Worth Sharing: Perfect English

In my searching this week on Pinterest I came across this article by Leta Austin Foster.   I knew I'd found a designer I could follow when I read her tip on using books you read and love and collect in your interior design.  Seriously.  I'm so over the backward books, the coverless books bound with twine, the designers who suggest you put the books away. 

While Leta Austin Foster is based in Palm Beach, her style is described as traditional...I think it looks very upscale British.    I LOVED this tip:

5. Forget the colour of the year! What an advertising gimmick that is, beloved by paint companies who would love for you to feel you needed to repaint all the time. But you want to decorate for the ages, not just today. Choose colours which you love and can live with. They needn’t match your fabrics – in fact, I almost never match fabrics to the paints, but of course, you would like them to look good together. And don’t tell your friends the colours you have chosen. Usually what is your favorite is not their favorite.




I found a really love website quite by accident called Real Homes.  I was led there by a pin from Pinterest and what a happy find it was.   I loved looking about the interior of an older English home that was restored and decorated in that quirky eclectic mix of old, bright, cluttered in a homely sort of way style that I think is synonmous with English style.

Can there be anything more lovely than an English garden?  And is there such a thing as a rose free garden in England?  Well not a proper one if you ask me!   I am longing to add more flowers to my yard this year and roses are always on my list.  I have four varieties at present: two pass along variety, one which Granny assured me was a New Dawn and one that was given to me by a now passed away friend which apparently came across the ocean hundreds of years ago.  It's a deep dark fragrant red and is lovely.  Those two bloom only in the spring.   There's the Yellow Knockout which literally grows from under the porch and pushes it's way into the huge Rosemary bush.  And then there's that rather iffy rose that I got from Aldi.  It is a floribunda and lovely but I never know if it's a Peace rose, a coral rose or a pink.  Apparently it's poorly grafted rose whatever it is. 

I came across this lovely website about a week ago and there are some beautiful Heirloom roses on it's pages.  Just go have a look...Lady of Shalot is a lovely apricot color that is gorgeous!



I decided that this week I should seek out an English composer...Well as luck would have it I found one, Frederick Theodore Albert Delius.  Irony: his father was German born and  became a citizen of England after immigrating to further his career in the wool trade.  The composer was born in 1862 and was christened Fritz Theodore Albert Delius, but changed his name about 1900.

Frederick grew up in a musical household and his parents had frequent musical guests but it was expected that Frederick would grow up to take a managerial position in his father's business.  To this end, he was educated and sent to college and then to various positions in England, Germany, Sweden and France.  His college, and both places of business training were conveniently near towns with influential music centers. 

Eventually he was sent to Florida to manage an orange plantation.  Even here he managed to find musicians in Jacksonville, just some 30 miles away and came heavily under the influence of one in particular.  He was heavily influenced by the Negro spirituals during this period.  He stayed in Florida from 1884 until fall of 1885.  He then moved to Virginia and gave up any pretense that he would go into business, despite his father's opposition to his musical ambitions.

Delius father eventually agreed to pay for his son's musical education.  After a brief stay in New York in 1886, Delius went to Germany and studied at the conservatoire in Leipzig, Germany.   In Leipzig, Edvard Grieg became an enthusiastic sponsor of Delius and though it was not his first composition, had an intimate concert featuring Delius' Florida Suite about 1888.   At this time Grieg convinced Delius' father that his son was gifted and had a career in music.   So Delius was then sent to his uncle in Paris where he was introduced socially and was financially supported.

From this point, Delius began to compose routinely.  He did not however, meet with great success although many well known musicians felt he had talent, and he was able to work steadily enough.   He met his wife Jelka who was a student of August Rodin and they eventually married and settled in a small village about 40 miles outside of Paris. 

Gradually Delius reputation grew and he began to prosper but not until after he reached his 40's.  He and his wife fled their village during the first world war and settled in England.  They returned to Grez after the war.  About this time Delius was blind and paralyzed due to the progression of syphillis.   A young man, Eric Fenby,  offered to be his amanuensis (one who takes down musical dictations and directions).  Their collaboration continued until Delius' death in 1934 at age 72.

I listened to several pieces of Delius' work and really loved  "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring"  and this video has lovely views of the English countryside.   "The Lark Ascending"  is also lovely and  I think is fairly familiar to most of us.

Speaking of Cuckoo I've always wanted to hear what one sounded like...and to see one.  Check it out here.

And last: this actress, who portrayed Elizabeth Bennett is making daily videos of herself reading Pride and Prejudice.   It's lovely to turn this on as I do housework or sew or color.   Have a listen and enjoy!