A Revealing Anecdote from Yesterday
Lady Jennie: Come kids – throw your garbage away and put your dishes in the sink.
Young Lady: Aw, again? We always have to bring things here or put things there.
Lady Jennie: Well, we don’t have a servant so we need to be the ones to serve. Everyone in this family has to help out.
Young Lady: Bah, si! (said in a tone of great wisdom and exaggerated patience, and which means, “why yes as a matter of fact – we do”). We have a servant.
Lady Jennie: Oh yeah? Who?
Young Lady: You!
Lady Jennie: (slight pause) Ah.
(You may all now call me Old Lady because that’s what I’ll be when my children get through with me).
Elegance is light gardening in a skirt that twirls.
It is coaxing the tendrils of tiny peas to curl around their stakes.
It is a stroll through the strawberry patch
to pick fresh strawberries that are both sweet and tart and free from pesticides.
Elegance is family heirlooms – history passed down through the family from generation to generation. This pastel is Sir’s great-great-great grand uncle, painted in 1849.
This is his sister, Sir’s great-great-great grandmother
the restored frames that go with them,
And the delicate “compotières” and dessert plates that her daughter (Sir’s great-great grandmother) painted by hand.
Elegance is a mixed seafood dish for dinner with olive oil, garlic and lemon and a piece of baguette to soak up the sauce.
It is the artisanal macarons (whose recipe I promise to share)
taken with a steaming tisane in a very old Russian teapot
and a stroll through the garden as the sun is setting through the plum tree.
Elegance is an orderly existence, free from materialism and clutter.
Peace incarnate.
Fortunately, the truly elegant have servants.
I love your elegance. Lovely photos. I especially love the one of the garden as the sun is setting. Beautiful. The last photo could be the counter in my kitchen!
Great post!
There is so much elegance in your life.
I have to say that the thought of gardening in a skirt that twirls…that is like poetry! Beautiful.
(I have a lot more of that last picture happening in my life than I would like to admit!)
You can make macarons? I bow down before you.
Great photos!
I love you for including that last photo.
And those raspberries.
Oh my. Can you hear my mouth watering?
Or is that merely the servant arriving here for the day?
(nope. just me. drooling.)
That was simply a fantastic post. The perfect blend of humor, visual images, mental images and macarons.
Isn’t that all how we viewed our mothers as kids? I have no greater appreciation for my mom than I do now as a mother myself.
Gorgeous photos as usual. I would love to have a little garden. For now, I’ll have to settle for the farmer’s market.
Hah…my husband and I were just saying how lucky our kids are to have us…their servants!
This post, your writing, your pictures…so beautiful, elegant, and lovely. Thank You.
You are the essence of elegance, even with the last picture.
What beautiful treasures you have. How lucky you are to have those links to your past.
And my girls know I’m not the maid, because I have growled those same words approximately one million times since the day they were born since that is the day I seemed to turn into the maid.
Ah, the elegant life. You’d be hard pressed to find any corner free of clutter, even in my garden. Of course, I don’t have a servant either. Too bad. I feel I must be elegant deep down.
*swoon* macarons!
i am also a servant. I feel ya, sista.
The lighter the gardening, the better. Or at least in the South when you feel instantly soaked within 10 seconds of stepping outside.
Aha. True elegance is you and your writing. So funny. I love the way you tell stories with words and pictures. little lady picks up on your gift of being a great hostess. It’s good that you are teaching her the same.
I like the twirly skirt and the bowl of strawberries … The gardening and growing part? Not so much. Maybe I need a gardening servant …
God bless you for the last photo, otherwise I”d be seething with jealousy.
A perfect balance, that’s what you are.
Your conversation with your kids cracked me up. I’m sure my children think the same of me.
And I adore your photos and captions – and, yes, especially the last one. (I didn’t notice you taking a photo of my kitchen counters…)
Your conversation with your kids was amusing- I am sorry but it was cute 🙂 the rest of the post lovely as well 🙂
Wonderful post!!!! Wonderful!
Loved the photo essay – I want those strawberries and cannot wait until you share the recipe for CHOCOLATE – yum!