The Kiss

“I’ve known thin places all my life, but I didn’t have the language for them until I took a trip to Ireland a few years back… Thin places are transparent places or moments, set apart by the quality of the sunlight in them, or the shadows, or the silence, or the sounds—see how many variations…

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homesick

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. ~Frederick Buechner This is not the next post I expected to write, and it’s certainly not the post I want to write. But you dear readers have followed my journey here in sunshine and in shade, and I feel the need to…

Afresh

My dear friend Sarah had an enchanting post today about May Morning in Oxford. It’s a pageant I’ve always longed to witness, and one which Philip and I have promised ourselves we’ll experience in person one day. Reading about it in her words, luminous with her joy, made my heart ache a little. But I’ve…

Stone by Stone

  “Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to…

For Better, For Worse: A Love Affair with Gardening

You must remember, garden catalogues are as big liars as house agents. ~Rumer Godden, China Court My relationship with gardening has been a tumultuous affair from day one, fraught with all the heights and depths of a grande amour. Mainly self-taught, my earliest attempts were characterized by rapturous perusals of garden catalogues, advertising such wonders…

Tea and Civility

Every afternoon at precisely four o’clock my mother’s teakettle let off a piercing shriek. It wasn’t just background noise, or an auditory adjective amid the jostle of supper preparations. It was a signal, a summons. And my sister and I knew exactly what it meant: it was time to lay aside whatever we were working…

How Are You Hygge-ing?

  “There is nothing that makes me happier than sitting around the dinner table and talking until the candles are burned down.” ~ Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet As you’ve likely gathered, the content in this small corner of the web is unapologetically old-fashioned. A new-fashioned concept—at least to those of us outside Scandinavia—is…

All the Golden Hours

Laura and I have been blessed and delighted by the warm comments, notes, messages and feedback we’ve received over this dear little Golden Hours venture. What started as a fun challenge between two friends has become a sweet community of kindred spirits. What’s more, we’ve been encouraged. Quite simply, you have put us in courage–which…

The End

The End