buttercups, I do love alchemilla mollis.
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..to do on a very wet June day, but put on my waterproofs and pick the first sweet peas - such a strng scent!  Bake some Mary Berry scones..  And settle down to watch the tennis.  Harmony Tan! Spectacular!
From extreme heat and sunshine to relentless rain today - heavy rain, a moderate breeze and 13 degrees. However, the Scottish rain does produce a lush leafy green landscape and the first couple of days after I came home from holiday weather of continuous sunshine and 31 degrees, we had a couple of gentle days and I felt very fortunate to have a beautiful place to come home to, with the meadow at its best. Tsunamis and hurricanes, torndoes and flash floods and wildfires! Really I should not be calling this post extremes! Extremely grateful is what I should be for our climate here in uk - but we do like to grumble aboout our weather. It's a national pastime.  Intersting architecture.    The entrance to the station Unexpected signs   street trees with oranges..  local produce for great gifts  Fanoous people have left their mark  And you can eat Briget Bardot's favoutite cake. What more could you ask?  The beautifully named Notre Dame De Bon Voyage in Cannes.   The date of 1635 appears on this snall church by the market.  At the Protestant Church we chanced upon an excellent concert of early music.   I had just heard of the tragic death of a fellow artist from home in a horrendous road accident, and I was thinking of Colm and of his family during this concert. This final piece was very moving and I will always associate it with him. Simply Holiday is a sizeable category in my blog! I absolutely love holidays. I enjoy the research and the planning, the event itself, and reliving it here in the blog. On the journey (which went pretty smoothly thankfully) I listened to Carol Drnkwater's The Olive Farm, an account of her purchase and restoration of a derelict property in Cannes. Then I revisited Lawrence Durrell's Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, and Gerard Durrell's My Family And Other Animals, and some videos and old BBC documentaries about that generation of travel writiers. Patrick Leigh Fermor among them. There is lots to be found online on the still earlier generation - Freya Stark, Wilfred Thesiger whose wonderful photographs I omce saw in Oxford, Gertrude Bell... A quick refresh of Peter Mayle and thank you Liz for the reminder of Sheila Hancock's Just Me. I also have Driving Over Lemons lined up. So part of me is still in the Med! Do you have favourite writers about your holiday destinations? Further suggestions most welcome.   We also loved the food in the surrounding park. Sitting in dappled shade we felt as though we were relaxing in one of our favourtie Renoir paintings.
   You can always tell a blogger - they photograph their food before they eat it! It's a wonderful and relaxing treat to have such food put down in frnt of you. Leisurely breakfasts and healthy lunches..  Salads and juices with 7, 8, 9 ingredients.    A restaurant on the beach as the sun set - torches lit the beach after dark and we waded into the still warm sea.     Desserts included the best affogato ever! All making me rethink my cooking at home.. Heather, wonderful travel companion in Venice and Paris, now lives and works in Cannes. Oh joy! This is Forville market...          Though maybe chill wasn't the word for temperatures of 31 degrees! In the sense of relaxing and taking it easy, it was perfect. Had a wonderful week in Cannes on the beautiful Cote d'Azur. I hope you hve had a lovely Midsummer Day.
..for five minutes or a fortnight, with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, in a hammock, playing with a cat or watching wildlife, a bath by candlelight, having a nap...what are your favoutie ways to chill?      I have only got part way through reading Simply Chill posts. This one still strikes a chord, and this one. I so enjoyed the comments on both.
I am going to take a little time away from the blog to chill. I hope you might enjoy browsing the archive while I am away! In my gentle reviiew of the ctegories of the blog I will skip Simply Bin It for now and look at Simply Chill.  After all, What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare? And which month if not June is the best time to make time to Simply Chill? Depending on what device you are using, you will find this category on the side bar, or you may have to scroll down a long way... I hope you have time for a browse of this quite large category. Don't miss this one (do watch full screen) It's from a lovely television progranne from a few years ago. Tell me what you think of it! Have you listened yet to the Jume edition of AS The Season Turns? You can hear it here.  I like to listen to it before I go to sleep. If you are new to gardening or only have a tiny space, this book by Arthur Parkinson about his flamboyant, very small garden may inspire you. He grows everything in containers and starts things off on window ledges, creating dramatic effects. It rained all day today! Caught up with the ironing.. ..that I work so hard in my garden! We have had five straight days of glorious weather. The kind of warmth that helps you relax right to the core. I had a friend visiting and we had all our meals outdoors.       Rain is forecast, so I am making the most of it! You learn to do that in Scotland.. I hope you get some lovely sunshine wherever you are.  Summer is here when the magenta gerainium flowers and the wild orchids appear in the mini meadow.. I spent much of this hot sunny day in the hammock! I woke very early the other morning and the deep silence and beautifuul light reminded me of a lady I once visited in a remote part of Sweden who led a truly simple life. Liselotte lived alone in a cabin in a meadow on the edge of the forest, by a lake in which she bathed and washed her clothes. She used only natural soap, careful not to pollute the water. Drinking water came from a well, and the house was lit by candlelight. She served us tea on the prettiest old fine china, and we saw a moose on the far edge of the meadow. I felt as though I was in a dream.    I think she lived here only during the summer months, but she seemed to be utterly content with her simple life.
Do you think you could live this simply? I'm not sure I could. Maybe for one summer... My word for the year - lovingly- comes to my rescue now and then. I wanted the canes for the pots to be blue but I really didn't want to be bothered painting 12 of them, until I reminded myself to do the job lovingly. It took an hour in mild sunshine, listening to the radio...I quite enjoyed it. It's all in the mindset really, isn't it. The plan is to have sweeet pea Matucana climbing the canes and underneath callibrachoa in deep purple, clary - an intense blue, rich velvety chocolate cosmos and magenta petunias. Dark and sumptous and smelling divine.   .It's that time of year w!hen the first ray of light at dawn illuminates the yellow gate.  The cornus in the middle has never had so many flowers.  The sunlight then spreads out over the rest of the garden. I didn;t intend to be up at 5am but I'm glad I was.. |
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