On the mantelpiece and a little of my history

The mantelpiece is a paler version of my red, white and blue theme this month.Just some vintage French bits and bobs gathered up from around the house, plus a Florentine mirror bought in Edinburgh and a tiny Chinese porcelain box, given to me by Son 2 for my birthday - there are lots of little fossils inside!
The wildflowers came mainly from the garden - you can call them weeds if you want to be picky!
And to answer your questions about my early life in the USA (including the excellent bicentennial celebrations in 1976), my father was in the Royal Navy and was asked to teach navigation at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. We lived there from my 4th birthday until I was 7, (not long after Della Grace's grandfather was also teaching there, it turns out!) and we also went back to the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, for just under a year when I was 9. We flew back to the UK the day after Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister! I have always felt that was rather significant, although I'm not sure in what way...
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Even thought I feel extremely British, my time in America was very formative. I learned to read on the Little House books and have ever since hankered to make a rag rug (more on that later this summer, I hope...). Laura Ingalls Wilder has to be one of the most influential women in my young life, and Daisy Gordon Lowe was also significant to me in my childhood, along with Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. I think I've always looked to the past to make sense of my present!