Fairy Bread and Butter Pudding Recipe: Acquired 2021

Sometimes there are tea towels that you see that you think ‘Who sat down and thought I’ve got a good idea for a tea towel: A Fairy Bread and Butter Pudding Recipe?’. Not only that but designed it so it was much smaller than any of my other tea towels? What I can say is that it is unique and I have nothing else like it, but it is a real Recipe Tea Towel and I do love a Recipe Tea Towel. I can imagine that this is a tea towel that you could buy in a Baking Shop, one of those that sells cookie cutters and cup cake cases, large cake tins and rolling pins. Or even from Lakeland? Actually, looking at it more closely, the material is very similar to Flour Sack material, very common in USA. I’ve also looked more carefully at the recipe, who would put sprinkles on Bread and Butter Pudding? Not to my taste at all.

This is another from the Birthday Tea Towel Challenge, and is 100th that I have Blogged about. 100!! and the pile doesn’t seem to be going down. Maybe I need to have a bit of a break down from the Birthday ones and start on the couple I have bought on holiday. That won’t take long because every time I see a pile of Scottish tea towels, I have most of them already. If I see ‘Scottish Recipes’ once more, I’ll scream!

Anyway, this one is from Pam who lives near Macclesfield, a friend of my friend Gwyneth “Happy birthday wishes from Pam” the note says. Another of those people who so generously donated a tea towel to my Collection, and who I have never met.

Thank you so much Pam for the most amazing tea towel, even if I couldn’t face Bread and Butter Pudding with sprinkles

Bees: 2021

As I sit on the settee, in a small stone cottage, open plan, in front of a log burner, listening to the wind blowing and the rain falling heavily on the converted byre’s roof, I think ‘This is preposterous to be thinking about bees. They would never survive the wind and rain at this time of the year’. Having been to Aberdeen, we turned towards home, only to stop for a week on the edge of the Lake District. Aberdeen was a bit windy but with glorious sun. The Lake District warm and soggy, not a glimpse of sun, not Bee Country.

This tea towel was part of the Birthday Tea Towel Challenge, from my Uncle Christopher and Aunty Pam. The note attached to this beautiful tea towels says: “This tea towel we acquired when we visited the National Trust Bodnant in June this year. We have been there on a few occasions before but still wonder at the magnificence of the Gardens and Dell. The vast bed of roses were at their very best and sensationally beautiful and colourful. Lots of happy bees, hence the choice of the tea towel. Well done National Trust. Chris and Pam”

Bees have been in abundance this year. In my garden, they have descended, in their masses, on the lavender plants; they are drawn to the borage which grows under the mahonia and spreads around the slope. The Birds Foot Trefoil is like a magnet, as is the jam on my toast when we have breakfast on the patio. There is a growth in tea towels focussing on Bees, a very popular, and topical, subject. I think this one, from Ulster Weavers, is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen.

Bodnant Gardens sounds fascinating; I thought I hadn’t been there. I had to look it up on google. Oh yes, I remember. I remember the disabled persons parking spots on the slope, with a camber. I remember how difficult it was to push a wheelchair from the car park, up the path, to the reception area. I could see the beauty of the gardens from a distance, but walking round would having been too much of a challenge. Hey ho, not everywhere can be accessible or maybe I just have to get fitter!!

Happy Holidays: Acquired 2021

Another Birthday Tea Towel Challenge tea towel. This tine from Shirley who lives in Warrington. I’ve never met Shirley but she is a friend of my long-standing friend, Gwyneth. The note with them says “Two holiday tea towels. Shirley (85) says she loved her 70s. Wishing you all the best”. Well, I’m glad Shirley loved her 70s because I am looking forward to entering this decade, and enjoying myself (not that I didn’t enjoy my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s).

I love the concept of Holiday Tea Towels, demonstrating the variety of holiday venues someone has been to. Shirley’s ‘Canada’ tea towel seems unused, maybe a recent acquisition or one put in a drawer and forgotten about. Or was this a gift from someone else, too precious to use? These ‘surprise’ tea towels allow me to speculate, to imagine who the people are who own them, and what they have been doing in their lives.

‘Canada’ reminds me of my several trips there. Back in 1988, I went to Canada with John, my husband. We had wanted to go to Canada for such a long time. When we had saved enough money we were off. As we were spending three days in Toronto, John was keen to see if he could trace his younger brother, Sam. Sam had emigrated to Canada aged 18, many years ago. He ended up as a book editor for Mills and Boon (John always thought that seemed unlikely). John’s family had tried to trace Sam, but to no avail. We didn’t think we’d have any success. In the hotel bedroom, there was a telephone book (remember those days when we all used telephone books?). I looked up Sam in the phonr book, and there he was. Surely, someone must have thought about doing that before? or perhaps they hadn’t really wanted to find him. It was a very exciting rendezvous. We spent a couple of days with him, sightseeing, meals out, gossiping. John was delighted, bringing back childhood memories; I thought he was an obnoxious, sexist pig but then I only knew him as he had grown up, not as a child. The ‘Canada’ tea towel really reminds me of Canada in the Fall (sounds a bit like a Christmas movie).

Lanzarote, on the other hand, could win the prize for the most prolific variety of tea towels. I’ve never been to Lanzarote, and am unlikely to, but I have loads of tea towels from there, none the same. Some are waffle ones like this one, with many different embroidered images but others are cotton and bright and gaudy. I love them, it almost feels like I’ve been there. This ‘Lanzarote’ has a more pre-loved look, perhaps Shirley went there a few years ago and bought it on her holidays. Who knows?.

Thank you, Shirley, for two wonderful tea towels which are welcomed into my Collection.

Britain’s Waterway Heritage: Acquired 2021

Tea towels always tell a story or bring back a memory. And this one certainly does. It is a very traditional tea towel, with delightful sketches of various aspects of the British Waterways like an Anderson Boat Lift, a lock or an Aqueduct. The Double Bridge must be a sight to behold. And, of course, the Castles and Roses decoration that is on all barge-ware.

My friend Gwyn loved a canal. There was part of her that always wanted to live in a narrowboat and part that just wanted to go on holidays and day trips on one. We shared an August birthday, a week apart. We shared four Birthday Boat Trips. There was the Rugby Canal, with a turning point at Tescos in Rugby, which Pete steered brilliantly. He seemed to love being in control!! There was the one that went past Bosworth Battle Ground, where the engine slowed down, and we didn’t get back until it was dark (and that was scary). Liz K had joined us on that one; she too liked being in control. We had two on Sunbeam II, an adapted narrowboat that was owned by the organisation I had worked for. In 2019, both Liz and Gwyn were able to travel in a wheelchair, with plenty of space on the boat and a fully accessible toilet. Liz K and Gwyneth joined us on that trip. There are two advantages to travelling on Sunbeam II, firstly you can leave steering the narrowboat to a volunteer skipper (although you can have a go if you want) and secondly, at the half way point is the Waterside Inn where you choose a cooked meal. A real treat, and no late returns, back at 4pm.

I remember the narrowboat near Tiverton with its tea room. I loved the trip on a narrowboat, raised by the Falkirk Wheel, a magnificent affair where you can look over the waterways while being raised in the air. There is the Beeston Canal where you can walk along the tow path to Nottingham. The Beeston Canal was where, on one day, I was thanked twice for pushing Liz in her wheelchair; it made me cringe. First, the man in the cafe said that ‘carers’ like me were so wonderful to the ‘disabled’. I was just glad that Liz didn’t hear that. As we passed the tea room, at the Heritage Centre, I was ‘dragged’ in to take part in a Carers Day, full of meditation and relaxation. Someone else took Liz off for a walk, without asking her or me. I am sure that a lot of people benefit from meditation and relaxation but not me. I’m definitely not a meditation-sort-of-a-person.

But my love of British Waterways came to a peak in the period after the first Lockdown, when I discovered the disused Nottingham Canal. About quarter of a mile from the house, the path starts. Along the way are some small pools of water where we’ve seen some very tiny ducklings, swimming about with their mother, hiding in the reeds. The path travels two miles to Trowell Garden Centre, a good place for a cup of tea. You can walk back via the Hemlock Stone and over the back to home. Wonderful.

Thank you to Sue, my aunt Catherine’s friend for this colourful and informative tea towel.

The Hares: 2021

My aunt, Catherine, apparently a key player in the Birthday Tea Towel Challenge, WhatsApp’d Liz saying “I’m sorry about these. Am really disappointed. I saw the one with all the hares and thought the pack would be similar but the others are boring. Wasn’t sure about adding them in. Sorry”

Liz replied “She’ll love them anyway”

And so the three M&S tea towels, in very on-trend colours, joined the many others but they haven’t been duplicated by other people. Teal is one of my favourite colours. I would never wear anything in teal but for paintwork (in my lounge), tea towels and even kitchen equipment, its ok by me. I like the fact that its an unusual colour, viewed differently by different people. Is it green or more blue? does it have a yellowish tinge. Often its just about the colours standing alongside it; the yellow and white on these tea towels tame the teal. The yellow and teal colours appear on many recent tea towels; it’s certainly fashionable but on anything over ten years old, you won’t see them.

M&S are good for ‘Packs of 3’. I have a 3-pack of Christmas tea towels, actually I have two such packs, six different tea towels. But the trouble is they fold them in such a way as the most attractive is fully visible and others are underneath. Disappointment, as Catherine felt, when you get home.

I think one of the issues that Catherine felt was that they don’t really go together. If the Hares are the centrepiece (and, by goodness they are cute and endearing), you would expect another tea towel to have one big Hare in the centre at the bottom and the third might either be the absolute plain teal or maybe three Hares. That checked one doesn’t fit, it doesn’t match, the colours maybe there but not the design. Hares have soft lines, are furry and those sharp lines clash. It makes the combination ‘clunky’.

But Liz was right, I love them. Thank you Catherine for some lovely fresh and light tea towels that certainly go well in my kitchen.

Aberdeen Football Club: 2021

First thing, this is not part of the Birthday Tea Towel Challenge. It is my first Holiday Tea Towel!

Secondly, for any football fans, do you know how difficult it is to get a football tea towel, club specific. I have tried. I wanted one from Brentford Football Club, the club I have supported all my life. Nothing. I’ve tried other clubs that I might have a tie to, nothing. Yet over the last five years, I have been able to buy four Aberdeen Football Club ones, all completely different. I loved the Christmas one that could be made into a cushion and the Tartan one that is still on sale. All have the logo.

If I go to Aberdeen I will always pop into the Club Shop. Yesterday, my collection of garden gnomes has grown by two; I’ll soon have a full football team. In the shop, they have everything from the Home and Away kit to oven gloves, mugs to baby-gros, from birthday cards to wallets, and there is always a ‘Sale Items’ stand. And always helpful staff who, I’m sure, think ‘whats that doddery old woman, with an English accent, doing in here’ but never show it.

So, if I am a Brentford fan (and aren’t they doing well?) why do I like the Dons? Well, it started in 2016, when Liz’s dad had had a massive stroke. Although living in Hertfordshire, he was a born and bred Aberdonian with a love of the Dons. In Hertfordshire you never saw Aberdeen on Match of the Day but he would still follow them as much as he could. So each time we visited his sister Jean in a care home in Aberdeen, we’d pop in the Club Shop for a gift, the club mascot or a t-shirt, a DVD of the 1983 European win or a birthday card. Now he is no longer with us, a trip to the Shop is a tradition.

In 2017, Hamish came with his grandmother to see his great aunt Jean. We went to the Club Shop, and he found my first Dons tea towel. He was very, very excited. I was probably a smidgen more excited! But we had our photograph taken together. Who would think that a Football Club Shop could bring back so many memories?.

I apologise for the quality of the top photo but it was taken outside Girdleness Lighthouse, which is always very windy. The photo below reminds me of my first Dons tea towel with Hamish, who is considerably taller these days!

Stansted Mountfitchet Windmill: 2021

I love a windmill. I love seeing them on the horizon or across a field, standing white, with their sails. I love waiting to see, given the right weather, whether the sails float gracefully around. I’ve often wondered if, when windmills were built, whether the populace complained about them spoiling the landscape, like people do about Wind Farms or even pylons. I’m always surprised at how many there are about but, of course, not all are working.

Diane donated this, via my cousin Amanda, as part of the Birthday Tea Towel Challenge. Diane attends a Pilates class, I thought I recognised the mats in the background.

Stansted Mountfitchet Windmill was built in 1787. There is a really detailed history of the millers, the costs involved replacing and repairing different parts of the structure (too much detail for a Tea Towel Blog). A five storey windmill, it stands 47 feet high. Essex is quite a flat county so it can be seen from some distance away. In 1952 it was became a Scheduled Ancient Monument and then became a Grade II Listed Building. The windmill last worked commercially in 1910, crushing oats. It opened to the public in 1965 and over the years was gradually restored so the four sails could once again be turned by the wind. In 2003, it was struck by lightening during an Open Day, resulting in a fire, and after much fundraising, was restored, once again, in 2007.

Just looking at the image on the tea towel reminds me of a number of windmills I’ve seen, that I have tea towels from and that are so different: Bircham Mill in Norfolk, Tuxford Mill in Nottinghamshire (nice tea room and nice flour), Greens Mill in the centre of Nottingham, still working and the source of all my flour, Maud Foster Mill (7 storey and 80 feet in height) in Boston which used to have a nice tea room but is closed.

I start as I begun. I love a windmill and thanks to Diane for letting me add this one to my collection. The acquisition of tea towels makes me realise just how many places I would really like to visit, and this is .

Braveheart: 2021

“Rosie and Bob bought this tea towel in Scotland for you” the note from my friend Gwyneth said. A very appropriate place to buy it.

I love the work of Erica Sturla, and of all her tea towels, I think this one is the best. It’s a great comic line but there is something more, the way she has captured Braveheart’s face that is so reminiscent of Mel Gibson in the 1995 film. It has never failed to amaze me that an American actor/director would be chosen to play this iconic role of Sir William Wallace, a late 13th century warrior. The story of Braveheart was inspired by Blind Harry’s 15th century epic poem ‘The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace’. Blind Harry was a poet most famous for this work which is a lengthy poem recounting the life of William Wallace, the Scottish Independence Leader. It was written in 1477, 172 years after Wallace’s death. Nothing like a bit of history in a Tea Towel Blog.

I’m about to travel to Aberdeen. It’s been nearly two years since I’ve been to Aberdeen but this time there would be no Jean to visit, no smile of welcome. It’s time to scatter the ashes from a funeral none of the family were able to attend. Scotland is somewhere I love and have missed. Scotland’s history is complex and needs to be studied. So I am grateful for this wonderful William Wallace tea towel. Thank you!!

Koala and Friends: 2021

It’s not often that you find intricate, arty designs for tea towels. Animals are always a popular design, possibly not usually like this. This comes from one of my cousin Amanda’s fitness pupils, Emma, as part of the Birthday Tea Towel Challenge. Emma does Body Balance, and I have to say that I have no idea what Body Balance is.

This is an unusual one in that it was designed in Australia by Nathan Ferlazzo, founder of Marini Ferlazzo ‘Art for Wildlife’. A percentage of the profits go to the protection of wildlife around the world. While this tea towel is black and white, many of Nathan’s works are colourful, and floral. I think the starkness of the black on white gives it a very dramatic feel.

Koalas are found across eastern Australia and are suited to life in trees. Their diet mainly consists of Eucalyptus leaves, which have little nutritional value, so Koalas must limit their energy use and sleep 20 hours a day. Koalas have been the victims of the frequent bush fires that happen in Australia and there have been many rescue efforts launched, when they have been trapped. Think of a Koala and Australia will always spring to mind but it is now an endangered species, with about 80% of their habitat destroyed. There is much conservation work going on to protect their habitat.

It is nice to think that the purchase of a tea towel will help in such efforts. Thanks Emma for such a great, and unusual, tea towel.

A Celebration of the Scots Language: Acquired 2021

When I first saw this tea towel, two things happened. Firstly there was a little card which said “This is the Mystery Tea Towel, because I can’t remember who sent it – but like the others, sent with very best wishes for a new and exciting decade”. This was from my friend Gwyneth. I’m not surprised she has been finding it difficult to remember who passed these tea towels on to her, because there are so many. She should have taken guidance from my cousin Amanda who just took photos of people holding their ‘donated’ tea towels. You can’t forget then. Of course, Gwyneth might have had a bit of a problem with that – lots of the ‘gifters’ live many miles away. Too late now anyway. The second thing that happened was that I thought ‘Oh no. I’ve already got that. An Infamous Duplicate’. Today I know different.

There must be a series of tea towels called ‘Celebration of the Scots Language’, but if you look carefully there is a strap line and that makes them all different. The strap line for this one is ‘A unique range of guid Scots sayings’. The one I bought in 2006, blogged about on 14/11/2016, has a strap line of ‘A unique range of guid Scots words’, completely different, just individual words. I’ll tell you, it’s a lot easier to say out loud, and understand, single words than the phrases on this tea towel. Who is going to understand “He wis fairly gaun his dinger” (He lost his temper)? But here’s a tea towel to practice learning another language with. Increases the length of time it takes to do the wiping up, though.