April Showers, May Flowers

A rainy weekend in Los Angeles is always a good thing since we desperately need the rain. In fact, we get a little giddy about it here in L.A. It rained off and on all day on Friday and Saturday. Which made me very happy as I was in the mood for a cozy weekend at home. There were so many things I wanted to catch up on. Here are a few activities that made the rain far from a nuisance, but instead a lovely accompaniment...

Watching some good television--

 "Outlander" is back. Did you watch it? Season Two began on Saturday night. If you are already a fan, then you know (not giving away spoilers here) from last season that Jamie and Claire are in in France this time. The costumes are gorgeous and of course those two are not so hard on the eyes. This is escapist television at its best.

Catching up on my reading--

I am completely under the spell of these books. The story of two women in a working class neighborhood of Naples whose lifelong friendship endures despite incredible odds has kept me enthralled through two books now. This one deals with the marriage of Lila and the continuing education of Elena and her quest to move beyond the neighborhood she finds so stifling. 

Running outside in between rain showers to take photos of the garden--

I love how it looks on a rainy day. The irises in the fountain are starting to flower!

 The David Austin roses in the front garden are looking so good right now

 These graceful and frilly ones remind me of ballet tutus. It felt good to get back into photography; it  makes you look at the world differently. My goal is to bring my camera with me now wherever I go, not just my iPhone!

Planning our trip to London--

This was a great weekend to pull out my books and notes on London and decide what we want to do this time. I am thrilled to know that Kenneth Branagh's stage production of Romeo and Juliet will be playing at the Garrick Theatre and Swan Lake in the Round at the Royal Albert Hall.  I hope to see them both! There is always something new to do in London...

Learning about this artist--

The New York Review of Books has a great article on the French artist Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun and I want to learn all I can about her before seeing this exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Doing a little research and mulling over a fascinating lecture by Hermione Lee from last week--

I went to a fabulous event last Thursday in Pasadena. It was a lecture by renowned English biographer Dame Hermione Lee. My friends and I got a chance to meet her and say how much we enjoyed her biography of Edith Wharton. She was lovely. She has also written biographies of Virginia Woolf, Penelope Fitzgerald, and Willa Cather. Her topic that evening was "Gardens of the Mind: Writers, Gardens and Biography." Did you know that American writers such as Edith Wharton and Willa Cather featured only European-inspired gardens in their books? This was all the rage at the time. She talked about the "cross-cultural garden moment at the turn of the twentieth-century." I dipped into her Edith Wharton biography this weekend in preparation for my book club's discussion of The House of Mirth later this week. What a treasure trove that book is!

And after the rain--

 Joseph's Coat rose climbing on our porch

The sun is shining today and there is no better way to start the week than in the garden. It was a cozy and productive weekend. The rain was great and so beneficial for our gardens. The peak of the season is right around the corner. Don't forget to get your tickets for the Robinson Gardens Tour on May 14. It's going to be fabulous this year!

April showers really do bring May flowers!

Scottish Obsession

Actress Caitriona Balfe who plays Claire Randall, the heroine of "Outlander"

I have a confession to make. I spent much of the weekend plunged back into 18th-century Scotland. That is because I discovered Outlander, the television series based on the best-selling books by Diana Gabaldon that take place in the Scottish Highlands. I watched three episodes and am officially hooked. Do you know about this show? It premiered last summer on Starz network here in the U.S. and was a big hit. It's hard to believe it still hasn't aired in the U.K., though I believe it will be starting there this month.

While I should have been outside enjoying the gorgeous spring weather, I was instead glued to the television and happily immersed in the Jacobite uprisings and battles between the rebels and the Redcoats that occurred in the Scottish Highlands over two hundred years ago. I was equally riveted by the growing romance between the beautiful heroine, Claire Randall, a second world war nurse mysteriously transported from England in the 1940's to Scotland in 1743, and the handsome young Scott, Jamie, who rescues her from a sadistic English soldier.

Claire and Jamie in "Outlander"

I wondered if there has ever been such a romantic and swashbuckling television drama. Or one that made you want to travel to its setting more than this. I read that tour companies are training their guides to learn about the series and its locations for the influx of tourists that will visit Scotland because of the show. One other drama with these qualities that comes to mind is Poldark, a television series from many years ago that was set in Cornwall. It centered on Ross Poldark, another dashing war hero who returns home from fighting in the American Revolution to discover that his fiance is engaged to his cousin and his estate is in ruins. He takes in a young street urchin Demelza as his housekeeper and ends up marrying her. I just learned that a new dramatization of "Poldark" has premiered on British television. Definitely looking forward to that one.

Here is the premise of "Outlander":

It opens with Claire nursing a wounded soldier at the end of World War II, a scene that shows her as a woman of courage and fortitude. After the war ends, she is reunited with her husband. They have been separated for five years and try to reconnect on a holiday in Scotland. They both are slightly anxious and unhappy at the beginning of the trip, but finally manage to revive their romance and seem resolved to stay together. Claire's husband is an historian and they spend their days exploring castles and other historic sites in the Highlands for his research.

One night they observe a Druid ceremony amidst some mysterious standing stones. When Claire returns the next day on her own, she is transported in time and lands in the 18th-century in the middle of a battle between the Scots and the English. This is when she is assaulted by the English officer, the evil "Black Jack," who happens to be an ancestor of her husband. Both characters are played by the same actor. She is saved by Jamie and whisked off by his band of Scottish insurgents to their castle. There she is met with great incredulity and is pressured to explain how a wandering Englishwoman came to find herself in the middle of the Scottish Highlands. She does her best and is accepted by the men, mostly because of her healing powers and her gumption. The housekeeper dresses her in proper period clothes and she is transformed into a tartan-clad 18th-century Scottish woman. It looks as if she can keep up the pretense for a while, but it is obvious she must figure out how to return to the present. In the meantime, it is easy to see she is attracted to the brave and handsome Jamie.

This lavish production is filled with stunning visuals. Has tartan plaid ever looked better? Or candlelit castles? Or the Scottish highlands? Not to mention the gorgeous actors who play the romantic leads. It is my new guilty pleasure and I am living for next season to premiere in April. It also has me planning a trip to Scotland this summer to experience the wild and poetic beauty of the Highlands. Looks like the magic has worked. Please let me know if you are a fan.