Tales From Pixie Wood

The Day Draws Ever Closer......

This is an image of the invite that is going out to female ( & one male, Hey Sam!!!) friends of mine. In England we call this event a Hen Night. I struggle with this concept as I'm not hugely in to male strippers and cakes shaped like a man's willy. So I'm going down a more sedate, if not just as naughty route, with my pre-wedding party.

You may need to click on the invite to read it properly but I am so enthralled by the area that I live in right now that I just don't want to leave it, even for an evening. So I figured that I'd have everyone round to mine.

I'm planning, along with the gorgeous Louise, Jodie & Jackie, a day and evening inspired by all sorts of people, places and things.

Summer in England is one and I'm being nothing but positive about the weather until the day arrives. Eeeek!

The odd tea dress may make an appearance.

The Mitford girls. I read this book last summer and although I can't recommend anybody ever hanging out with Hitler I loved reading about the parties, and Nancy ?!?!?!.....

......well, Nancy was fascinating.

I'm also dipping into a party inspiration from across the pond. Two of may favourite books in the world are The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night. Yesterday I found a supplier of champagne saucers rather like this one....

But of course it won't be all quaffing champers and lolling about the place with our legs up in the air. There will be some old fashioned lawn games to be played. Some tennis perhaps, boule and of a spot of croquet.

I'm rather dying to swing the stick casually over my shoulder, place a hand on my hip and call out with an air of nonchalance "anybody for another game, then??"

And with that the planning goes full steam ahead. I have a wedding dress fitting in an hour and a half and really should prise my bot-bot away from this desk. Reading back over this post it all seems so awfully refined. I know how these things go and I can almost guarantee that there will be far more giggling and tipsy handstands being executed while our tea dresses reveal our knickers than anything resembling what I've just described. And besides, a game of twister when the clock strikes the hour of midnight will of course be compulsory!

Sam, are you sure you want to come??????

The River Cottage

The house you can see in the distance is the River Cottage. This is the new location on the West Dorset/Devon border and LBH and I had yet to visit since it moved from just outside of Bridport. LBH surprised me with a day spent at the new headquarters, a tour of the gardens and livestock followed by lunch cooked by the River Cottage kitchen staff way back on Valentines Day this year and we'd been waiting about two and half months for the day to roll around. Eeeek!! Any longtime readers to this blog will know how I feel about the River Cottage, its ethos and just how much good they do in making folk aware of the food they eat and where it comes from. Hugh's Chicken Out campaign was a huge success and sales of free range chickens were so high, and continue to be so, that many of the big supermarkets struggled, and possibly still do, to meet the demand. Ahhhhhhh, the power of television!

We did so much in our day at River Cottage and learnt so much about what they are doing and their plans for the foreseeable future but I wanted to tell you about the gardens. The magical, Beatrix Potter'esque gardens.

These rotating beds are at the front of the house and head gardener Simon Hansford told LBH and I that he had planned the next eighteen years for these beds - loosely of course. But it was as I was staring around at the gardens and the surroundings that I had this odd sense of having been to a place like this before. I couldn't place it AT ALL but I kept staring and staring and then it came to me. This was Mr McGregor's garden! It was, it had that feeling and that sense that Peter in his little blue jacket could pop out at any time and be cheeky.

I saw him plopping along this wall to the garden leaving his sisters behind and not really giving any thought to what dangers may lay ahead in human form. 

He would pay little attention to these makeshift propagators deciding that the goodies to be had were elsewhere and in more abundance. He would have been right, as the abundance of food was growing its heart out in the polytunnels.

This is one of the River Cottage polytunnels. Fantastically organised and the air around the produce growing here reeks of organic, seasonal goodness.

LBH and I gazed longingly upon the rows of lettuce variety and both noticed one that was not quite recognisable at the end. Can you see it? I'll give you a close up.

I hope this picture shows you, in all its glory and detail, that these particular types of lettuce are not, repeat not, supposed to look like this. At this time our guide Simon was speaking to us all about slugs and how they deal with the problem at River Cottage HQ and while he was on the subject of pests and garden enemies he turned to the decimated lettuces and forlornly but very good naturedly said " As you can see we also have a rabbit problem"

It was all I could do not to jump up with my hand in the air and yell "I know who it is, I know who it is. Have you seen flashes of a blue jacket?......."

   

Must Have, Latest, Simply Can't Get Through S/S 2008........My Bonny Blue Basket!

I have several baskets like this mooching about the house, as I'm sure many of you do. I tell them that if they are to stay and not be given away as part of a gift bundle or housewarming present then they have to look like they are enjoying themselves and make themselves somewhat useful.

This particular basket paid no heed to my warnings and skulked around looking awfully dull.

I even moved the basket to a position with a much better view. From atop this pile of books one can see right across the kitchen and down the hallway. I got no change in behaviour at all and something had to be done. Now I like love the shape of this basket. Its classical and romantic, not too big or small and has a super handle so because of this it was spared re-homing but I did insist on giving it a make - over.

And this is the result. I'd really like to say that the inspiration to go for the colour blue was my idea but my mother was the bright spark there. We were in a wonderful french inspired home ware store in a town not far from me and she spotted a pale blue painted basket. I loved the blue but I have a few pieces dotted about the place in paler shades and wanted something bolder. Something that reminded me of the type of blue that adorns a small fishing boat or a beach hut.

 

Once I'd finished the paint job I lined the basket with a fabric drawstring lining which will make shopping with it easier and if I pick up something fragile or 'rollee aroundee' it can all be kept safe and tight.

The fabric  lining allows the ties to peek out at the points of the handle and on the ends and I've tied said lining in place.

Here I am wearing the disobedient basket minx, standing on a chair as I'm not super tall. This is an original way to get around using plastic bags (for the love of god and all ocean life please don't unless you re-cycle EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.)  or the ubiquitous re-usable shopper. The little old ladies in my town are regularly seen sporting their baskets and I figure that if it's chic enough for them then I'll have to give it a go! I'm not expecting Paris, New York and Milan to follow suit by any means but I may rustle one up for my Mum and sister and bear a look of false dejection if they even hint at resistance!

The First One

As an English person I wait for this type of weekend, the first of its kind this year, with an anticipation that I can only liken to a dog eager to go out for a walk. Lots of tail wagging, tongue dripping, panting and whining. This weekend was the first real weekend where it was warm enough to be out in the garden without my long sleeved thermal vest. It was bright enough not to have to worry about hours of rain and there was a smell in the air. The smell of a sunny weekend day in England. If you've ever smelt it you'll know what I'm talking about.

I'm having my bachelorette party here at my house and in my garden so LBH and I are working hard to get it looking pretty for the day in July.

Say hello to a new addition to our garden family, Jasmine. LBH and I both have fond memories of the scent of Jasmine which filled our noses on a daily basis while we were in Italy last spring, so when we saw this beautiful version we picked her up and brought her home with us.

If you stand back and look at the front of our house we have a climbing rose dealing with the left hand side of the bench which sits out the front and we both felt that the right hand side of the bench needed something to chat with on a hot summers evening. This area gets lots of sun and I'm so excited about training it up and over the front window.

I have to admit to testing the mettle of our new addition already. I was in the front room early on Saturday evening about an hour after we had manoeuvred the plant in to place and I secretly opened the window adjacent to the area of the Jasmine most heavily populated with flowers. I pottered about the room, plumping cushions and what not and waited. Within a few minutes the syrupy smell hit me.

"YAY!!!!! the smell comes into the house!!!!", I yelped to LBH as he immediately came in to see if he could smell it too. I think the smell hit him while he was still in the kitchen. Joy, joy, joy!

My geraniums are doing well too. We have three large planters going up the steps to the terraced area and when these girls are ready I'll pop them in there. Mixed colours of course. We have what is essentially a cottage garden and I really don't think you can be too precious about something with as many nooks and crannies as we have. I take the wise words of my garden heroine Vita Sackville - West to heart and cover, cover, cover!

My potted Lavender is doing well, prevailing through the past winter and has delighted us with blooming again for the second year. I was given two lavenders as housewarming gifts and they've done so well it would appear that I need to re-plant them in super pots!

Aubretia is something that can be seen all over the county we live in at the moment. Huge bunches of greenery punctuated by a violent purple flower and they have a wonderful habit of growing very well in walls. Driving out about in the surrounding countryside I love to see a random purple cloud of foliage seemingly floating in the middle of a cottage wall. Hopefully ours will do just as well and by next spring I'm trusting that it will be cascading down the steps of our garden.

This weekend also welcomed back another tradition that I love about warmer days in England - the pub garden. Some pub gardens allow you to watch the cricket on the green, some allow you three course meals. Some allow you to watch the day go by at the side of a lake or a river and others allow you stay out until well after the sun has gone down.

We enjoyed white wine spritzers and cold beer for the first time since last summer and I know it seems like I'm going on about it but anybody who has experienced the inclement weather that England has in late spring will know that when you can you LEAVE THE HOUSE! 

We trundled back as the sky began to turn indigo. By then LBH had goose bumples on his arms, but it was OK. He may have been chilly but his jacket was in the wardrobe at home. I'm hoping it stays there.

Going To The Chapel

I wailed to a friend recently "Why are these learning curves always so steep, I'm tired, I wanna get off"
But you know, when the lessons are this good and the answers like individual, daily epiphanies I never, ever want those learning curves to get any less steep.

I was in the house on Monday and I was moaning. An ongoing conversation full of questions running through my head.

Why can't I cut this fabric to the right size?

Why is it still raining?

Why are the channel taking so long to come back?

Why do I not feel like going for a run?

Why am I so tired?

Perhaps I need to go for a run?

Why am I still getting huge, massive zits on my chin when I'm almost thirty three?

Maybe a run would sort that out?

Oh. My. God. Why can't I cut a simple piece of fabric to the right size EVER?

Mmmmmm......what a load of bollox. Vacuous bollox. Draining, unrelenting thoughts about yours truly. I only needed to do one thing to lift me out of this miasma of self centeredness and yet it took me until six o'clock in the evening to do it.

I was tidying up at the end of the working day and I decided to take the bottles out to the side of the house to the re-cycle bins. It was as I bent over to drop them in to their new homes that I realised I hadn't said "thank you" for anything that entire day. I also noticed a breeze on my face. A breeze that always signifies a change in the weather to me. A sign that Winter is well and truly over and although it may not warm up for a few more weeks it was over. It was no longer a Winters Tale but the Rite of Spring.

If I had wanted to I could have walked off in to the breeze and in to the evenings sunshine and followed the sounds of the birds until they decided to retire for the night. I was free.
I was free.
I gave thanks for my freedom. What about people who weren't free, both physically and metaphorically?  In that moment of giving thanks it was like my whole being was transported right back to where it needed to be. Here. Now. Alive. Well. Fortunate.

A year ago today LBH and I were still living in an apartment in London. A family of five were living across the hall from us. The mother would fill a paddling pool up with water and put it out on to the balcony we shared  so that her baby daughters could play in it. They didn't have a garden, or grass to fall on when they played a little too rough. They had a small balcony over looking one of the busiest parts of London. Looking back and seeing just how much LBH and I have been given over the last eleven months astounds me. And so to realise that I spent a day NOT giving thanks simply for cleaner air to inhale than those children, who still live in that apartment, will ever breathe makes me feel incredulous towards myself and the time I wasted.

In a single second I felt great again. I once again noticed everything I had been given and everything that was so good about life in all its forms.

So as well as going to the chapel to be married in a little over three months I am spending as much time as I can in another sort of chapel. One of gratitude.

Giving thanks for the great love of my life and how fortunate I am to be marrying him.

Giving thanks for our home and the garden that we now have.

Giving thanks for today and the moments it held.

Giving thanks for now, because thats really all I have.

Hints, Tips, Trims & Things - The Big 'O' and Starting Small

Over in my forum we have been discussing the big 'O' - organisation. We've been told for a long time by experts, lifestyle gurus  and people that have been successful in many fields how being organised is one key to all sorts of mini successes, and large ones come to that, within our lives, homes and businesses. I absolutely agree with them.

Its freeing to be organised and very disconcerting not to be. Over the last year since we moved in to our house my future hubby and I have been slowly getting sorted. As the postman has delivered papers and bills to us we have gradually worked out a filing system that works for both of us. The kitchen cupboards and the contents of them have been switched around and played with so that we are both happy when rustling up a meal and recently we've been working on a 'one in, one out' premise - we were given two new white bathroom towels recently so we re-cycled two not so white towels and removed them from the linen cupboard.... you get the picture, no?

I've had a category in my blog called Hints, Tips, Trims & Things sitting there for a while and I haven't really used it as much as I could have done. So, inspired by the welcome wave of relief that washes over my caffeinated body when I have pretty much everything organised and am able to get on with the fun stuff that I really want to be doing, I am going to add to this section more often. I would love to hear your ideas on any of the areas which are covered and if you think that there is a better way of doing it you simply must say!

I'm starting on two REALLY simple but oddly effective bits of organisation. One for the kitchen and one for the office.

Many of us have several cookie cutters floating about our kitchens. They can sometimes get lost or end up in odd places and just when you need to lay your floury hands on that daisy shaped cutter it is nowhere to be seen. I have tamed my errant cutters by tying them together with a piece of chunky string and hanging them on a hook...... that's it, no more complicated than that. They are all in one place and I like the way they look hanging there ready to be used.

My email inbox is an area that needs to be kept organised otherwise things can get very messy. I could miss important messages, orders that come through from my shop, notifications from people and questions that I have promised to answer. Not to mention messages from friends suggesting times to meet up for drinks and a Wagamama in town!

One thing that I am sure we have all done in our time is subscribe to websites & forums allowing them to send through daily, weekly or monthly emails. This is fine if they offer a service that we are interested in following up but not fine when they are clogging up our inbox with messages that are ignored. An example of this is a service that I subscribed to over a year ago when we were looking for a house to buy. I suddenly realised that this company were STILL sending me through properties to view even though we have been in our new house for almost a year. I don't need this information any more and I don't need the emails they send through complete with attachments that fill my already too small email inbox up! So I took two moments and un-subscribed from the service. I've done that with several of these over the last few weeks and it has made managing my inbox LOTS easier.

Ahhhhhhhh, now that is better. Starting small and working through bits and bobbles in my work life and home that make each day a day to relish and be excited about.

Have a wonderful start to the week and thank you SO VERY MUCH for all of the orders that have come in since I re-opened my shop. If you placed an order between last Sunday and Thursday you will be hearing it land on your mat very shortly.

 

Like Snow in Rosebud - home ware by Cherry Menlove is now open for trading!

Wow, I beat my own deadline. I wanted to be hitting publish on my revamped on-line store, Like Snow in Rosebud, tomorrow morning. It appears that I did more preparation than I had previously thought and so its up and running NOW, which is GREAT. There were times along the way when I seriously doubted ever having a shop to tend to again.

I think I lost my crafty mojo last year, which is understandable as it was all house, house, house. Of course now the house is tickety boo I am finding that I am working on creating products that I would like to use myself. Take my new 'Flying Fancies'. They are colourful flags for use in food. I have a bunch of these sitting by my desk for my own personal use this spring/summer. I can envisage large plates of cupcakes and picnics full of teeny sandwiches that would look great accessorized by these.

You can visit the store front and wander around at your leisure by following this link......

'Like Snow in Rosebud' home ware by Cherry Menlove

I hope you have a lovely visit and remember that there is always help on the end of email for any questions you may have. Each page has a contact button for your convenience.

I'm really looking forward to continuing to fill the pages of the shop with all of my other imagined goodies. At the start of this year I bought a wall planner and have already marked on it when each new product will go on sale. I hope that by November we're rocking and rolling with a shop that's fit to burst.

Before I pop off to busy my nose in some other exciting stuff I'd really like to show you some pieces for sale which are a slight departure from all of my usual products but ones which I have had the most fun creating.

What's That Pretty Thing On Your Wall? - Colour, Fun & Happy Days For The Walls In Your Home

This is a series of wall hangings that I have been working on. I have been totally converted to the use of primary colours with a dash of naivety in many of my pieces and this theme features heavily in this first selection. Created to give your walls an enormous big kiss of colour I am already working on cup cakes and other designs for the coming weeks.

Thank you so much for looking and may I wish you all a great start to the week.

Let Me Out!

The room I work in/make stuff in and write in when I am at home is not big. Not big at all. So after having spent a great deal of time in this room over the recent weeks I am very ready to leave it and come out to play.

In the past I have had a real tendency to put things off until I think the thing is perfect and ready to be looked at by others eyes but I think Nike summed up my current mood which is one of  'Just do it'.

Just do it so that I can leave this bloody room and get some air!

So, I'm hitting publish on my new and improved on-line shop - Like Snow in Rosebud - on Monday, 14th of April. I had originally aimed for Valentines Day as the day I would be selling again. Mmmmmmm......now what happened there?!?!?!?

I've photographed the products I'm ready to go with and now they just have to be entered in to the site. I have the luxury of being able to add products as and when I can and will be popping more up as the days go by.

I don't have any fancy photographic equipment, as you can see. The tripod I use was bought for £10 on a street market in Bridport, West Dorset. I salivate over a nice big, black chunky Canon and I may just buy myself one when I'm in California this summer. At least then I'll be able to buy it in dollars!

I hope you're all having a great week so far. It's been super cool to see so many of you on Flickr, thank you for asking me to be your flickr buddy, I love it!

A Morning Making Madeleines

Last week I bought myself a new Madeleine tin from our local bakeshop. I wish I could show you this teeny, weeny shop. Full to the rafters of every type of baking aide you could ever wish to use. Each and every square inch of this tiny place is covered, including the ceiling, with treasures.

I opted for the silicon version of the baking tray but may pop back and get the metal tin as I do like the romance attached to that version.

Anyway, I had this notion that I wanted to spend a few mornings perfecting the art of the Madeleine, I'm not quite sure if I managed it but it was certainly a lovely way to pass some time.

The thing with Madeleine's is that they are so very easy to put together and its the baking tray that does all of the fancy work for you. They take between 16 - 20 minutes to bake and in that time you can have a dozen ready to go. They also derive their roots from France and if there's something I love it's french baking.

I was speaking to a gorgeous girl yesterday who told me that her and her brother had opened up a crêperie  in France. What could be more wonderful than that!!!!

So, without further ado here is the recipe I used for making Madeleine's in the morning. I made a few batches and fiddled about with the recipe somewhat so the one I'm giving you is my own, hybrid version, of the one I started with.

English & Cup Measures
2 medium eggs (separated) - I used Cotswold Legbar
100g / half a cup Caster/Superfine Sugar
100g/1 stick unsalted butter
Grated lemon rind of three quarters of a lemon
Juice of half of that lemon
100g self - raising flour / half cup self rising flour

Pre heat your oven to 375 f/ 190 c/ gas mark 5

Mix the EGG YOLKS and sugar together thoroughly but not in to oblivion - if you are using a mixer use the paddle not the whisk attachment.Then add the melted butter, lemon juice and rind and mix those in also, being kind to the mixture and treating it firmly but not bullying it in any  way. These are delicate Madeleine's after all!

Add the flour by sieving it over the bowl itself and gently stirring it in, then add the egg whites and mix it all together well!

Its important to lightly grease the Madeleine tins with butter before you add the mixture as the pattern you are aiming for is produced on the underside of the Madeleine and that is the part that you want to remain intact.
Add the mixture to the individual moulds of your Madeleine tin stopping just before you reach the top and making sure that you have filled the mould evenly, from end to end. Bake in the middle of the oven for between 16-20 minutes and keep an eye on them. You want them to be golden yellow in colour not rustic and toasty so be brave when deciding on when to remove them. Gently pop them out of the moulds and on to a wire rack, allowing them to cool.

Put the kettle on and make a pot of tea in your best teapot, sit back and relax, for just a moment or two and admire your work.

I split my Madeline's and spread one of my favourite jams right through the middle of one entire batch.

I also dusted them with icing sugar. Baking, as most of us have gathered is that wonderful combination of science and creativity, brought together, successfully or not so, under the blazing heat of the oven or stove we use. There really is no telling, until you slide the tray gingerly from the heat, which way your mixture will turn out. For this reason I often hear "I'm a terrible baker, all of my cakes drop in the middle" or " I can't cook to save my life, nothing turns out well and baking scares me. I have SOOO many cook books though, sitting gathering dust on my shelves. The pictures are pretty I suppose"

If you have ever felt like this then I urge you to try making Madeleine's one morning for one reason and one reason only - they are easy and look très impressive!

Even if you keep the entire plate to yourself and never show a soul you'll know that you made them. And what delicious fun was had that morning, in the kitchen.

Who knows, one day Madeleine's the next Croquembouche.

I'd also like to thank the divine Erin Loechner of the DesignForMankind blog for featuring me and a corner of my home in her latest Inspiration e-zine. I am on page 6 and am so touched to have been asked to participate in something so very special. PLEASE check out Erin's wonderful blog and send her a message. She rocks!

You can also find my latest Sheerluxe article here! A big hello to the wonderful editor Georgie, who has worked her socks off to make SheerLuxe the best guide to luxury shopping online. She has also enabled me to feel like Carrie Bradshaw once a fortnight, typing away furiously and trying to get my article to her in time to meet my deadline!

Cherry xoxox

A Whole World Of Before & Afters

I started one of our most risky make-over projects yesterday. We had ummmmed and ahhhhed over doing this since we moved in but really wanted to make sure that we were doing the right thing so have waited this long (ten months) before taking the plunge. I shall do a reveal/show & tell as soon as its all finished but starting on this project did get me thinking about all of the changes which have taken place in the house since we moved in.

The front of the house....

The Living Room......

And, the guest bedroom.....

to use three examples.

I have uploaded a huge amount of before and after pictures to my flickr account and created a set called Our House - Before & After which can be found in its entirety here!

I'm becoming rather obsessed with my little flickr account. I am very late, as usual, in realising just how useful it is to have your pictures uploaded, tagged and stored somewhere. I opened a flickr account about two years ago but sort of forgot about it and then I completely forgot what my user name and password were so I had to start over, and this is what you see here!

I'm often pretty slow on the uptake when it comes to something useful, wonderful, life changing or just hilarious. Case in point - The Mighty Boosh. I love them and recorded an entire 'Boosh-a-thon' over the Easter weekend which I then watched back on Sky-Plus. I'm only three seasons late. LBH thinks I love them, like REALLY loves them, and said as much yesterday.

LBH - Do you love them? I think you love them. This is ridiculous, you've watched a million episodes one after the other. You love them don't you?

Me - Don't be silly. Now pop off and fix me a hot supper, another episode is just starting!

I jest......he had offered to make the supper anyway, but its embarrassing to always be late on the hot tips. I remember a time when it was me with my finger on the pulse. My best friend and bridesmaid Jackie and I would be the ones bopping along to the latest disco funk in the closeted clubs of Shoreditch and would find our entire wardrobes within the hallowed lanes of Brick Lane market. Nothing was too dated and if we looked liked an extra from Pretty in Pink or Flashdance then our job was done. But that was back in 2003, only 5 years ago I grant you, but a lifetime in ones youth. I'm 33 in August and would only ever agree to go out clubbing all night if I was assured a comfortable car journey to the club, instant access to said club - NO WAITING IN LINE - and then the same comfortable car journey home - NO WAITING FOR A TAXI/NIGHT BUS/LAST TRAIN HOME where I would be deposited in to my bed. Oh, and I'd like a table for the evening in case I became tired on the dancefloor. God I'm boring.

HAPPY TUESDAY EVERYBODY!!!!

Lots of love, Cherry
ex- party-girl, lover of vertiginous heels and falling out of the Met Bar on a week night. Can currently be found in Ugg boots and very old jeans mithering about the youth of today and how short everybody's skirts are. And, it would seem, in need of a kick up the boring butt!