“How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens it’s wings on the stake. Let me sit here forever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.” ~ Virgina Woolf

I'm loving the quiet winter mornings and evenings, sitting at the table with tea or cocoa and writing in my notebook, reading and knitting.

This week I have been mostly un-knitting. I keep making mistakes. Three times now I have carefully unpicked six rows of  200+ stitches and tried again. And again. In between rows I console myself with a chapter of Under The Wide and Starry Sky, by Nancy Horan. It's a novel about the love affair between young Robert Louis Stevenson and his much older American wife Fanny. Do you believe in love at first sight? The moment Louis saw Fanny his heart belonged to her.

Hot Cocoa 
makes five 8 oz. servings or three 12 oz mugs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
a pinch of salt
In a medium sauce pan, simmer these together until all lumps are dissolved. Then add:
4 cups milk
Heat until hot, but not boiling. The add:
3/4 teaspoon vanilla.
Serve with whipped cream if desired.