Whiskers on Roses and Raindrops on Kittens......

..............bright copper kettles have recently fallen by the wayside as I've had an experience in the Non-Ferrous Metals Sales business (but that's another story). Warm woollen mittens are good, especially in this weather. But, Sound of Music reference apart, these really are a few of my favourite things.

In assembling them I am impressed by two aspects of the small collection, first that there are several very sharp things, and secondly that my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother would have no difficulty at all in identifying and using all but one of them.

The bread-board is something of real significance. Its carved motto of Give us This Day our Daily Bread has been cut and scrubbed into almost invisibility by countless hands, yet still does its simple task beautifully. I use it several times a day, and never fail to think of all those, known and unknown, who have also used it. I can still see it sitting in the kitchen of my grandmother's house, and on the marble slab of the pantry in my childhood home. In both places it was associated with a large and dangerous bread saw, which I was absolutely not allowed to touch. So I did, of course, on many furtive occasions, once testing the serrated blade against the rim of the bread board. The mark I made is still there, and still provides a frisson of guilt. I was not caught doing it, but I remember it almost daily.

There's so much to be said for plain wood in a kitchen and in a garden. The citrus squeezer does a perfect job and even sorts out the pips. The small wooden spoon is exactly right for my hand, also for balancing in a saucepan or on the edge of a bowl without falling into or out of it. The wooden handled knife, with sharp point and serrated edge actually lives in my gardening tool store and is a brilliant weapon against dandelion roots, and for all those invasive little plants that creep between the paving stones. Old cutlery often makes perfect gardening tools.

There's a wooden handled bradawl there, which I couldn't manage without. It bodges neat holes for all sorts of purposes, some of which may be the wrong purposes but, well, it works for me. Then there are the really sharp blades, the new secateurs and the razor-like sewing scissors, items of great satisfaction. There are few things better than a simple implement that does exactly what it is meant to do, especially when it does not use any sort of fossil fuel.
The metal tools are very satisfying, too. I really enjoy that little grater intended for parmesan cheese, and the small whisk gets the lumps out of any sauce you can think of. Very simple, but they both work as they should and take up no storage space at all.

The blue plastic tool is something else I couldn't manage without. My mother, grandmother and great- grandmother would not have wanted it anyway because they had no need to release a metal lid with a vacuum seal on a glass jar. Well, perhaps my mother may have done, but she had my father around. The blue plastic vacuum release thingy is probably a bit of a weak-wristed widow speciality. The alternative technique of opening a tightly sealed jar can involve trapping it between a door and its frame, and I have evidence of that malpractice, too.
However, if you need one, or a brush for cleaning button mushrooms, or anything else of that ilk, try here.