Monthly Archives: April 2012
1 Breakfast in the salon outside with Daniel, Ami and Lucy, speaking French and learning Wolof! We gave Daniel and Ami the North American Wedding Jug, a small token of their marriage. If you want to know about the jug, look here: http://www.kachinahouse.com/c-61-wedding-vases.aspx
Learning French and Wolof in the salon
2 Shopping for wedding shoes!
The Shoe Shop
Success!
and a bag ........
Street view
3 Met the lovely Pap, Ami’s older brother who lives in Italy and who has come home for the Wedding. Delightful character, full of fun and humour and love for Daniel. They’ve been friends for 15 years!
Pap
4 and a full moon
Full Moon and Flowers
Tags: Daniel and Ami, French, full moon, Italy, North American Wedding Vessel, Pap, shoe shopping, wedding shoes, Wolof
1 Our apartment in Pikine is very close to Ami’s family home, has rooms all opening onto a central courtyard which is smothered in palm trees, huge cacti and beautiful bougainvillea in pinks and reds.
Sunlight through the leaves
2 Took a yellow taxi to Pikine market – bursting with bustle, noise, colour and smells – to buy fabric for me to have made up into a traditional boubou for the Wedding on Sunday. The most colourful bus took us to the tailor’s where I was measured up and chose a beautiful blue thread to go with the emerald green fabric. It will be ready tomorrow!
3 Met Ami’s lovely family at her home – her parents, her beautiful daughter, Ndeye Marie and some of her aunts and children. We managed to understand each other pretty well with some shared language (French), lots of body language and Daniel on hand to translate from Wolof when necessary. The family has known Daniel for 15 years and spoke of him with pride and warmth and welcomed us into their family. We were able to say how pleased and proud we are to welcome Ami into our family too.
Lucy with some of the children
Tags: accommodation, Ami, bougainvillea, cacti, Dakar, Daniel, English, family, French, market, Ndeye Marie, palm trees, Pikine, Senegal, Senegalese, tailor, traditional boubou, wedding, Wolof
1 The cream of tomato soup that Mr S made for our lunch looked so perfectly orange and beautiful.
2 We went for our favourite local walk from Chapel Porth up to Wheal Coates coming back to the beach cafe for a delicious hot chocolate and some homemade ginger cake (made by Rosie)
3 Singing with the Inglehearts for the first time in two weeks was overlaid with sadness as one of our singers, the much loved Mo, died last week and we were practising “You are my Sunshine” to sing tomorrow at her funeral. That was hard but it did us all good to sing and to remember her with some stories. We sang ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ in her honour as it was another of her favourites.
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Tags: "You are my Sunshine", 'Wayfaring Stranger', Chapel Porth, choir, cream of tomato soup, flowers, funeral, homemade ginger cake, hot chocolate, Inglehearts, Mr S, plants, snail shell, Wheal Coates
1 Beautiful balmy breeze met us at almost midnight as we arrived in Dakar, Senegal.
2 I love walking along the moving walkways in the airports especially when the lovely Mr S makes me laugh by walking alongside, apparently at ease, but keeping up all the way.
3 Meeting Ami in person at last, taller and even more beautiful than Skype has allowed us to see. What a handsome and happy pair she and Daniel make. Hugs, kisses and tears (of happiness) all round.
Daniel and Ami at Breakfast 5th April
Tags: Dakar, Daniel and Ami, Mr S, relationships, Senegal, Skype, travel
1 To London on the train, masses of white May blossom in the hedgerows. Reminded me of Mum and Dad who used to drive around the Cornish lanes at this time of year to note where the blossom was so that they could go back later to collect the sloes to make sloe gin.
Hedgerows of May blossom
2 I used the time on the train to sew up the shrug I have knitted for Tabitha and sewed in the label I ordered online on which is written, “Handmade with love especially for you :)”
Shrug for Tabitha
3 I’m not a fan of the underground – crowded, noisy, impersonal – but I spotted this poster from the escalator and then witnessed just such ‘an act of kindness’. A man left the tube train as we did but left his glasses in their case on the seat. A young woman noticed, called him and through the closing doors, just managed to pass them to him. Brilliant!
Acts of Kindness Poster
Tags: acts of kindness, Art on the Underground, art.tfl.gov.uk, closing doors, Cornish lanes, knit, London, May blossom, Michael Landy, mum and dad, shrug, sloe gin, sloes, the underground, tube train
1 The train journey through English countryside: The Somerset Levels, The White Horse, springy little lambs, a Thelwell pony, flowers-in-a-boat on the station platform at Saltash, and above all, the vibrant green of the fields.
English countryside from the train
2 Coming home, beautiful bluebells and primroses in the front garden and coming into our house.
Bluebells
3 A very simple and very tasty supper of two poached eggs on toast!
and I’ll start writing about the beautiful things of Senegal tomorrow.
Tags: bluebells, English countryside, lambs, little lambs, Saltash, Senegal, simple supper, Spring, The Somerset Levels, The White Horse, Thelwell pony, train journey, travel, two poached eggs, vibrant green
Tabitha's First Birthday Cake
1 The Very Hungry Caterpillar cake, made by my lovely and talented daughter, KJ, for her beautiful daughter’s first birthday!
2 Morning sun on the lichen on next door’s tree.
Sunlit Lichen
3 And to all my lovely readers, followers and commenters – We go away tomorrow to Senegal for Daniel and Ami’s Wedding so I don’t think I’ll be able to post 3 beautiful things every day. You can be sure I’ll be noting them down and will post extra pages when we get home. Please don’t desert me in my absence – I won’t be able to read your posts or comment either. Have a beautiful week or two and I’ll be back…………
Tags: cake, daughter, Eric Carle, first birthday, hungry caterpillar, KJ, lichen, Senegal, sunlight, talented daughter, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, wedding
1 My lovely sister-in-law, Victoia, in Atlanta, emailed me to remind me about the Poem-a-day throughout April and the next email was the first poem! If you, too, are a lover of poetry, as I know several of my lovely followers are, you might like to subscribe free at http://poem-a-day.knopfdoubleday.com/ You never know what’s going to come into your inbox!
2 The sky today has been the vividest blue and the lovely Mr S fixed up our new weather vane.
3 We also planted something rather special though not conventionally beautiful, more a kitchen sculpture, my Mum’s old panstand! Each year we grow our runner beans up it and I know my Mum and Dad would have been tickled pink to know how we are putting it to use, there being no space in our kitchen for its proper use.
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Tags: Atlanta, kitchen sculpture, Mum, mum and dad, nature, plants, Poem-a-day, runner beans, Victoria, weather vane
