Beach Balls and Geese

 As the summer days slump off into the sunset and Autumn slowly takes hold, it's still a pleasure and not a chore to pile the dogs into the car and head off for the beach where they can run around like crazy, chase their balls and each other till they are exhausted and sleep the rest of the day away. I can hear the geese over the house sometimes and this is the first sign that winter is coming and it's not long till the beach walks are no longer that pleasant and I will have to pile on the layers and top it off with my large heavy winter coat to fend off the freezing winds that blow across the beach from the north sea. So I make the most of it while I can.

Norfolk Food Festival at Holkham Hall

Norfolk is peppered with great local producers of quality foods from Pork Pies and Rape Seed Oil, to Cakes and Sausages. And so to Holkham Hall we headed to sample the local delights from a series of Norfolk producers, and they didn't disappoint. I came home laden with gorgeous goodies that I will list and review at a later date - so watch this space.

Brancaster Beach

Brancaster Beach is an amazing place here in Norfolk, and now that the holiday season is over, it's going back to the deserted beach we selfishly love and wish no-one else knew about. During the winter months when we walk the dogs, we are often the only people about. But the summer months bring the tourists out on force and the place comes alive. The car park fills, the shop opens and the beach fills with families of busy parents and delighted children building sandcastles and demanding ice-creams, the far end of the beach is busy with kite-surfers tearing up and down like crazed dragonflies and the driving range is peppered with golf balls from golfers endlessly hitting them like they are aiming for some imaginary target.

The contrast is lovely, but the quiet empty winter months are our favourite.

The building in the picture is the Golf Course Clubhouse, the only building around and if you take a left when you pass it from the car park and walk till you come to an inlet where the sea makes a lagoon at high tide and cuts it off at low tide, you can almost always find seals lazing on the far banks or staring at you from the water. Its magical and the beach stretches for what seems like miles when the the tides out so the dogs can run to their hearts content and they always return from the beach completely exhausted and happy.

It's well worth a visit to anyone visiting this area.

Vintage Shawls and Dummy Covers

Finally I have found a suitable and affordable cover for my dummy. My Dressmaking dummy has looked so out of place as a prop in our house for so long as I have no studio to put it in. I have finally found a cover for it that hasn't cost a fortune. It was in a box of linen I won at the auction last week and looks perfect in the corner of our room draped over the said dummy. I have scoured the web, car boots and vintage fairs for a beautiful piece of vintage clothing that wasn't expensive and here this little beauty appeared when I had all but given up.

Colour me happy!

This mornings visitor

Apart from  from the numerous bees and Bumble Bees that visit our Lavender bushes daily, these butterflies that drop by and flutter around are my favourites of all the insects we see in our little garden. Next year I intend to increase the visitors we see every day. I shall fill the yard with Bumble bee homes, insect nests and flowers that attract insects. I love that our small little green patch is so attractive  to these little creatures. Unfortunately our puppy Adam eats the Bumble Bees - a habit I hope to break soon!

Rooibos Tea and Lavender Biscuits

I followed Alys Fowlers recipe for the Lavender Biscuits to the letter and they are the perfect companion to a pot of Rooibos tea (South African favourite).

Note the gorgeous teapot - a bargain at £3 in Fakenham Market!

Sunflowers are good for the soul

In my early twenties while I was living in George, South Africa and years later when I was living in London and visiting home annually, I used to visit the surrounding towns with my best friend Amile and the two of us would search for coffee shops where we would drink one cup of coffee after another, devour large slices of cake and talk for hours about anything and everything. We were young care-free and happy, very very happy. Anyway, we found this tiny corrugated iron house squeezed in between a large shop and an industrial warehouse in a side street of Oudtshoorn on one of our days out. The house was painted mustard, it had a tiny veranda that ran the length of the front of the house and a plain garden of grass that was browned by the African sun and a couple of rows of large bright sunflowers in front of the veranda.

It was and still is one of my favourite houses ever, I swore I would buy it one day. It was clear that the owners were not wealthy but it was clear for the whole town to see that it was the jolliest house in the whole of Oudtshoorn and the owners must surely have been the happiest people in town. (I have an old photograph somewhere that I will post when I find it)

So every time I see a sunflower it takes me straight back to that sunny day, strolling barefoot down that street when I spotted that house for the first time. They make me smile - on my face and in my heart.

Sunflowers are good for the soul x