing its existence was futile.

Much like when we walked into a room full of decorative boxes on our short break in Norfolk last year. I thought I had a photo which I could add to this post, but it seems I was too much in awe to do that. But clearly the memory has stayed, and it’s clearly going to be somewhere we revisit, often. That time I left with a candlestick instead of a box, but that was a blip, I’m pretty sure there’s a box in my future.

Instead though I’m sharing one that I already have. I know it came to me via dad, but that’s all I know. The name - L Higginson - isn’t one we know, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t either. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less of a box beauty.

What I’d forgotten though was all the photos it holds. And consequently the memories.

Including one of my four cats (none of whom are still with me) enjoying dinner on a distinctly dodgy looking (temporary) carpet in the kitchen in my old house. The memory of walking on cat food barefoot isn’t a memory I needed to recall though.

The detail on the boxes, including this mother of pearl keyhole, that’s something I don’t think I’ll tire of.

A woodland walk

It’s been a while since I had an urge to go to the woods. I’ve no idea why I did, but I did - and it was a good urge to follow up on. Even now, looking at the photos to create this post has been a good thing. Though obviously not as good as being there in person.

Petts Wood is relatively close by to us, but it’s a twenty minute car journey. We visited in October, so the photos are probably greener than it currently is. Even though it’s just over seven miles away, and somewhere we’ve driven past many a time, this was the first time we’d stopped, and the first time it was our destination.

We’d thought ahead and put our walking shoes into the boot, and changed into them before heading along the paths. But then again, not that clever enough to remember they were still in the boot of the car when we went food shopping just before Christmas. Finding them innocently there with a trolley load of shopping was quite a discovery.

I’m a fan of bracken anyway, but this view I could just keep breathing in. Maybe I should set that as my desktop wallpaper - though in reality, I don’t often see the wallpaper on my laptop as it’s covered by many layers of open windows.

The trees were fascinating too, and it’s true that the more you look, the more you see. At first glance the tree above looks an unusual shape, but looking more closely you’ll see that the horizontal part is actually a fallen tree that’s continued to grow towards the light, just in a slightly different way to when it was vertical.

The other thing that amazed me is that we’re less than twenty miles from central London, but the picture below could be much further afield.

These two photos represent how important it is to look down, as well as up. MOH was whinging that I was walking too slowly, but there was too much to see to race around. Perhaps if it were a place that was more familiar he might have a point.

And as we headed back to the car, the markings on the tree to the left definitely made us smile - it summed up our mood too.

Reflecting on my week #148

Well the weather’s been odd hasn’t it? The other weekend there was the best sort of snow, the best sort because it was here and gone within a day! I’m not a huge fan of snow, though admit it does look pretty. It didn’t really settle here, and there was a little more than this photo shows, and for London it was enough. Enough for those that wanted to to play, but not enough to cause the usual disruption. Seeing the pictures of Greenwich Park was good, but with our Covid view of the world, I wonder if like me you also viewed these pictures with a social distancing lens.

In reality though, we’ve done very little - which is the purpose of lockdown I guess. We’ve only been out to the shops once or twice in the past fortnight so it is quite dull. The weather seems to time it just so when we could escape we don’t as it’s too wet, too cold or even too snowy. On the plus side it’s meant I can really get on with my half and half squares made from the mini-skeins from the yarn advent calendar.

These are from days 1 through to 14, so I’m over half-way. The colours are random, some are quite bold others more delicate. I’ve four of each colour, two with the pink/grey neutral and two with the blue/grey neutral. I’m yet to decide how to layout the squares for the blanket, or whether or not to make one or two throws. When I’m a bit further through I’ll lay them out and see what I think works, and probably ponder a bit more.

MOH has come up with a great idea, which involves drinking gin - so who am I to disagree? With gin arriving every month, and each coming with mixers and often syrups we’re gathering a growing collection of all sorts. His plan is for us to make some headway with the mixers and syrups, and obviously gin. I told you it was a good plan.

We’ve started with a gin star martini - a gin take on the porn star martini I’m sure - gin, mango & passionfruit juice, syrup and lime. I could only muster a dried lime, but a lime’s a lime I reckon.

I’ve got back into making bread, and while I’ve revived my sourdough starter (actually must go check on that soon) it’s the wholemeal loaf that’s currently our favourite. Most recently I’ve shaped into more of an loaf shape, rather than a cob. It’s the same mixture, so must work…

And so far, so good.

Now that our Christmas cake is long gone, MOH has got back into the baking habit again - we’re currently on a lemon and poppy seed traybake, but there’s also been a chai banana loaf. You see we are both lockdown cliches. And somewhere in the middle of this, it’s February already, though on some days I already think it’s been a long year.