It’s that bleak, oppressive time of year when light is sparse and joys are scant. ‘Winter’s dregs’ was how writer Thomas Hardy described it, in his poem The Darkling Thrush. Depending on my mood, I either sign up to the plucky courage of Hardy’s wind-battered bird, trilling merrily from his twig. Or I side with […]
Month: February 2012
Miss Galindo’s Canape
I love the concept of the canape. All the flavours of an entire plateful, heaped extravagantly into one perfect mouthful. But I’ve just discovered something I love as much as the canape, and that’s the derivation of the word. Canape was coined in 18th century France and means ‘sofa’ – a welcoming, capacious, inviting seat on […]
When Colours Run Riot
There was a phase in the 1970s when interior design ran riot. I remember my grandpa announcing proudly that he’d decorated the walls of his small front room with four wildly different wallpapers and picked out the woodwork in egg-yolk yellow. I thought of my grandpa as I walked around David Hockney’s new exhibition A […]