Savon Savvy

I love this little tin soapbox.  I love the purple colour, and the seven little cherubes frolicking on heavenly clouds, holding a garland of roses.  The box is a reproduction of an antique tin box designed for Gelle Freres' Savon Paradisia, or Paradisia scented soap.  The Gelle brothers' Paris perfumerie and soap factory dates back to 1826.  The Paradisia line was created in 1908.

I have often wondered about the scent of the mystery soap.  The yellow roses suggest the soap is rose scented, and the white flowers appear to be orange blossoms.  I have searched the internet, reading French and even German text, looking for the answer.  Nichts.

What I did discover, is that Gelle Freres - Jean-Baptist and Augustin - inherited the recipes of  Jean-Louis Fargeon, the renowned perfumer to the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette.  Was this one of her favourite fragrances?

A few years ago, I tried my hand at making my own soap.  It was a deeply relaxing passtime.  There is however, a point in the process which needs one's undivided attention, with absolutely no interruptions.  Those who know my life, will roll their eyes!  My soapmaking days ended almost before they began!

People have been making soap for about 4,800 years.  An excavation in Iraq, unearthed an ancient Babylonian clay container and a soaplike substance, from 2800BC.  A recipe for fats boiled with wood ash, has also been found on a Mesopotamian clay tablet, dating to 2200BC.  The Babylonians are believed to have used soap, not for bathing, but for washing wool and cotton prior to weaving.  A soap factory has been found in the ruins of Pompeii, Italy, dating back to 79AD.  The Arabs refined soap, adding aromatic oils to olive oil, and for the first time, adding sodium lye to the recipe.

Which brings me to the Hydrangeas.  Wood ash, which was the alkaline additive in the ancient recipe for soap, will change the colour of your Hydrangeas.  The wood ash "sweetens" the soil.  Soil with a pH of 7 or more, is alkaline.  Hydrangea blossoms will change in colour from blue to pink.

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Thank You Ten Thousand Times!

(5:30pm EDT)  Another milestone for this little blog!  Widow's Endorphins just passed the ten thousand views mark. After a year and a half, WE did it!  I thank each one of you, for sharing each post far and wide.  In a small way, the floral photographs and short essays are brightening up lives on every continent.

Photograph Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Inc.

China pattern:  Rosenthal Romance, Symphony Blue.

A blue Hydrangea blossom was sacrificed for this photo shoot.

The Summertime Blues

The song goes, "there ain't no cure for the Summertime blues".  My prescription is to get my camera, and go searching for Summertime blues, in all their nuanced splendor.  Before I know it, I'm feeling blissfully happy.

Delphiniums are a perennial favourite, with a variety of blues ranging from the palest baby blue, to lapis, and deepest midnight blue.  They stand tall, however, they need the support of a solid stake, because their heavy heads bend and break in a Summer rainstorm.  They're beautiful alone, and spectacular in a large group.     

Bluebeard is another blue Summer flower.  It too, grows tall.  Bumblebees and butterflies seem to love this plant.  In the shadows, the flower appears to be a deep, inky blue.  In full sunlight, the softer lavender shades are seen.

  

Hydrangea ranges in colour from white, to green, to pink, to raspberry, magenta, lilac, lavender, lapis, and twilight blue - sometimes all on the same shrub.  The blues of the Hydrangea are calming and peaceful.

Cascading Blue Lobelia brings contrast and sparkle to window boxes and hanging baskets.  The petite flowers bloom by the hundreds, forming mounds of blue, which can be seen a block away.  They were the inspiration for a fabric pattern used in designing the Blue Lobelia on White Lace kimono...available on Art of Where.  http://bit.do/kimonos

    

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Piano Recital

It's that time of year... Across the country, in small school auditoriums, community centres and family homes, palms are sweating over the dreaded piano recital.  It's a traumatic, humiliating time for those of us who are musically challenged.

All those black dots on black lines.  When I played them, it sounded like this:  I am glad.  I am glad. I can play, and I am glad.  What's the Italian word for expressionless monotone?  I Am Glad was the very first piece of music I was taught to play, using notes to the right of Middle C. The following week, I learned (wait for it...) I Am Sad, played with notes to the left of Middle C.  Sad doesn't begin to describe it!

As the years went by, the sheet music became more tangled with black dots, and squiggles.  Yet, the music, was embarrassingly dull.  I had Soul in my heart!  Even as a little girl, I would listen to Nat King Cole on the radio, and a few years later, dance in the living room to the latest music out of Motown.  I detested piano practice, and to this day, have an aversion to metronomes.  

Something happened during what was probably my last stomach churning piano recital.  I don't remember the unremarkable piece which I was to play.  I only remember standing alone in front of the piano, that hot Spring evening, wearing the white dress which my Mum had hand sewn for me (with matching white knee socks, because I wasn't old enough to wear panti-hose).  I knew I was blushing a deep red, because I could feel the heat blazing across my cheeks.

I took a deep breath, and in my most sombre voice, announced the name of the piece, and the composer.  Everything else is a blur.  There was muffled, polite applause...not unlike these clapping Hydrangea petals...

As we were leaving, my best friend's Mom told me that, when I announced the name of the piano piece, a woman seated nearby said, "that girl has a lovely voice".

So, I became a broadcaster!  Some of my happiest memories are of the days spent at Vancouver's CKWX and CJAZ.  The AM station upstairs played country music, and the FM station downstairs played jazz.  I wrote and read newscasts for both, running up and down stairs between the two very different demographics.  Never a music DJ, I had the good sense to stay on the News side of the glass divide.  There's a saying in radio news, that "you're only as good as your last newscast", which is just another way of saying, that every newscast is your own version of the piano recital.

Wish I knew who to give credit to, for the Cause and Effect cartoon, which makes me laugh every time I see it.

The stunning white Hydrangea blossom is from Florigens Design, here in Toronto.

Photographs copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.