Tribute to my friend

It has been many years since I saw my friend Jo. We were at school together for six years but then ended up at opposite ends of the country then at opposite sides of the world. We kept in touch through Christmas cards over the years and even that became sporadic. She was a brilliant illustrator and artist and more recently entrepreneur. For many years she worked for Carlton Cards in England and I would go into the card shop here in Penticton, buy one of her cards and send it back to her. It was a lot of fun!
She illustrated many books but A Proper Tea was one of her first. She loved to go to antique fairs and browse the second hand stores. The book is full of beautiful illustrations of tables set with tea sets that she collected. She would then collect recipes, make them and set up her still life tea tables having baked the featured recipe for the picture. To this day I still use her scone recipe.

She was a victim of breast cancer and lost her battle this time last year. I felt the best tribute I could make to her and for Breast Cancer Awareness was to try and recreate one of the illustrations in her book. Although I didn't make the cake in this picture, the scones were from her recipe. Doing this has made me feel full of regret that I didn't write more, didn't get down to England to see her last time I was back and that her two daughters and my daughter have never met.

Life is not fair and we have lost a wonderful, talented and loving woman who was taken long before her time. Her artwork lives on however and as I look at her paintings everyday I hope I can deal with those regrets, make the most of every day and try to accomplish even a fraction of Jo's achievements from now on.

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