I went to London - the short version!

I went to London.I met Serenata, Ang, Pomona, Lisa, Sue and Sarah. They were great.

We went to the V&A.

Then we went to the Museum of 1951.

It was all great! The next day I went to the British Museum. I met Horus.Then I went to Liberty.I didn't buy anything. But it was great.

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The End

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So that's the version influenced by too may years of teaching 7-year olds! Life is good but busy now I'm home so I think I'll take my blogging week off from tomorrow - if I have no time to blog it makes sense to coincide that with a week off! I'll still be in email contact, but I won't be visiting your blog or mine for a week. Have a lovely week, friends.

Pretty, pretty, pretty... and a 'No Frills Swap'

Ooh, settling back down to earth here in soggy, grey Haute Garonne. It's been a lovely Christmas and New Year, thanks to great times with family and really special links with bloggers, too! I'm listening to the CD of music from 'The Long Way Down' which Ben bought me for Christmas - African music makes it feel a bit less grey here. But I'm ready for some colour too... The pretty, pretty picture above represents two parcels which were waiting for me when I got home. The ribbon is part of Michela's wonderful Christmas gift, and the fabric behind is on the back of Sarah's cushion...

...too wonderful, isn't it? So glad I got the second one (she kept the first one for herself, very understandably). Thanks so much to you two lovely blogging friends.

Just a few more peeps at the wonders within Michela's parcel. But where is my photo of the Limoges box? I don't know where it's gone, but don't worry, I'll take more.

Another immense pleasure that January has brought is the unveiling of Niki's Nostalgia at the Stone House Calendar. It's really the only new thing I've bought myself, except for a refill for my diary, and both of those do have to come new, don't they? And Niki's photos are beautifully handcrafted, of course.Our calendars used to be somewhat hidden away in the kitchen, but I'm not prepared to do that with this year's edition! Instead I've hung it below the stairs, where it can be seen clearly in the 'hallway' part of our living space. On the tray below it I've decided to do a little monthly display which reflects the colours and themes of Niki's photo - this month silver, and next month I'm looking forward to lots of red for Valentine's Day!And now to this idea for a 'No Frills' Swap. Firstly the subject: it's a magazine swap. I know that lots of us doing the Challenge of the Utmost Kind are hankering for new magazines, and in my opinion a 'new to you' magazine for the right time of year is just as good. So the idea is to swap craft/vintage/lifestyle magazines, from the ones we already have in our collections! You don't have to be doing the Challenge to join in, of course.If you like the idea, check out these basic rules, and please sign up by commenting on this post:

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Rules

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Check that you have at least one magazine of the craft/vintage/lifestyle genre for February or March that you are prepared to swap. Don't go out and buy a new one!

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Sign up here, letting me know if you want a magazine in English or if you are prepared to just enjoy the pictures in a 'foreign-language' mag. Let me know if the mag you have is in English or another language. Mine are in French so it's fine to join in with non-English ones...

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Closing date for entries will be Thursday January 21st. Please email your address to me as soon as you enter.

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I will sort out swap partners and let you know your partner by Thursday January 28th. Get to know them a bit and check to see that you won't be posting something they already have a copy of!

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Pack up your magazine and post it to your swap partner with a little note or pretty card, to arrive around February 12th. This is the No Frills part! No extras, no hard work, no feeling guilty because your partner sent you something extra that you didn't think to send them. No Frills. Easy Swap.

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Obviously, please do advertise the swap by putting my logo and a link to this post onto your sidebar or in a post. The more the merrier!

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Floss

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PS Hope you like my 'no frills' logo. It's either wonderful in its simplicity or really bad. You decide.

THE SWAP IS NOW CLOSED, AND I AM BUSY SORTING OUT PARTNERS...

Meet Wallace

He matches my shopping bag!

Serenata made him for me and popped him into my prize parcel for naming Arthur the bear. He is very much at home on top of our piano...

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Thanks so much, Serenata!

'Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons.'

Quote by Ruth Ann Schabacker
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I like that quote. It has been lovely to untie some ribbons recently! This is a wonderful parcel from California Shelley, whom you may remember from back in the summer, when we made some connections via the French light opera singer, Marie Desclauzas. Shelley has been emptying some more cupboards, and very kindly thought of me.
She sent this exquisite lace collar,
and a present to save for Christmas Day!
Some lace which went all the way from France to the USA, and then came back.
She also gave me a lovely selection of magazine articles, and information about one of her local celebreties, who happens to be one of my favourite authors! I am saving these to read on the plane to Somerset, where we will be spending Christmas with Ben's parents.
Thanks you so much, Shelley - it was a lovely parcel to open!
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Tomorrow - more parcels! Ribbons to untie, both literal and figurative...

A Golden Parcel has arrived!

Oh, I'm so glad I got to the post before the boys yesterday. They would never have been able to resist ripping open this GOLDEN parcel. But then I couldn't either, as you can see!

Inside were these lovely little bags made from the recylced pages of a fascinating programme of events from Switzerland.

And inside those were some sweet little packages I had ordered from Juanitatortilla, a blog friend!

I bought this necklace for myself:

Lovely, lovely blue!

Even the clasp is prettily hand made...Very unsusally, I hadn't worn a necklace yesterday. Some inner sense must have known this one was coming:

You can tell it was hot here yesterday! I am not always quite that pink!

There were some other packages with contents which will remain secret for now, but Juanita also sweetly added this blogging gift: Look at the little elephants!

I've hung it on the window handle, but here it is a bit lower, just to show you the blue, yellow and green company it is keeping.

Thanks so much, Juanita!

Don't forget to check out Juanita's giveaway, folks!

TW3

So, over the course of the week I've been inspired to take photos of some of my most lovely vintage and vintage-inspired jewellery. This first installment is a fantastic recycled piece of willowpattern pottery which I bought at Edinburgh Treefest with birthday money given by my parents.
This is not our car! I just took the photo because I saw this car in a ditch the day after we'd been having a conversation about cars in ditches!

Dear Penny and Matthew have given us three shelves which are ripe for a makeover. Watch this space...

Later in the week Penny gave me a bag of clothes - I LOVE bags of clothes! This cute cardi is far too dark for me, and the sleeves were too long. I say 'were' because it doesn't look like this anymore. It's now part-way through its very own 'relooking'.

It's bright, it's 3.45 in the afternoon, it's 20 degrees C outside, but we're in the dark, wearing shades...

The boys were off school yesterday due to the 'General' Strike (well, WE all went to work...) but after my lesson we went to Cite de l'Espace and enjoyed both the indoor and outdoor exhibits. We saw both the planetarium show and the 3D IMAX film 'Walking on the Moon'. It was a great afternoon out.
Have a lovely weekend!

Good friends...

What a lovely afternoon we've had (and evening, too...) Emmanuel made galettes, the brown French savoury pancakes, and his wife Dagmar brought an incredibly fresh organic salad. Emmanuel is French, and went to university in Brittany, the home of galettes. Dagmar is German. Matthew, from Ghana, and his English wife Penny did a joint effort on an amazing banoffee pie. Ben had made the Norfolk pork and, as you can see from the previous post, I made the cupcakes which went down very well with the children.This was the little informal centre-piece of our table - I've seen many lovely tea cups made into candles, but I thought it might be more French to use coffee cups!

It has been a great time to talk, eat, talk, eat, talk, pray, talk....

I'm very grateful to have good friends.

Toulouse Violets for Friends

We're having some friends over for lunch today. It's all very informal and everyone's bringing a contribution of food. Having bought the cake stand on Friday, I had to make cup cakes today!

I've decorated them with traditional Toulousain violets, grown in the fields around the city and crystalised with mimosa seeds:

Have a look at the lovely blog An Enchanted Cottage, which has a fantastic first birthday giveaway!