Sweet Tweet Swap

It has been a great experience doing Ele's Sweet Tweet Swap! The theme was birds and springtime, and I had a beautiful piece of vintage Chinese embroidery that I wanted to combine with European lace and linen. Having found out a bit about Ele's home and her favourite colours, I realised that these colours would go in her new dining room, so I decided to put my pieces together on a frame, for a fairly formal effect.I added in some springtime sugared violets from Toulouse, too! The lace is needlepoint lace (made with a needle, or possibly a shuttle, not bobbins). I bought it from France, but it could be from a number of European countries. I like the contrasting texture against the French linen.You have to look fairly closely at the embroidery to see why it was appropriate for the swap. There are at least five flying creatures here!

I THINK this is a crane, which symbolises long life and is legendary in China for being the prince of feathered creatures. However, the legs are not quite like the other crane embroideries I've seen, so it might just be another bird with different symbolism.The sweet bees are a symbol of hard work and industry for the Chinese, just as they are in the west!The butterfly is a symbol of a young man in love. Ahhh!And I'm pretty certain that this is a bat (but correct me if I'm wrong). Bats have a great symbolic meaning for the Chinese, because their name ('fu') sounds the same as the word for happiness.Therefore, Ele's piece of embroidery carries messages of happiness, love, industry and long life! Now on to the AMAZING package she sent me:

What a treat to open it up and find so many charming birds inside!This little notebook is in front of the computer right now, ready for notes.

Oops - the chocolates did melt, I'm afraid, but the taste didn't change and they were MUCH appreciated!The paper on this charming box is vintage music and newspaper cuttings from a dance. There's a lot to look at!And inside, stock for a wonderful Easter display next year! I can't wait!What's in here?An adorable nest necklace, in my colours!This card is up near my computer too.What a charming vase - I know what I can do with this!And I was wondering about buying a little china bird, just the other day! But that one wasn't embellished...So here are some of Ele's lovely gifts, as they have made their way around our home.I made this pile of boxes a week before Ele's parcel arrived, and knew they were just missing one more for the top...

The pretty lamp base is still in need of updating, but meanwhile it looks fantastic with one of Ele's tags!And here are beauties from two different bloggers - the heart from Sharon's Pay It Forward, and another lovely tag from Ele. They could have been made to go together, couldn't they?I have two of these little white cabinets, so it's a good thing there were two tags and two hearts!What a beautiful parcel to receive! I did experience what Ele and I have described as Swap Anxiety. Do you ever get that - wondering how the other person could possibly want what you're making, and opening their parcel feeling that yours was so much less generous? Apparantly this is normal at first and then goes away. Ele has been so sweet and helpful to me, and to the others doing the swap too, I think, so if you ever feel worried about swapping, don't panic! It's wonderful to be able to make and share special things around the world.

Nostalgia

I was looking for quite a different book today when I found this scrapbook, which has been in my proud posession since I was two or three (note my second birthday card on the front!). I don't remember putting it together with my mother, but I do remember looking through it with her at various stages in my childhood, and asking her about why I'd chosen particular pictures. I remember this little Christmas girl very well.

Here's a little Scottish boy - some years later we moved to Scotland for a while, and I wondered if we'd need Eskimo clothes!Most of these were obviously from cards sent to me or the family in the very early 1970s.But there were some magazine and newspaper cuttings too - I was obviously very taken with the 'live' Beatrix Potter characters.I think I thought this little girl looked like me, but I can see now why my mum never thought so.This was quite mature taste for a tiny girl, wasn't it?Someone drew the donkey picture by hand. It's initialled M.C. but I don't know if we knew the artist.I must have quite liked donkeys. Son 1's favourite toy was a blue donkey, so it's obviously carried on....Still like that donkey best...And these dogs are textured! I can see why a little girl loved them.Some favourite British and American childhood friends, here.And look at those blue flowers - I still love them!

Fantastic, surely already dated, child on her bike, and a mum and baby - a great image for a mother and daughter making a scrapbook together. I am so delighted that my mother made scrapbooks with me, and that I've kept at least this one.And look what came in the post - Ben's jam badge, so we can take some appropriate pictures for Snapdragon's most inventive catalogue...

Tagged handkerchief

Help! I have been given an award and tagged by Juanita (thank you, Juanita!). The questions have a definite 'fashion' edge to them - I may be truly challenged here! To keep you awake through my non-fashionista answers, I have posted some pictures from my mum's handkerchief collection...

What is your current obsession? Blogging, I guess!
What are you wearing today? Denim skirt (there's a surprise) with a frayed edging, pale blue and white striped T-shirt and sandals.

What's for dinner? Salad, bread, cheese, ham and (for the boys) a jar of Marmite too! What's the last thing you bought? Apart from food shopping, I think it was my cute polka-dot bike panniers. What do you think about the person who tagged you? Juanita is great! She's one of the most easy-going, relaxed bloggers I know - it's fun to find out what she's been doing every day. That question about a fully furnished, paid-for house that everyone answers with 'Paris' or 'New York'. Oh, in the Pyrenees, which are only 2-3 hours away, which avoids the long, expensive or environmentally unfriendly travel business. What is your must-have item for summer? Sun hat. I become rather ill, very quickly, without one. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would it be? Hmm. One hour is just not long enough. I'd love to go to Macchu Pichu, Peru, but as you have to acclimatise to the altitude, an hour there would just make me very ill! Who do you want to meet right now? Nobody modern springs to mind. I'd like to meet some people from the past, either famous or ordinary, to see what life was really like for them.What is your favourite piece of clothing from your own closet? Denim skirts, probably - I have one in every length and most styles (except frilly - they don't work on me).What is your dream job? Helping people learn whilst having time for my own family (wait, that sounds like what I do right now!)What's your favourite magazine? Maybe BBC Good Homes, at the moment - I have to decide, as my parents are going to give me a magazing subscription for my birthday!What do you consider a fashion faux-pas? Bulges where there should not be bulges.Describe your personal style. Fairly traditional, on the cute, English, flowery side.What are you going to do after this? Take the boys to their piano lesson. Three styling tips that work for you:

1 Don't wear things that keep having to be readjusted. Wear something which stays where you put it!

2 Skirts are more comfortable and more flattering than trousers.

3 Blue is the new black.

What are you proud of? That we moved to France and have settled here successfully.What does your favourite underwear look like? Good, grief, my father reads this blog every day! It's one thing for him to have my washing in his washing machine, it's another for him to have to read the info over the net! "There are rules to this tagging shenanigan... Respond and rework – answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, and add one more question of your own. Tag eight others." Oops. I've only tagged four. If anyone else wants to take on the challenge, please do!

Glenda

Alexandra

Betty G

Ashley

Getting Ready - Part 1

Yesterday was the last bank holiday of the term. We have so many that they don't give us a half term holiday, which seems a shame, but now we are straight through for a month and then it will be the summer holidays! We'd intended to go camping but the dog was having a horrid reaction to an injection, and we couldn't take her anywhere, poor thing (she's OK again now). I used the time at home to do the first batch of baking for my Garden Party. Most supermarkets aren't open in France on bank holidays, so I had to look at my dwindling supply of flour and work out a recipe I could make, in bulk, using the ingredients I had! I settled on these lovely Spicy Pepper Biscuits, which I've made before. They are sweet and dry and airy - they melt in your mouth. I also love the part of the recipe which says: 'roll into balls and place on an UNGREASED baking tray'! My kind of low-maintenance baking.

The plans are going on apace, and this map with lists is now on the fridge, along with the artwork:In the afternoon Ben and I took the boys out to the African Safari (note the non-French name!). It's nearby and it is a very pleasant place to go, with the animals well cared-for and the surroundings shady and beautiful. Some new babies were in evidence...For a few years now they've run a bird show in the summer. This is well worth the wait. In France they let the birds fly down really low, so that their wings and tails almost (or actually) brush the heads of the taller people sitting below.For once, the small Nile Crocodile was looking real. And to end the day, we saw some peaceful flamingos.

Today, in the garden, the grapevine over Ben's pergola has come into bloom. The flowers are tiny, but full of promise. When we moved in we found the vine creeping over the ground, and Ben built up a pergola specifically to support it. We can now sit under it on the rustic stools made out of our poor, fallen acacia tree.The tree came down in January's storms. We managed to prop up the younger tree which was growing beside it, but clearly there had been too much damage to its roots, and after a faint attempt to flower and produce leaves this spring, it too has died.It's in the nature of accacias to plan for the future, though, and our 'lawn' is sprouting baby accacias from the roots of the old ones. We are going to choose one to nurture and mow the rest!

It does mean that the pergola now provides the only shade in the entire back garden, so we are going to have to think about awnings for the garden party, and for eating out throughout the summer. More plans...