Out Of Africa The Costumes

I love the film Out of Africa, made I think in 1985.  The setting Kenya, the Costumes pre World War One and post World War, and not to foget the music, is just a winning combination.

So we found the film on Blu-Ray and it was a good price, Mr B wanted it so I said go ahead it's one of his favourite films and mine too.  It had extra features a documentary on many of the characters in real life, etc.  So we watched it as a family and introduced it to the Boy, always interesting to see younger generations take on a movie that you love.

The costumes are amazing, they were designed by Milena Canonero, I think she has designed costumes for quite a few movies, including Chariots of Fire, another favourite.

This is Karen Blixen's Wedding Costume, absolutely in love with her hat.

In the movie there were a lot of Safari outfits and everyday working outfits.

My son said he loved the leather boots on both Karen Blizen and Denis Finch-Hatton.  He also wants a waist coat like Finch-Hatton's.  So that's a thrift or Ebay quest.  Chicago Tribune said to look for "ribbed cottons, raw linens and safari mood to turn up in men's fashions for the Spring of 1986."

The amber necklace.  Amber beads were very popular before the First World War, I have a cherry amber faceted bead necklace, that went out to New Zealand just before the War, when relatives emigrated there and was sent back to my granmother as a gift and she gave them to me, I treasure them.  

The above amber looks to be more of a darker butterscotch amber.  Of course amber is quite popular again now, a lot comes out ot the Baltic region.

All those shirt collar necklines and tailored jackets.

The hat is that special straw you only find in hats of that era, of which I have one, not that style, it is just a brim, no crown.  The broach I'm sure is ivory and is an elephant.

One hat, well more of a beaded crown, of which I cannot find a picture, Karen wore at the New Year's Eve Party after WWI.  Her hair in the movie was short by then and curly, before the War in the movie it is long and worn up.

In any case the beaded and embroidered hair piece is soo pretty.  Keep an eye out for it when watching the movie.

Christy

Nightime Garden

 I always seem to wake up at 3:30 am and I might as well get up.  I either potter in the kitchen, read, or take my iPad out into the garden.  On warm summer nights this is a treat, because it's tranquil.  The cats sit with me and it's a little bit of stolen time.  Must make sure I get back to bed for two hours sleep before I have to get up for work, that's the downer, but still it is lovely then.  You may hear a freight train go by in the distance, always a haunting sound a few insects, but even they are asleep at this time, as any other normal being would be.

So here are a few shots taken with my iPad.

 

 

 My cleome look quite spunky and are popping there in the night light.

By the way I moved my passion flower vine, it came to me that each day, it just wasn't long enough in the direct sun and last night I came home from work and was rewarded with a flower.

Well it's a very dull rainey day today, but this morning at 3:30 am it was lovely, so I got a jump on the weather. Ha! Ha!

How is your day?

Take care,
Christy

"The Bottom Of The Garden" Childhood Memories of Make Believe

I had a patch of wilderness as a child, my escape, where I played make believe, amongst the stinging nettles, and blackberry brambles stood an old tin shed.  the walls were long gone, there was just a tin roof left, but to us it was not just a roof, it was our hideaway, our hut in the wild.

A stream ran along the one boundary edge, with huge old willow trees.  This is where we fished for tiddlers, with a little cheap net and a jam jar strung on a string by my mum.  I can still visualize her as a young woman tying that string.  Or I would climb those trees and pretend I was in my tree house, or look out post.  Too much reading of Swallows and Amazons or The Famous Five.  At one place was a plank across the stream, I don't know who put it there, but I would sit and dangle my legs over that stream.  It was truly a little nothing stream, but to me it was anything and everything I wanted it to be. On the other two sides was a tall fence and tangled bushes, nobody could see us.  The entire area we called "The Bottom of the Garden."

Mum can we go and play at the "bottom of the garden," to get there you ran to the edge of the lawn, to the right was a narrow path that wound steeply down, turned and there lay our wilderness.

It's hard to explain the feeling I had as a child after a day at Primary School, I'd come home have a snack, ask my mum to go out to play and I would skip and run to the edge of the lawn that first step on the path was my escape through the wardrobe to Never Land.

We knew we had about an hour before we'd be called to dinner, but what an hour that was.  That was our magical time of make believe.

I was never lonely on my own, or sometimes a friend from school would join me or my younger sister BB, but mostly I was on my own, my sister being five years younger and at that age it's too wide an age gap to play the same games.

That feeling of freedom when my foot hit the path to "The Bottom of the Garden."

Christy

P.S.  Please share any special child hood memories, I'd love to hear them.

Ponce De Leon Hotel, Now Flagler College

Henry Morrison Flagler was an American Industrialist who also owned a Railway Company which ran up and down the East Coast of the US.  He developed much of the East Coast of Florida, including Miami and Palm Beach.

This is the Ponce De Leon Hotel that he had built.  Just lovely to look at all the details.  It is now called Flagler College.  How lovely to be educated in this setting.

These are not water gargoyles, but have light bulbs in their mouths and at night look like fire coming from the dragon's mouth.

Home and Garden

I haven't taken too many photos of my garden recently.  The summer is tailing down and there have been some quite cool days, so one can feel the approach of autumn in the air.

One last flower came out on my Oh Henry! Clematis.

I love these asters, they bloom much later in the season and are just greenery until they do, but they make a pretty show.  I also planted cosmos, but although pretty they do not suit the tall pots on pedestals, even the zinnias probably are not right for them, but they seem to work better.

Here are the zinnias past their best, but the hummingbirds do love them and I get to see them out of my back door for a fleeting few seconds and they whip in and out, as humming birds do.

The cleome which seed themselves and I think of as sparklers.

The hummingbirds also like the honeysuckle on the other side of the back door.

A passion flower, which wasn't at it's best and thus was reduced, although it has put out greenery I have hardly had any flowers, I wonder if there is something I should do to aid it along.

Now to home, I had a craving for Rock Buns, so found a recipe on the Internet and proceeded to make them.  I did not have the candied peel it required so added some passion flowers which I had.

Rock Buns in my Red Cardinal tin, which always brings a smile to my face, even though one of the boys dropped it and it has a big dent on the edge at the bottom, oh well!

Christy

Walking St. Augustine

Hi Dear Folk,

Are you still with me on this our Florida adventure, because we've got a lot of miles still to travel.

Here we are walking around the old town of St. Augustine.

Above is the old cemetery.

Some of the old houses in the center of town.

Plaza de la Constitucion, to the right of Rob's head behind the gazebo is the "old slave market," an open-air pavilion where enslaved Africans were bought and sold. 

Since its construction in the early nineteenth century, the waterfront structure has transformed from marketplace to leisure plaza to a locus for civic festivals and political protests. Largely ignored by locals and overlooked by tourists, the market sits empty in the center of America’s oldest continuously inhabited, European-established city. 

Despite its changing purposes, it remains best known by the vernacular name "slave market," a tangible reminder of slavery. Although the structure was initially built to house the exchange of foods and commercial goods, newspaper reports and city records document slave sales here.

Lightner Museum and City Hall.

Yes boiling hot again and another pit stop for refreshment.  These were quite expensive lollypops, or ice pops or what ever you want to call them.  But delicious, all organic, mine was Strawberry and Basil, yum.  I did not get to try but wanted to, Peach and Chipotle, can't remember what Rob got.

Christy