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Private Notes
Going along with the seasons, Venetia makes cocoa butter cream to soothe her skin tanned from the garden work in summer and cleans the wood stove with lavender vinegar in preparation for the coming winter. The tulip bulbs she plants are for the spring. She visits the herb garden of Noriko, an old friend who helps her with the garden work. A certified instructor of floral designs, she makes seasonal wreaths from wild herbs so that more people can appreciate the beauty of wild flowers.
During a trip to the Izumo region in Shimane Prefecture, Venetia, British by birth, visits a kiln associated with the British potter Bernard Leach. In the early Showa era, he visited this area and taught such techniques as slipware. Encountering this legacy of her motherland thrills Venetia. At an old indigo-dyeing workshop, she is amazed at the craftsmanship of a rare technique called tsutsugaki, which is found in beautiful furoshiki wrapping cloths brides in this area have traditionally taken with them.
British-born Venetia lives in Ohara, Kyoto. She gathers twigs for her wood-burning stove and makes 3 kinds of herbal tea with olive, lemon myrtle and marjoram to overcome the cold. In her garden, she plants winter-hardy Christmas Roses. Curious about the demon tile in her garden, she visits a Kyoto tile maker who carefully polishes the tile with a metal scraper to create the style's unique glossy finish. She also sees the production of the shoki ornaments that decorate rooftops in Kyoto.
British-born Venetia lives in Ohara, Kyoto. She heads to Nara City, where she sees an old friend. She walks through Kasuga Shrine's sacred forest along a mountain trail that was once a busy trading route. The hiking course leads to a view of Nara Basin from the top of Mt. Wakakusa. At her friend's home, they talk about future plans. The next day she visits Todaiji Temple. She goes to the studio of a young sculptor who uses his skills honed from carving Buddhist works to create his own art pieces.
During her summer trip to Okinawa Prefecture, Venetia visits a coffee farm in the mountains, with increasingly more farmers growing coffee in this area. She tastes a precious cup full of the farmer's passion for 100% locally grown coffee. A friend treats her to dishes flavored with muscovado. She then visits a sugar maker who makes muscovado the old-fashioned way. He quit his job a few years ago to become a sugar maker. The taste of pure muscovado, made only from sugarcane juice, impresses her.
With the severe winter just around the corner, Venetia enjoys the calm and fruitful fall season in Ohara. She arranges flowers from her garden and makes apple compote with her daughter. Another fall delicacy she finds at a morning market is mackerel sushi, with Ohara historically known for this fish. She decides to have her long-broken toy bus fixed so that her grandchildren can play with it. She befriends the couple running a woodworking shop she visited and digs up potatoes in their garden.
In Iwate Prefecture, British-born Venetia visits a workshop for Japanese chests of drawers, or tansu, dating from the Edo era. Their elaborate products impress her. Tono, where horses are integral to local life, reminds her of her horse-riding days back home. There, a couple about her age show her clothes made with a local technique and baskets made with tree barks, reaffirming the value of handcrafted life. She tries cooking a local delicacy hittsumi with hand-picked mushrooms and enjoys dinner with them.
Venetia enjoys a handcrafted life in Ohara, Kyoto Prefecture. On one mild day, she takes some long-unused items to an antique shop. When she comes home, her husband is working on rose fences. Preparation for spring during the severe cold of winter is part of gardening. Driven by her recent interest in singing, she visits an 89-year-old musician, who plays various instruments like piano, cembalo, pipe organ, and zither. Seeing her still actively performing and trying new things, Venetia is invigorated.
British-born Venetia lives in Nature-rich Ohara, Kyoto Prefecture. With the soundless cold hovering over the plants in her garden, she enjoys meditation. During a walk, she stops by her favorite café and appreciates homemade sweets with seasonal fruit and tea. A friend comes to check out her garden. She has been a herb expert since childhood and has edited a book about edible wild herbs. She is an evangelist of herb picking. They look for wild herbs together in the garden and cook pizza flavored with them.
Venetia lives in Ohara, Kyoto Prefecture, appreciating each season. Worried about her failing eyesight, her half-sister Lulu comes to Japan for the first time. Venetia left the UK feeling ill at ease in aristocratic society. Lulu moved to Ireland with their mother. They have kept close. They reminisce about their mother over bread & butter pudding, their childhood favorite. At Venetia's friends' herb garden, Lulu shows interest in how herbs are grown in an herb-unfriendly humid climate just like Ireland's.
In early summer, Venetia goes to Awaji Island. A horticultural-therapy school teaches Venetia, who can no longer garden the way she used to because of her failing eyesight, the importance of appreciating plants with all senses. At Ei, known for its incense production, the Koh-shi, responsible for how the incense smells, shows her the centuries-old method. A keeper of indigenous honeybees shows her the "nectar-supplying forest" he spent 7 years growing. It is made for the bees in every detail.
As a new daily routine, English-born Venetia goes on walks in Kyoto Prefecture with a friend. Walks filled with such sounds as birds chirping and a stream babbling are precious to her with failing eyes. She stops by an old folk house/restaurant to order naturally raised, stone-baked bread. At a blueberry orchard in Shiga Prefecture run by a friend of hers, she harvests the last berries of the year and makes jam. She admires how her friend, who also grows organic cotton, appreciates nature's blessings we eat and wear.
English-born Venetia organizes an open garden for the first time in a long time. As she works with a gardener friend on her garden in preparation, she shares with him some fruit from a fig tree that recovered from damage in a typhoon 2 years ago. On Day 1, she entertains her pals with a blend of lemon verbena and English tea. Day 2 is all excitement with children in the neighborhood looking for sweets hidden in her garden. She also spends some relaxing time with her son's family.
