A Blog Spot in Romantic Country

Several months ago I received an e-mail from Mary Forsell, the editor of Romantic Country magazine. She was asking me if she could include “Recollections of a Vagabonde” in their forthcoming summer issue. The magazine is a lifestyle magazine for women featuring interiors, gardens, artists, shops, and inns. In the magazine there is a page called “the blog spot” where they highlight several blogs. I was quite surprised that she had found my blog and pleased that she thought it was good enough to be included in her magazine. (Please click on collages to enlarge and then click on each picture.)



Mary requested that I send her several photos from my posts for the article. She selected four photos from the eight I had sent her. They are: on the left a picture from Savannah, Lafayette Square and a Wedding. The first picture on the right is my French cousin’s cheese platter, below is a scene from Hawaii and below a selection of pastries in a Vienna, Austria shop (I don’t remember from which posts they came.)




Mary sent me a copy of the summer issue of Romantic country and it was strange to see my little blog in such a beautiful magazine – page 20 – under the blog spot – Traveler’s Tales and Getaways.




The magazine is widely available. I saw it at the grocery store in Nashville and here, too. It is full of great tips about decoration and has good articles and creative ideas. As I was reading through it I enjoyed an article called “Rosy Outlook” about a home in Rhode Island decorated with many roses.



I like the rose sofa and it looks well with all the rose paintings on the wall. My mother loved roses - we had climbing pink roses, beautiful white roses and cabbage type old fashioned roses in our garden outside of Paris. Her bedroom walls in her parents’ house were covered with roses wallpaper. She had decorated my bedroom with wall paper with tiny roses. I would give her greeting cards covered with roses and accompanied with rose scented hand lotion, cologne, etc. Sometimes my father would say “enough!” (I did mention in an earlier post that when I visited my grand-parents my grandfather would place dried rose petals in my bath water….)



I used to have a garden here in the 1970-80s with 150 rose bushes, before I started to work full-time. But they are gone now. I only have 5 rose buses but with all the shade and tall trees they are not very floriferous. Right now there is only one rose flowering - the one below.



My husband has been planting flowers in pots and they are looking quite vigorous so we do have pretty colorful flowers.



Two weeks ago we went back to the Smith-Gilbert Gardens about which I wrote several posts. Their roses were in full bloom and I took many pictures (will be in a future post.) We volunteered to go back every Monday morning to be part of the “Rose Warriors” group who prune and weed the roses. So it does not feel so bad not having a large rose garden anymore.

Yellow Roses by Allan R. Banks, American born in 1948

While in Paris last year we saw many gardens with roses. I took a lot of pictures. Below is one of the pictures I had sent to the magazine. I need to write a post about these gardens. I am so far behind writing my posts because we travel faster than I can write them. The picture below was taken in the Jardins du Palais Royal in Paris.

I could keep talking about roses for a long time. Just one more rose painting…

Roses by Abbott Handerson Thayer, American 1849-1921

Another article in Romantic Country caught my attention. It is called “Souvenir Postcards.” I have been a postcard collector since I was a wee child and have a large number in my collection.

The article says “Maybe it’s the rich colors. Or the fact that they remind us of a simpler time. But there’s something so evocative, soothing and perfectly delightful about vintage picture postcards…” So very true. I went and gathered some of my old postcard albums and brought them to our garden. Here they are below. The one on the right with a rose on the cover is the very first postcard album my grandfather gave me when I was a child.




I opened it so the postcards inside could be seen. Here are some vintage Valentine cards.



The one below contains vintage postcards of wild animals.



Old French postcards are in the album below.



Another one has many old pictures of Turkey.



The album below contains some of my Tuck postcard collection.




Raphael Tuck & Sons, England, was a prolific publisher of early postcards. They started in 1899 to sell chromo prints which were made in Germany. They have beautiful colors. Here is a close-up of two of them – the Canadian Rockies on top and Guy’s Tower in Warwick Castle in England.



I have also boxes and large binders full of cards. I keep them by categories - for example I have a “Royalty” section. Below are four cards from this binder. Top left is Tzar Nicholas II, next to HRH Princess Elizabeth. Below left is Queen Alexandra on her Coronation in June 1902 next to “Her Majesty The Queen” by Tuck & Sons, Ltd. I bought these cards years ago and they were not expensive. I think the most I paid for a vintage postcard was one of Queen Victoria. I paid 5 pounds ($8) for it in London in the early 1980s. Then I forgot and bought exactly the same one – I need to exchange it with a collector.



Some of my all time favorite cards are those I call my “pretty ladies.” I have a binder with maybe 100 of them or more. The ones I like the best were done by the Fidler sisters, Alice, Pearl and Elsie. They illustrated cards in the early 1900s with lovely American beauties. The two top cards are from Alice Luella Fidler, 1911.



I like some of the cards for the quaint message on them.

“Don’t worry about the future. The present is all thou hast; The future will soon be present, And the present will soon be past.”

Do pick-up a copy of this magazine if you can. It may make you reminisce just like I did. I’ll end with a postcard for my mother. Her birthday was May 12th, the day before Mother’s Day last week. She would have been 102, but she passed away in 2002. I miss her.

(Far from the eyes, close to the heart.)

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Note: Blogger Break - Post pre-programmed.