In the pink!

Joining Beverley @ How Sweet the Sound for this week's

Pink Saturday.

It has been a while since I had anything Pink to share

 but summer is here and my garden is 

"in the Pink"

at last.

Pink Saturday

Normandy Life

Five on Friday - feeling Pink.

Recently I've been getting FB requests to post a heart on my FB page

to support Breast Cancer awareness which I thought was strange

since October is Breast Cancer awareness month.

Still it doesn't hurt to spread the word about being vigilant about checking the ladies

so here's a reminder from me.

Eating cake always puts me in the pink so here are two for us to share.

Something else to put smiles on our faces.

 They may be expensive but well worth it for the cheeriness factor.

Joining two lovely hosts this week with my 5 pretty pinks

Amy @ Love Made My Home for Five on Friday

Love Made My Home

and

Beverly @ How Sweet the Sound

for Pink Saturday.

cherry blossom time

This week despite cooler temperatures

 (or maybe even because of ?) 

our ornamental cherry tree has blossomed into magnificent glory.

I spent some time earlier today arranging some branches into various vases.

Then even more time photographing the delicate pale pink flowers.

another hour or so playing with the images on picmonkey

before finally creating some mosaics using picasa, picmonkey and photoscape.

Linking to

Beverly @ How Sweet the Sound for Pink Saturday

and

 Judith @ Lavender Cottage for Mosaic Monday.

bon weekend!

Back home again.

Hi all,

as some of you might know from FB the Senior Partner and I have been travelling these past couple of months, enjoying a sort of "extended 35th Honeymoon".
We spent some time in Bonnie Scotland, discovering Edinburgh. A couple of days with family in the UK and meeting up with Harry Potter!

More recently we spent 10 days at the Rixos Hotel, Sharm el Sheikh soaking up the sun before winter begins to bite here in Normandy, as it has already in many places in the US and Canada.
I have quite a lot of photographs to sort through as you might imagine.

I didn't want to delay my return to blogging until that was done so have created a super quick collage of some of the beautiful pink flowers from the floral decoration in the hotel lobby and also from a gorgeous arrangement that arrived in our suite one morning courtesy of the hotel.

Meeting up with other like minded bloggers for 

Pink Saturday with Beverly at How Sweet the Sound 

and Judith @ Lavender Cottage  for Mosaic Monday.

Will be back with more travelers tales soon.......

Chatsworth House is in the pink

This weekend Beverly @How Sweet the Sound is celebrating 6 years of Pink Saturdays!

Congratulations, Beverly.

Although it has been a long while since I joined in the pink party "ness" Beverly never-the-less invited me to her party and I have just the perfect thing for show and tell this week.

Magenta is the new pink.

Martin Craig-Martin, a former teacher at Goldsmith's College in London is currently exhibiting some of his sculptures in the grounds of Chatsworth House  one of these is a giant high heel shoe, it's pink of course!

Inside the house he has also covered some of the plinths, on which the marble and mosaic sculptures rest, in magenta, too. They are quite striking and our guide told us that they take some getting used to. He wasn't a fan of them, personally.

The Chatsworth lions were commissioned by the 6th Duke of Devonshire in 1823. The sleeping lion was made by Rinaldo Rinaldi; the crouching lion by Francesco Benaglia after the famous lions made by Antonia Canova for the Rezzonico Monument in St Peters, Rome.
The Chatsworth lions each weigh 3.5 tonnes!

If you're feeling in the pink yourself why not pop over to How Sweet the Sound 

to see who else is partying and wish Beverly a very Happy Birthday.

 I'm sure she'll be very happy to see you.

Pink Blossom

This week we saw warmer weather returning to Normandy and with it came our summer resident house martins who have been busy fluffing last year's nests in the rafters over the garage.
They fly so fast overhead it is impossible to be sure just how many have returned this year from Africa but I think there's at least three nesting pairs making their home with us, once again.

google image

The sunshine also brought out the beautiful blossom on our fruit trees.

The espaliered apple trees are looking particularly beautiful this year.

The ornamental cherry tree which is now almost as high as the house roof is a mass of vibrant pink blossom.

I love to look at it through my bedroom window as a sip my first cup of tea of the day.

Wishing you a beautiful start to the weekend, too.

Sharing the pink with Beverly @ How Sweet The Sound

Pink Saturday
and
The Tablescaper for
Seasonal Sunday #149

Homemade Bread Day.

November 17th is Homemade Bread Day and later on today, to celebrate, I'll bake a crusty loaf to eat with homemade soup for lunch.

I really enjoy eating baking fresh bread and of course we can buy beautiful baguettes and pains of various types locally, but really, is there anything to beat the smell of baking bread as it wafts through the house on a cold chilly morning in November?

I only started baking my own bread last year after being inspired by TV cook Lorraine Pascale.
The blog post that I wrote back in February 2011 has been the most visited of all my posts, receiving over 2000 hits since it was published!

Click here to read how she inspired me to get started

and perhaps you'll be baking bread today, too?

Joining Beverly @ How Sweet The Sound

for this week's themed Pink Saturday

"We gather together"

Old Fashioned Pink Rose

Possibly the last old fashioned pink climbing rose of this year was too beautiful to leave out in the wind and rain, especially after I realised how much it resembled a rose engraving featured in "Treasury of Garden Writing" a favourite book from the Royal Horticultural Society.
The Senior Partner offered to photograph the rose and book together so, I created a pretty vignette on a table in the dining room.
Since getting the new ipad a few months ago the SP has been learning several new photography techniques, he also took the photograph that I'm using as my new blog header image using the ipad.

He used something called PhotoToaster for the altered image above.

Roses by George Eliot.

You love the roses - so do I. I wish

The sky would rain down roses, as they rain

From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?

Then all the valley would be pink and white

And soft to tread on. They would fall as light

As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be

Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!

Joining Beverly @ How Sweet The Sound for Pink Saturday.

Click on the link for lot's more pink.

Pink Saturday

This morning I popped into my local village for a few groceries

 and was blown away by the florist shop's new "do".

Luckily I had my trusty Lumix in the car and was able to snap a few photos 

to share with all you Pink Ladies today.

I think you'll agree that this outrageously pink makeover certainly brightens up the High street!
It even "out pinks" Beverly's button!

Click on the button below to join Beverly @ How Sweet The Sound for another deliciously Pink Saturday!

Bon Weekend!