{Tuesday May 4, dinner with friends}

Finally we got to get together for a special dinner with two lady friends. June, a banker and Helen, our local judge. We're just friends and I want to make it clear that I've never had a legal encounter with judge Helen, other than obtaining my concealed weapon's license through her!

Both ladies are very active members of our local Rotary club of which Pieter is also a member. We just have been together on Jekyll Island, off the Georgia coast, for the Rotary District Conference. After a wet weekend we at least had no showers in the late afternoon. Everything in our garden looked so lush! Here you see our Confederate Jasmine, that climbs up the balcony and around the French doors of our bedroom. Wish you could smell them too!

Still the raindrops hanging onto the blossoms... This is from our balcony looking into the garden.

After the rain stopped I could go out into the garden and get some roses for the table arrangements, also for the individual picture frame vases at each place setting. Further I got to use my handmade striped Swiss damask place mats with crocheted lace border from French DMC thread. I've done them while living in Indonesia... lots of work but they're elegant. Above and below, you see a vase filled with the lovely climbing rose New Dawn.

A close up in a soft photo. Of course again in a Baccarat crystal vase.

Above is a French Pillivuyt charger in the Sancerre pattern. 

It is a very durable quality that is baked at a much higher temperature at 2500 degree F.

Here I just grouped the dessert plates and the coffee cups for the picture... This is the Royal Albert Princess Anne China pattern. The very first cake plate we found in Calgary, Canada in January of 1996 and since then I've been adding.

Due to the cooler weather I decided to serve a butternut squash and carrot soup, hence the Bridal Rose by Alvin round silver soup spoons. Available at Replacements Ltd.

The knife is on a Christofle silver knife rest. Glasses are Baccarat crystal in the Piccadilly pattern, again available from Replacements Ltd. The round silver napkin rings we had custom made in the silver city of Kotagede near Yogyakarta, Indonesia while living there. 

The solid silver Mufineer (holding  caster sugar) is also made in Kotagede, following a photo that we took from an antique one. Likewise they made us the place card holders.

Talking about silver, well this heavy tray is also made in Kotagede by those artisans. It is very special to us as we've lived and worked there for over three years and watched them make these treasures. Soon that generation will die off, and it will be very hard to obtain.

Fresh rose petals adorn the tray with the Baccarat fluted champagne glasses in the Piccadilly pattern.

We also lived and worked for one year in the Veneto region. It is the town of Conegliano where they make this Prosecco, a crisp Italian sparkling white wine. At Ristorante da Maria you will be served the very same thing! It is very authentic Italian and also light. So that's why we wanted to introduce our guests to this Italian custom.

Prosecco from the region where we lived and worked in Italy.

Serving this sexy Italian cousin of Champagne in a romantic way...

Pieter captured this photo of me laughing... 

Both ladies admired our KLM Royal Dutch Airlines collection of 89 blue Delftware houses. Scroll halfway down this page to read about them. My friend Ellie is keeping house # 90 for me, plus the complete book that came out in October of 2009 when KLM had its 90th anniversary. They were the first in the sky... and since we teamed up with them rather intensively during our years of consultancy, we accumulated a lot.
Nice view underneath the crocheted curtains in our veranda, that I'd made decades ago. They did fit in every home we lived in; Panningen and Horst of The Netherlands, in Italy and now here.

Okay, today on May 13, I went ahead and made some better photos of our blue Delftware houses that are lined up on the window ledge in our veranda, like a village. They are true replicas of ancient homes in The Netherlands!