Dear friends, gifts, and men in trees

After my birthday several weeks ago I have still received some bulky mail from Melanie. First came this book, The Bayeux Tapestry Embroiderers' Story, because Melanie liked it and I loved the other book by Jan Messent she sent for my real birthday. It is an amazing story.

This was packed in a big biscuit tin: a small bucket bag for my knitting or sewing notions to take to class, some fabric scraps for Unicef dolls' clothes, vintage embroidery silk, a bird brooch made by Melanie, and a pair of Dutch clogs from her recent journey to Amsterdam.

I'm sure you want a better look at the brooch.

This all wasn't obviously not enough for her, because today I got another Walkers biscuit tin, very heavy this time. Melanie enclosed "some of her favourite things" for me. Many sorts of tea and portions of coffee, some Oxford marmalade with ginger to have on toast, and horse radish sauce for roast beef. This all gives me a taste of England, and many hints to our shared reading project of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons are included.

     



I want to show the owl a little closer. Melanie has told about this Athenian owl in this post on her blog. She has also better pictures of the wall hanging; it is wrinkled now as it was so tightly packed in the tin.

The name on the tin naturally refers to the Walker children, the Swallows, which I'm planning to make as Unicef dolls for myself. Melanie has already received her Amazons, Nancy and Peggy, and the Callun kids Dot and Dick. But Walkers on a biscuit tin sounded distantly familiar, and when we were grocery shopping, I suddenly noticed why:

Walkers Pure Butter Shortbread Rounds are on the shelf right next to the plain cinnamon biscuits I usually buy for my afternoon tea. The Walkers Shortbread rounds taste very nice and buttery, but I will need to keep to the Kaneelkeks or I will soon be as round as the butter shortbread rounds.

This week I saw something funny at the railway station in Järvenpää. Four men were in trees, cutting dry branches. It made me remember a TV series some years ago "Men in Trees", placed in a very small town in Alaska. I didn't see any men in trees in it, just a traffic sign warning about them. - As you see, there is no snow in this picture. The snow in our yard is about half gone.

Have a wonderful weekend!