that Sunday feeling x

things I'm looking forward to this week:

1. arriving in sunny LA on tuesday.....x
2. wearing sunglasses for the first time this year.....x
3. shopping in anthropologie, one of the most gorgeous shops I know.....x
4. starting a new book...."the russian concubine" by kate furnivall

now off to start planning my packing.......photo of suitcases courtesy of mollypop x

apples for jam & falling cloudberries....x

a close friend of mine is recovering from an operation at the moment, and before her op made lots of noises about using her recuperation time to learn to make jam......I bought her this wonderful cookbook for Christmas, "Apples for Jam", which includes a few jam making recipes. Tessa Kiros has wrote a number of cook books, all beautifully presented & with lovely personal anecdotes throughout which make them a great read as well as having the most delicious recipes. I've included a link to an interview with Tessa Kiros, that was in the Guardian last year.......

jam making holds lots of great memories for me, as my mum always made her own jam each year. We're lucky enough to live near(ish!) to lots of "pick your own" fruit farms & orchards, and we'd go through the summer, first picking strawberries, raspberries, logan berries, then later on for gooseberries, rhubarb, and then late summer for apples, plums & damsons. there would then follow whole days of jam making, with jars sterilising in the cooker, wanting to be allowed to stick the labels onto the jars and place the cellophane tops on, then putting all the dozens and dozens of jars away to last through the Autumn, Winter & Spring till next Summer............I wonder how much of this still goes on?


the photo above shows some gorgeous, original 1920s jam jars, from France, sold through Decorative Country Living. As well as their website, they also have a shop which is housed in a converted 19th century chapel in Caythorpe, Lincolnshire.......the shop looks amazing and I really need to find time to take a visit....x

just wanted to share with you two beautiful pces of artwork I've just bought from etsy.................

they are by cori dantini whose blog is relatively new too...x

my first blog ever x

Hi.....welcome to my first blog. I'm completely new to blogging, but have become so interested in other peoples blogs that I decided it was time to jump in and join in! I'm lucky enough to travel with my work, so I'm looking forward to sharing pictures and findings from around the world as well as things from closer to home. I'm also trying to finish decorating my house, and I'm hoping that if I post pics of the house now & promise updates it will spur me into making decisions & finishing it.......trouble is I find too many lovely things and have too many ideas.....the photos above are thoughts for my lounge, and from the Livingetc. website....x