Hazy lazy days of summer.....................

It’s August and practically all of France is en vacances, so grab your sun hat and designer shades and let’s head for the beach.
This looks like a great place to relax and read the newspaper.

The foot stool conveniently doubles as a table, so your cold drink is always close to hand.

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Perhaps you need to cool off a little? Sitting here with the waves gently tumbling over our toes feels so good!

Time to eat? These folding chairs are so easy to bring along and the gorgeous picnic basket has wheels to make life even easier. The ancient rock face behind us will act as a natural windbreak and keep the sand out of our food.
Not a beach lover.................... seriously?
Maybe you’d prefer to spend your vacation somewhere in the stunning French countryside? Why not relax amongst the cushions, it’s lovely and shady here beneath the striped, blue awning.

I’ll just go and set the table for lunch.

We can take our afternoon nap here in the shade. Oh! I see you’ve already reserved your place with sunhat and shades.
Later on we’ll have tea in the garden.
We could sit here, or perhaps a deck chair on the lawn would suit you better?

Decisions, decisions.................................bonnes vacances tout le monde.
All images courtesy of Campagne Decoration my favourite French lifestyle magazine, the next issue is on sale 1st September.

With so much blue around I just have to link this post to the wonderful Blue Monday meme, graciously hosted as ever by Smiling Sally.

I just realized that it's one year exactly since my first Blue Monday post, wow, where has the time gone?

Click here to read it, on the sidebar link for more blue loveliness and say "Hi" to Sally.

A Medieval Sunday afternoon at the Château de Colombières

Visitors to France already know about the fabulous châteaux which can be found in the Loire valley. Many years ago we took the ferry across to France, from England, to spend a wonderful week touring them with our friends K & T.

Until we finally came to live in France I hadn't realised how many châteaux there are in Normandy and we have certainly enjoyed discovering them, touring their gardens and marvelling at the wonderful architecture.
You may remember that I blogged about our visit to the Château des Ravalet some time back, click on the link if you missed it.
Two weekends ago we discovered a beautiful hidden gem, practically on our own doorstep!

The stunning Château de Colombières , less than a 5 minute drive away from our home, was hosting a Fête Médiévale, how could we resist visiting?After struggling to find a space to park, we wandered through the ancient gates and into the grounds surrounding the château, where we discovered many displays and activities depicting how life was lived in medieval times.

It was possible to tour the Château, however we decided to postpone that treat for another day, when there would be fewer crowds around.

I hope you have enjoyed our virtual tour of the Château de Colombières (click on the highlighted links for more information), with it's thousand year history and if you are ever visiting this little corner of France I would imagine a stay in one of their wonderful B&B rooms would be a once in a lifetime experience.

What a shame I live so close by, Ben & I think that their Louis XVI room is just our style!

Linking this post to Mosaic Monday graciously hosted as ever by Mary @thelittleredhouse and also Frenchy's French Obsession Party & Giveaway @Le Chateau des Fleurs, two places where interesting and friendly bloggers get together.

Click on the links to see a list of others also participating this week.

Confused, I know I am??? Google what's going on?

I'm writing this quick post today in case some of my blogfriends are concerned that I've had too much sun whilst working in the garden and have finally "flipped out".
Yesterday I received several emails from bloggers in reply to an email that I apparently sent to them on the 27th July.
All of them were polite enough not to mention whether or not they had found my email strange, although one person did point out that the meme I was inquiring about was months ago and that I had taken part at the time?
Confused, I know I am.
Today I received an email reply from a fellow member of the Quimper Club International, the topic being our upcoming meeting in Savannah this October.
Now, I know that I wrote to this lady several months ago and so when I received a reply I thought how lovely! Then I noticed that the date of the email she was replying to was also 27th July.
Further investigation of my quimperpix google account shows that none of my January emails (with various topics such as snow & winter, etc.) were sent, until July 27th.
So, if you were expecting to hear from me back in January rest assured, I didn't ignore you, it's just that my replies were "lost in space"!

I bet when you finally received a reply, a couple of days ago, you thought "what the heck is this, is this girl loopy??"
I'm blaming it all on the internet gremlins that strike from time to time and will wait to see who else writes back this week, it could be quite interesting.
Has anything like this ever happened to you?

Courgette Fritter Recipe a la Fanny Flagg

Gayle over at Garden of Daisies has requested the recipe for the courgette fritters featured in my last post.
Adapted from Fannie Flagg's squash croquette recipe found in the Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook.

Firstly, in a large saucepan, bring to the boil in 1 cup of water 2 pounds of courgettes and 1 cup of chopped white or yellow onion, add half a teaspoon of salt.

When the courgettes are soft, drain well to remove all the excess liquid, transfer to a large bowl and mash coarsely with a potato masher adding quarter of a cup of butter and seasoning with white pepper.
To this mixture you then add 2 egg yolks, 1 cup of crushed saltines (you can also use TUC biscuits or even Doritos, as I did last time), and half a cup of self raising flour.

Stir everything together.

Beat 2 egg whites, until stiff peaks form, and fold into the courgette mixture.

Heat vegetable oil in a large, deep frying pan, drop heaped tablespoonsful of the mixture into the hot oil and deep fry until golden.

Sprinkle with fleur de sel and serve, voila!

Makes 12 if they like it and 18 if they don't.

Farmer Maggie, c'est moi!

My mini bragfest about the potager last week harvested me some very kind comments.
Mary @ A Breath Of Fresh Air has even taken to calling me Farmer Maggie because of the abundance.
Connie @Living Beautifully, a keen gardener too, wanted to know a little more about the plot so here are some more pix and a few facts.

Two years ago I revamped the vegetable beds which were in place when we bought the property and created 3 long raised beds.
My new BFF is asleep on the bench, not doing her job at all!
Guess I'll have to stand in.
In the bed behind me potatoes waiting to be picked, in the bed in front from the left lavender, rosemary, rocket & sage somewhere in the pumpkin patch, tomato plants and a second crop of haricot bean seedlings just coming through.

They are roughly 22 feet in length and 6 feet wide.

The beds are plenty big enough for our needs and I can manage them myself, calling upon Sean the G only once in Spring to rotivate them and again in the autumn to put the potager to sleep for the winter.

Picking courgettes, with help from Mr Ben.

I usually grow the same things each year, salad leaves, spinach, beans, tomatoes, courgettes, pumpkins, potatoes and a few herbs. This year I added salad onions to the mix and they did quite well.

Courgettes (zucchini) a favourite of mine.

Transformed into one of my favourite summer dishes to make: courgette fritters (delicious) adapted from the summer squash recipe found in Fannie Flagg's great cookbook "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe".

Gardening and cooking, how good is that?

Alphabet Soup and au revoir Mrs M.

When Miss Jenny began A-T back in January I was a bit slow off the mark and missed linking up with the letter A. So, I linked to Suzanne's VTT instead!
I'm so pleased to have the chance to finally link my A post to Alphabet Soup Thursday, now I have a full set.
Mrs M, it's been so much fun being in your class. I'll miss our Thursday get togethers but will pop in from time to time to see how my favourite teacher is getting along.
Au revoir.

I just found out from my good friend Sarah @ HFTS that there is a new meme in town called Alphabe - Thursday @ Jenny Matlock's blog.
I'm a little late joining in as A was the letter of the week, last week, but better late than never is what I always think so, A is for...................Academy Awards!!
The countdown to the nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards has just 6 days to go and the Oscar ceremony will take place on Sunday March 2nd.
So, hopefully Colorado Lady Suzanne with have her computer back up and running in time for her very popular Vintage Thingies Thursday as I share with you some Hollywood glamour and an intriguing tale from yesteryear.
Ava Gardner.
Porgy & Bess star Pearl Bailey.


A few years ago,whilst mooching around a very large Antiques Fair in Le Mans, I came across a nondescript black, plastic folder containing a number of signed black and white Metro Goldwyn Mayer studio photographs of Hollywood "Stars" from the 1940's and 50's and a handwritten notecard. I'm not a collector of Hollywood ephemera or autographs but something about the small collection and the added personal touch of the notecard "spoke" to me. After a very short haggle about the price the folder came home with me.
I did sell some of the pix on eBay shortly thereafter to a collector in New York who knew a lot more about them than I did and probably was rubbing his hands in glee at the bargain he got that day, c'est la vie.
I still have some of them and more importantly to me I have the notecard too, perhaps I'll use them in some way one day. (Mamie Jane if you are reading this I need your creative input here!)
Esther Williams.

The card was addressed to Dear Countess de Beauregard and signed Jean Douglas.
It reads:

" These pictures arrived just lately - and I only hope you hadn't given them up forever!

My husband and I were very thrilled with the entire Iata (sic) conference, and it was a very great pleasure knowing you and your husband. We're certainly looking forward to seeing you both again in the not too distant future".

My google search produced Jean Douglas - an actress working in Hollywood in the late 1920's and 30's who was credited only as "the blonde" in the Oscar nominated (Best Art Direction) 1930 movie The Vagabond King, starring Jeanette MacDonald.

Lana Turner
Elizabeth Taylor.

Hollywood legend, diva and my personal favourite: Miss Judy Garland.

Also included were photographs of some of Hollywood's leading men of the day: Red Skelton, Walter Pidgeon and Van Johnson.

Happy VTT everyone.

Mother Nature's Bounty.

You probably know by now that I love to grow my own vegetables in the potager outside my back door?

I love looking out of the kitchen window and "watching my garden grow".

I can spend hours out there planting, weeding, watering and nuturing, it's the number one priority for me during the summer.

So, just to show you what I've been doing instead of blogging, some photo's of Mother Nature's bounty which we have enjoyed this past week.

Am I allowed to brag a little bit?

On the menu this evening.
Bon appetit.