Ever since our neighbours bought their new wooden garden furniture it has either been cold and windy or rained, I'm sure it's jinxed! and I'm seriously considering setting fire to it, that's if the rain stops obviously...
31 May 2013
30 May 2013
29 May 2013
28 May 2013
27 May 2013
26 May 2013
Our mad garden...
lilac and cherry blossom
As we all know in this country the weather's been haywire so far this year, just as we thought Spring had at last arrived and the sun eventually shone, we now seem to be having March winds, April showers and May sunshine all at the same time. So while in Devon my mother has already seen daffodils, hyacinths, violets, tulips, magnolias, rhododendrons and azaleas flower, our garden has waited patiently then suddenly gone mad and decided it's all or nothing, everything seems to be coming out at the same time.
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Very few irises seemed to flower last year, but it looks like this might be a better year...
25 May 2013
24 May 2013
23 May 2013
Sweet Nellie...
Look what arrived in the post so prettily wrapped...
A beautifully crocheted hand puppet made by Sweetnellie
a lovely present for someone special.
22 May 2013
21 May 2013
Blue birds...
two birds monotype - Mandy Pattullo / bird embroidery - Nancy Nicholson / tea cups - thevintagetable.com / bird plates - TheIDconnection etsy
20 May 2013
19 May 2013
The village in May 2012...
In May the bunting goes up in the village and stays until the end of summer.
This year, 2012, it serves two purposes, firstly as decoration for the village festival and also to celebrate the Queen's Diamond jubilee. So I need to find it from it's hiding place somewhere in the garage! An easy task you might think, no. Unfortunately the inside of our garage is like the inside of most people's garages, full of boxes almost floor to ceiling in some places. After all, who bothers to put their car in a garage? The only time we ever garaged a car was when we had two garages and one of the cars was the sort of car that gets stolen to order, which it was, but that’s another story.
This year, 2012, it serves two purposes, firstly as decoration for the village festival and also to celebrate the Queen's Diamond jubilee. So I need to find it from it's hiding place somewhere in the garage! An easy task you might think, no. Unfortunately the inside of our garage is like the inside of most people's garages, full of boxes almost floor to ceiling in some places. After all, who bothers to put their car in a garage? The only time we ever garaged a car was when we had two garages and one of the cars was the sort of car that gets stolen to order, which it was, but that’s another story.
Ooh
I tell a lie… at one time when my husband was going through a funny phase he bought
a mini moke, which was so small it could fit into the garage of the house we
lived in and still leave plenty of room for boxes and a lawnmower down the
sides. I remember it was blue, and only came out a few days of the year in the
summer. Sometimes he would drive it to work with the roof off, but was puzzled by the reactions of the other drivers. People with huge grins
on their faces would stop and let him out at junctions and bus drivers would
wave to him, something unheard of when he drove the hated gas guzzling Jeep. The
final moment of truth dawned when our lovely 90 year old friend and neighbour
asked him if he played a lot of golf, "No not at all" he said "why do you ask?" "Oh" she
replied "because I often see you driving your golf buggy up the road".
Strangely he decided to get rid of it soon after and didn’t have any problem selling it, there were plenty of buyers happy to look like Noddy driving his car.
Our lovely elderly neighbour had herself only recently stopped driving, she had
owned an immaculate classic Morris Minor but didn’t drive far, just off to the
book club or to visit her sister, which is probably just as well as it was a
frightening experience to see, the top of her head was practically level with
the top of the steering wheel and it looked as if the car was driving its self.
One day my husband came home and said he really didn’t think she should be driving any more, when I asked why he beckoned me to follow him outside. There across the front lawn of her house just missing the stone sundial in the middle, were clear tire marks where she had obviously come off the road and cut the corners to park in her driveway. I think she must have come to the same conclusion herself, because just before her 90th birthday she gave the car away to one of her nieces.
17 May 2013
16 May 2013
14 May 2013
Take a step...
and cover it in vintage wallpaper
stairs photo - Debi Treloar / lilac and roses - the collection of Karen Watson / pink roses - yahoo / roses - PatinaPaperie / blue flowers - http://www.vintagewallpapers.be/en/collection/wallpaper/604 / 1940's roses on grey stripe - http://www.ourcottagegarden.com/store/products/details/?product=,,06 / pink flowers - http://www.larkstore.com.au/ / blue circles - http://retrovilla.dk/cms/ / 1930's coloured flowers - Adair733 / roses on grey + white stripe - unknown / multi coloured flowers - http://secondhandrose.com/products/RE%252d194.html / red roses - simplecottage12 May 2013
Gerald Brockhurst...
Dorette 1933
Several years ago I attended an exhibition of paintings and etchings by the English artist Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, and the picture above is the one I fell in love with. The Dorette of the title was Brockhurst's young model Kathleen Woodwarde, whom he renamed Dorette and with whom he had an affair. In 1939 he left his wife Anaïs and moved to the United States with Dorette, where he died in 1978. In his lifetime he painted over 600 portraits, many of famous people such as Marlene Dietrich and the Duchess of Windsor, but of all his portraits this is the one I would steal, unfortunately it's owned by the Harris museum and Art Gallery, Preston, Lancashire, UK where I'm sure it's very carefully guarded.
11 May 2013
10 May 2013
9 May 2013
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