I know. Those of you who have followed me for years have just keeled over in shock seeing Finley, six feet tall, and a boy now in possession of a beard. Honestly? It makes no more sense to me than it does to you. Where did the little boy in all these posts go? Thank heavens then…
In the olden days when ladies were ladies and Love Island didn’t exist, great store was set by the need for women of a certain class to be “accomplished”, not just in manners, etiquette and deportment, but in all manner of arts, crafts and domestic achievement. A proper lady knew how to behave in social…
A gorgeous Sunday after a lovely weekend of pavement café drinks and chatty teenagers. And now, peace. The sun cracking the flags and the lane quiet except for the buzz of lawnmowers and bees. I have made cheese and rosemary scones and juiced oranges, laid the garden table with a checked cloth and flung up…
Sometimes life deals you unfair blows. Sometimes you wake up and realise that this just isn’t good enough for you. Sometimes you bang your head against a brick wall and realisation does not strike until blood fills your eyes. Sometimes my lovelies, you have to take a long, hard look at the life you have…
Over the past few weeks, during my time out here at BrocanteHome, I have sifted through sixteen years of blog posts deciding which would come with me into the next stage of Brocante’s evolution, and reliving all my highs and lows along the way. Some days I laughed as I shared all the Finnicism’s in…
Tis Puttery Treat time ladies! Try to squeeze in as many of the little lovelies as you can before the kids break up and invade your peace… * Put your abundance of garden mint to good use by chopping it finely into a sea salt and olive oil scrub and using it in your morning…
Well I didn’t think I was going to like it. Snobbish little Alison thought it might be a little too Chick Lit for her rather cultured taste in literature. (Ahem.) But it was lovely. Flitting between Modern day New York and 1930’s Ireland and bookending each chapter with a vintage recipe, it is an absolute treat not…
Then just like that everything shifts. Something in my head. The weight I have been carrying like so many burdens. Two stone of sadness falling off as the days develop a gentler rhythm, the hours spiked with walks around the village and careful sojourns to the farm to select the food I, and I alone like. And…
I knew this girl once. She bought a dining room table and chair set, and she was that proud of it, she didn’t take the plastic it came in, off. If you went for dinner, you had to sit squirming uncomfortably on the clingfilm covering the beautiful cream upholstery. On one memorable occasion, she threw…
As little girls and young women we adorn ourselves with dangly earrings, paste brooches and rows and rows of beads. We get carried away, accessorize ourselves to the max and keep all our non-precious gems in a jewelry box with a ballerina who spins in celebration whenever we peek inside to see that which she guards over,…