dimanche à la campagne - french country sunday

I hope you're enjoying a good weekend.  Here it's horses on the agenda today, some riding this afternoon but mostly  a morning of maintenance.  Tidying up the tack room, cleaning leathers, fixing the fence around the field, replenishing hay and water.

Heavy work that has to be done, and once you get started it's really quite nice.  This is all part of having your own horse at home.  They have to be fed and cared for no matter what else needs to be done.  Our horses drink about 40 litres of water a day, and there is no water supply to the fields apart from me and rain water coming down a gutter!   No need to go to the gym!! :)

bon dimanche!

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where else but Paris? .... lunch with a girlfriend

So tell me, where else but Paris could I meet up with a wonderful blogger friend for lunch at 1pm and leave the table at ... 6.  Yup!  The very chic Tish Jett and I had a little catching up (and discovering!) to do yesterday.

The truth of the matter is that, while Tish and I have been chatting on the phone and by mail for a long while, we hadn't actually met face to face.  It was very exciting!  She's been making me laugh and making me think for such a long time that I was really looking forward to our 'date'!  I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED, Tish is just as glamorous and savvy and entertaining over a lunch table as she is in her blog - wonderful!!

Funnily, when planning the date,  it turns out we shared a favourite address for a comfortable, discreet tête à tête: Le Baretto, restaurant to a 4 star hotel, a stone's throw from the Arc de Triomphe; deep armchairs; delicious food; impeccable waiters,  the totally perfect place for two girlfriends to meet.

In the unlikely event of you not already knowing Tish and her wonderful blog A Femme d'un Certain Age, you should get over there right away!!  She's running an event on the faces of women through life, she started out with celebs and now the whole blogging world is joining in and contributing their own portraits!  Believe me, you want to be part of this!!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

maybe catching up with a girlfriend?

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french sunflowers

Normandy is not traditional sunflower country, but the warm summers over the past few years have made local farmers feel brave and we can now enjoy fields of these generous blooms.  Not being abig fan of yellow, I can't say they are my all time favourite flower, but there is something startling in their sheer size and strength, the patterns in their seed heads and the sea of colour they produce.  What do you think, is it a flower you like to have in your garden?

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