Easter, 2013

 

 

 

 

Blessings of Easter to all

and a little Easter music from long long ago......

 

 

 

 

Here and There and Creme Brulee

Yesterday was a lovely day, - in every way!

David came mid morning to ferry me to Penticton, and on the way to pick up our dear friend, Jill, - a friend by way of being one of Charles' school mates, the widowed wife of a cherished minister at St. John's, (also a school mate) and oh, just a kindred spirit for a thousand reasons....

We were going out to lunch, and to catch up on the times between now and when we last had this kind of an opportunity to talk.

We went to the Vanilla Pod, - one of the many new wineries that have taken over the orchard land on the benches between Penticton and Naramata, along Okanagan Lake.  A restaurant attached, as many of them have...  A marvelous view.  Spacious.  Windows all around.

We had a minimal lunch, - a fabulous soup, a glass of white wine and Creme Brulee the likes of which I hadn't had since we were last in England.

I mention the Creme Brulee because it has inspired me to go and buy some small ramekins and treat anyone who comes to dinner to this elegantly simple dessert;  stashing any that are left over in the freezer along with the French Onion soup so I can have a more sophisticated dinner than scrambled eggs on toast.

After lunch David very kindly drove us to the Skaha Bluffs, where Jill's grandson was scheduled to make a drop from a big yellow airforce plane on to a small meadow below the parking lot high on the bluffs.  Her daughter (the mother of the dropee) arrived with an array of old white sheets to mark the drop spot in the meadow and the plane circled overhead. 

We left Jill with her family, but before I go on with the story, Jill's grandson, (the dropee), has just been presented with a medal for Courage by the Governor General of Canada, honouring him for his part in the rescue of a young native from where he was stranded on an ice floe in the Arctic.  This involved a drop from a heliocopter, carrying medical supplies, and then jumping from floe to floe until they reached the young man in such dire trouble and were able to attend to his needs and attach him to the rope from the copter and hence to safety.  Courageous indeed! 

It was getting late, and David had to take me home to Keremeos and then back to Penticton for a dinner date, so we drove along the east side of Skaha Lake, stopping at Tickleberries for an ice-cream cone to finish off the day in style.  I had a modest Senior's cone, but David went all out for a three tiered affair with different kinds of ice cream on each layer.  Magnificent!!!

 

 

I spent a lovely contemplative evening recalling our conversation and the pleasure of being with an old and very dear friend with whom we shared so many parties and picnics and quiet times and Christmas Eve glasses of wine after midnight services, and weddings and funerals.  It is that wonderful sense of comfort that pervades you when you are with familiar dear ones.........

And we had such a great chauffeur!

ABC Wednesday
March 27th, 2013

The letter is K

Not the easiest letter when you are looking for something botanical that begins with K

Here is Kalkwitzia Amabilis

 

most commonly known as a Beauty Bush

 

Amabilis means 'lovely' and it is a most apt descriptive name

 

A Chinese shrub of the Honeysuckle family

the bush was twice discovered in Central China, - once by the Jesuit

Missionary Giuseppe Giraldi in Shensi, and then in western

Hubei province by E.H. 'Chinese' Wilson, who was collecting for Veitch Nurseries.

 

It was named for Richard Kolkwitz, a professor of botany in Berlin.

 

The shrub was first grown in the Veitch Nurseries in 1901

and became very popular in the U.S. following World War 1,

almost a defining shrub in American gardens between the World Wars.

 

The flowers are pinkish, with yellow throats and very fragrant.

It is attractive to bees, butterflies and birds.

The fruit is bristly, which proves, I guess, that you can't have everything!

 

In full sun the shrub will grow 8-10 feet tall,  requiring a fair amount of space

as the branches are very arching.

It is propogated by soft wood cuttings, and I would love to find one of these

lovely shrubs and try a soft wood cutting!  I would put it in the corner of the back garden

and it could have all the space it wanted.........

 

Here is a close-up of the beautiful bell shaped flowers,

which grow in pairs.

 

 

For more K's go here, to ABC Wednesday

and thank you to all who work with this wonderful meme.