Rose Chintz Cottage

Monday, 16 November 2015

No Place Like Home # 3

Mid pleasures and palaces though I may roam,

Be it ever so humble there's no place like home. ~ John Howard Payne

Welcome to another No Place Like Home party!

I looked out my window this morning and saw my neighbour across the street up on the ladder putting Christmas lights on the eves of his house. I know most of us are busy getting ready for the holidays and I'm excited to see all your holiday posts coming up.

On the weekend I was feeling rather nostalgic. I brought out my Friendly Village china and enjoyed a quiet cup of tea as I reflected upon the days of my childhood.

I shared about my Granny's Pancake Jug. This old jug is more than one hundred years old.

If you missed that post then you can read it here.

I am happy to feature several posts from last week's party again this week.

The most viewed post was: Debbie @ Debbie-Dabble who shared the great deals her hubby Joe got. What a super shopper he is!

The following posts also caught my eye!

Lynn @ Quaker Hill Farm shared her lovely wreath of grapevine, ivy, berries and florals. Beautiful!

Sherry @ The Charm of Home shared a lovely tea time using her poppy teacup in remembrance of our veterans and soldiers as we celebrated Remembrance Day and Veteran's Day last week.

And if you're looking for a nosh how about Mrs. T's Pumpkin Dutch Apple Pie @ Across My Kitchen Table. The best of both pies in one delicious pie. She shared both the recipe for the pie and her pie crust.

Thank you everyone for participating last week. As a courtesy, and if you would like to be featured, you should have a link back to my party. Please don't post any more than two links.
Now let's see what you are creating in your home to make it a cozy place to come home to for your family, your friends, and yourself.

Lord, this humble house we'd keep
Sweet with play and calm with sleep.
Help us so that we may give
Beauty to the lives we live.
Let Thy love and let Thy grace
Shine upon our dwelling place. - Edgar A. Guest

An InLinkz Link-up

Sharing from my heart~ Sandi

Saturday, 14 November 2015

Tea and The Tale of An Old Pancake Jug

Hello friends ~ It's Saturday morning and Hubby is at the gym so I'm enjoying a quiet cup of tea in my Johnson Brothers Friendly Village teacup.

This china is so perfect for Autumn and the winter months.

The Ice House

Each piece of Friendly Village depicts a scene from our past; an ice house, a covered bridge, a school house, among other things. A truly old-fashioned pattern which suggests a life of hard work yet such wonderful sentiment.

The School House

It hung on a pail that stood on a stool
By the door of an old-time country school,
And the water it dipped was cool and sweet
Fresh as mountain dew in the schoolroom's heat.

And never was water so good, so cool,
As dipped from the pail of that old-time school,
Along with the schoolhouse of another day,
The common tin dipper has passed away. - Margaret Neel

I am so glad that they have captured these olden day scenes under a glaze to be enjoyed forever.

Today my School House plate has an assortment of home made muffins on it. You may choose cranberry, blueberry bran, or raisin bran.

Tea is Earl Grey.

Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty. ~ James Norwood Pratt

Sugar Maples teapot

As I sip my cup of tea I can't help but reflect upon the days of my childhood. With the Christmas season nearing, I tend to become very sentimental. I suppose a lot of us are like that around this time of year.

Across the room, sitting on my chippy white table covered in old lace, is my Granny's pancake jug.

I'm not sure how old the jug is but my Auntie P seems to think that it probably came from my grandmother's grandmother. So we're talking over one hundred years old.

The old pancake jug has been on a long journey. Long ago it served my great-grandmother up on Caledonia Mountain, NB. Then it accompanied my Granny to her home in Bridgedale, NB. {now Riverview}. My auntie, my mother, and their siblings enjoyed many pancakes made in this old jug.

My Granny always used a very large spoon to mix pancake batter in this jug. The pancakes were made from her own buckwheat flour which was ground from their own buckwheat grown on the farm.

Every Saturday night Granny made piles of pancakes and served them with baked beans for supper. She must have had a strong arm because the jug is quite heavy. I have no problem picturing Granny wearing her apron and stirring the jug to make pancakes. I remember she was a marvellous cook.

My auntie has had this pancake jug in her possession for years, ever since my beloved Granny passed, and she gave it to me the last time I visited her in New Brunswick.

The old brown jug is a little beaten up. There is a nick in the handle and a crack in the body and some may think it not very pretty, but to me it is priceless. To me it's more than an old piece of crockery. It's a jug of memories.

So, here it sits now in my home with an ivy spilling out of it. I just noticed how much like a heart shape the ivy is growing in. A lot of love had been stirred up in that old jug!

The jug is a treasured piece of my past reminding me of two of my favourite people; my auntie and my grandmother.

Memories are timeless treasures of the heart. -unknown

Savouring my hot cup of tea in an old-fashioned teacup and thinking about my childhood fills me with a sense of nostalgia which is hard to put into words. I only know how thankful I am for the blessing of a warm loving home, a warm cup of tea and such lovely memories.