Gorgeous Garden in Provence

I wanted to show you this gorgeous garden in Provence.


 

It is a lovely mixture of formal, like the clipped box hedges and informal, like the random arrangement of pots.

I love this terrace with it's pretty fountain and row of potted trees.

A casual dining area on the gravel.

A charming little pool house overlooks the lawns and the pool.

I have never seen cypresses pruned with such precision!

Wrought iron, statues, pretty pots - all the things that I love.

There is something so romantic about an arch with climbing roses.

 

An island of agapanthus!

I knew you would want a glimpse of the interior as well!

So pretty.

I adore the scrubbed pine table.

 

Till next time

Sharon x

Image source: here

Blog it Forward and Random Monday Musings

My friend Veronica from the fabulous blog Tassels, Twigs and Tastebuds asked me to participate in her Blog it Forward series where I reveal some of my innermost secrets. Please go and pay her a visit if you dare!

I have 10 very random Musings for you this Monday.

1. Since I have been blogging now for over a year, I feel that I know you well enough to introduce you to my children. Here they are.

We also have the cutest new addition to the family....

She is the only other girl in my family and her name is Blossom.

Named after this....

...and not this, as some people have suggested. Really!!

2. I have always been quite addicted to beauty. I love looking at beautiful paintings, I love being in beautiful surroundings, I love searching for beautiful pictures in magazines and the web and taking in every last detail. The beauty that I'm referring to doesn't have to be expensive or luxurious, in fact I'm more likely to find beauty in simple and natural things. I believe that someone like me would be described as an aesthete, but when I looked at the definition of aesthete I was a bit shocked.


aes•thete or es•thete (stht)



n.


1. One who cultivates an unusually high sensitivity to beauty, as in art or nature.


2. One whose pursuit and admiration of beauty is regarded as excessive or affected.

Is my pursuit of beauty excessive or affected I wonder?

3. Has anybody found an alternative to Picnik - there is less than a month left!  My photographic skills are somewhat lacking and I found Picnik to be a good friend in that regard. It has also been so much fun playing around with colours and textures. (I tried to make a photo of my dogs look a bit like an old fashioned postcard here.) Any tips on a replacement for Picnik will be most welcome!

4. I did a post here on potting benches and I thought I would show you my talented friend Debbie's little potting corner. See how cleverly she has used an old washstand, planting annuals in the basin! One day I will do a post on the rest of her home if she will let me!



5. This bunch of flowers goes to one of my readers, Agnés. She leaves me wonderful comments in French which I love because it gives me an opportunity to practice my very basic French. I try and work out what she is saying and then go to Google translate to check whether I have got it right. You will be pleased to know, Agnés that my French is improving a little bit thanks to you so keep them coming!

6. Whatever happened to those lovely girls from Under Spanish Moss. They arrived in the Blog world with a bang and left with not even a whimper. I miss their beautiful posts and often wonder what became of them. Anyone??




7. Did you know that in Africa we don't have to backwash our swimming pools ourselves, we just call in the elephants! LOL




8. I am going to stick my neck out here and say...

.... that I think putting extremely ugly contemporary furniture like this in an extraordinarily beautiful room like this is a travesty!!

9. Did you see the movie "Midnight in Paris"? It is worth seeing a few times just for the Paris scenery alone.

10. To end off my very random ramblings, I would like to leave you with this inspirational thought.

Have a lovely week

Till next time
Sharon x

Simple Beach Living

Bakoven is a small seaside suburb of Cape Town and is named for  the oven-shaped rock through which the sea foam bursts like escaping steam in rough weather.

 

This fresh, whitewashed cottage couldn’t be any closer to the sand and water. The owner describes their idyllic lifestyle : ‘We all know each other – at sunset, everyone sits on their front walls or steps, sharing a bottle of wine and catching up.’ Doesn't that sound just perfect!

A lover of bargain finds, the resourceful owner did the interiors herself. ‘A well-known interior designer once came up from the beach and had a look, and his advice has always stuck with me – he said that the painting was outside the window and that whatever happened inside shouldn’t compete with it,’ she recalls.

They used boulders from the site to build the beautiful stone wall.

Few things were bought new. The owner sewed the simple slipcovers for couches and chairs, fashioned side tables out of old wine-barrel lids, used hopsack for curtaining and gave her existing furniture a lick of paint.

The owners periodically rent out their home to guests, who never fail to enthuse about their stay. ‘We’ve had people from all over the world, accustomed to five-star hotels and all the best things, and they always say what we believe: nothing compares to this lifestyle right on the beach.’

I hope you enjoyed this little taste of life on a Cape Town beach.

Till next time

Sharon x

Image and text source: here

Pretty in Paarl

Paarl is a beautiful, historic town outside of Cape Town and this home is perched on a hillside in the Paarl Valley. When you see the pictures below, though, you could very easily think you were somewhere on a hillside in Provence.

The house has a beautiful setting amongst the vineyards.

The kitchen cabinets are a pretty blue grey colour with a contrasting centre island.

The kitchen has a dining area and leads out to the pretty garden.

There is a separate laundry and scullery through the doorway at the back.

The comfortable living room has a beautiful fireplace and arched doors leading out onto the patio.

The home boasts beautiful screeded floors and plastered walls.

It has such a spacious and airy feel to it.

A sitting area with a lovely view in the main bedroom upstairs.

A beautiful bathroom.

Red roof tiles and lavender - so typical of the Provencal countryside.

A seating area with fireplace in the background overlook the pool.

The pool is in a beautiful sheltered courtyard.

I love the arches and the stone. It gives this newly built house the feeling that it has been around for centuries.

The beautiful front facade of the house.

I would love to hear what you think of this home.

Till next time

Sharon x

Images via here