Cathedral living

So we'll be here for a while, in our big, blue cathedral, with lots of books and time and swimming, hopefully. (That's the lovely piscine right behind our emplacement! They referred to it as Votre Emplacement, even after a four year absence!) Back in time for 30th July Giveaway, which will be drawn in Poppy's playhouse to facilitate photos of curtains! Hope you're all having a restful, blessed time!

If you had a tiny free moment, you might visit PC's thinking space and leave him a little encouragement!

Giveaways- two of them!

The first one is a complete cheat, because Pom Pom has given away some lovely, beautiful, gorgeous things to ME! And we found them as we raced through the front door on our way to the back door in the usual Irish summer sprint to the washing line. Oh did this parcel brighten my grey day!

I have named the nearly Modigliani girl Laure, muse of Petrarch. She will be coming on holiday with us, and her adventures in France will be posted on our return!

And thinking of our return made me think of coming home from Provence last year and beginning a blog and listing the ten things I had loved and posting photos of the cupcake river we made in tribute to the Haribo factory.

And so, in true blog fashion, d'apres ce que j'ai entendu, leave a comment before 30th July. This will be fraise lachrymose's first birthday, and the strawberries and I will draw the recipient of a little bundle of tea things, cupcake things, word things. Pom Pom, you can obviously enter, but there will also be the July edition of Country Living beginning its trans-Atlantic journey this week!

Measure twice?

It might be that an impending departure on holiday was the impetus, or that I have had absolutely no ideas whatsoever for a blog post, so mundane have been the holidays so far. I have however finally made a start on the five curtains for Poppy's playhouse.

She will be eight while we are away. Last year we went to the Disney Store and bought a High School Musical outfit that they wrapped up with magic pixie dust. This year will not compare!

I did measure more than twice, and have so far cut once. The material I love; it's Ikea's Vitaminer Hjarta and the background is actually white. The light in here is just mellow and quiet. Just like the house with sleeping strawberries- hope yours is too!

God, what do you call an elephant with no nose?

There is a chasm that exists between my real life and my aspirational life, portrayed in this blog. I shall attempt to bridge this chasm tonight...

Today I took my recently released children (Holidays start today! Cry freedom to the oppressed!) to a china shop to buy a birthday present. Hence the very lovely Emma Bridgewater plate, and one mother tumbling over five year old boy thankfully on her way out of said china shop and not dropping said plate.

The plate will be delivered with three tastefully decorated fairy cakes, and one cupcake iced with a musical note, nestling in a handmade-by-Niqi box. So obviously we had to measure the cupcake, although we needed not to eat it long enough for this to be accomplished.

And then we decided to do more work on our summer diaries. It was late by this stage, which perhaps accounts for the fact that during open prayer time after stories Joshua decided that God would like to hear some jokes. I do wonder if he was possibly the only person on the planet telling God a good joke, or two, or three, or.... go and sit on the top step, Joshua, and read quietly until Matthew is asleep.

The punchline, by the way, was a woodpecker!

For Pom Pom (and everyone who needs to meet the most encouraging bloggiste there could possibly be...)

When I first read Pom Pom she was festooning Blogland with images of hobbit houses and little houses, and enraptured I was. This grey bird house is in its colour unworthy of her collection, but I saw it for the manyth time and thought this time of her.

Pom Pom loves people, she loves you, and she writes for you with gift after gift of loveliness. She thinks about you during her day, and I am mostly sure that she prays for you too. She knows that children are precious, but she knows that mums are precious too, and she tells us all the time.

I think about Pom Pom in my hall because in a comment to her I once imagined that she would be going out as I would be coming in, given time and its mysteries, and perhaps we would pass invisibly in some virtual hall somewhere.

And all will be well with my world, virtual or otherwise!

A Midsummer Night's Dream

An impromptu feast for the summer solstice- thank you, Prince Charming. (But, Mise, I really think that ironed linen would be better...)

Three to go...

Here it comes!