garden love

At the moment my life is all boxes, boxes, boxes and unpacking boxes and getting the house organised. So the garden hasn't even had a little look in over the past few weeks and with all the rain we've had it's becoming more of a jungle than a garden.

Today, I'm dreaming of getting out into the garden one day soon and planting some lovely bright colour for spring and summer...it's just around the corner you know. I can't wait to get some order into the garden so I can find a home for the beautiful dark pink peony Leanne gave me when mum died (one of mum's fave flowers). Love you. x

❤

Friday faves

Grey, wet and miserable here today. Great weather to be putting the wellies on and getting out in the garden while the ground in wet and soft. After being a rental property for three years, my garden is a mess (my house needs some definite TLC too, but that's another story). So my faves today are pics from Martha's gardens.

I'm hoping they will provide me with some inspiration to get out in there with the clippers and get some order back into the chaos that is my garden.

❤

Gardens and gardening...

I'm a gardener. Some people are and some people aren't. I can't say that I'm expertly good at it. I wish I was. But it is something that I really enjoy. In fact I'd have to say that gardens and gardening make my little heart go pitter patter! 

Gardening can be one of the most therapeutically blissful things to do in life. 

This is where it all started for me. The garden where I grew up (above) - mum and dad's pride and joy. For me, as a child, it was like a huge parkland. A lovely big private park. All for me. And my sisters. But mainly just for me! ; - ) ❤ Thank you to my mum and dad for instilling in me a love of all things gardens & gardening ❤. 

So when my children came along it was only natural that I wanted them to enjoy their own little green space. Little being the operative word because we lived in the city, so that meant moving further out of the city in order to afford to live somewhere with a garden. But I was always sure we made the most of what our beautiful city had to offer in the way of parks and gardens. Here they are, below, enjoying the David Jones Christmas in the Park in the centre of Sydney. What a beautiful day that was. 

Not only do we appreciate using the parks and gardens, that the city has on offer, to wander through on beautiful sunny days, we also learnt to appreciate our wide open public parks and gardens in times of need. Especially during bush fire season when the giant Hercules helicopter called ''Elvis'' would land on our local playing oval to refuel. What an exciting adventure watching that helicopter take off and land.

We also learnt to appreciate the beauty and the simplicity of gardens. This is the 'Welcome' garden that Emma and Sean planted as a thank you to their pre-school when they left to go to 'big school'.  A simple gesture to say thanks... a way of beautifying their community and surroundings. Gone are the weeds, replaced by a simple gift that gives...lovely big blue agapanthus. 

Moving into our first home with our teeny tiny garden was a great adventure - teaching the kiddos about gardening and getting in and getting their hands dirty, planting something that gives life.  It didn't matter how small it was. It was always green and it was ours. And boy did we enjoyed marching down those steps to find a sunny corner of the garden for a picnic, where our resident Blue Tongue Lizard would always come out to join us! 

And now, about to move home, back to Sydney after a long & exhausting adventure in Europe. I am so looking forward to getting into the garden of our current home. We had only been in this house for six months before we moved O.S...so I really didn't have the opportunity to make it mine. Now, so many plans...a vegie patch, some drought tolerant natives, a little ''English Country Garden'' corner perhaps, more iris...lots more iris (love blue Dutch iris), maybe even a pool (a girl can dream!)....I love gardening. 

I love that feeling of getting my hands dirty. That feeling that you've really accomplished something at the end of the day. And...that glorious smell after you have watered everything in. Then sitting back with a nice cool glass of wine in hand and taking it all in...the trees, the greenery, the flowers... my own little piece of Aussie bush in the back yard...it takes me to another place. My happy place : ) 

Today I'm linking up with the very gorgeous Sarah at Modern Country Style for her English Garden Party. Thanks for being a wonderful hostess with the mostess Sarah & thanks for letting me ramble about gardens and gardening!  

I'm also linking up with Sarah at A Beach Cottage's Good Life Wednesday - appreciating life & the little things through the garden. Such a wonderfully wholesome feeling to be in the garden  : )  

(I'm having internet difficulties...ugh... wish I was more technically minded, then I could fix it - when I hit the publish button some of my photos didn't load properly. If you click on the space where the blank photo is it will open up to the actual photo...if that makes sense...oh dear...think I'll head out to sit in the garden now!)

Alison x

*for Mrs McLean and her beautiful, inspirational garden - I am quite sure there were fairies at the bottom of her garden*

more of beautiful theoule, a piece of monaco and a little bit of nice

As with my previous post I think I will just put the photos up and give a few details in the captions rather than ramble on with trivia about our holiday...

Monaco

A few snaps of Monaco taken from the car as we arrived. Love the old apartments hugging the side of the mountain and crowding the roads.

Oh look Matthew! It's us! 

Beautiful Monaco...

Not quite sure if you can see them clearly, but I'm loving these chandeliers on the terrace of this apartment - certainly adds a bit of a wow factor! Wonder how they'd look on my terrace? 

The kids taking a dip in the glorious Mediterranean Sea, they even spotted some very colourful fish while snorkelling.

Pretty happy with myself - eating a Monaco Bar in Monaco. How cool is that!

The white umbrellas on the private beaches.

Casino Monaco - very James Bond (even with Aston Martins parked out the front)! 

The Esterels 

The red of the Esterel Mountains certainly provided a spectacular backdrop to the blue waters of the Cote d'Azur...

and just around the corner from where we stopped to take these photos was the pretty little village of Agay and its peaceful bay. A perfect place to stop for an icecream on the beach and to watch the sunset. Bliss. I don't ever want to leave.

How about that for a new moon rising on the French Riviera? Beautiful? Oui!

Grasse

The village of Grasse in Provence - home of French parfum (yes I did buy a large bottle - well when you are in the birthplace of perfume, it is your duty as a woman to buy perfume!)

From the outside you would never know that this little cathedral in Grasse, the 11th century Notre Dame du Puy, was home to a small collection of Rubens paintings...

It's always worth having a wander through the churches, so many treasures to see...

The original perfumer

Oh, I do love a good basket shop! Got a nice one from here.

How cute is that Orangina umbrella?

And I do love a wander through old lane ways. Grasse had quite a few of those. 

Did you know Grasse was the birthplace of French actor Gilles Marini (Brothers and Sisters & Sex in the City movie fame)? It was also home to the Fragonard family, famous French perfumers (from where I bought my bottle of parfum) and was the death place of Edith Piaf and Prince Eugen of Bavaria? I didn't know these fascinating facts either, but now we do!  

Nice

Taking in the sea air from the promenade in Nice, which was rather nice!

The beach along the promenade in Nice.

Chateau de La Napoule, Mandelieu-la-Napoule 

Mandelieu-la-Napoule is the coastal village next to Theoule and the Chateau de La Napoule a French castle restored in the 1920's by American artists Henry and Marie Clews. Full of secret gardens and terraces overlooking the azure sea. 

I loved wandering through the gardens and seeing a lot of the plants and trees we have at home - agapanthus, hibiscus, lavender, rosemary and especially the pines which were such a huge part of my childhood - I love their knobbly roots sticking up out of the ground.  Rather than making me feel homesick it made me really happy to be here and to have the chance to experience this little part of France. Who would have thought it, me - not homesick? I know it shocked me too! 

It was such a stunning place.

(This photo is from the Chateau de La Napoule website to show the view of the castle if you approach it from the water by boat)

The view from the top of Theoule looking back down over to Cannes and Nice.

One last sunset on the beach and a play in the water for the kids...

Boy oh boy, it was very, very hard to say good bye to Theoule. It was with tears in our eyes that we waved it off and hit the road again, this time headed for Italy...I know, it's a hard life! : ) Hoped you enjoyed a little piece of our French holiday. 

Alison xx