Violets of Toulouse

Toulouse is famous for its violets - you can find them chrystalised as gifts in every tourist shop of the area (they're delicious). The Toulouse violet is a special type, with a double flower. I bought some and planted them a few years ago, but the area where I put them turned out to be on top of our water pipe, and when it sprang a leak the famous violets were sacrificed to the neighbours' mini-digger!

No matter, as I prefer the single, wild flowers, which are bursting into bloom on the trackway down to our town's clay-pit lake. I have a few in the garden, but nothing beats finding them blooming by the side of the path, unless it's finding some more unusual white ones further along:

I snapped some photos with my phone (still trying to get used to the concept of a thing I can carry in my pocket which does more than make calls). Raja and I were the only people there to appreciate them on a very windy day - but I imagine they are much appreciated by everyone who walks along there.

I found a very informative blog article, in English, on the Toulouse violet industry here - I shall be back to visit Vanessa at her La Lune blog again, now I've found her on my search for articles about violets!

Roses...

Thanks for your comments about the white roses and other garden flowers in my last post! The roses are still in their first enthusiastic burst of flowering, so we are picking them whenever they are dry enough. (Which means not today, for sure!)

This is the first year that our roses have really flowered so generously. Ben pointed out recently that we've now spent longer in this house and garden than anywhere we've ever lived before. You can see from my life story, highlighted in the sidebar, that we moved a lot before settling here in France. It's lovely to spend long enough in a home to see things really develop - the roses we planted in the first few years are now repaying us lavishly, the veg garden thrives as Ben applies the knowledge gained from previous years... There is still plenty more to do, and the wonders of photo-cropping tend to show you only the pretty bits of our house and garden, whilst the reality includes barren earth beside a long hedge in the garden and the usual heaps of family-related junk around the home. But I am actually coming to love the reality, including the functional and non-beautiful stuff, instead of hankering after something picture-perfect. How about you?

Ramshackle

Underneath the cedar trees

stands a ramshackle collection of buildings.

A shed/garage and an out-house toilet,and a teeny, tiny, ramshackle house.Ben dreams of buying the land and building on to the tiny house,my dream is more realistic in the short-term:to make a photographic record of the wild flowers that flourish around the house each spring.There's not much here to photograph, yet,But we walk past it on that little path many times a week, so I think this is an attainable challenge for the coming Spring!

The rough with the smooth... the smooth with the rough!

I had a bit of fun playing with juxtapositions last night - I put a rough horn tankard filled with garden cuttings, next to Ben's silver Christening bowl, on a hand-woven, goats' hair mat. Rough and smooth; dull and gleaming; European, American and Asian; 19th, 20th and 21st century: hand-crafted-all.

Don't you love the silver fish tongs (for sugar), and this cheery little Inuit tooth-topped spoon?

A happy chappy. I didn't buy him so I don't feel any guilt about the tooth's former owner.

I only meant to post about the physical juxtapositions of this display but it struck me today that our life is full of juxtapositions too: illness and operations (Son 1's knee again), sweet gestures of affection, exhaustion and concerns, beauty and blessings.I think that in the past I spent too much time 'getting through' the hard times. I didn't notice that, juxtaposed with them, were sweet and beautiful times. Now I think that looking at those beautiful times is what's meant to give us strength to deal with the tricky parts of life.

Think big!

This is a photo from last month - the current flowers in the pitcher on the piano are even taller!I've been a terrible one for picking a few flowers and making a tiny posy. Buying one little whatever because I couldn't afford the big one, or more than one. But in church last month I noticed that someone had picked a whole cosmos plant and stuck it into the flower arrangement, very effectively.

It worked.

I tried it and it's been working at home ever since.

I wonder why I never THOUGHT BIG before?

Tulips!

I was hankering after yellow flowers the other day - I know I'm not alone! I have some bulbs indoors which are coming along nicely, but I nearly gave in and bought a bunch of cut daffodils in Intermarché for 5€50, when I noticed these, for only 3€90! They're whole plants, which means I'll be able to plant the bulbs in the garden for next year. The boys think the fact that they're in a chamber pot is quite hysterical, and spent some time chanting the word 'gazunder' when I reminded them what it meant... sigh...

To go with this little token of Spring, I've brought out the hand-painted cups I picked up in Edinburgh a while back.

I love 1930s china....

And wouldn't you say Sarah's lovely bird sets it all off so well, even going with our little vintage lamp?

The house feels ready for spring, now. I gather that Candlemas/Imbolc (which was yesterday) marks the exact half-way point between midwinter and the Spring Solstice, and heralds the beginning of looking forward to Easter rather than back to Christmas. Perfect timing for my tulips, then!

j

Yesterday's galette and crèpe fest for la Chandeleur went very well, by the way. I am getting the hang of the funny spatula but it will be a while before I'm as good as my French friends at spreading a perfect galette! No of course I didn't take any photos - that would have been organised...

j

Don't forget to enter my OWOH giveaway if you haven't already done so!

Flowers and gingham and... Something Else

Flowers, yes, very Flossie. Gingham, sure...
j
But do you catch a glimpse of Something Else, too?
I'll tell you about the flowers first. My dad came to the supermarket with me just before he went home after Christmas, and asked me if I'd like some flowers! Well, indeed I would! I chose this lovely pot of three cyclamen plants, even though I've not had an awful lot of success with cyclamen before.Part of the reason I chose it is because I remember how much my mum loved them. Anyway, I had a quick look in my M & S book of houseplants, and noticed that most cyclamen go wrong because they need to be kept at 15°C - yikes! Even in our fairly cool house, we stay warmer than that in the winter. I put them near the French windows with a thermometer, which showed they were hovering between 16° and 17°, and they soon showed their displeasure - yellow leaves, impressive mould on the pink plant, and drooping flowers. I plucked of the offending bits and moved the pot up to the 'bookshelf' in our bedroom, which is near the window in a cooler room, and I think I've got it! One month on and the ill bits are replacing themselves, while the healthy bits live on... BTW, bloggers, can you spot things you've sent me in this photo?
j

And now for something completely different. For a project I'll tell you about later, I went to La Foir'Fouille today (cheapy shop), to see what they had in their offcuts of oilcloth. The French use so much oilcloth that the choice and value is good in any shop, but La Foir'Fouille is particularly good value and always keeps and sells its offcuts, which is green too (about the only green thing in that shop, I'd say...).

Having said I didn't favour 1950s style only yesterday, what did I find but this incredible, futuristic, mid-century modern, stuff? The blue gingham toile cirée was an offcut, but I decided to ask for a metre of the snazzy stuff too. When cutting it the shop assistant made a bit of a mess of the last few centimetres, and was going to throw it in the offcuts and start again from scratch when I explained that it really didn't matter as I was going to cut the cloth up and use pieces of it anyway. She was so grateful to have her messed-up piece accepted that she gave me the offcut for only 1€! So the metre was at a sale price of 4€50 and I got the two for a total of 5€50! I just had to share my joy, friends...

Little flowers from my garden...

I couldn't resist asking Michaela if I could borrow her blog title for this post, although I've changed it a bit. It just seemed to be what I wanted to show you, although there's a bit of Vide Grenier creeping in towards the end, amongst the flowers...
These are Morning Glories which Ben planted to climb up his new fence this year. I heard Son 2 bouncing in the pool the other morning and shouting to his brother: 'I can't believe those beautiful flowers only last one morning!' There is something profligate about putting all that effort into something so ephemoral.
A few other photos I've taken over the past few months - my scented garden, which is next to the herb garden. The lavender smells wondeful when you brush against it as you walk up the path to the front door.
Lilies of the Valley (muguet), which our neighbour Nellie shared with me - a mum from the chlidren's judo club she runs had given her more plants than she needed. We may have our own flowers in time for May 1st next year!This one is a current flower, but it's indoors.
It's from my much-loved Pinguicula, which, if you look at the leaves, you will realise is one of my carnivorous plant collection. I think the boys 'donated' that very large fly, actually...
Back outside, the grape pergola has grown some strange 'fruit' this morning. I noticed that the birds were beginning to help themselves, so I tied up some 'bows' of foil which sparkle and rustle in what we have to hope is an alarming way, as far as birds are concerned.
CDs, of course, are the more traditional bird scarer! However, I couldn't find Ben's stash of garden-worthy CDs.
Oops - a Vide Grenier find has wormed its way into this photo of one of my birthday hydrangeas! It's a charming wooden mirror which I have now stripped and waxed - photos of the sweet carving on it once it's on the wall!
And while we're at it, a very old tin from the same Vide Greniers.
It's a Nativity scene (creche), and I want to know the best way to clean it up without destroying more of the paintwork. What do you think? Brush? Soap and water? No hope?
And nestling in among the fucia flowers, my finished stool makeover.
I decided to tell you how I did it in a separate 'tutorial' below. Ooh, a 'tutorial'! I am getting ideas above my station...

Eglantine

Son 2 took me to the wild rose plant he had found in our garden a few minutes ago. Our neighbour Serge was in his garden, and seemed (as usual) puzzled by the antics of the English family. I explained that Son 2 loved the wild roses. There was a pause. "To eat?" Serge finally hazarded. "No, just as flowers," I explained. "Does he want some more?" asked Serge, ever generous.

So Serge got his secateurs and handed these thorny branches to our son, very carefully. "The plants are called Eglantiers", he explained. "The flowers are Eglantines. In France they are just weeds."We know the flowers won't last long, but we've displayed them on our mantelpiece in the ideally-shaped vintage feeding bottle.

Happiness to all on May 1st!

The title is the kind of greeting I've been seeing on French May Day cards. They are always accompanied by Lily of the Valley, muget in French (pronounced 'moo-gay', for those who are wondering, as I did for years...) The muget is sold all around, on the sides of roads, in florists' shops and in supermarkets, because it's considered good luck for the first of May.

Elizabethd has explained why in her excellent May Day post. I had always wondered what the connection was - thanks, Elizabeth!

I bought some yesterday, because this is what the Lily of the Valley currently looks like in my garden:

It's a bit embarassing, because when I left Edinburgh in early April my mother's plants were already thriving and in full bud. However, I did get this groovy cellophane as well as the wonderful plants, so perhaps the investment was worthwhile...Have a very happy May Day, wherever you are, and however you celebrate in your own country!

Springtime in Toulouse

Ben's mum Jennnifer is here, and this afternoon we were in Toulouse together, to get a feel for the city in the springtime. It's an ancient brick city, full of surprising views whenever you find a gap between the brick buildings. In the bakers' shops, window displays are given over to Easter chocolates. We particularly liked this under the sea display - if you remember our chocolate fish ('Bloups, le poisson') from a few days ago, you'll know that fish are quite popular at Easter in France.

This jeweller's shop had a lovely Easter display... But there were no prices on the jewellery, which we always think is a bad sign. And here was the real sweet shop we were looking for!Lots of very traditional French Easter goodies with a very vintage feel, and in the other window, the traditional Touluse violet goodies.

Here's the outside of the wonderful shop:

And the collection of vintage chocolate tins inside:So, Happy Easter from Toulouse!