See you in 2009.

Dear friends,

Wishing you all a wonderful festive season.

We shall return in the brand new year with a herd of antelope, an army of ants, a sneak of weasels accompanied by a pack of wolves, a prickle of hedgehogs and a charm of goldfinches and many, many more.

We have had such fun embarking upon these Collective Noun Explorations that 2009 cannot come soon enough.

Thank you for all your interest and kind words left here.

Be well,
G & E & L

A clutch of eggs.

{Does fifteen eggs quantify as a clutch? Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison. (Please click to enlarge)}

Lottie (Sprink) today joins us and together we four bring you a clutch of eggs.

Eggs have such a smooth shape, immediately easy to visualise in the mind’s eye be it a freshly laid egg, a speckled egg seen in a bird's nest, a diagram in a book on anatomy or one wrapped brightly in Easter foil or dyed red and placed centrally in a knot of bread. Eggs in many forms are what we bring you today, dear ones.

Thank you Lottie for playing along. We’re happy you could join us.

And now to officially begin. Here is Lottie's response.

Egg London
It might be natural to think that in the urban centre of a city like London a clutch of eggs would be hard to find. Mais au contraire mes amis, if you look, you will see that clutches abound.



It seems like there are eggs everywhere at Borough Market where they arrive with feathers on and stand in regimented rows for saturday morning shoppers to cluck over as they fill their baskets with produce as local as London can muster.



And a little further afield, north of the River Thames on Exmouth Market, are clutches in other guises.  Moro, with its long zinc bar, wooden floor and unpretentious atmosphere, has eggs on the menu, disguised in a tortilla. This is hands down my favourite restaurant of all time and if you're ever in London a visit there will be long-remembered. Try the yoghurt and pistachio cake, you won't regret it.



A few doors down at Brindisa eggs are in abundance. The Almond and egg cake from Galicia sits temptingly on the counter, as does a platter of pasteis de nata alongside a copy of 1080 Recipes.



This book contains 52 egg recipes and the foreword of the egg chapter recommends removing eggs from the fridge at least an hour before they are needed as this ensures that "whites will whisk stiffly, mayonnaise will come out better and so on". It also states that "a newly-laid egg is indigestible - wait at least 24 hours before eating it".



Elsewhere, in town, Nigel Slater admitted recently in the Guardian that eggs are his bête noire, and as such they are scarce in his Kitchen Diaries, but, the generous man that he seems, he still offered up some seasonal egg recipes recently, pairing them with chervil, chives and parsley in an omelette and whisking burford brown yolks with oil to make mayonnaise.

My search for urban eggs took an unexpected turn when, whilst wandering around Clerkenwell, I heard a familiar but strangely out of place noise. Pausing to listen again and make sure I had really heard what I'd heard, I stood still and realised that yes, it was the crowing of a rooster. Following the noise lead me to a flash of tail feathers and I found this chap happily pecking around his owner's garden.



I like to think that not far away was his hen and her very own clutch of eggs.




{Sunday morning - poached or scrambled? Ink and pencil drawing, Elaine Haby.}


{Does twenty-four eggs quantify as a clutch? Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison.}


{Does twenty-seven eggs quantify as a clutch? Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison.}


{Looking but I can't for the life of me find my clutch of eggs, I. Collage, Gracia Haby.}


{Looking but I can't for the life of me find my clutch of eggs, II. Collage, Gracia Haby.}


{Looking but I can't for the life of me find my clutch of eggs, III. Collage, Gracia Haby.}


{Found! Collage, Gracia Haby.}

A collection of objects.

{Although they objected to being classed as objects, the promise of seed cake for tea kept Moochi, Emma and Fishy quiet and still for their portrait. Ink and pencil drawing, Elaine Haby. (Please click to see this larger.)}

Objects, all manner of them, collected and arranged, that is what we have for you today.

Objects selected and collected, small charms and trinkets to hold us spellbound, little keepsakes and memory aids... why do we collect and hold on to what we do? Their power to recall a time long since past or recently been, yes, that is what intrigues me. A collection equals recollection to me.

This time we have invited Camilla (Camilla Engman), herself a collector and recorder of beautiful things found and acquired from both the natural and man-made world, to join us.

Here, especially for you, a collection of objects from Camilla, Elaine, Louise and me.

{Food, money, shells and things. From Camilla, a collection of various objects that are beautiful and organized both. Photographs, Camilla Engman.}

{Drawing from Camilla's collection of delights. Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison.}

{A loose collection of things I may someday need. Collage, Gracia Haby.}

A cache of jewels.

{Shine for me. Collage, Gracia Haby. (Please click to see this, and others a little larger.)}

A cache of jewels to rival the jewel-encrusted dagger of Istanbul’s Topkapi Museum is what I have for you today. Sparkling, twinkling in all their coloured glory, gemstones cut and polished, and gemstones uncut and seemingly lit from within. Precious stones of such translucent splendour are surely best shared so I have invited dear Esti (Píntame el día) from Bilbao, Spain to join us.

Gathered here a visual response to A Cache of Jewels from Esti, Elaine, Louise and me.


{Drawing for A Cache of Jewels, Estibaliz Hernandez.}


{Drawing for A Cache of Jewels, Estibaliz Hernandez.}


{A cache of golden, aquamarine, heliodor, goshenite and morganite beryls. Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison.}


{A cache of rough and cut smoky quartz and tourmalines. Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison.}


{A cache of cut rockcrystals and citrines. Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison.}


{A cache of tourmalines and cut turquoise. Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison.}


{Eunice liked nothing better than playing with her cache of jewels on a quiet Winter evening. Pencil drawing, Elaine Haby.}


{Luminous collection for a feline. Collage, Gracia Haby.}


{Not my National Costume. Collage, Gracia Haby.}


{Taking over centre stage. Collage, Gracia Haby.}

A husk of hares.

{Doris thought it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt with all this tomfoolery. Pencil drawing, Elaine Haby. (Please click to see this larger.)}

Hares, and rabbits too, for that matter, have long held an attraction for me. You already know of my weakness for foxes, well, tonight I’m sharing my enthusiasm for hares, and as with foxes, the books I poured over as a child seem to explain a good deal of my fondness. Reading, and being read, The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real by Margery Williams) and other such books ensured the outcome.

There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the Boy's stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming.

Born also in the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, those long-footed, lop-eared creatures look magnificent to one. And the tails! Who could go past the tail? But before I muddle my hares and rabbits further, let me tell you this…

Of the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha.
Distributed throughout the world, hares and rabbits have many common characteristics. Rabbits and hares are gnawing animals like rats, mice, and squirrels. They have the same type of strong, chisel like front teeth.

Although the common names rabbit and hare are often used interchangeably, in zoological classification the species called rabbits are characterised by their offspring that are born naked and blind, and by their habit of living in colonies in underground burrows. In contrast, species designated zoologically as hares are born furred and with vision, and the adults build a simple nest and rarely live socially. The hare is also generally larger than the rabbit and has longer ears with characteristic black markings. Moreover, the skulls of rabbits and hares are distinctly different.

There now, don’t you feel better informed on the subject?

The Norse goddess Freyja had several hare attendants, and sailors consider the hare so unlucky that they cannot be mentioned at sea, or so I’ve been lead to believe. They can out jump any rabbit, and according to a Cornish superstition, a young girl who dies after being abandoned by her lover will turn into a white hare in order to pursue her faithless love. And should ever you chance upon a group (which is quite rare for they are largely solitary creatures) you can say you’ve seen a husk of hares!

On with a few more of the visuals, I say.



{Mad as March hares. Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison.}


{Hare dreams of red flowers and blue birds. Oil on MDF, Elaine Haby.}


{Making like a mountain. Digital collage, Gracia Haby.}


{In the library for the blind, the hare went about her business unbothered. Digital collage, Gracia Haby.}


{Trying not to blink. Digital collage, Gracia Haby.}

A skulk of foxes.

Hello my fox brothers and sisters,

As a child, I loved Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, and if I had a copy of it still (I borrowed it often from the school library), I’m sure I’d enjoy leafing through its pages today.

"Well, my darling," said Mr. Fox. "What shall it be tonight?"

"I think we’ll have duck tonight," said Mrs Fox.

"Bring us two fat ducks, if you please. One for you and me, and one for the children."

"Ducks it shall be!" said Mr Fox.

I am terribly fond of foxes, though most of the foxes I know come from the pages of books or fairy tales. From Yuri Norstein’s beautiful Fox and Rabbit (1975), a retelling of an ancient Russian folk tale, to Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Mr. Tod (“He was of a wandering habit and he had foxey whiskers; they never knew where he would be next.”), foxes are clever, cunning and handsome, and their eyes glisten.

ЛИСА И ЗАЯЦ (Part I)




ЛИСА И ЗАЯЦ (Part II)




(An English translation of sorts can be found here.)

So foxes it is, a skulk of foxes to set this blog on its merry path. For those curious, a group of foxes can also be referred to as a lead or a leash of foxes, and there ends our English lesson. Roll on with the visuals, starting with Louise's white, silver, red and blue foxes which have been fashioned into fur garments.


{Wishing we were still a skulk, I. Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison.}



{Wishing we were still a skulk, II. Watercolour and pencil drawing, Louise Jennison.}



{The door was open but we decided to stay (detail). Digital collage, Gracia Haby.}



{I don't think we're all of us going to fit in there. Digital collage, Gracia Haby.}



{A happy band of skulkers. Pencil drawing, Elaine Haby.}


{Looking for a fat hen. Pencil drawing, Elaine Haby.}