Orchids on Your Budget

 

Three years ago Michou, a friend of mine, gave me a tip for the right caring for orchids. It is simple: put them once a week for 10 minutes into a bucket full of water (and give them fertiliser as recommended) - and they will thrive. 

At least mine do - two in the Bavarian kitchen (window facing North) are flowering a second time this year, and that very vigorous on the photo above, a present from the Flying Dutchman, is doing that too abundantly in my East facing study. 

Do you remember the sleuth Nero Wolfe, a private detective created by Rex Stout (first appearance in 1933), all his adventures are told by his cheeky Assistant Archie Goodwin? When Wolfe had to think he went up (with an elevator because he was incredibly fat) into the large attic and spritzed a mist of water over his huge collection of orchids. They were very valuable. 

Since years orchids (at least the phalaenopsis) now have become very cheap. 

In Hildesheim where I lived for 20 years in my Art Deco house (still mine) on a half island I always visited with joy one of the oldest orchid nurseries of the world, Hennis Orchideen (since 1891, which always was a treat (now they also sell online too).  

In 1937 a little book was published: 

Orchids On Your Budget  

Or live Smartly on What You Have 

( by Marjorie Hills, a Virago Classic now). 

This book is full of wisdom how to economise and still have fun. Valuable tips as: Don't economise on butter, that will make feel you miserable - cut costs where it really saves money, such as moving from the place you live in now to a smaller one or a less posh neighbourhood or a smaller town). 

I love "Live Alone And Like It", the first book written by Hills, a Vogue journalist, and published in 1936, even more: 

"Whether you view your one-woman ménage as Doom or Adventure, you need a plan, if you are going to make the best of it."  

Both books elevate your spirits, make you laugh, but are deep down full of wisdom and can be given as a present to married woman also  :-) 

As orchids. 

My Cup of Tea (Little Stories of Your Life)

 

There are two favourites - and that tells a lot about me: very often between two extremes. 

The cup which I use most often is a mug. Relaxing cream white bone china, Wedgwood. Snagged from a discontinued line in the classy porcelain shop Lindemann in Hildesheim - a shop with intimidating older salespersons, clad in black, and the shop now closed long ago. (Do you know that prices for valuable porcelain as Meissen or KPM crashed deeper than many stocks now?)

As often I didn't buy as much as I "should" have bought - I had just become a young mother, and we had bought the huge Art Deco villa, thus money was scarce and I thought well before spending it.  

I only bought four mugs and added two round teacups with saucers (one long called from this mortal life, and I don't know whether the shards brought me luck, as a German proverbs promises). Those cups are in my Berlin apartment, the four mugs are justly divided between Berlin and Bavaria. 

The mugs feel so wonderful in my hands - glossy and unexcited, and you can trust them to keep the soothingly warmth for a long time in their bone(s) china. 

The tea I mix myself - but that is a different story. 

And that of the second favourite cup too. 

 I just bought this book and might follow its interesting suggestions.                                          

Query: are you content with this font? I like it because it looks as if I have written a letter to you - but maybe it is difficult to read?