How does your garden grow?

Oh how much better everything feels when the sky is clear blue and the air is warm. How are you all, my sunny smiley readers. To ask if you are enjoying the sunny interlude would be silly so I won't but I trust that you are all soaking it up as much as you can.

Sunny weather means time in the garden for me, particularly when I am waiting for payday and need to avoid spending money. It's probably un-natural to enjoy my garden so much at such a young (ish) age..but I am what I am. I don't make any apologies for it. The heart wants what it wants.

This evening I took a little wonder around with my camera to capture my summer garden this year. It's looking lovely in the sunshine, I must say..

I spotted this little guy getting intimate with my lavender. It's smelling wonderful
at the moment (the plant..not the bee)

My climbing rose has finally learnt to climb and now it has outgrown the 7 foot trellis and
is now reaching on up into the blue sky. 

Beautiful penstemen, I adore the colour on this one.

Obligatory cat photo, he's such a poser is that Mr Austen.

Thank you for your wonderful book recommendations in my last post. If you missed it last week and you have a fabulous book that you think I should read, do please let me know. I am currently avidly reading 'The Language of Flowers' as suggested by the wonderful Jem from Beautiful Clutter. She was spot on with this recommendation as I had been thinking of reading it anyway.

Besides reading and enjoying the sunshine, I have been coming to terms with the fact that change is afoot..both at work and in my personal life. Not bad change, not at all. Just some things that will make a real difference and I am excited to see where it leads. (Not the work stuff, that's pretty boring). Change may also be on the horizon in other ways. I am considering upping sticks and moving to the country and I have been pining over beautiful homes in Sussex and Surrey. It's defnitely on the cards! On a less serious note, I have also been getting busy with some rose decals and decorating any glass vase, jar or drinking vessel that I can lay my hands on. It's so simple and so effective. Have you ever tried it? I will post my results some time soon. But if you are following me on Instagram then you may have seen my little sneaky peak.

And that is all for now. What have you fine folk been up to? How are your beautiful gardens doing these days?

I am wishing you a splendid sunny week whatever you have in store. Do please think of me as I prepare myself to battle the tube journeys to work and back again during that big sporting event that is starting on Friday. Roll on August 10th..that's all I can say.

With love,

Lexie



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Lexie's book club

Hi pretty ladies,

How are you holding up? We are on the downward slope to Friday and what will hopefully be a sunny weekend. (Here's hoping).


So, I have gathered quite a few lovely followers over the last few months (Hi everyone!) and I would like to call on you all for a little bit of help. It's bloggers privilege after all.


I'll get straight to it..I love books, I love buying books, I love owning books, for many years I enjoyed studying books, and for many years after that I enjoyed being surrounded by books as part of my job in a library. Mostly, I love lining books up on shelves and admiring the spines standing side by side, it's very pleasing.

The problem is, I am a fussy reader and I struggle to find books that I enjoy. I need a book to grab me and keep me wanting to come back and I very rarely find a book like this. That's where you come in. You seem like a well read bunch, the literary sort that enjoy the pleasure of reading anything from Adele Parks to Jane Austen. I admire that.


So perhaps you can help a blogger out? Do you have a gem of a book that you have been holding onto that you want the world to know about? Share it with me, I'd love to hear about it.

Most of my favourite books are written in the first person perspective with female protagonists. I especially love books in diary or letter format, I enjoy a good love story but I am not normally one for 'Chick Lit' I'm afraid. I enjoy sad stories, darker stories, they don't need to be light and fluffy. I appreciate good writing. I find bad writing very jarring and I will give up on a book very quickly if the writing annoys me (It's the curse of studying creative writing..you learn about the worst literary faux pas and then you can't unlearn them). Perhaps a better way to explain my tastes is to say that my most loved (non classic) books are 'One Day', 'The Lovely Bones', 'The death and life of Charlie St Cloud' and 'Dash and Lily's book of dares'. These books have kept me reading until the very last word and then left me wanting to read them again and again or write something equally amazing. So do with that information what you will.

And with that, the challenge is set readers, can you find me something to read? I will consider anything, the field is wide open...apart from the 'Fifty shades' trilogy, please don't tell me to read that!

I look forward to hearing your recommendations.

With love,

Lexie

x

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For the love of Cornwall..

Hi beauties

Thank you for your lovely comments on my last post. They always make me happy and I needed it this week.
I can scarcely believe it has been a week since I came home from my blissful holiday but here I am. Flicking through photos, trying to recall the fond memories.

The building with the white porch is our cottage, Rough Tor is in
the background.

I spent two lovely long weeks in Cornwall with my family and my best friend (also my housemate and practically part of the family). We stayed in a farmhouse cottage on a farm just next to Rough Tor and the surrounding moorland, which meant staggering views on the good (ish) weather days and lots of fog on the other days!

We climbed Rough Tor twice and the views were very much
worth it.

I won't bore you into a stupor with tedious photos that won't mean anything to you but I thought I might share some of my favourites and my highlights.

This year we had a very relaxed break, but having spent several summer holidays in Cornwall we have gathered a few treasured places that we always have to visit. So we went back to see the old favourites and also spent some time in new places too and of course, I took many photos along the way. 

 It was so nice to be back in my most favourite parts of Cornwall, like Boscastle and the beautiful Bedruthan Steps which has the best coastline views I have ever seen...I have seen lots.

We followed our usual tradition and I ate my favourite ice cream at Boscastle..it is by far the best Ice cream I have ever had.

Of course, you have to walk off all that ice cream and walk we did. We climbed hills, walked across moor land, strolled around narrow streets..most of them uphill and we braved the steep steep hill to visit Tintagel Castle for the first time in years.

I saw new and interesting places and enjoyed exploring them..

Port Isaac Cottages

Lovely window at Cotehele house and gardens (National Trust)

Along the way I saw beautiful flora and....apples..

Hydrangea at Lanhydrock House

Rain drops on roses at Cotehele house

Apples

There were lots of strange and beautiful things to capture on film..

Door handle at Lanhydrock gardens

Jam for sale outside someone's house in Port Isaac

Sundial at Lanhydrock gardens

The best part though, was spending time with my family..

Dad, Step mum, Brother

The weather wasn't sympathetic, although there were a few occasions where the rain held off long enough for us to get indoors and we did manage one picnic in a brief windless, rain-less spell. 

However, on our many hikes, I spent most of the time looking like this..

Windswept

In between the walking and the exploring, I took some time to do the things I love the most..

Craft fair (and rubbish flea market) at Mevagissey

Antique centre in Truro

And when the last evening rolled in, the sky cleared, the rain held off and the view was there for all to see and absorb. We rolled out the BBQ and enjoyed the quiet for one last time.

I definitely miss Cornwall.

I hope I didn't bore you with pictures! Thanks for reading.

If you feel the uncontrollable urge to see more photos, you can do so here.

x x x x x x x x

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A thrifters tale

Happy Sunday to you all.

It is time for my promised post about my thrifty adventures while on holiday in Cornwall. This post will be a little picture heavy, I hope that's ok!

Being, as so many of you are too, totally addicted to vintage china collecting, I make it my mission to visit every charity shop or flea market that I come across. This is especially fun when in a different town, or in my case, county.

I was lucky to be staying in a cottage just outside of a small town that had two charity shops, both of which were shops that were unique to Cornwall so offered something new to the ones you usually find. It didn't take long for me to find a way to pay them a visit and the visit paid off...

So that was that, if I didn't make it into another shop, I wouldn't mind, I had these new additions. But, no surprise, it wasn't long before I started looking up Boot sales and markets in Cornwall.

On the second weekend of the holiday we went off without the parents to visit some flea markets that I had found. It was not my lucky day, both markets were shockingly small and mostly a waste of time and petrol! I did console myself with this set from one of the markets though..

I had been looking for new (old) dinner plates so i wasn't going to leave these behind. 
After leaving the second tiny market empty handed (we're talking three stalls here) we spent some time walking around the town and stumbled upon an Oxfam shop where my disappointment was further quelled by another lovely find.

This is going to be a fruit bowl.

To make up for the disastrous flea market hunt I tried to find some boot sales to visit the following day. I found one that sounded great and a smaller back up sale a little further out. Great, I thought. Readers, it seems that something was against me because it turns out there were no boot sales, both of them non existent, just empty fields. Cue major annoyance and a mini tantrum as we headed home empty handed.

But all was not lost, the boot sale Gods were not totally against me and I spotted a sign for a Sunday boot sale in the town we were staying near. Cue a quick mood change.

So, we headed to the boot sale on Sunday morning full of hope. I saw cars, I saw boots. My luck was changing. It was soon very obvious that this was quite possibly the smallest boot sale I had ever seen with only 5 sellers. But that did not discourage me, oh no. Five sellers is better than none at all! I came away with some real treasures having only spent £2!

 Pastel green shades are my absolute favourite and I was very pleased to be able to inject this colour into my collection. And for the total price of £1, I wasn't going to resist. I also managed to find two big jars for £1 showing that when it comes to boot sales, it is not always about size.

My tale does not end there though folks. On a rather miserable Monday last week I decided to make another trip to the local town to look around the two lovely charity shops again..just in case. One of the shops, excellently named 'Sweet Charity' was having a china sale with a table full of china at unbelievable prices. I had a good rummage through the piles of plates, bowls and side plates and found myself a little three piece treat..

I found a beautifully shaped rose print plate, a powder blue side plate in a similar shape and a lovely rose print side plate to finish off. Care to guess how much this trio set me back...20p..that's right...20 pence. Didn't I pick a good day to pop back into the shop?

Needless to say, I am rather thrilled with my china finds and my collection is now full to the brim. It is definitely time for a bigger dresser!

It wasn't all about china though, I found a few other treasures to. Like a set of three vintage cake forks and then there was these little beauties..

So, thank you Cornwall. Thank you for these treasures but not for your rubbish markets and boot sales!

With love,

Lexie



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Awake my soul

Hello petals..guess who's back!

Yes, I am well and truly home from my holidays. My days of traipsing around Cornwall feel far behind and everything is grey and London like again! I returned home yesterday to a leaking toilet and a horrifically overgrown garden..(In two weeks...really!?!) There was lavender growing every-which way but upwards..and a whole host of opportunistic weeds that had taken over!

So I was suddenly feeling a little bleary, a little bit like my holiday was a long time ago..was I really strolling along a beach 22 hours previously?

Having said that, my holiday was blissful. It was long and relaxed and although we were plagued by horrid cloudy weather, a good time was had by all. There will be a controlled amount of pictures to follow over the next few days. 


So I have been pottering around, trying to make the house feel more lived in again..it can feel pretty empty after two weeks. 


My garden was too chaotic for me to be able to ignore it for long and while tidying up  I brought some of my roses inside to brighten things up..

That's better!

I started unpacking, starting with all my new things, that's the best part isn't it?..After washing up my lovely new china, my draining board looked rather nice! Yes, everything in this picture is new (to me) and all found in Cornwall. But I will do a separate post about my thrifty Cornish treasures and the adventure I had finding them! For now, a sneaky peaky.

Pastel green china...finally!

And, it's always nice to find a home for new pretty things...my first piece of Greengate crockery, a dotty spoon, found in a little shop in Port Isaac.

This spoon storage idea was shamefully stolen from
the lovely Coco Rose Diaries. And it is a rather poor attempt
in comparison!

But the best thing about coming home after two weeks, is the friendly face that waits for me. I think he missed me a whole lot, he hasn't left my side!

Austen

 So that's me, trying to get back into the swing of things and missing my family dreadfully! And oh how I am dreading Monday morning.

A quick hello to my lovely new followers! So nice to have you here.

With love,

Lexie



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