The Elves and the Shoemaker

On our weekend in the midlands, we stopped at a few of our Midlands Meander favourites.

At Groundcover I found this little tableau of the Elves and the Shoemaker.

I love the way the elderly couple have crept up to peer at the elves at work.

Romantic Treehouse weekend

We were lucky enough to arrange a last minute getaway at Sycamore Avenue Treehouses on the Midlands Meander this month and we couldn't have wished for anything better!

This was our cottage:

It was called the Bottle House. Many bottles have been used in the design and construction, starting on the right of the front door in the plaster.

Bottles formed a light-filled feature around some of the windows.

The chandelier was made of different sized bottles.

I loved the creativity that has gone into all of the woodwork. Just look at the hinges and the tiller-style handle on this door.

The shape of the hinges were repeated in this blanket box:

and this coat rack:

But my favourite, quirky decor item of all was the phrase over this mirror...

Shepherding Hut

This is Borleymere Shepherds Hut. For readers of Terry Pratchett this holiday accommodation is perfect. It's a shepherding hut like the one belonging to Tiffany's Granny Aching (check out Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, and I Shall Wear Midnight).

Here is an extract from "The Folklore of Discworld" by Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson: 

"Iron-wheeled shepherding huts were sturdy wooden structures, warmed by a small stove, with a chair, a table, a simple bunk bed, and plenty of shelves, boxes and hooks to hold the shepherd's gear."

How utterly romantic. It's on my wish list.

Holiday plans

I'll be going to England later this year and of course have started making a (very long) list of places I might like to see. Today I came across this photo...

Wild at Heart flower kiosk in Westbourne Grove

(the roof reminds me of Paris Metro entrances)

Metro Station Porte Dauphine, Paris, design, Hector Guimard. Photo © Prestel

and now I'm just desperate to see it.

Favourite things

I only found out last month that the Galleria Mall has an ice rink! Now ice rinks have always been a fun place for me but right now I need to get in a little practice because my plans for the new year include...

Ice Skating at Somerset House in London; image courtesy www.visitengland.com

Tate tanks

The Tate Modern gallery in London has opened a new area of the building to the public. Part of the old Bankside power station that was originally oil storage tanks has been opened as a new performance art gallery. From the photos in the Telegraph online, it looks awesome. One of my favourite parts of the Tate is the uncannily vast Turbine Hall and from the pics, these new galleries seem to be similarly cavernous. I honestly cannot wait to see them.

Architects Jacques Hertzog (L) and Pierre de Meuron (R)

Picture credits: 1. REUTERS/Luke McGregor, 2. Ray Tang/Rex Features, 3. Sang Tan/AP (all via telegraph.co.uk)

Cape Town holiday with someone special

There's a special person in my life. So special that just thinking of him brings a smile to my face and warms my heart.

Idyllic mini-break

Our weekend away was perfect.

My Top Blogs

Mint the Shop

Kirsty has great style and a real flair for Art Deco and the 1950's (also known as Mid-century Modern or MCM). Her prices are excellent, the quality of her stock is reliable and she does detailed research on each and every item. I like to check her blog every weekday morning because there are four new items for sale every day! There are so often things that I would love to own. Sometimes I just can't resist. This beauty was posted just after Christmas and I fell in love.

Here it is in my home:

Backwards in High Heels

Tania Kindersley is such a great writer that it's hard not to go on and on about all the things I love about her blog. Her photographs are like having a window in Scotland.

This is a recent photo from her blog:

Busy Bee Lauren

Truly inspirational in many respects. I love the honesty in her writing and her cheerful outlook. She's super-stylish and posts about her life, family, food and clothes. All-in-all a great read.

I hope she won't mind me using this very colourful image from her blog which, to me, mirrors her sunny personality.

Copyright Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew

In the shop at Kew, they had carnivorous plants for sale. I would have loved to buy some but of course there are customs restrictions on bringing plants into South Africa. What I really enjoyed was this sign on the shelf in front of them. So much more delightful to read than the cliched "lovely to look at, delightful to hold, should I be broken, consider me sold".

Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew: sign in front of carnivorous plants in the shop

Where WAS sanehelen?

Mystery house name

On 31 May I posted a question with this photo. The answer was that I was on holiday in the UK, staying near Kew Gardens. This sign was just on the gateway of a house that we passed on the way to the post office. 

Our trip took us to London (the flat in Kew Gardens), Suffolk (postcard-perfect, rural England), Whitby (also postcard-perfect, a seaside town), York (where everything is within walking distance, and old and new are side-by-side) and back to London. There were many times that I had to pinch myself to check I wasn't dreaming. 

Scrumptious pie in Kew

Near the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew was the most wonderful café that served tea and scones and delicious lunches as well (just look at the photo of the pie I had for lunch one day). The area around Kew Gardens is so beautiful and restful. The streets are tree-lined and there are loads of restaurants and interesting shops. The Kew Bookshop took up a lot of our time. There are so many bookshops in the UK and as a book-lover and newby-writer, spending time in bookshops is a favourite pastime of mine.

Narrow side-street in York

In York I spent some time just wandering around the streets of the city. It is one of the few walled cities and the city centre is a meandering maze of streets which cross over two rivers. 

Back at home (and so glad to be here).

Well, we are back at home and I am so relieved to be here. There really is (as Dorothy said) "no place like home". We had a truly wonderful holiday but to be back in my own bedroom and my own kitchen with familiar possessions and kitchen utensils is like a holiday in itself. The sense of comfort from what is familiar is impossible to achieve anywhere else but at home. 

Guess again

Thanks for guessing, Jess, but it's not the Western Cape (good guess that it might be a wine farm) it was just a house name that I came across and liked. Here's another photo - this time a major tourist attraction in the same city. Clue: Northern Hemisphere! 

Where is sanehelen?

I'm on holiday at the moment. I'm afraid there are no prizes for guessing where I am but I'll accept all attempts at guessing most graciously.

What's the name of that song? Something about Mr Postman and "a letter for me"

I'm sitting at my desk and constantly hitting "refresh" on my Inbox, waiting for confirmation of a booking that I have been planning for a few weeks but only got things lined up to make the booking today. It's like the "a watched pot never boils" experience, a watched Inbox never says Inbox (1). Here's hoping tomorrow will bring the answer I am hoping for.

Strategic packing for a holiday

I'm the biggest geek/nerd I know and proud to admit it. I enjoy getting things around me organised and running smoothly. I am a bookkeeper and I love its underlying simplicity. My absolutely favorite thing is getting a complicated reconciliation to balance.

I'm currently planning a holiday and one of my favourite parts of the planning is deciding what to pack. So today I want to point my readers in the direction of a site that has been a favourite of mine since about 2001. The site is: OneBag.com. My favourite quote from the site is "remember that there are two kinds of luggage: carry-on and lost." Doug Dyment, the creator of the site has designed a one page downloadable .pdf file with his entire suggested packing list for a trip of any length. I've used his packing list many many times and passed it on to friends who've appreciated it as much as I do.

This luggage would need a porter to carry it all

Here is the most desirable method to take everything I could possibly need. Even the kitchen sink might fit in there somewhere. I usually strictly reduce the amount of make-up and beauty products that I carry when going on a long trip but if I had this many cases, I could take everything my heart desires.



The slightly worrying part is that I am often disappointed when I find that I've packed clothes that I didn't wear and "necessities" that I didn't end up needing.

Wardrobe trunk

This wardrobe-trunk (right) is an item I would love to have although it belongs more to the bygone days of sea travel (as do the tower of suitcases in the image above). Mostly I'd like one just to keep as a collectable item of beauty and style.

For this trip I am aiming for the type of neatness shown below. Any suggestions from fellow lovers of travel would be most welcome.

Keeping things neat and tidy

The view from up here

I've been struggling with anxiety out of all proportion to my situation for the last couple of months and when I wake up on a Sunday and have a view like this one, I take a moment to just be glad I'm alive, with family, and with time to relax and enjoy the day. Those tiny white specks on the sea are yachts. My camera is just a leetle one and doesn't really do justice to the stark contrast between the white sails and the dark blue sea. 

Luckily for me, my husband is the photographer in the family and when we go on holiday we come back with a couple of family photos by me and a stack of stunning photographs of scenery, buildings, animals and insects by my husband. One mistake we made on our last holiday overseas was not to take a photo of the two of us together. I'm not going to make that mistake again...

Winter Wonderland

I've been admiring Tania Kindersley's photos of her bit of Scotland in winter (her blog Backwards in High Heels is a daily treat) and because I have been trying to convince my husband to visit England in winter, I came across some photos of Kew Gardens in the snow. 
This one is my absolute favourite though. It's by BearTomCat (BTC) / John. He's an amateur photographer who seems to mostly do macro photography but this icy statue is just perfect. It's called Hercules in Ice.

Here is today's view from my window. The horizon in almost invisible so I'm guessing that out there it's still bad weather. It always makes me stop and think when I realise that at the same time that we are having such warm and humid weather, another part of the globe has snow and ice. Somehow for me, it puts my life into perspective, that I am just a small link in a giant chain that is human life on earth.