Sissinghurst after the rain

Typically a bank holiday weekend means rain & true to form a family trip to Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst Castle & gardens began with a heavy downpour. Luckily the rain held off for the rest of our visit & we got to enjoy these beautiful rambling gardens, which shun rigid planting schemes.

Here a a few of my favourite pics...

I'll leave you with a quote from Vita on one of my favourite flowers, the rose.

"Sissinghurst lent itself kindly to their untidy, lavish habit; there was space a plenty with the walls to frame their exuberance. Roses may be found growing in a jungle, sprawling, intertwining, barely tamed & foaming in an unorthodox way"

Dulwich Festival Artists' Open Houses 2014

It's been an embarrassingly long time since I last posted a blog, but I've had a house move & a new job role to settle into, so here we are in May 2014.

I've had a flutter of arty weekends recently what with David Hockney's prints, the fabulous Matisse cut-outs & most recently visiting a couple of artists' houses through the Dulwich festival open house scheme.

I think my long-standing love of print has been re-kindled seeing a working studio in all it's colourful glory, not to mention a severe dollop of mid-century house envy.

Here are a few pics of the fabulous Roddy & Ginger range...

Plus this lovely cushion found a new home. 

More on that to follow...

The end of an era...

It's been almost 7 years since we moved into our current house, the longest time we've spent anywhere in the 13 years that we've been in London & recently putting it on the market has proven to be more of an emotional task than I had anticipated.

There's nothing like prospective owners discussing how they'd arrange furniture or do things differently to get me on the defensive. We may live in the smallest house in the world (not technically proven, but I'm sure it comes close), but it's been our house for a significant time. It's the place where I've surprisingly grown to love gardening, become obsessed with homewares & got to know some local characters, both human & canine. 

The security blanket of familiarity is about to be removed as we hunt for the next place to call home.

So I thought I'd share some pics of our house with you, as shown in its best light through the lens of an estate agents' photographer...

Bruges...

It's been an embarrassingly long time since I last blogged & it seems like years since I was at the Hampton Court flower show. Gone are the heady days of Summer (I don't think we had many of those anyway) & we're firmly into Autumn now. Plus I turned a year older...

Not that age really bothers me, but on this occasion I had the delight of spending it in Bruges. I don't think I've been away on my actual birthday since my designing days, but traipsing around Premier Vision in Paris isn't exactly a holiday, as anyone who works in the fashion industry will agree I'm sure!

To fill you in, here are some of the pics I took on our four day walking tour around Bruges.

Hampton Court flower show

Yesterday I was in my element when I took a trip to the Hampton Court flower show. This is what I saw & the sun even came out!

Show gardens...

Planting...