HOLIDAY (AT HOME) THINGS

This Christmas and New Year break has been so lovely, it's the first time for as long as I can remember that we haven't gone away either for Christmas or a New Year visit to The South Coast (my husbands parents and family live there) ....
this year they visited us for Christmas and the rest of the time has been a lovely relaxing holiday time at home catching up with friends and just hanging out ....
some nice things have been my new Nigel Slater cookbook ....
(I want to try everything !!!)

 flowering pots ....

 a new little chair purchased from a New Years Day car boot sale ...

our new addition to the coat rack, my husband's new Akubra hat, a Christmas present from his mum
(I must say he wears it very well !!!) ....



 afternoons on the deck ....



 Hydrangeas from the garden ....

relaxed dogs ....

.... and this book, good bedtime reading, it's written by one of the Guinness girls and it's quite an interesting read so far.

 We also saw a few films, my favorite was Melancholia , there have been a lot of mixed reviews but I loved it ....

as well as quite a few trips to Sydney and quite a few pizzas at Pizza e Birra,
the seafood and prosciutto and rocket are our favorites .....

..... and quite a few trips to Gelato Messina

as well for their burnt fig gelato ...

soooo good !!!

I will get back into some more regular blogging next week ....

I've got a few new photos to show you of our newly painted and revamped home and the mantel I showed you a while back ...
(I love it !!!)

.... in the meantime I hope you have a really lovely weekend

XXX

The Glimpse of a Promise

The Glimpse of a Promise

They flood my television screen as the hour nears midnight. Variegated hives of revelers swarming the streets of iconic cities - arms pumping the air, faces split open in joyous grins. No one is immune to the palpable excitement that builds as the numbers fall - ten, nine, eight - into a mad frenzy now keeping time to the fireworks popping outside my own window. It is a universal excitement that almost takes form - swelling out, stretching up, reaching back, branching forward - sprouting hope and desire that flower almost before our eyes into goals and ambition; a great rolling tide of optimism that gathers us all up and leads us, singing, into a new year.

Here, we share a quiet kiss.

A dog’s head gets a tousle.

Thus, we pass another waypost on our journey through time.

We turn a corner.

We start off anew.

Prone to contemplation, I am sitting by the window in thought when I hear my name called. The Songwriter has accompanied Edward and Apple on their bedtime ramble out in the back garden and I am being summoned to join them. I wrap a shawl round my shoulders and head outside to the dark.
“Look up”, he says, smiling.

And I do, into a sky of navy blue, speckled over with winking stars.

“Yes, it’s lovely”, I say.

“Keep looking”, comes his reply.

And then I see it.

Skimming across the canvas of night like the spark from a magic wand, a hope made manifest, a visible dream encircling the stars.

A shooting star.

“I saw one, and now you’ve seen one too. Good omens, I should think”.

We wait a while longer, but no more flash above us.

Just two.

Just for us.

We reach down and pat the dogs sitting silently at our feet.

One white, one black. Both dear.

We four follow each other back inside to the warmth, knowing whatever this untested year has up its sleeve we may hold fast to the glimpse of a promise that soared through the sky on its very first night.

Happy New Year indeed.

BOURRASQUE

Wish I was in Lyon, France to see this beautiful light sculpture ....

"Bourrasque" is a sculpture installed in the courtyard of hotel in Lyon for the city’s annual Festival of Lights, the 200 suspended sheets were made from an electrically conductive material that lights up when a current passes through it. 

London designer Paul Cocksedge molded each sheet of paper by hand – the paper is the same size as a sheet of a3 paper ....

.... really quite magical !!!

found via here