We are very sad to hear of the fire, Dragon Bravo Fire ,at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Here is a view of the canyon from near our cabin on the North Rim in 2016.
Two more views from that holiday.
Category Archives: America
The Grand Canyon North Rim
Exhibition in Truro Museum and Art Gallery
We had a treat today as tomorrow my lovely Mr S goes into hospital for a TKR, total knee replacement, so we’ll be at home for a few weeks as he recovers. I may not post every day over the next few weeks.
The exhibition, Exploring Time, is the work of one of our favourite artists, Tony Foster, who travels from his home in Cornwall to remote places with his tent, his paper and water colours. He has painted, among other places, The Grand Canyon, Everest, rain forests, the Galapagos Islands and locally and I love how he adds a tiny map and little piece of nature to each painting – tubes of sand, a pebble or two, a shell or pressed flowers – truly beautiful work.
If you want to know more, just put his name in my search bar. Enjoy today’s photos. Click on each to expand to read his pencil notes at the bottom of each painting and if you are local, do go along and immerse yourself in these precious reminders of the fragility of this beautiful earth we inhabit.
Grand Canyon
Chapel Porth
Jurassic Coast
Cornish Oak
And this is his tent!
We have one of his Lockdown pieces at home. https://mybeautfulthings.com/2021/10/22/cottage-cygnets-and-meeting-the-artist/
Thanksgiving, Dinner and Pie
Happy Thanksgiving to those we love in America – our family – my brother and SIL, my sister, nephews and nieces, grand nephews and nieces and friends, those we know and love and all my blogging friends
We always mark the day with a nod to Thanksgiving dinner. We just once had a proper one in Atlanta with family and it was lovely. Tonight we’ve had turkey steaks with sweet potato fries and baby onions in a white sauce – delicious!
I also made a mini Pecan Pie, absolutely scrumptious!
A slice with cream – 
News, Helpers and Love
What an emotional day this has been – waking to stunning news from America, going for breakfast with lovely friends and coming back to find a message asking me to call the husband of one of my dearest friends. I have lost another friend, a colleague, a sister – a young woman with whom I worked for 15 years, with whom I built the Training School at Hayfield Comprehensive and whom I loved most dearly. We two were a force to be reckoned with.
I have two quotations for you today, one taken from American substack writer Liza Donnelly’s daily email for which I thank her.
“In an interview years ago, Fred Rogers said that when he was a boy, his mother told him that if he was scared, “Look for the helpers. When you see the helpers, you will know that there’s hope.”
We have so many helpers! Become a helper, join them and let them help you figure out what your role could be. This morning, I am getting many messages from friends asking me if I’m okay. These friends are helpers, their comfort is soothing. We are not alone.”
And from my much loved choir leader, more positivity:
Instructions
Gather your helpers, your people, your community and find hope.
Flowers, Asparagus and Hopes
Next door to Roots is a small company van where beautiful flowers grown on a local specialist farm are bunched up for sale. There are fresh blooms and dried flowers and all of them are gorgeous.
Today a small team of us repotted 144 young asparagus plants. Not long ago they were a miniature forest and now they are nearly ready for their permanent home. My Mum, whose birthday is today, would have loved this whole enterprise. 
We are watching events in America with bated breath and hope all turns out well with no bad repercussions…….
A Book, An Excerpt and A Cake
Our trains were delayed both going to and returning from London last week so I had many peaceful hours in which to read. This book really caught my imagination and the hours, more than five each way, went by unnoticed as I was completely immersed in Elsa’s story of the dust bowl in Texas and her journey to California.
A very good read!
You may remember a couple of weeks ago I posted about a new recipe which used Pangrattato. It delighted me to read the following description of how to make it as Elsa learned how to do just that.
Excerpt from The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
We’ll be going to Roots tomorrow and it’s Valentine’s Day this week so I’ve made a cake in the shape of a heart.
Gluten Free Orange and Almond Cake
Christmas – A Concert, A Poem and Our Tree
Tomorrow evening, both my choirs are singing in the ShelterBox Christmas concert and although, Dear Readers, you are all over the world, you can still join the festivities from the comfort of your own home by watching live at shelterbox.org/ChristmasConcert. I hope you’ll be able to join us. If you do, please add a like or a comment tomorrow evening. We’d love to know where in the world the concert was watched. 
The lovely poet, Brian Bilston, has very kindly said I can share another of his poems with you all. For me, it sums things up very well indeed – if only we still had a cat. We have tickets for his gig in Falmouth next May!
Our tree is covered in angels. They have been bought over many years and all around the world where we have visited. (Still need to go to Vietnam, Cambodia and Australia!) There are angels from Warsaw, Volcano in Hawaii, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Denver and Seattle, from Munich, Salzburg, Sheffield and Truro, from Mapoch in South Africa, Nepal and more! The fluffy ones were my Mum’s.
Thanksgiving and Jelly Babies
Happy Thanksgiving to all much-missed family and friends and many dear Readers in America! 
We usually do a Thanksgiving dinner and use family recipes to share the day with friends and family. This year, for various reasons, we have declined the big cook and instead given a nod to the flavours by getting delicious Turkey and Cranberry Sausages from our fabulous local butcher.
It’s been a jelly baby kind of day, had to miss singing so needed a treat!
Navajo Wisdom and Affogato
I bought a beautiful little book while we were at the Grand Canyon, a gift for a dear friend, and took photos of some of the pages before I gave it to her this evening while we were all out together for dinner. 
I’ll share pages over the next week or two. I love all the wisdom therein. 
We enjoyed excellent pizzas and then affogatos.
Walking Around the Neighbourhood 2
Our room in the Sugar Magnolia B&B was called the Aviary. The ceiling had very lovely birds painted on it.
Our room wasn’t square – here’s the ceiling
On the door frame
And, around this delightful neighbourhood………
