Tea in the Garden

My daughter Lara recently set up a photoshoot to represent a teaparty for one of her photography tasks for college, and what fun to get out pretty china, silverware, a table cloth lovingly crocheted as a gift for our home and also the excuse to buy some decorated cupcakes! ( I admit - being a Domestic Goddess is not something that has happened to me - although I love cupcakes and often paint them which is a better option waistline wise too. I have no talent or patience to make edibles cakes! )

I love teacups too, and am having great fun finding pretty ones in the charity shops which sadly is getting harder to find now that Vintage Anythings are all the rage now!

I don't drink from teacups often, but again I do like to paint them - having been totally influenced by Connie Parkinson who is the Queen of painted teacups, cottages, roses, cakes and all things quintessentially English!

Connie is an American painter living in California and if anyone can be described as being the Queen of Tea - I would say it is Connie.

I came across Connie in 2004 in my internet search for book, dvd's, pattern packs and anything else I could find which would help me to learn how to paint roses.

When I chanced upon Connie's work - it was as though my quest had been answered - here was a lady who was doing all the things that I aspired too and I was hooked.

At this time - it seemed to me that most people in England had little interest in the tradition of tea and roses, and cottage gardens, and yet in America there was a whole community of women celebrating the traditional customs of tea, growing roses, tending cottage style gardens and decorating their homes in pink with distressed painted furniture covered in roses. Connie introduced me to many talented rose painters selling on ebay at the time, and I spent hours searching through pages and pages of US ebay listings of painted furniture and accessories being painted and presented for sale, and drooling over all the pretty pretty items.

I was hooked and have spent the years painting as often as I can and trying to learn as much as I could, never actually reachimg my goal, but helped along enormously by the encouragement of Connie, a very sharing painter.

Well now - now that teacups, roses and traditional pastimes like sewing, knitting, gardening and crafting are all back big time in this country, as well as the tradition of taking tea (see June 2010 issue of County Living for pages about it!), I have been pestering Connie to come over to teach a painting seminar in England sharing her knowledge and instructing us as to we can learn to paint all these wonderful traditional iconic symbols of days gone by!

Now won't that be the icing on the cake!

Have a look at her website which is on the page next to me to have a look at here art and see how wonderful her art is!

Riley and the Roses

Some guys just gotta be the centre of attention! This is my little pal Riley when he was a year old. Over the years our two children have taken so many photos of this dog that now- point a camera at him and he automatically rolls over on his back and poses like he is Burt Reynolds on a Cosmopolitan photo shoot!

We had a lovely cat called Sophie, sadly no longer with us, but she used to do the same and purr and look adorable. We used to joke about that, saying that when we would go out, she would teach the dog to do it, because he sure does look like her when he does it - even if he cannot purr like her!

Isaphan Damask Rose

Mme Alfred Carriere being elegant and demure!

Mme Alfred Carriere shows off her bountiful Spring Skirt!

Mme Alfred Carriere with pink noses from the cold!

A simple sign with a small bud and an open rose - the first of the season?

Actually - the first rose in my garden to bloom every year is an old beauty of a rambler called Mme Alfred Carriere- a most gorgeous rose with gorgeous scent and shaggy creamy white petals which tint to pink when the weather is colder. On warmer days it is soft white with touches of soft buttery yellow - not like this at all! It has three strong flushes of flower every year and is the first out and the last in,and it grows like a weed - but what a wonderful weed it is!

The second rose usually out every late spring, early summer is often one called Isaphan - a most lovely pink Damask rose with beautiful dainty flowers and sweet scent! I grow it along a fence and it is growing like a climber! Even though it only blooms once, it blooms for a long period and so lovely to behold! I will pop some photos of them on here for you to see!