Category Archives: One Word – Encourage

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Birthday Surprises!

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John Winchurch (Painted by Lauren Finley)

John Winchurch (Painted by Lauren Finley)

You probably already know this about me, but if you don’t I’ll say it now.

Sentimental and Mushy

I am a seriously sentimental mush and my gift giving behavior usually reflects this. 

Knowing that John had a significant birthday this year, I wanted to be sure that I acknowledged it in a way that would be lasting and memorable. I try very hard to give thoughtful gifts that will be appreciated and I rarely give something that someone could buy on their own unless I know it’s something they want but wouldn’t splurge on for themselves.

A Constant In Our Relationship

One of the unexpected gifts of my life has been my time with John, a good bit of which has been spent walking. I know that may sound awful to those who don’t enjoy walks in the country or along the sea, but even when the trails have been tough, I’ve loved the experience and sharing it with him.

Long walks and mountain climbing have always been a part of his life, along with periods of dinghy building and sailing when living near the sea. While I’ve been an outdoorsy sort and have done a good bit of running over the years, I’d never considered doing something like our 105 mile hike through the Alps in 2008 or thought that my everyday life might include the coast path walks we do regularly in Cornwall.

We’re just a four months shy of the fifth anniversary of our first face to face meeting and I have thousands of photographs of John. I have always taken more photos than he necessarily liked, ten images where two would have been welcomed and I can often be heard saying, ‘Just one more shot, please?’  

It was one of my photographs that inspired my birthday gift to John. I took it during one of our coast path walks in Cornwall and it reflects his spirit in a near perfect way. Looking rugged and windblown, I can almost smell the sea behind him and I am reminded of the times I’ve tasted a faint bit salt on his lips when we’ve stopped on the path for a kiss.

My friend, Lauren Finley turned the photograph into the more lasting gift you see above. She is an accomplished artist who does lovely things with watercolor and I never considered anyone else once I decided to give John a portrait of himself for his birthday.

(A Side View To See What It’s Painted On)

Lauren and met for coffee last summer while I was in Atlanta to discuss the photo I’d chosen and when I returned to England a few weeks later, I brought the painting back with me. John never saw it until the day of his party and was very pleased with what he thought was a more handsome version of himself.

My Birthday Surprise – A Dream Of Things To Come

Some of you know the story of how I woke up dreaming of John on my birthday, in September of 2007, a few months before we met online. 

You read that right, I said before we met!

I’ve had some other dreams and waking experiences that were unusual, but even I thought it was strange to dream of having such an overwhelming feeling of love for a man who I identified in the dream as my husband even though I’d never met him and had no idea why I would dream such a thing.

It was very powerful and stayed with me for a few days, but as it didn’t fit the life I was leading in Atlanta and made no sense, I forgot about it until five months later when I made a trip to Cornwall to meet John.

We were out on the coast path and I was walking behind him pausing as I do to snap a photo and I looked up as he crested the hill in front of me and watched as he walked into the sun causing his body to appear mostly in shadow and backlit.

He was the lean image of the man I seen in my sleep and I was suddenly flooded with the memory of the feeling I’d experienced in my dream.

It was an ‘Ah hah’ moment of grand proportion. I got a bit teary as the awareness flooded over me, whispered a quiet thank you to the origin of the dream and hurried on to catch up. 

People often ask me how I could change my whole life as I did by following my heart to another country and the only answer that really makes sense is, how could I not? 

 

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Oversharing – Opening The Door A Bit, But Not All The Way

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You may have noticed that I’ve been absent for about seven weeks. I just closed for business without so much as a sign on the door or a note saying I’d be gone a while and disappeared.

I didn’t intend to stop writing and it was not due to lack of interest in blogging or a shortage of things to write about but rather an overwhelming indecision about how much I should share about an unnerving experience I had last November. It left me feeling as if everything I wanted to write about was either too much or too trivial so I got lost in the inertia of indecision.

I often worry about over sharing the details of my life especially the darker parts of it and I rarely hit publish without considering the long-term effect a revelation might have on my future or that of someone I love.

It’s tricky deciding how much is too much. I notice other folks asking the same question from time to time, most recently Caitlin Kelly and Cindy La Ferle and I often wonder what my readers think.

Sometimes I happen upon a blog that is so deeply personal I feel I’ve stepped into someone’s therapy session by accident and I don’t know whether to pull up a chair and join in or slip quietly out the back door. I don’t want people to feel that way when they stop by GOTJ, but I do want what I say here to have meaning. That said, there are times when I worry that what I want to say is too personal … so much so that instead of spilling it here I go quiet afraid that if I open the door I’ll unleash a beast I can’t call back.

My words and posts are about my life and my experiences. It’s not always been happy, but it hasn’t all been bad either providing a balance that usually makes it easy to avoid the darker topics for less weighty ones. I generally feel as if I’ve been gifted with the power of resiliency, enchantment, and joy  … almost as if storybook fairies paid a visit to my crib and waved their magic wands over me as an infant saying a few words to try offset the evil they knew would surround me as a small child.

Childlike enthusiasm and leading with my heart have been used more than a time or two to describe me and where some might see these as the attributes of someone weaker than others, I see them as defiant badges that affirm my ability to hold on through the hard times.

But as strong as I am I sometimes need support.

Last November I had a panic attack. I’ve never had one before and actually thought I might be having a heart attack. John was out for a walk with his daughter who was down for a visit and I was alone in the house. Just as I was about to dial 999 for an ambulance, I did an abbreviated version of what I’d heard a doctor friend of mine refer to as a systems check.

Once I realized I was having a panic attack, I sent my old therapist a short email and she responded within ten minutes which I found remarkable considering I had not seen her as a patient for 17 years. I’ve mentioned Nancy Loeb here in the past and I say again, if you have a history like mine and need someone who can help you change your life, she’d be the one.

During my unplanned blogging hiatus, I spent three weeks in the US only returning about a week ago. While I was in Atlanta, an old friend of mine from my university days sent me an email after noting my blogging absence to ask if I was okay. Here is a bit of what I said in response.

” My reasons for not blogging lately have to do with a few internal struggles. I can’t decide whether to blog about it or not, but I have so much of substance that I want to say that it makes it difficult to write about travel and trivial things. In many ways I am doing very well and in others I feel I’m walking the edge at times as I deal with some ghosts.

It may sound odd, but the Paterno/ Penn State media coverage followed one night by student protestors being beaten with police batons and unable to escape triggered what I can only imagine was a panic attack of big proportions. I don’t have panic attacks and almost called an ambulance it scared me so bad. I was having trouble breathing and thought it was my heart for a minute and in reality it was my heart, but in an emotional way.”

Later, when reread the email I’d sent to my friend, I thought, ” Oh no, I meant Sandusky/Penn State “as he was the abuser, but then I realized that for me, I got it right the first time. The world is full of people like Sandusky, but it’s the Paternos of the world who are the real disappointments.

I think people who have the power to save a child and do nothing are as bad as the abuser and part of what caused me to become undone that day was description of what Mike McQueary witnessed and the obvious collusion involved that allowed a pedophile to have continued access to children. McQueary’s trial transcripts coupled with a video of college students being beaten while protesting, acted as a trigger for the panic attack and forced me over the last few months to confront my thoughts as to how much sharing is too much.

Secrets like the ones I had growing up are usually kept due to fear or shame. Good therapy can change that, but even when I think I have said all I need to say whether in therapy or with the people I’m closest to, there are still times when the urge to say more here is overwhelming.

Pat Conroy, author of one of my favorite books, The Price of Tides, was quoted years ago in a Vanity Fair article saying, ” One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family ” and I’m sure he would give me added points for having a family with deep southern roots as well.

Bits of my life creep into my characters when I write fiction which satisfies me for now. Some things are still too horrible to write on their own and I think writing it into someone else’s imagined life gives me the distance I need not to get lost in my own story. That may be a better option for me than memoir, at least for now.

That said, I’ve decided that certain details will not be part of what I write here. It doesn’t mean the tough topics are off-limits, just the amount of detail I’ll share about any similar personal experiences.

Many thanks to those who sent an email to check on me during my time away … it makes me smile to think I was missed.

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Waiting

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It’s dark in the corners of our village church and the light sometimes struggles to find its way in especially when the days are hazy as they often are, but when it does, the contrast between the light and the darkness is so striking it can create a moment of introspective illumination … at least for me.

People don’t come here as often as they once did and while I think it very beautiful, I only feel the ghosts of self-recrimination and regret. I’m sure some housekeeping must be necessary to aid in sweeping these feelings away, but I’m not sure where to begin. The instruction manual no longer makes sense to me and the teachers who garner the most attention feel false.

I usually learn best by doing, but sometimes when I am unsure … I wait.

I tend to be fairly private about my questions of faith and thoughts on God. My experience with the Christian community in general tends to makes me think of the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” where there are lots of extremes and a little girl who’s looking for “just right.”

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Where Is Home … When Your Accent Morphs Into Something Neither Here Nor There

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“You’re a long way from home … are you Canadian?”

When I first moved to England four years ago, I sometimes felt a bit shy going into stores or meeting new people in public places, I tended to keep conversation to a minimum which you’d find really funny if you knew how chatty I am. My hesitancy to speak up reminded me of when I lived in Germany and how embarrassed I was when stumbled over language.

It’s funny that even though English is spoken in the US and the UK, some words can have vastly different meanings and pronunciation, both of which can be an opportunity for your listener to have a hearty chuckle at your expense.

Take the word Derby, which is the name of a city here that has come up in conversation before, if I’m supposed to pronounce it as Darby instead of Derby, I think it should be spelled that way. I’ve had this talk a few times with John and it usually ends with me saying something along the lines of, “Am I’m supposed to intuit some other pronunciation other than the obvious one?”

His response is never satisfactory and usually involves Kansas and what he refers to as ” R-Kansas ” instead of pronouncing Arkansas as we would in the US. He keeps using this example to counter those like the one above, while there are many others I can use such as pronouncing Mousehole like Mowzel (Mousehole is a village in Cornwall.) I don’t mind being corrected when these things come up, but the smirking or laughing people do when you say it as written does feel a bit much.

After almost four years of living in the UK, having an accent that makes people pause no longer bothers me nor does the question that always follows … “Are you Canadian?” Ask a Canadian that question and a Brit will tell you how upset they get, but I never mind and find it funny when people here say Canadians have softer accents, with many people going so far as to say they are less loud than Americans.

People I meet seem to have this idea about how Americans sound in general and based on what they say to me about volume along with their attempts at replicating an American accent, I think at least half of them must have gleaned what they think they know from watching American made gangster movies or the sometimes odd variety of imported American television programs that I see on my Brit TV.

It’s as if they think life in the US is one big gun convention where we all talk like the most recent version of whatever New York based crime show is bringing in viewers.

There tend to be a couple of themes when people are showing off their best version of an American accent, most of which sound like a bad caricature of real life. These themes seem to come directly from American television or our big screen movies and it’s been my experience that they generally fit into one of the three areas below.

Westerns ~  I’ve said this before about my husband whose best impersonation of an American accent tends to sound like a mix of between a 1950s black & white western and George W. Bush. (He’s not alone in this one)

Crime Shows ~ I call this the “Say it fast and loud approach” and they almost always include a gun reference with this one when showcasing their take on how Americans speak.

Southern ~  (Being from Georgia, this one is my personal favorite) The southern accent they offer up makes Americans sound as if they’re  extras from The Dukes of Hazzard, The Walton’s, or The Beverly Hillbillies, all of which they’ve seen in reruns over here. If I had a pound for every time someone here said, “Night, Elizabeth, Night, John-Boy … ” Ugh! I just give them a good “you ain’t right” kind of head shake  and go home when this happens. But the best and by that I mean the worst, is the occasional reference to the movie Deliverance when I say I’m from Georgia which usually involves what’s meant as a knowing look and a few words about banjo’s and pigs  … I think you get the picture.

Probably the oddest exchange happened when a 90 year-old woman asked me where I was from and after hearing me say Georgia, spoke Russian to me. That was funny!

Most of the time I don’t mind being teased about being different and I’m not too “bovvered“ by those who like to believe we all fit in one of the three categories I mentioned above, but I have to say I do get a bit irritated when they pull out the old standby of how they think Americans do British accents.

Mary Poppins was made in 1964, and meant as an entertaining bit of fun, but many people here still use Dick Van Dyke’s version of a Cockney  accent to illustrate their argument that Americans can’t do British accents whenever I suggest that their idea of an American accent is lacking in authenticity.

To counter the Dick Van Dyke legacy, I usually bring up a few American actors who’ve won accolades with their British character roles such as Meryl Streep, Renee Zellweger, and Reese Withersp0on all of whom manage to sound throughly British, but Dick Van Dyke remains the default example of an American attempting a British accent.

My sister, Margaret and my daughter, Miranda would never say I sound Canadian as they go automatically for a Madonna comparison. I think Madonna’s a bit of a stretch for me especially since no one else ever cites my speech as Madonna-esque.

I do understand why Madonna’s “people” have said that she was not was putting on a fake accent but picking up the accent of the area where she lived instead. I’ve had the same thing happen to me where I suddenly start to sound like the people I spend a lot of time with so it’s no wonder mine sounds different now.

Living in Cornwall, you’d think I would sound more Cornish than Canadian by now and I promise I’m really not trying to sound like Madonna, When I choose to fake a British accent, I prefer something a little more exotic like the East London sound you hear on Eastenders. (Click the link,” if ya wanna hav a larf”)

While I tend to look to Catherine Tate’s characters for vocal coaching because they do make me laugh, the next time someone launches into a hearty rendition of a mutilated American accent, I may be forced to contrive a posh English one loaded with all the majesty I can muster to let them know that like another Elizabeth,  “We are not amused!”

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Speedy Evie Fairman Carries The Torch For The 2012 London Olympics

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Evie Fairman, London 2012 Olympic Torchbearer with her proud Mom

There are times when I’m fortunate to be standing in just the right place to see and capture a moment that touches my heart. On Saturday I got a bit teary watching my friend, Julie greet her daughter, Evie as she arrived at the spot where we’d been waiting to cheer her on. Fifteen year-old Evie was one the special folks chosen to carry the Olympic flame through Cornwall and she did her family proud in her role as an Olympic Torchbearer.

The Olympic flame will pass through quite a few more hands before reaching London in time for the 2012 opening ceremony in 67 days and while I won’t be able to see any of the events live as I’ll be in the US for most of the Olympics, I won’t forget watching Evie run or the tender mother-daughter embrace on Evie’s big day.

I managed to get a few shots of Evie posing for pictures while she waited for the torchbearer before her, (#105) to arrive with the flame. You can see her with her torch as it looked before the big kiss … (the moment the flame is passed is called a kiss.)

I’ve lifted a bit of Evie’s nomination story from the Torchbearers site so you can read more about her, but let me just say having run along side her through the crowds yesterday with her dad, brother, and loads of other people all trying to get a photo, I learned that  … Speedy Evie Fairman can really run!

“Although Evie was born with only half a working heart (Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome), she has always lived life to the full. From playing football and taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme to singing in the school choir and performing in musicals, she takes everything in her stride. She is an active member of the Youth Council of ‘Little Hearts Matter’, a national charity set up to provide support and information for children with single ventricular heart problems and their families, as well as raise awareness of the conditions and the care and attention these children need. As part of her Youth Council work, Evie spends a lot of her time mentoring other younger members, giving them advice and a chance to discuss their anxieties. By participating in major fund raising efforts and writing to celebrities for their help, she also works hard to help raise awareness which will only lead to more heart babies being treated swiftly soon after birth. Recently the City of Birmingham (where the charity’s offices are situated) recognised the extraordinary efforts of the Youth Council by giving each member the Freedom of the City. Evie may only have half a heart but she uses it to the full. She is an inspiration to all who come into contact with her and I feel honoured to be one of them.”  (Evie was nominated by one of her teachers at school)

Evie with her brother, Fred and her mom, Julie. (Sorry about the focus)

She posed for photos like a red carpet veteran.

The Kiss
I love the look on her face in this shot and the energy of the crowd scrambling to get a photograph. There were people in trees and hanging out of windows along the way.
This one looks as if she’s getting some last-minute advice before she takes off.
Security was tight with loads of police officers along the route.
In addition to the police, Evie had Olympic escorts who ran with her and kept the crowd from getting in her way. She was just about to begin running in this photograph. Notice the van in front with the camera crew in the back. There was point when the van driver had to speed up because Evie was running so fast.
And then she was off!
I was running along with her dad, Ben while he was trying to hang on to her brother, Fred and shoot video at the same time. People were running all around us so it was a bit hectic, but very exciting.
I stopped briefly for the dog shot below. It had come off its leash somehow and was frightened by all the bodies running past. I was going to try to help catch it, but the dog’s owner grabbed it right after I took the photo.
I got behind them after slowing down for the dogs and it was about here that I realized my friend Nicola Mitchell was there too when I saw her just above Fred’s head. She’s holding the cell photo with the pink stripe around it.
Fred couldn’t see a thing as was the case with me in the next minute and then he was lifted up for a better view. This was the moment where Evie passed the flame on to the next torchbearer, but I couldn’t get a shot of it. You can see the flame and torch just behind the police officer’s head.
On the far right you can see the last bit of the flame. Evie’s dad, Ben is right in front of me with the video camera and her brother, Fred has the best view of the exchange.
The was a party afterwards at the pub with family and friends making a great finish to a fun afternoon and evening. Well done, Evie!
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Sublime Doughnuts Voted Best Bakery In America – Is World Doughnut Domination Next For Kamal Grant?

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Chef Kamal Grant - Owner Of Sublime Doughnuts

Last summer I spent a few extra months in Atlanta trying to sell my house. Due to the huge slump in the housing market, I did not find a buyer. I did however discover a special bakery only two blocks away.

I wrote about my Sublime Doughnuts experience after meeting with my friend Kimberly Krautter to sample a selection of the yummy and unusually named doughnut treats. You can read more about my sweet send off last summer and Kamal Grant’s recent Best Bakery in America award, but you do so at your own risk.

Don’t say I didn’t warn because you’re going to have a craving that might be impossible to satisfy … at least until you get a chance to bite into one of these lovelies.

Elizabeth Harper, Kamal Grant, & Kimberly Krautter at Sublime Doughnuts in Atlanta Georgia

After reading about the recent opening of a Sublime Doughnuts in Bangkok, Thailand, I’ve decided that it might be a good time to make my  move if I want to try to bring a Sublime Doughnuts franchise to Cornwall.

Hmm … I wonder how Brits feel about doughnuts?

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Citizen Scientist – “Do You Get A Badge For That?”

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Lifelong learning keeps things interesting and while I love being able to find information at my fingertips through the internet, nothing beats the discoveries that can be found in an afternoon walk if one is willing to slow down enough to see them.

I take a lot of photos many of which you never see, but I thought you might enjoy hearing how my observation and impromptu photo session of a Violet Oil Beetle turned me a citizen scientist.  It seems these beauties are in serious decline in the UK along with three other varieties of oil beetles, a discovery I made when I went online looking for information to help me identify the hungry bug below.

I told John that I was going to send my photographs along with other requested data to Buglife, a conservation group that uses the information to track the distribution of oil beetles in the UK and I added that the site referred to people (like me) as “Citizen Scientists.”  I smiled as I said this feeling a bit grand about my little bug photos thinking how they might be helpful in tracking the declining numbers of oil beetles … and I may have even mumbled the words, “citizen scientist” under my breath before hearing John say, “Do you get a badge for that?”

He was of course teasing me ever so sightly and referring to scout merit badges but I didn’t get that until later. I pictured instead a freckled-faced girl in shorts wearing a secret decoder ring from a cereal box with a plastic badge pinned to her t-shirt with the words, “Citizen Scientist” on it.

His badge comment reminded me a happier part of my childhood where decoder rings really felt magical and an afternoon spent outside could be an opportunity for daring adventures and bold discoveries.

Pausing for a few grass munching beetle photographs led me to some fascinating research on oil beetles and their special relationship with bees. One of them likes to treat the other like a taxi service and an all you can eat food bar. You can find out which one by clicking on Buglife.

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The Gifts Of Friendship

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Tell me I’m clever, Tell me I’m kind, Tell me I’m talented, Tell me I’m cute, Tell me I’m sensitive, Graceful and wise, Tell me I’m perfect – But tell me the truth.

~Shel Silverstein

Searching through a virtual mountain of photos of my dear friend Patrice, it was this image that made me pause and get a bit teary-eyed. Taken last September when she was here for a visit, it illustrates what I consider one of the best parts of our relationship … the quiet moments of earnest conversation and sharing.

Not long after Patrice and I first met, she gave me a tour of her home telling stories about different things as we went from room to room in a way very similar to what I might do. Knowing early on that I was a big reader and lover of books, we stopped in front of a bookcase where she had several books that were special to her heart.

At least one was written by Shel Silverstein, an author I knew about, but had not really read and it seemed meant to be somehow that this quote jumped at me when searching for one on friendship this morning. I smiled when I read it knowing that she would understand exactly why I chose this one.

Today is Patrice’s birthday and even though I can’t be there to help celebrate, I wanted to remind her how much I love and appreciate all the ways she has enriched my life with her sweet friendship. I celebrate the light she brings to my life and the many ways she has helped to illuminate the truth.

Happy Birthday, Patrice!

Patrice ... Celebrating the Light!

You can go here to see more photos of Patrice’s trip to Cornwall last year.

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Defining Moments – Giving Up The Gold

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Defining Moments

Having found a box and bought packing supplies, I found it slightly ironic that when I began to pack up most of my photography equipment to send off to sell, ‘Defining Moments,’ were the words that came to mind.

Perhaps it was a subtle whisper from the ghost of Alfred Eisenstadet.

While not a picture perfect moment, it was a defining one for me. I’ve been holding on to an idea of who I am that no longer fits me. I wrote about this in detail a few weeks ago when I gave you a look at some of the images from weddings I’ve photographed in the past.

Wedding photography as a career no longer suits my lifestyle. That doesn’t mean leaving it behind is painless and it’s about more than the just the idea of losing money on expensive equipment.

I love the energy of a wedding day shoot and the private access it gives me to the stories of the people involved. There’s a thrill that comes from knowing you have an almost open invitation to discreetly document the moments they might not remember until later when they see your work.

I may miss the excitement of wedding day drama, but the business side of it leaves me cold and life passes too quickly to waste time doing things that don’t give back enough to support your passion. I always hated when potential clients wanted haggle over my fees as if we were at the corner market buying and selling fruit. It felt demeaning to us both.

As I was going through my camera gear making decisions about what needed to go, I had everything laid out on a low table in our living room and could see just how much I’d invested over the years. I mentally added up the cost of certain pieces as I picked up a camera with my favorite lens still attached, but it was the weighty feel of it in my hands rather than the money that made me pause as I considered how once it was gone, I was unlikely to ever hold one so substantial again.

I took off the lens cap and looked through the viewfinder and had a serious heart pang at the thought of letting it all go. It’s a lot of money I thought, maybe I should just hang on to this one camera and lens, maybe I could use it for …

After loads of internal dialogue, I replayed the logical reasons why I didn’t need this equipment if I wasn’t doing professional work, but it was the memory of a story I’d heard that reassured me that I was doing the right thing by selling it all now.

Hoarding Your Gold

Most of us have things like this in our lives, they hang around taking up space long after we’ve moved on. I told John that seeing the money-making tools my photography life laid out for me to touch felt a bit like the story of the miser who kept his gold under the floorboards of his house. I can’t remember the details, but what came to mind was the image of the miser up late at night when everyone was asleep, taking out his gold and counting it while admiring its beauty and imagining all the things he could buy with his fortune.

The problem was he never spent it, never shared it, and died with it still hidden under floor.

My camera equipment has been like that for a while … safely tucked away, but not being used. While it was here, there was room for ambiguity about the future, at least with regard to one area of my life. Giving up ‘my gold’ may seem like I’m closing a door on photography, but I’ve got another idea more suited to the life I’m constantly creating.

I’ve been using a camera for over forty years and that’s not going to change. I like shooting on the fly so my gear will likely stay small from now on. It’s funny to see echos of my current style in this playground snap taken when I was ten. It’s one of the few pictures I still have taken with my first camera.

I do love the action shot!

Speaking of action shots, I took this one a few minutes ago. With the exception of a few items, that’s my professional photo life all wrapped up tight and tidy in a box … next stop MPB Photographic. Here’s hoping someone out there finds a good use for my gear.

I’ve still got what I need for now.

“The camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But, you have to SEE “

– Ernst Haas

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Pure Charity Or Sweet Tooth

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Charity shops and fundraising are huge here in the UK. Pubs have quiz nights where everyone contributes a pound or two to play and the money goes to a different charity. We have auctions to support our parish church and there’s always outdoor activities like the big cookout we have every year with donated burgers from our village pub to raise money for cancer research. I have to say that despite living in such a giving country, I’d not seen a fundraising coffee shop until we went to Jersey last week.

John and I were walking through the Central Market in St Helier when we spotted a place I wanted to have a quick bite of lunch. It was bright and clean with fresh flowers and a menu that was so reasonable in price I was a bit surprised.

Click to Enlarge

I’d like to say that it was the information cards that talked about charities, CLIC Sargent and Jersey Hospice Care that the café supports with its proceeds or the name of the coffee shop, Pure Charity that drew me in, but …

Peanut Butter & Jelly & Red Velvet Cupcakes

… if I’m really honest, I’d have to say it was the cupcakes that caught my eye and that I only became aware of the charity component at the counter when ordering. Once I realized that it was for charity, it seemed only right to order a second cupcake.

I’m sure you would have done the same,” I mean it’s for charity, right?”