Other peoples gardens .

This summer I've been away from my own garden so it's been badly negleted,. Mr France did the watering for the hanging baskets and the occasional grass cutting which wasn't needed very often due to the heat.
But I had the pleasure of seeing and enjoying other peoples gardens. Would you like to share them with me.

First my daughters garden,

 where I spend most of the summer when we let our property.

Her garden has very little attention and is a little on the wildside

but has great charm.

Each year the hollyhocks are always so pretty.

Entering the drive way the buddleia greets you, usually covered in a mass of butterflies.

When Mr France & I went to stay in  La Petite Maison. the buddleia I'd planted before I left had come into flower, so I picked a few blooms and put them in a lttle old bottle I'd found in the barn when we first bought this little house. I  took a photo so I could paint them at a later date.

So I thought now is  a good time to get back to doing my watercolour painting.

 Here's the scketch I did in my journal.

This is my first effort for over a year

 I'm still only a beginner, but hope that eventually I will improve.

I've only ever shared any of my sketching with my family.

Back to garden visiting.

This is my French friends garden near where I live.

This part has been created with the help her grandchildren, she has seven all under the age of ten.
I love to visit her and see what the little ones have added during their summer holiday.

A lot of watering has been needed
so every little helps.

Another friend I have I admire so much, she  & her husband had a house built not far from where I live. They live and work in England but divide their time between France & England. Gardening is her passion.

I always say, 'she could plant a stick and it would grow.'

It's not easy for her, but with the help of her husband they have made a  vegetable plot and  grow all sorts of vegetables, they always seem to survive whatever the weather, which gives them fresh veg, each time they come back.

Her first batch of haricot vert.

These pictures are from the garden of a dear English friend who has recently passed away.
Although she didn't live in France permanently she chose  her plants carefully.
 to be able to look after themselves, she loved her garden.

This year her hibiscus in white, pink & blue where spendid.

.

As always her hydrangia was beautiful.

I'm sure she chose these because she loved to wear different shades of blue even if it was only a scarf.

Now this garden I've never actualy seen.

This lovely dahlia I've only seen from this photo,as it's  in the garden of my lovely English friends.They used to have a second home near to where I live in France. Her garden in France was planted for every season and always looked as if someone lived there permanently.

They sold their house 2yrs ago and the new owners do live there permanent and they have changed it completely, now when I pass I feel so sad as it doesn't look as pretty as when my friend was there.

Now to North Wales, where my family live.

These beautiful pink poppies are so delicate they are almost like tissue paper,
  are in my nieces garden and she has just been to visit us and brought me envelopes full of poppy heads.
So hopefully I'll have some flowering in my garden next year.

This is my sisters garden also in Wales.
This lovely clematis climbing up the wall to greet you at the front door.

Their garden at the rear of the property.has always been lovely.
Now it's planted mostly with shrubs for ease of maintenance.

This arbour is usually covered  in pale pink clematis flowers.
but due to their severe winter & late snow in spring it's suffered a bit.


My brothers house was an old Welsh farm.

He loves his garden.

When he was younger he was head gardener on the estate of Lord Sefton in Liverpool.

The wall surrounding the front of his house is covered in white alysum, red sauge & blue lobelia.

Then he has a tower of baskets, this had only just been planted when I went to visit him in late June, so I'm sure by the end of summer it was a beautiful mass of colour.

Now I'm back home we have a lot to do in the garden. 

I have plans to make a new area for some shrubs.

So some hard digging will be necessary. I'll show you that later when we get it started.

Before I leave you I must show you the gift my niece bought for me at the market just before she left.

This beautiful giant hibiscus

the flower is as big as a large dinner plate.

Hope you enjoyed seeing these gardens, all so different.

à bientôt

Barbara Lilian

Hello from La Petite Maison.

I'm almost back home,  I'm staying in my own holiday cottage  La Petite Maison for a couple of weeks while the last of the holiday makers are still here.

Mr France and I ( he's been reading my blog and  said he'd prefer to be called that, than my other half )  love this little cosy cottage, we always feel as if we are on holiday when we stay there and seem to sleep in till late in the mornings and spend the day pottering. I've even taken up doing my sketches and water colour painting again. Today we packed up a picnic and took a drive through our country lanes and found a lake we had never visited before. We had the place almost to ourselves as most of the holiday makers have gone home to prepare for the children going back to school. 

This was our picnic lunch 

Charentaise melon & Jambon sec... 

 

 

Roasted tomatoes & mozzarella cheese tart.

 

Chairs waiting for us when we arrived back at the cottage.

The colourful corner collection.

  A perfect day and now the sun going down.

 

   

à bientôt

Barbara Lilian

My summer in La Dordogne

During the summer months Mr France & I leave our home, as we let our house and a small cottage 

called La Petite Maison  for holidays.

and 

we spend time at our daughters while she and her family go away on holiday and we look after her home along with all their animals.

This year we were greeted by seven  new baby chicks who kept us entertained and we watched them grow from cream coloured  fluffy balls into young hens / cockerels.

A few weeks later when we left this is how much they'd grown.

 Hats were definitely a must.

and there was one to suite everyone.

After our long wet spring

It's been a very HOT summer this year, most of us sat in the shade,

but others flayed out in the hot sun.!

Oh... it's too hot !

One, would love to cool off !

but doesn't like getting wet.

Family bikes prepared, ready to go in the van for a few days away.

I'll stay here in the shade and look after the animals.

The fruits are not quite ripe, so I can't pick them yet.

Thankfully the deer have not eaten the figs this year.

The blackberries are nearly ripe.

Not very many peaches.

So far we haven't needed to light the fire. 

The evenings have been warm.

Let's hope it continues for a bit longer.

 I'll leave my hat hanging on the door until the next time I need it.

à bientôt

Barbara Lilian

I'm back, after taking a break away from my blog for awhile.

I had to get my priorities in order during our upheaval period of house painting and decorating, preparing for our summer letting.
In  mid June my other half and I decided to take a break and took our eldest grandson to visit my family in Wales and England.
Maybe you might like to see some of the places we visited. My grandson met cousins he hadn't seen before, and they took him to visit the places I had grown up in.

This was the old city of Chester.

Boat trips on the river Dee.

Then we went to Llandudno which is on the coast in North Wales, where my brother has an apartment
and  he can spend time relaxing and enjoy the milder weather.

This area is very popular for retired and elderly people to visit as it has a micro climate, due to the mountain called the great Orme which makes it sheltered from the cold wind in winter.

You can take the tramcar to the top of the Orme.
The view is spectacular. Unfortunately we didn't have time.
 But I remember it from my childhood visits with my mother.

   

This is the small island of Anglesey just off the coast,

which can be reached by crossing the bridge over the river Menai.

The name of this town on the island  is written in the Welsh language 

and has 58 letters and is the longest name.

We went to where the old railway station used to be.
which is now a great tourist attraction with lots of small boutique shops.

This is the translation of the name .

Just a little bit of info

Whenever I have my camera, I like to capture the things I find amusing.
I stopped to talk to this elderly gentleman. who told me he motors along the promenade everyday with his two dogs ,One who sits between his feet. but had just that minute jumped off for his daily run along the beach.and this one who rides in the basket, looked too fat to do much else but enjoy the sea air.

I Hope you enjoyed seeing some of the places I visited.

I'll show you some of the other places we visited next time.
Until then.

à bientôt

Barbara Lilian