Snow People

Here's the snowman some neighbours built on the surface of our little lake--before the blizzard that dumped 19 inches. He's stranded out there now, nobody has walked out to replace his face.

This morning's temperature was -1 degree F by the time we checked the thermometer. The Chap has been busy indoors and out, but apart from flinging bread crumbs,cracked corn and safflower seed for the birds, and re-filling the suet feeder, I've stayed inside.

I can report great satisfaction with my new ballet/exercise DVDs. The intermediate ballet programme is simple and studio-based. It provides a really good workout, with plenty of jumps and movement for cardio. The Elements exercise system is all warm-up stretches working the usual dance muscle groups. It was filmed in an outdoor setting, the narrator does a New Age-y voiceover and the music doesn't exactly thrill me. That said, the exercise is in-tense. Once I'm more familiar with the routines, I'll turn off the sound. Since getting these DVDs I've continued doing the NYCB workout, and really like having so much choice.

On Thursday afternoon I had lunch with our Friend From the North Country in Concord, following by the Diocesan Council meeting. Yesterday morning I met a friend in Portsmouth for brunch. Plenty of snow in both locations, but both days were bright--nothing prettier than fresh snow on a sunny, blue-sky day.

I was reviewing photos from the London trip and found this one, a long-time favourite painting. I built a whole novel around the subject--who happened to grow up to become a dancer!



That novel was published a long time ago, re-printed many times--most recently about 5 years ago. I'm nagging myself about doing something about digital editions of my full backlist. That should've been a New Year's Resolution, I guess, only I don't do them. Somehow it seems easier just to write another novel!

Ruth had a cameo appearance in the finished one, meaning it's Jewel's turn this time. I haven't quite worked out how/where to incorporate her.

High time these girls started generating income...Lola and Shadow certainly did! It would offset the expences. Jewel had her annual exam at year's end (all is well) and just last week I paid the dog tax on both of them. I was early enough that they received very low-numbered tags from our Town Clerk/Tax Collector.

The Chap just let me sip his drink, containing a new Mount Gay rum on steroids. I rarely drink spirits these days, mostly wine and hard cider and the occasional port or sherry. But it was so fine that I really think I need to follow his example!

Singapore curry noodles from Ping's for supper.

It's supposed to snow a little bit more tonight, nothing major. And again next week--shaping up to be my busiest one of the New Year. So far!

From the Snow Globe

After two snowstorm forecasts that fizzled, we're now getting a real Nor'Easter Blizzard. The snow began falling in the very early hours of the morning. We woke to something like 8 inches. It has been snowing at varying intensity since then, sometimes at 2 to 4 inches per hour. So it's really stacking up!

On a day like this, it doesn't take long for mostly black dogs to turn white.



Ruth is little and can only plow through the drifts by hopping like a bunny, which is very cute. She really wants to romp in the snow. Jewel just wants to come inside where it's warm and dry.



Even after I shoveled the steps down to their yard, Jewel was not keen on snow-romping.



A pork loin treated with a rub of dried herbs and some red wine is roasting in the slow cooker--oh, the aroma! I tried one of my ballet DVD's on Monday and liked it. I'm about to test the other one.

The Chap drove in to work this morning without incident, so he's having a normal day. I suppose I am, too, since this snowstorm didn't exactly interfere with my usual day at the Lodge.

Exercising my Options

First, let me make clear that this is a fantastic exercise DVD. Especially for those familiar with ballet. It has been the mainstay of my winter workout programme for a couple of years now. I've mixed it in with free weights and exercise bike to excellent effect.

Nearly 3 years ago I decided to take off 5 pounds, combining more intense, intentional exercise with disciplined portion control. The result: I lost 30 pounds. Usually I round it to 30 pounds. Sometimes it's actually rounding down, because I'm capable of losing more weight at will and sometimes do.

I'm not really sure where I was carrying all that extra weight. I wasn't fat then, I've always been small-boned, so I don't look all that different than I did before. That said, I can tell my arms and legs are slimmer, my jawline a bit more more bony, and I reduced my waistline by 1 & 3/4 inches. I still wear most of the clothes I wore 3 years ago...well, ok, they're roomier. This is all to the good. I'm helped by my genes; no tendency towards obesity in my immediate family.

I've kept off the weight. I eat carefully (but don't diet) and I exercise (not fanatically). My mantra is still "less food, more movement." Free weights and lots of walking in spring & summer & autumn, and the indoor stuff at this time of year. Whenever possible I take stairs, not lifts, and try to park from my destination as I reasonably can. Unless the windchill is too brutal.

So--yay, me!

Back to the videos.

Over the past 2 winters I only did the ballet programme at most a couple of days a week. I simply wasn't home, and when I was I often chose the non-technological options (free weights, exercise bike.) My lifestyle outside the Lodge was quite active.

This is no longer true. I hardly have a life outside the Lodge. I live like a shut-in. Oh, I get out of the house--once a week for music lesson, and once or twice at the weekend. And maybe one other day, but not necessarily. Basically, I'm a homebody now.

This means I have plenty of opportunity to work out, and I've seized it. For the last 10 days straight I've done my NYCB workout every single day. Which probably explains why I'm getting bored with it. I mix up the exercises--I always do the strength and hardcore muscle work, and the stretching and whatnot, and don't do the same routine every time. I can turn off the audio and still follow along to different music, I know the combinations so well. I constantly hear in my head Peter Martins' gentle, encouraging, accented voice telling me, "remember to breathe" and "feel the stretch" and his unfailing praise at the end of a segment: "very good" or "ex-cellent." (He wouldn't be so complimentary if he could see me make hash of some of his commands.)

I've long struggled to perform the final choreography to my satisfaction...a little tarantella re-imagined from Balanchine's Don Quixote. Regular repetition has its advantages: today I made a breakthrough--I actually got teary. And after my cool-down, I celebrated with a big mug of hot coccoa topped with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. Because my method of maintaining an ideal weight includes indulgences! Otherwise, life would simply be too bleak for words.

Concerned that boredom would adversely impact motivation, I recently purchased 2 additional video sets. I expect them to arrive today. One is an instructional ballet programme (intermediate). The other is another ballet workout, and I'm not sure if it's similar or not to the intense NYCB one.

I hope having a variety of workouts will be beneficial. I needed options and I'm glad I identified two more.

I realise this is rather a boring topic. Unless you're me. No--even if you are me. But it's representative of the sort of life I lead.

Currently my weekday schedule is thsi:

Have breakfast (fruit, chocolate, yogurt), read 2 daily newspapers, work out & shower (if I'm going to my mandolin lesson and/or meeting in the afternoon), read email and mess about on the internet (if I'm not going out), write, read, nibble something for "lunch", afternoon work out & shower (if I stayed home all day), write and/or read, dog time, welcome the Chap when he arrives home from the office, cocktail half-hour, cooking and chatting in the kitchen, dinner, telly and/or internet and/or reading interspersed with dog cuddling, bedtime.

It's not going to be that way indefinitely...I found that out this week. After the constant activity of recent years (legislature, committee work) I'm certainly not complaining about all this time to myself. Mostly I'm trying to use it well.

2011

We closed out the old year with delicious food and drink and a film-viewing frenzy. Saw The King's Speech at the cinema. After pausing to celebrate the New Year as midnight struck in London, we watched a historical epic film on DVD here at the Lodge. It wrapped up at exactly 11:58 p.m., just in time for our second celebration of the evening!



Today is 1.1.11, whether you live in the States or the UK/Europe/Rest of the World where they write date.month.year rather than month.date.year. Global continuity is a fine way to start the year.

Yesterday the Chap installed my new vanity plates, so here's how I'm rolling in 2011:



With so many writers and authors living in this state, AUTHOR alone was already taken. So I had them put the + sign next to it. Because I'm an author, plus loads of other things as well.

Wishing my visitors much joy and prosperity in this New Year. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you'll return!

The Fouquet Madonna

Somehow I don't think Jean Fouquet's 15th century rendering of the Virgin and Child will appear on Christmas cards...not in the US, anyway. It exposes too much of the female figure, whose figure is hardly realistic and whose skin is an unearthly, space alien white. Her baby isn't at all pretty. The tubby red and blue cherubs look more diabolical than angelic. It has a very modern appearance, despite having been painted in about 1450, because the entire thing is so wonderfully weird and so vivid coloured.

As well, the madonna is reputed to be the portrait of a fallen woman, Agnes Sorel, mistress to French king Charles VII.




Those who know their jewellery history will be aware that Agnes was one of the first females to wear diamonds on her person. And Charles was purportedly the first man to "put a ring on it," giving her a diamond ring as a token of affection, although she remained his bit on the side until her death.


The Chap and I were talking of this painting the other day. We saw it last year, at the Koninklijk Museum in Antwerp. It's a portion of the Melun Diptych. The other parts of it aren't as weird. Or as memorable.

Black & White Blizzard Beasts

We're not entirely sure how much snow has fallen here at the Lodge. By the time the storm subsides, we'll probably have a foot, at the far lower end of the prediction scale. But quite enough for the girls' snow-romping session this morning.

We have no idea what entices Jewel to dig beneath the snow, but she always does it as soon as she's outside. Ruth is as perplexed as I am. She'd rather be playing.



The little dog gets her way, and the romping begins. Snarling, body-slamming, chasing. Fun to watch!



Eventually they come racing up the stair, panting and tail-wagging.



At the moment, they are on the sofa beside me, soundly sleeping. Apart from the black & white markings, they bear absolutely no resemblance to the wild beasts pictured above!

Boxing Day

As we await the incoming Boxing Day Blizzard, already working its way up the East Coast, I'm reporting on our holiday festivities--thus far. We're still in the earliest days of Christmas: "Christmas Second Day," as they say in St Croix, where the Chap spent a few years. (Before I knew him.)

On Christmas Eve, I whipped up the fabled family custard.



Then we went to church, which was packed, for the annual Carol Sing followed by our Christmas Eve Eucharist.



On Christmas morning the dogs were easily distracted by the contents of their stockings: new rugged chew toys from the kennel-keeper, who takes such good care of them whenever we're in the UK and Montreal and elsewhere.

Jewel doing her impression of "Jaws".



Somehow wee Ruth manages to gain possession of all the toys.



But Jewel got her toy back again, with a little assistance from me.



The contents of the humans' stockings. Lots of consume-ables, and many surprises from London.



I received a little mirror--



--with the image of a favourite painting from the Wallace Collection in London. I took this photo of a few weeks ago.



So many amazing and wonderful gifts from generous family and friends. We were also generous to ourselves! Santa brought the Lodge a set of flannel sheets with dancing sock monkeys. Because I really, really love sock monkeys!



The Chap gave me some flannel jim-jams with doggies printed all over. Because I really, really love dogs.



I discovered that when you renovate your kitchen, new cookware is a popular gift item.



Ruth is telling me how much she likes Christmas, while Jewel cuddles.



The Chap roasted the duck to perfection, and we had simple sides of haricots verts sauteed with prosciutto, and wild rice with mushrooms and chestnuts.



After watching the film Joyeux Noel, about the 1914 Christmas Eve cessation of hostilities/fraternisation during WWI, we were ready for pumpkin pie.



I look forward to posting some snow photos soon, after a nearly snow-less December. Our blizzard is expected this afternoon and is supposed to rage all night and into tomorrow. The Lodge is located in the weather-map band forecasting 16 to 18 inches. We got out the yardstick and determined if true, the snow depth would level out somewhere near my lower kneecap. We'll see.

The Chap is walking the girls while we can still get about. Our near neighbours--German & German-American--are sweepting the surface of the little lake, clearing the scant half-inch of snow for their Christmas skating.

I'm enjoying the warmer delights of hot coffee and my soft new fleece-y zip-front shirt. Until there's snow to play in, I'm enjoying indoor pursuits--new books, DVDs, gadgets, and knitting.

Yuletide Decadance

Watching telly earlier, I saw an ad for Ferrero Rocher, the round Italian truffle-type chocolates with a hazlenut inside. (From the lovely folks who also make Nutella hazlenut spread!) The ad reminded me about the Ferrero promotion I recently witnessed in Covent Garden: a tree studded with gold or brown foil-wrapped chocolates. Such restraint I showed, merely snapping a photo, rather than joining the throngs of excited people plucking candy from the tree.



I was not so restrained, however, at a weekend party, when I confronted an English trifle concocted from the host's English mother's recipe:



Must admit, I had seconds.

The Lodge does not contain an overabundance of sweet stuff--yet. I did make chocolate cookies yesterday. They have been handed out to the angels who deliver our post, the newspaper, and all the Christmas parcels. Although I did reserve a few for the Chap. Tomorrow I shall whip up my family's Christmas custard, from a recipe that came over with some ancestor or other from either England or Wales 200 years ago. Give or take a year or a decade.

I wish my blog visitors a hearty "Happy Christmas!" Enjoy your holidays--

Christmas Cheesecake

An extremely silly photo, in which I exhibit my seasonal spirit in this time of parties and merriment.

Music, Words, & Pictures

As you can see, I've created my blog title banner with the "pearly" typewriter I spotted in a Curzon Street gallery a fortnight ago. There might be more tweaking before I get it exactly the way I want it, or I might leave it alone.

In London, we got by with only frigid temperatures and occasional flurries, when the rest of the country was blanketed with snow. So it is in New Hampshire. The ground around the Lodge is still bare of snow, although we've sometimes seen light flakes falling. Last night the mercury dropped to a single digit--I don't know exactly which one and don't much care to know! Meanwhile, the North Country is setting up for a very White Christmas. With 10 days to go, our hopes remain alive...typically by this time we've had significant snowfall.

Indoors it's plenty Christmas-y. Earlier this week, all gift-giving preparations were completed: purchasing, wrapping, shipping for all family and friends, domestic and overseas. The cards are in the post. Here I sit, a lady of leisure, stirring myself only for the intense schedule of holiday parties (3 in a row last Thurs., Sat., Sun. and more ahead!) For a time we considered resuming our defunct holiday party, but now we have these annual affairs crowding the calendar and no room for one of our own. That's all right, we're perfectly content to be Summer Party People!

With the novel on my mind, I'm immersed in 18th century England. I've got plenty of classical and even popular Georgian Christmas music, but this new acquisition is a wonderful compilation.



As for reading material, I find myself often delving into this recent purchase, Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915.



Large-format and richly illustrated, it shows garments in their entirety and detailed close-up views of the fabrics and decorations and accessories. The sumptuous, vibrant colours worn by men and women leap off the page. Published just a few months ago, it's my favourite fashion reference book find of the year!



The novel I read most recently took me back to the 17th century, to the courts of Louis XIV and Charles II. I picked up The Empress of Ice Cream at Hatchards in London...it doesn't seem to be available in the US which is a great shame for lovers of fact-based historical fiction. The chief characters are an Italian confectioner and ice-maker and his patroness, Louise de Keroualle, the English King's French mistress.



I'm doing my annual holiday reading as well. Having polished off Nancy Mitford's hilarious Christmas Pudding, I'm presently re-reading--and giggling my way through--Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris. NPR listeners are familiar with "Santaland Diaries," his tale of slaving away as a Macy's Christmas Elf, but there's so much more to enjoy in this collection of wry, humourous, cynical essays.



Our first holiday visitor was a titmouse who flew into one of the Lodge's glass windows and stunned itself. I scooped it up, brought it inside to recover its senses--which it did--and inadvertently set it free inside the house. It flew about round our high ceilings...curiously, it never once landed on the Christmas tree! Here it is in the kitchen.



Eventually I was able to catch it in my hand and release it onto the deck. A few short hops, and off it flew, none the worse for the experience. I've since seen it and its mate at the bird feeders. We only have the 1 resident pair, so I'm confident it's the same one and it's in good health.

This morning I adorned Ruth & Jewel in their holiday kerchiefs for a photo session. First they had to do their "Rompin' around the Christmas tree" thing--



--but a short time later they were perfectly happy to pose.



I'm sipping my tea and watching the Berlin State Ballet's version of The Nutcracker on the Ovation channel--part of their "Battle of the Nutcrackers" series. It will be another afternoon with my head in the 18th century and my dogs napping on the sofa beside me.

Who's the working breed round here?

The Traveller's Update

I'm no longer in London. On the day of our departure, I believe Heathrow was the only airport open in Britain, due to the massive amounts of snow piling up. We felt fortunate that our flight was unaffected, and also felt a bit as though we were deserting a country under siege! London was scarcely inconvenienced, only a bit of snow on the ground on our last day there. Flying over the rest of the country, and Ireland, it was a beautifully wintry landscape--unless you needed to get about by car, van, truck, rail, or plane other than one leaving Heathrow!

Playing catch-up with the blog will be a bit of a challenge but I shall make the attempt.

Almost every evening, whether staying in Mayfair or in Bloomsbury, we returned to my favourite pub, a couple of blocks off Piccadilly. One night we dined there.



We spent a Sunday doing the art galleries--the National Portrait Gallery, where we toured the special exhibition on Sir Thomas Lawrence and the Taylor Wessing Photographic Prize, which was inspiring as always. From there we went next door to the National Gallery. I'd already been the previous week, with the honeymooners, but didn't see the full collection. The Chap and I separated to pursue our separate interests--and I did some shopping. My new mobile phone came in handy, enabling me to locate him when I was finished and needed to arrange a meeting point!

We were in a rush to get back to our Bloomsbury hotel before the scheduled 24-hour Underground strike began at 6 p.m. We succeeded in that, and trotted over to a favourite local Indian restaurant for dinner.

Monday took me back to Covent Garden. With the Tube strike still on, we debated taking a taxi or walking, and settled on the taxi. We got as far as the British Museum when we hit an incredible bottleneck of traffic which showed no sign of abating. So we ditched the cab--our cabbie didn't mind, in fact he suggested it!--and went the rest of the way on foot.

This was a second visit to that area, I'd previously gone in search of dwellings of characters in my novels. The most significant character lived in rooms in the topmost floor of the building that had been, earlier in the 18th Century, Button's Coffee House. To my considerable amusement, the site is now--quite appropriately--a Starbucks!



I lunched with a friend at the Covent Garden Hotel, our usual meet-up spot. Then I walked to the British Museum to meet the Chap. I rang him and learnt he was admiring the clock collection. So I did also. This one, with the milkmaid milking, is so sweet!



This one belonged to King William III, a character in my novel.



We returned to our neighbourhood and had dinner at The Balfour, which sounds as if it's would serve British fare but fact is a fantastic longstanding Italian restaurant.

The next day I went to a friend's house in Chelsea. After a cuppa and a chat, we had lunch at Bibendum, and I toddled off--through the snow flurries--to the Victoria & Albert Museum. Among the wonders I re-visited were:

Actor David Garrick's bed.



An 18th century silk court dress.



18th century jewels.



An atrium of statuary.



Bejewelled snuffboxes.



William III & Queen Mary.



The silver spirits flask belonging to the duke in my previous novel, engraved with his coat of arms.



While we were away, Old England was far colder and whiter than New England. But the bitter cold is finding it's way to us, although so far the snow has come in the form of flurries rather than flakes.

It has been an extremely busy time since our return. I've finally managed to sort through my extensive photo archive from the trip--so little of which has appeared here, and I have plans for sharing more of it.

Ruth & Jewel had their usual pleasant time at their kennel but are happy to be home.

We completed our Christmas decorating very swiftly and thoroughly, cutting a tree and decorating it and the rest of the Lodge. Most of the gifts are purchased and some are wrapped already. I've attended Handel's Messiah, an annual traditional start to the holiday season, and remebered that I stood gazing upon the firs draft of it at the British Library only days before!

The birds are busy at our feeders, but yesterday a kestrel came by and today a different hawk, hoping to snatch up the unwary!

Hope you are enjoying December so far!