French Linen

One of my favourite things in life is anything old, curious and with a (sadly forgotten) history. I have loved poking about in antique shops and bric a brac stalls since I was very young. When I was about ten I bought two small antiquarian books bound in leather; one in brown calfs skin and the other bound in black with ornate gold finishings. The first was printed in London in 1820 and was titled 'Lady Montagu's Letters' and the other an Edinburgh print of Goldsmith's 'Vicar of Wakefield'. I confess they are both very dry reading but I like them nonetheless and they sit ever present on the desk in the sittingroom. They've been with me all these years.

Last year, my french mother-in-law gave me a beautiful gift. Very kindly she passed to me a pile of original vintage linen tea towels. They are beautiful to touch and to look at.

I use them every day in the kitchen and every time I pick them up I do so with a sense of the family they came from. They have travelled from a farmhouse in the green Loire Valley in France to the elegant city of Edinburgh, but they are as much treasured now as they would have been by my beau's Grandmother when she was a girl. She has embroidered her initials on the corner of some of them..... AA. Alice Audenot. What a lovely name.

Alice passed them to her daughter who in turn has passed their care on to me. I love them and treasure them and they are part of my daily routine preparing food for the family, washing and drying dishes, and hanging out with the laundry......just as they've always been through the years, first with Alice, then Elene and now me.

I never knew a washing line could look so pretty :-)

Alice was over 100 years old when she died just a few years ago. I wish I had met her but sadly I didn't get the chance. I would have liked to have asked about her days in the kitchen, what food she prepared, where she bought her linen, and about life on the pretty farm all those years ago.