On the home front...

After my Yorkshire adventure, a week at home. A kind of enforced staying indoors. The weather has been atrocious with little let-up from the howling gales and driving rain. At least the chimney's now sealed up but we still have a mysterious damp spot in the bedroom which comes and goes.

The weather and constant gloom haven't - alas - resulted in hibernation. I long for a period of dormancy but instead I've been stuck in a maelstrom of making (Christmas fairs) and preparation for festivities, of list-writing and socialising and family commitments. Joe continues to get up in the night and play very loudly in his room. He was 'Just sorting out some tea towels' (in his toy kitchen) at 2.10 this morning. I'm hoping this little phase of adjusting to the new house passes quickly as we're all exhausted.

So my last craft fair of the year came and went. It was, of course, a horribly wet and windy night. The turnout wasn't up to much but I left having made a modest profit and some new contacts. I now only have a few commissions to deal with before Christmas and I'm keeping it that way.

Compromises have been made in terms of the house being finished prior to the Big Day. The joiner (a reliable one this time) will be back next weekend and the bathroom floor should have been fitted by then too. The rest can wait. Small, niggly jobs that aren't vital. And with the state of the world right now I'm definitely of the opinion that we should count our blessings; we have a home and warm beds and food to eat. Complaining about a bit of woodwork seems so trivial.

The weather eased a little today so we went and bought a Christmas tree: a living one, in a pot, which is currently still netted and awaiting Joe's bedtime so we can put it in the alcove by the chimney. It seems as good a place as any and we don't actually use the fire so it shouldn't dry out and drop its needles. I hope.

There's a party at playgroup tomorrow. I'm supposed to be taking the crisps. We don't have any, unless you count the fancy root vegetable ones I treated myself to yesterday. And I doubt a room full of two-and-three-year-olds would go for those. So procuring Wotsits is on my morning to-do list.

I haven't written my cards out yet, or thought about Christmas food, or even what we'll be having for Christmas dinner. It'll be just the three of us I think, as the rest of the family are all spending the day with other extended family. And I quite like the idea of a quiet, relaxed time. My brother brought his eldest (aged five) over this afternoon. It was mayhem. No, really. I thought Jay was going to blow a fuse and that's something he never does.

I've been looking for little moments of brightness during these gloomy, grey days. And wondering whether we should have painted the house white after all. But we don't want to paint anything ever again. Or at least, not until spring. Not even my dining table and chairs, which is irritatingly 'shabby chic'.

There have been some good things on TV, like Detectorists and The Middle. I know, the latter's hardly high-brow but it's something we enjoy watching.

I'm reading PG Wodehouse. Again, silly but light and his writing makes me laugh. Laughter is very important in this house.

We've been to the garden centre a few times lately. Any port in a storm (quite literally) as all this indoor time with Joe is enough to give me serious cabin fever. Finding something to do undercover which doesn't involve trailing around shopping centres - one of my pet hates - is difficult. He's enchanted by all the cut trees and sparkly lights and polar bears. And going midweek means it's not overly crowded.

We currently have some nice festive things in the house: the aforementioned tree, fragrancing the air as only a real tree can. Mounds of satsumas and pomegranates. A new discovery: salted caramel-coated nuts (so very good).

Not so good - imitation Baileys, bought yesterday. At £4 a bottle I didn't expect much but it's really not very nice at all. Watery, overly sweet and a strange artificial vanilla flavour to it. Even in coffee it's pretty undrinkable. Elegant economy, in this case, does not apply. 

Finally: I'm slowly working my way through all the lovely blogs I've missed out on reading these past weeks. It seems it's just one thing after another what with moving house and squeezing in work around Joe.

On Monday, my grandmother died. My mum's mum. She was ninety four so, as many are telling me, she had a 'good innings'. Although she died in her sleep she had been ill for a short time. She was a strong character, formidable after a colourful life which included much hardship during the War. The family name will go with her (although I've often considered taking it), along with many memories and stories. It's hard not to think about the fact that, since last year, three women  - each from a different generation - have gone from our family.

The funeral is on the 15th. A service at the Polish church followed by a gathering at the Polish club, somewhere I haven't been since I was a child. The prospect of another funeral is not a good one but I have to go and say goodbye.

I didn't mean this to be a depressing post so apologies if it seems to have ended that way. In fact if anything it's made me realise the importance of keeping our history and traditions alive, both by writing about them and passing them on to Joe. Christmas has always been a 'Polish' time of year for me, and this year will be no different.

The Colour Collaborative: September: Market

I'm very happy with this month's Colour Collaborative theme. At first, I started thinking about seasonality and locally-grown food. About this - autumn - being the most sensuous of months, and how markets are all about tastes, aromas, sounds, colours, textures: how things catch our eye and we have to reach out and touch, smell, feel.

But then I realised something else: that if you want to really experience the essence of a place, to discover what people eat and how they interact, to learn about the landscape and climate and culture... Go to the market.

I remember  - back in those distant footloose and fancy-free days - staying in Paris, not far from the Champs Elysees. I arrived at night time and went for dinner then to bed. The following morning I opened the curtains and to my delight there was a market in the street below: beautifully-arranged fruits and nuts and vegetables, breads and cheeses. I'd never before seen the humble market elevated to a spectacle of such beauty.

Since then I've been lucky enough to visit flower markets in Amsterdam, Quincy Market in Boston, the Ramblas in Barcelona, the Cloth Hall in Krakow... all places filled with vibrant, kaleidoscopic colour and unusual regional wares. 

But to return home again (sigh). I grew up visiting the market each week with my mum. Often my grandma was in tow too, clattering people around the ankles with her tartan trolley. I remember the plant stalls bright with potted chrysanthemums and cyclamen, the bolts of  patterned cloth, the steam-enveloped black pudding stall. You'd eat the bursting puddings with yellow mustard squirted into their crumbly, fat-studded insides.

The traditional British market is an institution in its own right. Those old halls with fancy steelwork and glass roofs, home to greasy spoon cafes and hardware stalls. The red-and-white striped bag from the butcher. The kitschy-coloured iced buns.

These days we occasionally visit the local farmer's market. There are more exotic (and expensive) things to be had than at the weekly Saturday morning affair: vivid Romanesco cauliflowers, purple carrots, cheeses encased in rainbow-hued wax.

Most of it is locally-produced and seasonal.

Some of it isn't. But that doesn't mean it should be resisted. I do love the scented, delicately-coloured Turkish delight sitting in trays of powdered sugar.

Our weekly market is very small. But the fruit and vegetable stall is big and we seldom need to go elsewhere for our healthy stuff. Aside from the usual staples I love to go and discover what the season has to offer. The fact that these things are only around and at their best for a short time makes me anticipate their arrival all the more.

Right now, we have jewel-filled pomegranates, rich purple figs (each nestled in its own orange paper case), blue-black damsons, violet-smudged baby turnips, rosy Cox apples, bright satsumas, inky blackberries, speckled golden plums...

The things we buy at the market seem to keep us in touch with the earth and the seasons. That's something we crave in these busy days where it's easy to feel ever-more removed from slow, simple living. I principally stick to my shopping list then see where my eye takes me; more often than not it's to the bright stuff. Maybe that's a subliminal thing. My body telling me to 'eat the rainbow' as we're often advised to do. Or maybe it's just my magpie instinct.

But there are few things better than coming home laden with produce and cooking a big pan of soup whilst arranging these seasonal delights in bowls around the kitchen.


Don't forget to visit the other Colour Collaborative blogs for more of this month's posts, just click on the links below.

Annie Cholewa

Sandra at Cherry Heart

Gillian at Tales from a Happy House

CJ at Above the River

Jennifer at Thistlebear

What is The Colour Collaborative?

All creative bloggers make stuff, gather stuff, shape stuff, and share stuff. Mostly they work on their own, but what happens when a group of them work together? Is a creative collaboration greater than the sum of its parts? We think so and we hope you will too. We'll each be offering our own monthly take on a colour related theme, and hoping that in combination our ideas will encourage us, and perhaps you, to think about colour in new ways.

The Colour Collaborative: February: Precious

I'm very happy to be this month's guest blogger for the Colour Collaborative; I really enjoy thinking about colour in terms of a specific theme or idea. This time around the theme is 'Precious'. Of course, I had a collaboration of my own based around precious things so February's Colour Collective is a good fit.

I suppose it would have been easy to assume all my precious things have been exhausted in terms of blog posts. But no. 'Precious' can apply to anything: objects, memories, people, imaginings... 

The thing I love about colour is that I find myself drawn to the same ones, albeit in different shades, time after time. Mossy greens, grey, lichen... and that seemed to tie in with the whole 'precious' concept. Greens: my collection of inherited 'Anne' books; a volume of Milton's poems (much read and referred to); ceramic decorations from Krakow. And most precious of all: my mum's Green Book.

Sepia shades: little candlesticks bought an age ago from a charity shop; the deer brooch (missing one or two stones but still loved); a collection of antique gloves from an old lady we knew who once owned a dress shop...

Muted pinks and creams: seashells gathered from many holidays both at home and abroad; tattered family photographs, my pile of old linens...

Silver and grey: bits of old 'dress' jewellery (diamante, paste, glass - no diamonds here) which are more precious because they're tarnished and tatty and have tales to tell. And the little crocheted pouch belonged to my paternal grandmother. It was used to hold dance cards.

The way I approached this collaboration was pretty straightforward. I just instinctively went for what I wanted to pick up from around the house and write about; no over-thinking (of course, the arranging bit took a bit of planning but it's exactly the kind of thing I love doing).

And what I realised is that, for me, 'precious' is not about expensive jewellery or valuable antiques. It's about family, sentiment and little things which evoke memories of happy times. Perhaps that's why the colours in this post are actually quite subtle and muted. Gathered finds from nature, old photographs and books have that faded quality about them which says, 'I've been loved and worn and passed down. I have a story.'

That to me is what 'precious' means.

P.S. For the Lynne Truss types (and yes, that would include me): I'm missing a few accents above the letter 'e' here and there but have no idea how to find them using Blogger - sorry!

Don't forget to visit the other Colour Collaborative blogs for more of this month's posts, just click on the links below.

Annie Cholewa

Sandra at Cherry Heart

Gillian at Tales from a Happy House

CJ at Above the River

Jennifer at Thistlebear

What is The Colour Collaborative?

All creative bloggers make stuff, gather stuff, shape stuff, and share stuff. Mostly they work on their own, but what happens when a group of them work together? Is a creative collaboration greater than the sum of its parts? We think so and we hope you will too. We'll each be offering our own monthly take on a colour related theme, and hoping that in combination our ideas will encourage us, and perhaps you, to think about colour in new ways.

Food memories: soup

To me, the prospect of soup for lunch or dinner always means a little twinge of disappointment. I think it's because the idea of something watery from a can always suggests you'll be hungry again before too long; that there will be nothing exciting in terms of texture or flavour. Vegetables diced into tiny cubes. Flakes of chicken that could almost be mistaken for tinned tuna.

As a child we always had Heinz Cream of Celery when we were unwell. I dutifully ate it. I wasn't keen.

But then when I really think about soup - the proper, home made kind - it brings back many memories. Particularly those soups my grandma used to make for us when we visited. She'd take an age to come to the door, then disappear again in search of her keys, then unlock and unbolt and finally let us in. We'd be met by the smell of dill, soured cream, meat, sauerkraut. There was always soup of some kind bubbling away in the kitchen. I'd be dispatched to the dining table with a bowl of something steaming, hearty and fragrant in a dish of thin porcelain. A slice or two of Polish rye bread spread with unsalted butter. A battered soup spoon.

I made beetroot soup the other day. There's never any point trying to go for an exact replica of my grandma's cooking. It was always a handful of this, a sprinkle of that. But I do know she used a base of onions, fried in butter until almost black, and grated fresh beetroot (I steamed mine first). Chicken stock. Dill. And a final stirring-in of soured cream which turned the soup from a deep, clear purple to a rich, opaque dark pink . It smelt fantastic. It tasted even better. And it transported me back to being seven years old, sitting at that table.

Many Polish soups I grew up eating sound a little odd to the uninitiated: cucumber (actually potato soup with very finely-sliced gherkin thrown in, and surprisingly delicate in flavour), cabbage (the slight sourness of sauerkraut, the little morsels of chopped garlic sausage), sorrel (from the garden - I love that lemony flavour again with big chunks of floury potato). 

You fry using butter and you always add scraps of leftover meat. More often than not it's pork or chicken. Nothing goes to waste. Even the clean bones used to be thrown onto the soil beneath the flowers. I have no idea why.

We'd always come away with a basket heavy with food. Empty jars were saved and filled with soup or bigos, a stew of cabbage and meat. In my family, you don't visit anyone and leave empty-handed. You're laden with those big jars, perhaps a box of brown eggs too. But always soup. Cooked slowly in a big pan so there's enough for another day and enough to give away.

I think it was my grandma's way of saying, 'I might be brusque and waspish but I love you in my own way. Now bugger off home and eat your soup.'

Precious Things #5: History

I've got so many Precious Things in our house; it's difficult to choose which to share. But this time around I decided to go with a bit of family history. Of course, everyone's family history is interesting and fascinating to them in particular and ours is no different. Parts of it are well-known, other parts are sketchy and some are missing completely.

I've long been intrigued by genealogy (and enjoy watching the odd episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are?'), and when part of your family history is missing for one reason or another it makes you even more curious.

I would love to find out exactly what happened to my maternal grandfather's family in Poland but from what I can gather it's a tragic story as they disappeared without trace when the Communists took over. Our story since then is almost fully accounted for but there are a few murky areas to explore. Whether that will ever happen, I'm not sure.

I do know that after the war my grandparents were unable to return to Poland. They came to England (Norfolk) then moved to New York for a while before finally settling back here in the North West. 

The medals used to hang in an extremely heavy gilt frame in their front room which explains why the ribbons are so faded. My mum gave me the army paybooks and the buttons from my grandad's uniform. They're very Precious Things; my grandad passed away when I was young and I remember him only vaguely. I know he was an officer; that his family were classed as nobility and that he fought at Monte Cassino. Apparently one of these medals is Poland's equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

I'm not a big fan of militaria or medals but these are special because they illustrate part of my family history. 

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If you'd like to read more Precious Things posts, please visit my fellow bloggers:

Leanne at Today's Stuff

Bea at The Linen Cloud

N at The Creative Academic 

CJ at Above the River

This will be the last monthly Precious Things collaboration, but if you'd like to post about any of your Precious Things I'd love to know about your treasures! And this isn't the end - I'll still add the odd one now and then as I really enjoy writing about them.

Bright (and a bit of brave)

This post is not a cop-out. You see, I'd fully intended to go out with my camera and thermals and find little beacons of brightness in this grey January. But I haven't. Yet.

The wind, the hail, the rain, the biting cold - I've retreated. I've done something which, thus far in my blogging career, I haven't yet resorted to: gone back through the archives. I actually enjoyed doing it, looking at all those pictures and noticing how my photography has changed (progressed?) over the past two years. Seeing Joe as a little baby. Re-living summers and places visited and small pleasures had.

A few blogs I visit have done this recently. I've admired their colourful collages and looked at all those bright hues. I believe there is definitely something to be said for colour therapy.

So here you are. Some of these images and collages may be familiar to longer-term readers. If you've recently found the blog, welcome - and I hope you like looking back through a little pictorial history of Mitenska.

I've been trying to stick to my 2015 plan to be more brave. It's been interesting so far; at least one challenge each day. Yesterday I braved the weather and went to a yoga class with a friend. It was pretty daunting: a room full of very flexible people and us two the only newbies. But the teacher was great, I somehow managed to coordinate myself to follow the sequences and I'm going again next week. I'm even trying a fitness class tomorrow. There's a creche so Joe will be taken care of while I pant and sweat and try to keep up.

I've made enquiries about possible work opportunities, contacted some lovely helpful people (you know who you are) about a possible blog redesign, reached the end of all the formalities regarding my mum's will, and made some important appointments.

Tonight I'm trying a new recipe from one of my cookbooks. It involves mincing chicken so we'll be dusting off the (as yet unused) mincing machine and giving that a whirl. Apparently you shove a slice of bread through first to ensure it's clean then off you go. I quite like culinary contraptions. This could be the start of a short-lived novelty beautiful relationship.

There's also been much reorganising and tidying-out of drawers and so on. 

Last week I brought some of my mum's books home. When I say some, I mean quite a lot. It's an eclectic mix: Polish history, classic fiction, cookery books, scuffed old paperbacks I can remember from being little. I set up a little bookcase in the bedroom to house them all safely and will not be stuck for anything to read for a very long time.

Looks like I've got a bit of momentum going here. And as soon as the weather calms down I'll be out snapping away. But not yet - there's tea to drink and firelight to be cosied up beside.

Precious things #4: Christmas

This month's Precious Things are, of course, Christmassy. I would love to share some family heirloom glass baubles with you but sadly all those were given away when I was a teenager. My mum and I decided to go for a colour-themed tree so it was out with the old (donated to a family we knew who were struggling a bit) and in with the new (red and gold).

Gone are the little glass clown hanging from a hoop, and delicate ornaments from the 1940s which had adorned many a tree. How I wish I still had them now...

Instead I'm sharing these earrings with you. I bought them from a beautiful jewellery shop in Krakow five years ago. My mum and me went on a trip there for her birthday - not for the first time - and I wanted a little souvenir to bring home. Of course I like them because they remind me of good times spent in Poland, but also because (like so many seasonal things) the fact that I can only wear them at this time of year makes them special.

I could sport them all year round I suppose but I'd risk looking like one of those slightly mad people who celebrate Christmas every day and fill their homes with all kinds of festive nonsense.

No, sometimes things are better because they have a season. Like strawberries and Jersey Royal potatoes, or conkers and snowdrops. Short-lived but worth the wait. So these little earrings with their mistletoe sprigs come out of the jewellery box in mid December and I wear them until the New Year. 

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If you'd like to read more Precious Things posts, please visit my fellow bloggers:

Leanne at Today's Stuff

Bea at The Linen Cloud

N at The Creative Academic

And if you'd like to guest post please contact me. It would be lovely to hear from you!

P.S. We're not quite at the synchronised posting stage yet, so do keep checking...

Midweek miscellany

Even though I skipped a week of miscellanies, it still seems strange that the time's gone by so quickly. Maybe it's that end-of-year feeling when everything seems to fly by. And that could be something to do with the lack of light and the days being shorter.

We've been up to all kinds of things lately. It's definitely getting cold. Very cold. As in woolly hats and padded jackets, see-your-breath, condensation on the windows cold. I have to wipe them down in the mornings, and that brought back memories of my mum doing the same thing when I was little. Towels left folded along window ledges overnight to soak up all that moisture... It got me thinking about other little details from 1980s winters. Her starting the car on cold mornings and doing battle with the manual choke, trying to avoid flooding the engine. Deep snow and being sent home from school when the boiler broke down, and gleefully heading to the hills for a day's sledging instead. Sigh.

Anyway. We've had some lovely morning skies thanks to the cloudless nights. And some catch-your-breath chilly rambles to feed the ducks and see the chickens. Many of the autumn leaves are gone, but those which remain seem to be the luminous ones in a dazzling show of pinks, yellows and oranges. They're all the more striking against the bare grey branches of empty trees.

The morning light comes into the back rooms and shines in little corners here and there. I've moved my Dala horse print to the back wall and here it is in a frame. Other makes include drying out orange slices for decorations (we've been pine cone hunting too) and a work-in-progress red knitted scarf for Joe.

I've been doing little things here and there: decanting cheap bath bubbles into vintage bottles, easing myself into Christmas preparations by jotting down gift ideas, card lists, websites and food to buy in a special notebook. It's early but I don't care - I enjoy it. There are even a few gifts bought and ready to wrap. No festive music yet though and I haven't even begun to speculate on where the decorations could be hiding. Up in that chilly room at the top of the house probably.

I unearthed yet another unopened bottle of booze the other day: Polish cherry liqueur from a trip to Krakow. It reminds me of evenings with my mum, sitting in the square in the Kazimierz enjoying a nightcap and watching the world go by. It's potent but rather lovely - cherries and almonds. A tipple of that after a hot bath and there are no problems whatsoever with dropping off...

Apologies for the lack of pretty photos in this post. I'd planned to have a bit of a snapping session indoors today but it's so incredibly overcast and dank that I'd have ended up with a lot of grainy, blurry images. Instead I'm going to hit Publish and head off into the warmth for a bit of a break while Joe naps...

Precious Things #2: Amber

I have quite a few bits of jewellery. Some I wear all the time, like my engagement ring (white gold bands sprinkled with tiny diamonds) and my stainless steel, men's-style watch (does that even count as jewellery?)

I don't own much that's worth a lot in monetary terms but there are plenty of trinkets in my jewellery box which do hold a lot of meaning and memories.

As a teenager I decided gold wasn't for me - it was all about silver. Despite my birth stone being emerald, and my love of green, I always favoured turquoise. But a poke around my modest little collection reveals that I own rather a lot of amber. I suspect that's because, yet again, it's an Eastern European thing. A long weekend in Prague many moons ago revealed just how much that part of the world loves the stuff: shop after shop with necklaces, rings, earrings of all shades displayed in the windows.

The market in Krakow houses a multitude of stalls selling amber too. My 'Polish' jewellery is mainly (with the exception of a few little rubies and amethysts) comprised of it: some greenish and sparkling, some the colour of set honey, other pieces in rich golden syrup hues.

This necklace has been in our family for years. It desperately needs re-stringing as the waxed thread is frayed away to almost nothing in places so I daren't wear it. But it does remind me of childhood. It lived in a carved wooden box along with other little family treasures. The stones have an almost soapy feel to them and they glow warmly when they catch the light. Such a perfect stone for this, my favourite time of year.

I don't know how 'precious' amber actually is - in comparison to other stones at least - but it does capture my imagination: it evokes ideas of Bohemia and of autumnal trips to Krakow when the shop fronts were decorated with gourds. 

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P.S. If you'd like to guest post for the next Precious Things (November) please get in touch. I'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for my fellow blogger's posts this month:

Leanne at Today's Stuff

Bea at The Linen Cloud

N at The Creative Academic.

Food memories: The immigrant's kitchen

It's been a while since I wrote a Food Memories post. The intention was to make them a regular series and I still want to do that. Having written about Rose Petal Jam in my last post, it makes sense for me to think about the Polish food I grew up with. 

There's so much here that it would take a whole lot of writing. Instead of that, I want to look at snapshot memories - and some may be a little bit surprising.

My grandparents moved here after the War. They lived in Norfolk for a while then sailed to New York before finally settling in Bury. Apparently, after a short stay Stateside my grandmother wanted to return to England so return they did, and joined a sizeable Polish community over here. They initially bought a terraced house on Canning Street and then progressed to a 1930s semi a little further out of town. It had a tiny kitchen, an even smaller pantry and gardens to the front and back.

This tiny kitchen housed a fridge, a sink unit, an electric cooker and a built-in cupboard. The walls were tiled with brick tiles and there was a 1950s unit with sliding glass doors, a couple of drawers and a Formica top. Estate agents would probably describe the whole set-up as 'cosy'.

The built-in cupboard, I remember, was always furnished with a box of Ritz crackers and a tub of Saxa salt. And jars of sauerkraut (Krakus - Poles don't buy the cheaper, 'inferior' brands stocked by supermarkets. They go to delis or actual Polish skleps, as far as I know). My grandmother and grandfather were very partial to a Ritz cracker. Indeed, my - frankly rather scary - grandma has been known to send visitors packing if they don't arrive bearing a box at Christmas.

The front, or 'best' room was seldom used. It had my grandad's medals displayed on the wall, and net curtains and a fancy glass-fronted cabinet with mirrored panels on the inside. In the cabinet were dinky liqueur glasses and a variety of blow-your-socks-off spirit-based drinks. Upon arrival I'd be sent in there to get myself a little plastic bottle of lemonade, Panda Pops or similar. There was always just the one, and once I'd been it would be replaced with another lone bottle procured from the corner shop.

On the coffee table lived chocolates in a sellophane-wrapped box: dark ones filled with cherry liqueur, brought back from Poland by whoever had been over there last. Occasionally I'd be allowed one. You bit into them and there'd be the bitter taste of very dark chocolate, followed by the alcoholic sweetness of the cherry and the slight graininess of sugar. They weren't very nice. But they were chocolate. And when you're little any chocolate is better than none at all.

Yes, a lot of cooking happened in the tiny kitchen. And a lot of growing and harvesting went on in the garden, and drying and storing in the porch and garage.

But for now: little details of the store cupboard and drinks cabinet. I'll probably never eat a cherry liqueur again. But I do buy big jars of Krakus gherkins and sauerkraut. And I also love the greasy saltiness of Ritz crackers. A little too much. So they never make it into the shopping basket.

October reading

As usual, I have a couple of books on the go this month.

I'm nearing the end of the second Cazalet book, Marking Time (by Elizabeth Jane Howard). You know the drill by now: social history, family drama, great characters - complete with that stiff upper-lipped Britishness of the era. Marking Time is set during the Second World War so there are plenty of period details and, despite it being a work of fiction, a few surprising facts along the way. Howard is adept at evoking a sense of how life really was during the Thirties and Forties. 

There's a good chance I'll be reserving Confusion (book 3), at the local library. Because although it may seem a little unadventurous to keep plodding through these novels back to back, I'm really enjoying them and that's what counts.

Well, that and the fact that I don't fancy a big gap in between (that would necessitate my familiarising myself again with all those characters and their relationships).

Moving on: my 'treat' book. Rose Petal Jam by Beata Zatorska is the story of a summer spent in Poland. It looks back at Zatorska's family history, Poland's national history and at how life is now lived both in the cities and the countryside.

The photographs are beautiful and there are plenty of recipes to try. If you have read any books by Tessa Kiros (notably Falling Cloudberries), this is a similar type of thing. I'd recommend it - in fact I've also put the follow-up book, Sugared Orange, on my wish list. It details a winter in Poland so promises to be every bit as readable (and pretty).

October's here. I'm typing in a chilly room and am wrapped up in several woolly layers. This blog is currently powered by mugs of hot tea and hazelnut biscuits. It's cold out there. In other words: it's the perfect time of year to be curled up with a good book or two...

Joining in with Laura's The Year in Books.