May flowers

Outdoors... and indoors...

we are enjoying some very pretty flowers this month.

I have a longer post to write for you too, but no time as yet! Thanks for all your visits and comments, though, and your own posts, which I am enjoying.

Celebration cake...

Happy Saint Honoratus ' Day! If that sounds like a mouthful, it's easier saying it the French way: 'Bonne fête Honoré'!
Saint Honoré is the patron saint of bakers (and florists) and our baker's was offering a gateau Saint Honoré for the very good price of 9€50 yesterday, if you booked in advance. The baker's shop was full of chattering people queuing up for their Sunday bread and their gateaux, and all his daughters were out the front, along with their mum and other staff - it was great fun to go and buy a cake instead of making Sunday pudding à la anglaise yesterday!

A Vide Grenier in the Rain...

... turns out to be a great place to shop! I bought the bits and bobs above while the grey clouds gathered this morning - an English royal memorabilia jam pot, a reproduction tin, a mirror for the growing collection, a frame, a jug and a job-lot of vintage-ish tea towels all for 50c or 1€ each.

Then the clouds opened and the real bargains began! By the time I left the cozy hall full of craft stalls, the household stallholders were packing up or covering their wares with plastic, and most of the serious dealers were also packing up, fairly phlegmatically. One chap sold me this for 4€ after a bit of bargaining- it would usually have cost me quite a bit more, despite the damage...

it's HUGE!Then a rather disgruntled Moroccan dealer sold me this for under his (alleged) buying price - 5€!

OK, it's a bit beat-up, but it's a great example of decorated enamel. And the 'somehow not quite right' display of pitchers, candles etc that I'd put in the corner on Monday now seems to have simply been waiting for this pitcher to come and complete it!I keep taking peeps at it - can you spot it in this photo?

It's here, to the left of the fireplace.Here's the grand haul - I bought four fleece jumpers for the boys (50c each), a big basket for throws and blankets and some lace and linen too!The rain really did me a lot of good this morning - and thank goodness it has lasted long enough to refill our garden cistern too!

j

Thanks for all your comments - if you haven't already seen my post about my London trip (from which Blogger has eaten all the comments), please do have a look and see if you might be able to join us for some trips around exhibitions and maybe a boat ride, too! More details will follow.

Blogger being weird???

This is a test post. My post about our London trip has disappeared! I'm just checking to see if this one works as a first attempt to find out what's going wrong. Is anyone else having problems too?

London Visit, Anyone???

Due to a series of lovely little family coincidences, I'm going to spending a weekend in London before travelling back up to Edinburgh with my father next month - would anyone like to meet up with me on Saturday 11th or Sunday 12th June?This is such a wild thing for me to do - I don't like leaving Ben and the boys and it even took me a while to get used to visiting my parents alone. But it's my birthday the following week and Ben thinks it's a great idea for me to visit a few exhibitions and meet a few friends (?) for my birthday! Oh yes!!!
Having found some lovely Festival of Britian memorabilia amongst my mother's collection, I'm definitely going to the Royal Festival Hall for the Museum of 1951.I also plan to go to the V & A exhibition The Cult of Beauty, on the aesthetic movement. Any other suggestions? Anyone want to meet up? It would be lovely to see some of you in person. Ooh, this is so exciting...

Thrifty Swap parcel from Michela

My Thrifty Swap parcel from Michela of A Garden just outside Venice was a real treat! Even before I opened it I was charmed by the lace tape - LACE TAPE!!! Where can I get me some?

Then I spotted one of Michela's beautiful postcards inside. Oh, Michela always sends beautiful postcards, I sighed... Then I noticed that the package was FULL of beautiful postcards, so now I am also the owner of beautiful postcards, but, do you know the difference between me and Michela? She SENDS her beautiful postcards to people and I'm going to keep mine all to myself! Ha!

I got quite worried about my internal monologue at that point, but then fortunately was distracted by a parcel of beautiful embroidered cloths and a pillowcase. Good timing, Michela!

And all of it wrapped in one Mr Berlusconi's publications - I suppose it could be one of his, or does he just have TV interests? I later had fun reading about the Royal Wedding plans in Italian. The article was all about Kate not promising to obey, or at least I think it was...

And inside it was this beautiful candlestick, made and hand painted... Just Outside Venice... in the 1950s! Oh Michela, it really is perfect.It has found a home already, although since I took this photo I've also changed the photo and added a second French blue and white flowered candlestick on the right.Did I mention the traditional Venetian licorice pastelles Michela also sent? They are delicious and I love the wrapping (of course). And delightfully, I'm the only person in the house who likes licorice!

Thanks so much to Michela, and to Betty of Mrs Yappy Dog, who organised such an excellent Thrifty Week and Swap.

No Ordinary Washing Line

I usually have a bit of bunting hanging from our balcony - it seems just the place!But when I took down my Dottie Angel-style winter bunting, I felt like doing something different. The idea grew slowly...... how about displaying my collection (or bits of it) on an indoor washing line?I'd been wondering for ages how to display the embroidered tea-cosies!I added more bits - this is the saucy corner, with a hand-painted silk stocking on the left, and what Son 1 and his dad both erroneously thought was a bra (it's a bonnet, guys!) in the middle...Various bits of ribbon, crochet, buttons and a lace glove...
And some doileys that would never, never sew into anything, but which can finally go on display.Bits and bobs of lace and a china doll's dress. And finally the inevitable vintage hexie, which reminds me of Rubyred's much more coherent garland - I didn't see her post before I got the idea, honest!All in all, I'm really pleased to have found a fun way to display one or two things I've never had out before. And I'm ready to be more adventurous with other bits of my collection too - any suggestions for display?

Forget-me-nots in May

I think I've been inspired by more than Niki's calendar this month...Yes, it's always my main focus for the month, but you might agree it's just possible that I've been influenced by this, and I certainly know that this book is having a big impact on me too (review to follow)...But what a lot of fun it was putting it all together!I have French vintage forget-me-nots paired with some of those clever magnetic strigs of beads we were all buying a few years ago,

a vintage Flower Fairies book (but not, interestingly, with the same Forget-me-not poem as in Niki's photo),

lace so generously given to my by Californian Shelly,

And French lavendar from the garden.

Sadly, all my forget-me-nots went over about three weeks ago!

Thrifty Swap!

We had a great Thrifty Week, just before Easter, hosted by Betty at Mrs Yappy Dog. Now it's time to post about the Thrifty Swaps that a lot of us exchanged as part of that week. I was both delighted and challenged to be swapping with the delightful Michela from A Garden Just Outside Venice. Delighted, because we've known each other for years and both suffer from swap paranoia, so there's no need to be worried when your co-swapper panics too... Challenged, because although she's a good blogging friend I am a vintage person and she (having parents who run brocante stalls) prefers to buy new!I concluded that food was the answer. Isn't it always? The two jars above are filled with thrifty hedgerow-gathered fruit. It wasn't all as difficult to gather as the plums photographed below! When she got the parcel, Michela emailed me to ask for more info about English jams and jellies. The basic answer is that jams have bits of fruit in, and jellies are strained so that only the juice is turned into the final product. She emailed back with the query about jellies being used with meat. Ahh, Michela, good question! This jelly is for your bread or toast. But some jellies, made in the same way, are indeed for eating with meat. Would any commenters be prepared to explain the difference, please?

I covered the thrifty hedgerow jellies, in their thrifty re-used jars, made by my thrifty husband, with thrifty fabric covers, held on by thrifty re-used rubber bands from our seasonal asparagus. Is that too much information?

I then added a thrifted Japanese hand-painted plate, which Michela and I agree is particularly pretty (glad you like it, Michela!). The idea is that she can have her bread and jam with the gifted plate and the knife, which actually belonged to my mum and is one I used in childhood for my own bread and jam!

Finally I wrapped all the presents in bubble wrap and then in thrifted napkins. I like wrapping things in fabric, which then becomes part of the gift itself. Pretty thrifty, I think. I bought a huge set of these cheery retro napkins in the charity shop the other day and kept half for myself and half for Michela. Now when we use them I'll think of her having her dejeuner sur l'herbe in her garden just outside Venice!

j

Thanks so much to Betty for organising the excellent Thrifty Week and Swap, and to everyone who took part with such interesting posts. Many thanks to Michela, whose blog is subtitled: 'A place where friends meet' - that's certainly what this swap has felt like!

A little corner of France...

... became Britain last Friday!We sat on a patriotic sofa,

and ate a union flag cake decorated by Son 1,

with 'red, white and blue' layers - the boys made one colour each (I did the 'white' one).

We continue to have a great time with Ben's best of British mum, and are hoping to go to an animal park tomorrow, if the weather doesn't break! Thanks for all your lovely comments and I'll be around, if not very much just yet...