Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens...

Inspired by some of my fellow bloggers, these are a few of my favourite (kitchen) things...

I adore the shape of this mixing bowl and the set of measuring cups. The cups came from the confusingly named 'Salisbury Bedding Centre' in Salisbury (UK), which sells all manner of exciting kitchen goods as well, of course, as bedding. I was excited to find the similarly-shaped pink bowl/jug here in Canada. It makes it look as though they've been reproducing in my kitchen cupboard.

This set of melamine bowls makes me happy every time I use them! The gorgeous pastel colours, the way they 'nest' so neatly inside eachother... kitchen bliss! I think I bought them in Winners - part of the TK Maxx chain of jumble sales, I mean shops.

More bowls. These sets of prep-bowls are popular here in Canada and I have seen them in many designs. However, this is the nicest one I've seen. I actually bought them for myself as a birthday present last year - I know where Rob keeps presents he's going to give me, so I bought it and snuck it into his 'present drawer' (keeping my eyes closed obviously, so I didn't see what else was in there).

I adore all of our Emma Bridgewater crockery, but here are some of my favourite pieces. The bowls (see a theme here?) are a lovely shape, and I particularly love the Garden Bird designs. Most of our crockery is the polka-dot pattern, but we have a couple of pieces in other patterns. The little bottle was a present from my friend Sarah. I often pick wildflowers to go in it, but they're a little thin on the ground right now (buried under the snow).

I sometimes feel like the lovechild of Emma Bridgewater and Cath Kidston. I adore pretty much everything they produce. This is my favourite teatowel... but woe betide anyone who tries to actually USE it - this rectangle of beautifully-printed fabric is purely for decoration.

OK, enough of all that good taste... here's some of the kitch that you were no doubt waiting for. What more fabulous way to drink tequila than from these great little cactus-shaped shot glasses. They rarely get used, but look wonderful in the glass-fronted drinks cabinet. I've been planning a cowboy-themed party for years and when it finally happens you can bet your bottom dollar that these will be playing a role. Yee haw! Slam 'em cowboy!

Retro-packaged groceries. Fabulous. See, I don't just photograph them in supermarkets, I sometimes buy them too.

Doing the dishes can be a miserable job, but it somehow seems less of a chore when one has co-ordinated the gloves, sponge and washing-up liquid! I found these lime-green gloves in Ikea and bought 3 pairs.

Tea plays an important role in our lives - what a relief it was to find that Canadian supermarkets stock Typhoo! I still have to get my Lady Grey brought over from the UK, but I can live with that. I hate the drips of tea that result from trying to carry a used teabag across the kitchen to the bin, but now - voila! - problem solved with this sweet little teabag dish, a gift from my husband. I often consider how lucky Rob is to have married me - I think many women would be horrified to receive some of the gifts that he buys... I'm often given such things as teatowels and dish-sponges (see the heart-shaped one in one of the pictures above), but fortunately I love them. Good job really, as I think I received my lifetime's supply of diamond jewellery when he foolishly took me to choose my own engagement ring...

More tea. I love my blue enamel teapot. It's a lovely shape and most importantly, doesn't break when you drop it! This is Rob's mug actually, but it's the best one ever when you need a gallon of tea. I'm sure that you're all thinking that it's a genuine Emma Bridgewater piece, and the connoisseurs among you will be wondering why you've never seen it in her catalogue... but no, I made it myself! No, not the mug, clearly, I'm not a potter, but I painted it in one of those great paint-your-own pottery cafes in Salisbury. I figured that the polka-dots would hit the limit of my artistic ability. I think it's quite convincing.

I love to bake, and then I love to put cakes and cookies into these tins. The spotty one was my first, and is still my favourite. It became well-known in the staffroom at my previous school. If 'the tin' was on the table then breaktime treats were in store! The Easter one was a Dollarama bargain.

Our enormous Canadian fridge is covered in magnets (well, one of our fridges... a further post about the beer-fridge is already forming in my mind...). This cheerful moose is my favourite. I notice now that it's 'ironically' holding a photo of me...

And finally, following my recent trip to NYC, in pride of place in my kitchen is my tin of Dean and Deluca Nigella Seeds. I had never heard of Dean and Deluca until I started reading Nigella's recipe books, and ever since I saw that picture of the tin of Nigella seeds I just knew I had to have some. Will I ever use them? Who cares?

And so, Julie Andrews style, I'll skip back to my kitchen now and smile when I use some of my favourite things. Because it's true what she (nearly) sang: "When the headache bites, when the excess-glass-of-wine-last-night stings, when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favourite things, and then I don't feel so bad".