Happy Birthday Carter - 6 Today!

Happy Birthday to our big boy! Love him to bits.

Happy Birthday Mamo!

I wish I had a relevant photo to post to support this, but none available on my digital stuff (will try to find one for you). My mummy's 74 today, I wish I could be with her to spend the day, but she lives in London and I'm hoping to see her later this month.

Makes you realise how important family is at times like this. I watched two episodes of Jane Eyre last night on the BBC (am I the only person who hasn't read this classic - I was in my rebellious phase at school when we studied this text - as I didn't know what to expect of the storyline and was gutted when Rochester produced his first wife!?!) and seeing the tale unravel of Jane's lack of family made me stop and think I was very lucky to have both parents and all siblings around, albeit far away.

Anyway, love you Mamo and see you soon! xxx

As Promised

Okay, not just the bouquet I mentioned recently, but also the wedding cake - yum (a croquembouche, traditional in Italy (although many say it originated in France... either way, a fabulous alternative to traditional fruit cake): lots of profiteroles stuck together with spun suger over the top).

Religious Beliefs!

Our village is quite small (perhaps 300 souls maximum), unfortunately without a shop but it does have a good pub - and what every village has in England: a church - we're extra lucky in that we have a newly refurbished and extended church hall too.

Community spirit focuses around either one or other of the religions: drink or God! Ours is, ruefully, based around the former and I sometimes feel we're missing out on a lot of civilisation by not deferring to the latter. I know we're also avoiding a lot of olds and gossip, but isn't that part of the joys of village life?

Anyhow, I love churches (in fact all architecture) so here is our beautiful church, with the George Cross flying, from near and across the valley on my walk last Sunday.

Forward Planning

I've never been very good at forward planning: what's here today is what I focus on. I'm sure I'll regret it later in life when I want (and need) a nice juicy fat pension... perhaps this is the dawn of a new awareness?!

I've admired other people's planting scheme - especially Jane's love of her garden, which shines through in her blog (a daily must read for me - my normality!) - so it was with a light step that I visited the garden centre planning for spring.

Knowing that we are planning to move in the near future to somewhere larger, the emphasis was for replanting the summer bedding in our large pots, and I decided that spring would be a nice aim. So, the following have gone in:



And I'm desperate for more...!

Local View

The leaves are just beginning to turn here in Devon... autumn is on its way. I love this season, but not the changing of the clocks we have here at the end of October... winter is on it's way, a season I don't much like. Too much expectation, too many forced festivities, and it's a time something always goes wrong for me! Perhaps that's in my mind and it's something I need to change - and just accept and love all the seasons. A new season resolution then!



The September Flower is still in bloom (just) - this was in my hair and in my bouquet on my wedding day back in 2000... along with Delphinium, big bloomed deep red roses... I'll find a photo for you one day.

Hello World!

I'm back! After a prolonged absence, nobody's fault but my own... I just felt uninspired to blog... I'm back! Nothing other to add today, just: watch this space!