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

My trip to Denmark.

I feel like I don't know what season we are in ! It will be June in a few days and I'm still wearing winter clothes. I've told you before I love my garden, but when it's cold and raining everyday I would rather be indoors doing something else.

Which means  I've made  very little progress in the garden. Usually by this time of the year all my hanging baskets and balcony troughs have filled out and everywhere is looking colourful, ready for the summer.

I have to tell you I had most of my plants hardening off ready to go in the baskets and we had a severe frost overnight and it nipped the tops of most of the plants, , the weeds are growing like mad, they don't mind the frost.

Although I've been busy planting my baskets ready to hang when we get some warmer weather, I thought I'd wait awhile  until  they are worth showing you. So how would you like to see some of the things I saw on my trip to Denmark at the beginning of May.

If you've ever visited Denmark it would probably be Copenhagen , which is a beautiful city, however my son and his family live in the North of Denmark, so it was a family visit, with some sight seeing.

Here's a taste of some of the things I loved seeing

and a few of my favourite places we went to.

After looking through the window on a rainy day, I could see that the Forsythia needed pruning.
and I know they don't have the time for jobs like this, so I went out with secatures. 



This is what I did with all the pieces I had pruned.

I just pushed the cuttings into the ground. I can't say planted as their ground is so soft. I hope they take.

I have a very good friend, who just shoves bits off plants in the ground and they always grow.
If she reads this she'll know who I'm writing about !

Where I live it's very stony ground, so I'm not always successful.

Bikes can be seen everywhere.
I think even I would ride around on a bike if I lived there as it's so flat.
I loved this pink/white one I saw outside a super market with a wooden box on the front
 for those small things we always forget when we do our weekly shopping.

This one looked so pretty with a large basket decorated with silk flowers.



Bicycles in the nearby city of Aalborg.

 Some of the flowers at the supermarket.

Which I thought were a better selection than I have here in France.

Our son lives near the Fjord/sea and 
we always like to take a walk at the harbour.                       

Half timber modern houses at the harbour.

We spent a lovely weekend at our daughter in laws parents
 summerhouse on the North west coast.

There was a special reason that this piece of architecture was hung here.

 it was to warn you there was a step.

I loved this idea.

 Each time everyone goes for a walk on the beach they collect pebbles with holes in

 so they have been threaded onto a cable.

A sheltered corner.

Our walk on the beach.

I just love the coast, even when it's windy

and as you can see so do my grandchildren.

we walked on to the cliffs and saw lots of birds.

 Some of the Kittiwakes.

They  build their nests on the very narrow ledges of the cliff.

I always love to visit this chateau, as it's so different from the ones I see in France.

These colourful houses are in the northern tip of Denmark

This  circular maze was amazing.

It was designed by a Dane and built from planks of wood.

It was an echo maze, the echo came back 4 minutes after the sound.

A familiar sight over Denmark.

Now we're back to where we started
nearby the local church.

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of Denmark from my visit.

and you'll join me again soon on my next trip .

.Until next time

à bientôt
Barbara Lilian.