Days of wine and roses

Today was another beautiful warm and sunny day. I spent it in the garden, harvesting lavender

with my delicious baby

and doing a photo shoot for a magazine.

In the evening I went out with my lovely friend Lisa to have a meal at the Boathouse Restaurant by the sea at Instow. I had a delicious meal of mozarella and goats cheese ravioli and a cappuccino which is why I am up blogging at this ungodly hour instead of being tucked up in my bed!!

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Life's a beach

It's so lovely living here, I know I have said it before but I shall have to say it again. I am lucky to live here and I really appreciate it. I am not boasting but nor do I wish to be complacent about my circumstances. It has been impossibly hot recently and after school today I picked Alfie up and took him to the beach, which is 2 miles away, for a nice cooling swim. Jasmine was already there with her friends having spent the day on the beach. The water was exquisitly warm and the breeze just the right side of cool. Lizzy loved paddling and then we all had a Hockings ice cream and went back for tea. It took us 10 minutes to get home!

We had a great week end. Paul took the day off on Saturday and so we took the little ones to one of our favourite beaches, a National Trust beach called Northcott Mouth in Poughill, a pretty village just south of Bude. There is nothing there except a couple of lifeguards and a small tea hut run by a couple of old ladies who make all their own cakes. It was such a hot day and I had trouble keeping The Pickle out of the sun. She is fair skinned, not olive like my other two, and needs to be kept away from direct sunlight. I have a great pop-up tent that is meant for such purposes as it has UV protection but she decided that she really doesn't like it this year, in fact she was terrified of it for some reason known only to herself! It was hard work keeping her shaded but I managed to coax her in using a bag of chocolate magic stars and a copy of Red magazine!

In the evening Paul and I managed to pop out for a meal. We have found a website that lists the 6 best places to eat in North Devon and using the Luke Rhinehart method are working our way steadily through. We were not disappointed. the food as beautiful and we sat outside until 11.30pm, in little tops, feeling warm, watching the sunset. The people next to us were very jealous when they found out that we actually live here and are not just on holiday. We're lucky! Pin It

The riddle of the Red Shoe

To solve the riddle of the Red Shoe go to my crafty blog here. Pin It

I've been very busy today. Here's a sneak preview, more to come when I have finished. Can you see what it is yet?
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PD 4 DF

Oh dear, big crush. Night night xxx

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Swallow update

Oh I'm sick of looking at that shiny faced bird on the last post so I thought I would give you a swallow chick update. They have their eyes open now and are getting so fat that they can hardly fit into the nest. It looks so uncomfortable. At night, mummy swallow perches on the very edge of the nest to safeguard her babies as there is no room for her. That's motherly love for you!
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Self Portrait Monday

Rising to Tat's challenge here is my self portrait. My shiny happy face (the shine courtesy of those good people at Benefit).

And another serious face one.

Right, that's enough of me, let's see you!

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Hot Chicks and Cool Chicks

Well it sure is hot here! Tropical hot, sticky and humid. When I walked out of an air conditioned Marks and Spencer's today the hot air hit me like it does when you step off of a plane on your holidays. It's here to stay for a while so I am determined to enjoy it while I can and have already earmarked a few trips to the beach after school this week. The beach is a 10 minute drive (to Westward Ho!) or a 20 minute walk to our local and uninhabited beach so it is lovely to just be able to pop down for a picnic supper and late afternoon swim. Mum regularly gets the bus after work and has a few hours on the beach as there is a 15 minute bus service. I feel so lucky to live here. Devon is very beautiful. Jasmine and her friends camped in our garden last night. They walked to the beach and lit a bonfire before coming back to the bottom of the garden to sleep under the stars. I love it that my kids can do this safely. I am just so glad I moved here when we did so that she can do this sort of thing. She has swam in the sea so much this year. When we lived in London it was a huge trip to get to the beach followed by a long journey home often stuck in traffic jams.

Nature is a wonderful thing isn't it? Here in our garden we are surrounded by it, (well not just in the garden actually, sometimes nature happens in our house. Paul was serenaded on his own guitar by a tiny baby mouse who had crawled into the guitar and was strumming it as it tried to climb out). We have a little swallows nest just outside the back door. They have built their nest on top of our electricity meter in the back porch and have had 5 baby chicks who spend their time with their beaks open waiting for their parents to feed them delicious morsels. They are gorgeous and I spend ages watching them from a safe distance in my kitchen peering through the back door at mummy swallow returning time after time in her shiny dark blue silk cloak to feed her tiny babies. Everyone is entranced by this from the hardened, 'whatever', teenagers to little Lizzy who says 'ahhhh baba bur' whenever she sees them.








And then you have the chickens who think they own the place. Just look at this one strutting around without a care!




The roses are out around the door and are as gorgeous and sweet smelling as ever despite the fact that I did not prune them properly this year as I thought Paul might be dismantling them to paint the front porch.




I don't know what variety they are but the smell is to-die-for and they are a shabby chic pink, my favourite!



I went to a boot sale today and got some great treasures. Firstly Homepride Fred and a tin featuring him along with a vintage nutmeg tin. Perfect for the pantry.




Some vintage Sanderson 'Chatsworth' fabric, some lace and a soft toy pattern of a bunny rabbit.




Two vintage chair cushions for the garden, some old champagne glasses, an enamel casserole dish (in my favourite red), a vintage bread board and a Meakin bowl.




.........and finally, my favourite purchase, some button drawers, complete with loads of buttons (that I don't actually want as they are all too modern for me) so that I can sort my vintage buttons out properly. My buttons are currently stored in big glass sweetie jars which looks nice but is a nightmare when you are trying to find the right button for the right project. I love these and they go with the rest of my haberdashery shop fittings. A good days hunting.


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