Paris: Those little details

The 'I Love You' wall, I Love You written in hundreds of languages... can you spot the English?

Oh boy, there are opticians on every corner of Paris, most of the glasses I reeeally wanted to buy.  I wonder if it might be a change of frames?

In the Jardin des Tuileries seemingly they use goats instead of lawn mowers.... whatev's.

SWAG.

The beautiful roof in the Gallerie Lafayette.

Paris: Two windmills cafe

Squeeeeee!  Whilst in Paris we visited the Two Windmills cafe where Amelie, one of my all time favourite films was filmed!  The cost of a coffee was a joke but it was awesome to see the cafe in the flesh hee heee so exciting.

Paris: Disneyland

I last visited Disneyland 9 years ago when just my sister and brother-in-law and I visited.  This time our group was joined by MozzyMa, Missy Big and Missy Small which added a very different dimension to the experience!  The girls were so excited and to begin with seemed a little over-whelmed but once we had a couple of rides under our belts the girls began to get into the swing of things.  One of the most memorable moments for me was seeing how the girls reacted to the parade, they were waving and shouting and taking as many photos as they could.

The castle was at it's most impressive during the fireworks show at the end of the day.

Loved the Alice in Wonderland labyrinth with creepy looking star things.... 

One of the best moments of the day for me was being witness to how the girls reacted to the parade, MozzyMa was very much getting into the swing of things with her Minnie Mouse ears on.  I had to keep reminding myself that Disneyland is all about the kids, no matter how much I may have wanted to elbow them out of the way to get a better view of things that really isn't the done thing.  Sigh.

I loved the details found around the park especially this pumpkin lamp.

Paris: the Eiffel Tower

So it has been a week since we returned from Paris and MozzyMr and I have hit the ground running so apologies for not posting earlier!

For five nights the Mozzy family upped sticks and decamped to the Chateux de Vincennes area of Paris. Our crew included MozzyMa, Our Jim, my sister, and brother-in-law, nieces Missy Big and Missy Small, MozzyMr and myself.  It was Missy Big and Missy Small's first trip abroad and I was so happy to be there to witness it!

So first things first, no trip to Paris is complete without a trip to the Eiffel Tower, either Missy Big or Missy Small asked if we went up the crane would we see the Eiffel Tower, we had to explain that the crane WAS the Eiffel Tower....

Happy Friday

Oh crikey what a couple of weeks it has been I am so tired, work has just been totally nutbar.  But here we are, it is Friday and I am so happy to be out of the office for a week and spending some time with my family.  To share the joy here are some bits and bobs that made me chuckle this week.  Happy Friday!

Yeah this is me, I was going to slim down and look amazing in time for the holidays but that sure didn't happen.  Imagine this cat is me trying to get into last summer's clothes.  Not good.

I reeeeally want my good friend Bonny to have photos like this done of her lovely new baby.  It might be a push too far towards kitsch but if I ever have children this sort of thing is so going to happen.

Yep, a dog in socks, Pringle socks at that.

Fairly certain I could eat a whole wheel of cheese.  Is it any wonder the diet isn't going so well?

Life lately

• Working from home... in the garden... in the blazing heat... with my feet in a trug of water.
• Growing sunflowers, the seeds for this flower were taken from the seeds of the flowers at our wedding, we're hoping to keep the line going!
• Weirdness found in Sidford near the seaside town of Sidmouth.
• Buying cute things for a cute baby who has a cute mum and dad!
• Gin, ice, lemon, cucumber.  Back when the sun was shining and we were experiencing summer... oh how those days are missed.
• Watching the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games on the one year anniversary.  This was one of the many, many awesome moments and one of my favourites, in case you can't make it out from this tiny photo they are the pigeons!  Amazing, I cannot believe the games were a year ago.
• Mewster, this is the face she pulls every time I leave for work, little does she know that I don't want me to go to work either.
• Hot hot hot!  36 degree celsius!  I wonder if we'll get such fantastic weather again before autumn sets in?  
• Discovering some of MozzyMr's collections hidden away at the back of a drawer. 

• Eating homemade jam on homemade bread is a very happy thing!
• The first of the chillies are coming along, everything this year seems to be taking a lot longer to mature, which is a little odd as the weather has been so much warmer..?
• This idiot being too cute.
• Growing monster tomatoes!  This year we have been striping back the foliage on the tomatoes quite dramatically and the plants seem to be responding by making extra large fruit, thanks for the tip Monty.
• Buying ridiculous things at the car boot sale for Mewster.  Even if Mew doesn't like her disgruntled hamster water bowl we think it's amazing!
• Letting things go to seed just because they're pretty.
• Celebrating our two year wedding anniversary in style.  Both of us are absolutely shattered at the moment the thought of going out was too tiring so MozzyMr made a nice dinner and I made the drinks :)
• Growing lots of basil to feed my current homemade pesto obsession! 
• Texture on the gates to the allotment.  I hadn't noticed the patterns on the metal before but I notice them every time I pass them now.

Storm chasing

On Friday night there was a great thunderstorm over Exeter.  Being the saddo 'got no money' type I was all settled in reading my book (Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch) when MozzyMr came back from watering his tomatoes on the allotment.  He couldn't understand why I wasn't jumping about with excitement because there was a thunderstorm (I LOVE THUNDERSTORMS) but the truth is I hadn't noticed, the storm was still far enough away to not be heard if you're concentrating on other things.... that's my excuse.

So we grabbed our waterproofs and headed for the playing fields where the storm seemed to be heading.  The sky was amazing and the lightning was the best I have seen, probably ever.  I took a few photos but my little point and shoot didn't do justice to the colours and of course I didn't capture any lightning, but hey I still like them, they feel all moody...

Garden geekery

Well the week of hell finally ended (at work I was covering four people's workload on top of my own) and this weekend it feels like all I have done is sleep which hasn't left a lot of time for much else.  But this morning I did go to the car boot sale and pick up some plants for the garden and later this afternoon MoMa dropped off some plants she had picked up for us!  (I was asleep when she called so didn't get to say thank you in person, sleep really was a major theme of this weekend.)

MozzyMr and I live in rented accommodation so there isn't much we can do to the structure of the garden.  In an ideal world we would change the patio tiles and repair or completely change the raised beds.  This summer I decided to finally make the space our own, we have a well established lavender, hebe, and a fantastic acer that MoMa donated to us when they moved.  These three have set the colour palette for the garden so I'm looking mostly at smokey blues, purples and sage greens....

Mewster exploring the garden next to the hydrangea I picked up from Aldi for a bargain £5! 

The lavender was given to us by MoMa, apparently it never really flourished in their garden but seems to like it in ours.  It was a quarter of the size when we put it in about four years ago.  This bed has been completely taken over by foxgloves, not that I'm complaining!  I have no idea where they have seeded from as we never planted any foxgloves but every year more and more keep popping up.  I stopped trying to keep them at bay and just enjoy the foliage, next year these should all flower which will be amazing.

The plant in the middle at the back with the purple flowers (I forget what it's called) was a purchase from the car boot sale this morning, next to it on the right are  Granny's Bonnets.  In front we have another car boot sale purchase, the small fern, that has been in the ground for about a month now and seems to like it's new home.  Finally on the right next to the gnome candles is a thyme that MoMa gave us, it had been on her stall as part of a display and had seen better days, to begin with it looked like it was dying off, I was ready to dig it out and replace it but it rallied and seems to be doing quite well.  I don't know whether to dig it up and over winter it or fleece it when it starts to get cold again, any suggestions?

I love these planters that MoPa put up on the back wall for us.  Originally there was a russian vine across that back wall.  I hated that damn thing it was completely out of control, the landlady would comment on how much she loved it but we decided to dig it out, it's growth throughout the year was ridiculous and as she didn't have to care for it we decided the best decision  was to be rid of it and replaced with these.  Over the years they have had a number of different plants in but my favourites are always geraniums.  These white geraniums formed part of the selection MoMa brought around for us this afternoon.

This is my non-rockery, rockery collection.  Ignore the Walls Ice Cream container for the time being it has some munched up primroses which need to come out and be replaced.  To the right of that is a geranium purchased for a bargain £1 at a car boot sale approximately three weeks ago.  In the white pot to the right are the succulents that I bought in France.  In the front row (left hand side) are three little house leeks that I bought at the car boot sale this morning for 50p each!  They look a bit small and lost in that pot but will grow into it!  The rest of the plants were the ones I bought in France back in June.

I'm building up a fern collection under the clematis, this narrow raised bed hardly gets any sun and the fern on the left loves it there so I figured I shouldn't fight it and just keep adding more to the bed!