A Trip Downtown and Using Up Figs

 

Last Thursday evening we were talking with my parents about drivers' licences when I suddenly realized I had received a renewal notice in the mail, oh, about six weeks ago. It was still languishing on the shelf, and my licence was due to expire on Saturday. Oh dear. I quickly went on line and tried to book an appointment for Friday, to no avail. The earliest appointment I could get was for Monday, and it was at the downtown office, not the office within walking distance. 

So Monday morning, after seeing my parents drive off to the ferry, I walked to the bus stop and went downtown to renew my licence. I couldn't drive for it had expired. The renewal went off without a hitch, and I spent a little time wandering about the city streets. I know that ivy and Virginia Creeper are not good for buildings, but they certainly add beauty and character to them, especially with all the autumn colour. 

I spent some time in Munro's Books, an iconic Victoria bookshop. While there I struck up a conversation with another woman who said that she was from Ontario, was here on vacation, and had heard so much about the store that she just had to visit. 

It's beautifully organized, with so many lovely, lovely books that I wanted to gather up and bring home. I did purchase a couple for Christmas gifts.

I did not purchase this one, but the title struck me as very funny and reminded me of our experience arriving in London at a very late hour after a delayed flight from Paris. We took the train from Gatwick to Purley where our AirBnB was located 15 minutes from the station. We trundled our carryon luggage through the streets, well after midnight, and joked about being murdered in England, since we had watched so many British murder mysteries on television. Of course we arrived without incident, but this book tells me that others have the same thought!

Here is a little bit from the book. Very cheeky and fun.

"The Churchyard. Technically, you're supposed to be dead before you end up here, but villagers aren't strict about this."

My parents gave me a beautiful bouquet of roses and lilies for my birthday and the tight lily buds are open now. Mom said that there were lots of autumn coloured bouquets, but she knew I liked pink ones better, and she is so right. 

Our sunny weekend ended abruptly on Monday afternoon (AFTER my bus trip and walk home), with steady rain that is forecast to continue all week. Over the weekend I picked a few more ripe figs and this evening I made a Fig and Blue Cheese Flatbread to accompany our vegetable soup. The figs are not very sweet due to lack of heat and sun, and need a little added sweetness - this time from some Strawberry Thyme Preserves I had downstairs. It was all very delicious. 

An anonymous comment asked if I liked reading series. The answer is an emphatic yes. There's nothing I like better than finding a good author who has written a number of books featuring a likeable character. I'm hoping the Whitstable books will fit the bill. 

It's very cozy here this evening with the fire flickering, the pink roses on the coffee table, a cup of tea beside me, and wind gusting outside. 

Wishing you all November days of coziness. 

Home and Garden

I awoke early this morning and quietly dressed and slipped outside to potter in the garden for a few minutes before breakfast. I pulled up the sweet peas that were so pretty and fragrant for so long, but are now a tangled mass of brown vines. Later in the day, I took my camera out and watched a pair of white butterflies flit among the lavender.

A friend gave us a pot of Balloon Flowers (platycodon) that put out bloom after bloom. I'm hoping to do some moving of plants in a week or two and am thinking about where I will place this one. 

Dahlia bloom in perfect symmetry. My dahlias didn't survive our cold and prolonged winter (I didn't lift the tubers), but there was a bag of free tubers in the staff room at school one day, so I took a few, not knowing what would result. These make me very happy. I'm glad they aren't orange!

And another luck-of-the-draw dahlia. They are tall, with spindly stems, but seem strong and aren't drooping at all.

Cosmos growing alongside bright white phlox. This year, the white seems whiter, or perhaps I'm just noticing it more. The blooms stand out so well against our green cedar hedge. 

Faded blue hydrangea blossoms are just as pretty now as when they were bright blue. Each bush is changing in different ways, but all the colours are becoming mellow as they absorb the waning summer sun.

A dozen or so figs found their way into the kitchen this morning. I'm trying to use up supplies just now, before going grocery shopping, so I tried to think what I could make with them. I remembered a fig flatbread that Mary of A Breath of Fresh Air had mentioned, so I looked up some recipes on line. There was some pizza dough in the freezer; I pulled it out and put it on the sunny front porch to thaw. 

I used this recipe as a base. There were enough figs and dough for two flatbreads; both have figs and caramelized onions. One has blue cheese and was drizzled with balsamic reduction and sprinkled with basil leaves.

The second flatbread was topped with cranberry goat cheese. They were both good, but I preferred the blue cheese and Tim preferred the cranberry goat cheese. 

Did you notice the cutting board in the above photo? It's shaped like a book and the title is "Romeo and Julienne." A fun gift.

It's hard to believe we're heading into the last half of August. This has been a different sort of summer, with several shorter trips that make it seem as though I'm always packing or unpacking. The garden has not received as much attention, nor have I accomplished nearly what I'd hoped in terms of house projects. Ah well, there's still a bit of time before school begins. I'll only be teaching afternoons this year, which will free me up considerably. 

"Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." Henry James