At Home with Venetia in Kyoto

In the cold of her 20th winter in Ohara, Kyoto, Venetia plants bulbs and flowers for the spring. At her English school, she thanks the staff for the year's work. She then visits the Reizei family of the renowned "waka" poetry tradition. Stepping inside the last of the residence of the court nobility and trying the shell-matching game, once popular among Heian aristocrats, she appreciates the importance of passing down traditional culture. Guests at her New Year's party are treated to her original vegetarian dishes.

In her 46th winter in Japan, Venetia works on her garden with Mr. Tsubakino, a long-time landscaping partner of hers. Inspired by her lifestyle, he also began living in an old "kominka" house. She visits his beautifully renovated house that nevertheless retains the old-time atmosphere. Impressed with the iron pieces that decorate the interior of the "kominka," she visits the blacksmith and orders an original iron piece, which will add an accent to her snow-covered garden.

During her trip to Shodoshima, Kagawa Prefecture, Venetia visits a soy sauce maker that still uses tubs made from wood and learns of the microorganisms that are essential to soy sauce making. At a restaurant surrounded by terraced rice paddies, she appreciates the traditional handmade Somen noodles. She then visits the farm that invented a method to protect the island's famed olives from weevils that feed on them without using insecticide and pioneered organic olive farming in Japan.

Going along with the seasons, Venetia makes cocoa butter cream to soothe her skin tanned from the garden work in summer and cleans the wood stove with lavender vinegar in preparation for the coming winter. The tulip bulbs she plants are for the spring. She visits the herb garden of Noriko, an old friend who helps her with the garden work. A certified instructor of floral designs, she makes seasonal wreaths from wild herbs so that more people can appreciate the beauty of wild flowers.

During a trip to the Izumo region in Shimane Prefecture, Venetia, British by birth, visits a kiln associated with the British potter Bernard Leach. In the early Showa era, he visited this area and taught such techniques as slipware. Encountering this legacy of her motherland thrills Venetia. At an old indigo-dyeing workshop, she is amazed at the craftsmanship of a rare technique called tsutsugaki, which is found in beautiful furoshiki wrapping cloths brides in this area have traditionally taken with them.