The summer solstice

"This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn-break our tiring-house..."

A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare, penned 1590-96

In Scandinavia from where I imagine my ancestors once came (...not quite proved yet but my maternal grandmother's maiden name was Lawson which apparently is a derivation of Larson...*) midsummer's day is celebrated with gusto.   I felt that I had due reason to celebrate too. Especially as H couldn't get home last weekend for Father's Day. If Mother's Day is celebrated on the spring solstice, why not  have Father's Day on the summer one. It's the longest day and the official beginning of summer...Lots of good things to dance about.

A Friday morning trip to the farmers market  provided bunches of fresh watercress for salad. I swear that I follow the watercress guy from market to market. His wife who I've never seen makes delicious watercress delicacies; tiny feta and watercress loaves, scones, pizzas, tarts and quiches. All kinds of cress related treats. I resisted the draw of carbohydrate and bought lots of the peppery leaves for salad. 

Father's day cake was a suitably masculine coffee spiced layer cake with a mocha frosting, albeit with a feminine, midsummer spright, sprinkling of honeysuckle blossom and strawberries. I found the nostalgic family hand-written recipe here  thanks to Heather's  blog hop. It's a delicious moist cake that improves with time...If only it had, had time. Half of it vanished in the night. I think we have our own (if not two) homegrown sprights with a penchant for middle-of-the-night snacking. I also think that I may had been a little over zealous with my addition of cinnamon. It almost drowned the coffee, making it more of a 'spice' than 'coffee' cake...  But still delicious. I will be more vigilant next time...There will be a next time...

We walked in the woods to collect foliage to make a midsummer pole or maybe wreaths like this one. I found instructions here but ended up collecting blossom from the elderflower tree and made cordial instead. 'A' cooked chicken in the garden and H made potato salad and I a watecress one...We talked and talked and then later watched this..(there may be a bit of questionable language or a painting that may offend a little, so you may not want to watch the trailer) but we love quirky tongue-in-cheek Wes Anderson films...and all those great actors...

Sunny sunday we drove H back to London, then  made a quick visit to A's brother and sister before he flies home to Denmark. We ate scrumptious Persian food from here and even have enough left for supper tonight. Drove back much too late but with very full tummies and happy hearts....

*genealogy update...it appears according to this article that lawson may not be a scandinavia name and that perhaps  we should be celebrating lo sposalizio dell'albero instead! 

I hope that your weekend was good.

I'm joining in with karen at pumpkin sunrise for weekends...
coming?
debx