Oh Blogland, how I have missed you!

Apart from 1 week in June, we spent all Spring and Summer at the cottage in France. The computer gathered a lot of dust there, lol. We got back to the UK a few days ago, and I am just beginning to get back into my normal routine again. Part of that is of course blogging and visiting the beautiful blogs of the many people I follow. I have missed blogging regularly so much, thought about it so many times, but converting thought into action somehow just didn't happen. 

And we had such a wonderful time in France which I could have talked about. The family came to visit again for a week and we did so many wonderful things together, the yearly fete des voisins took place in August and was such a fun evening, we visited lovely places and exciting brocantes, we spent quality time with neighbours and friends and volunteered twice a week at a dog shelter, where we fell in love with so many beautiful furbabies.

I hope to be able to catch up just a little and post at least a few pics of our activities over the next few days, but for right now, I am just saying HELLOOOOO AGAIN with a few photos of our newly planted roses -

This one we planted last year and it really struggled in the drought last year, but I think it is recovering -

And because I thoroughly enjoyed looking through my flower photos just now, here are a few more for you :-) - 

This little flower, which looks so much like a sweetpea, is actually a bean flower. This variety of bean grows almost half a meter long! 

Aahh, the sunflower, you can't help but smile when you see one of these in the garden, they are such cheerful flowers -

I loved my flower trolley by the front door -

The white begonia is just amazing -

The sedum flowers are such a beautiful colour -

And to finish this post, a photo of one of the things I miss the most about being at the cottage, the amazing sunrises I was able to enjoy during my early morning walks with the dogs -

Toodlepip xxx

White Lace, White Flowers, White Wednesday

You would think that the view from our cottage would be pretty much the same every day. Not so. Every morning brings a different picture. This morning, for example, there were quite thick clouds below us, hanging over the valley -

The white clouds reminded me that I hadn't yet done a WHITE WEDNESDAY post, and the beautiful scent of the mock orange by the gate, drifting on the gentle breeze, made me choose those delicious little blossoms for the post -

And then I thought, what about all those beautiful white wild flowers growing along the path in front of our cottage? So I toddled off with our doggies in tow, and collected a few more white flowers -

And then I had another thought ( my husband keeps warning me about thinking, lol ), why not put white flowers and white lace together? I grabbed a few pieces bought at the last vide greniers I went to -

 

This is a gorgeous antique French nightdress, with the most delicate and fine hand stitched broderie anglaise -

I am linking this post to WHITE WEDNESDAY No. 154 over at the FADED CHARM COTTAGE. Check out all the other beautiful white posts!
Toodlepip xxx

Flowers

Wednesday had been a sunny day, so of course yesterday was bound to be a rainy day again. That had been the pattern over the last few weeks, half a day or so of decent weather and then days on end of grey, miserable, wet weather. Yesterday morning sure looked that way. But to my utter surprise, the grey clouds vanished, and all of a sudden there was the blue sky and the sunshine again! What a relief!

I managed to take photos of a few bits and pieces which I had found over the last couple of weeks ( I'll post them tomorrow ), and I even ventured out into the garden. Of course the ground was still rather waterlogged, but I could see the beautiful flowers on the Hellebore (Christmas rose) which my parents-in-law had given me as a birthday present years ago and they called to me. I snipped a few of the blooms off and brought them inside, not quite knowing what I was going to do with them. I so love their delicate colours and I was beginning to wonder whether they would keep their colours if they were dried........... I thought that it would probably be best to dry them as quickly as possible to stop them going brown, so I plonked them on top of a radiator.

This morning I checked and I was thrilled to bits to find that they had dried beautifully and they had kept their colours. They looked like crinkled silk flowers, so delicate and so pretty, I just had to take some photographs. I can't believe how lucky we are again today, the sun is shining! It is bitterly cold, there was thick ice on the cars along the road this morning, but I have decent light to take photographs, woohoo!

Here they are, my beautiful silky and delicate dried flowers -







Have a great weekend! Toodlepip xxx