This morning

I was ironing his long sleeve pale blue shirt. It goes nicely with the lovely silk tie I bought him for his birthday. Today's a special day and it was my way of helping. A nice clean crisp shirt to start on the right foot. It's rather unlikely any of the interviewers will notice how handsome he looks, but I left feeling quietly confident.

Good luck Mr Petit Filoux!

One apple festival later…

And we’ve found out that the apples we’ve been enjoying (very very much thank you!) in apple and cinnamon muffins are indeed eating apples. Instead of piling on the sugar pounds, we could have been enjoying these apples raw, and they do taste rather wonderful I must say. So fresh and crisp, sweet and sharp, a really nice balance. A flagstaff variety apparently. Clearly a modern onesince I’m actually taller than the tree itself.

But regardless, we bought some more at a local apple festival. We got a few kilograms because they're taste is simply out of this world, nothing like supermarket apples. If you have a local apple festival near you, I urge you to go! You might also find a stall that sells apple and frangipane cake… how could I resist?!!

And you might also get to meet some rather interesting characters... An apple festival on a clear and crisp autumn day which involves eating cake and stroking soft wool, you just can't beat it!

Stripe déjà-vu

She saw it two years ago now. Thought it looked absolutely smashing (and no, those weren’t her exact words, it is my mum after all). She said she would love one exactly the same. Blue and white stripes, so chic, so timeless. And so bloody warm too.

Two years down the line and I thought now was the right time. Let’s hope it was indeed a timeless wish to have the same scarf as me. This will make part of her Christmas present and I hope she likes it. So far, I’ve spent 6.5 hours working on it, pretty much every waking minute spent on the train in the last week or so. Apart from the 1.5hr journey where I fell asleep, bang in the middle of the afternoon. Oops.

I want to finish it as soon as possible because I’m itching to start on something for my nan. And that is bound to take me much, much longer…

Cat adventures

We left the front door open for a few minutes to give the carpet fitters some time to bring in their tools and materials. That's all he'd been waiting for. Just a few seconds of the front door being left unattended.

A bit of exploration amongst the boxes?

Clearly he couldn't resist the opportunity. Thank goodness he just didn't decide to mark his territory...

Jelly bandwagon

I've totally jumped on the jelly bandwagon. Don't even think this is a weird welcome back post by the way. It's not. Uhum.

So, back to the jelly. Everyone with a pair of eyes and access to the countryside will have noticed how bountiful the crop of wild berries and fruit have been this autumn (because yes, it truly is autumn now, there's no doubt about that! Long gone are the flip flops worn with pride at the start of the month!). Anyway, I digress. The fruit. Amazing wasn't it? Well I got tempted by all the resourceful blogs out there posting about making use of them.

So off we went on a Sunday morning to collect some crab apples. I like the look of them and I like their name. We don't even have a proper name for them in French, just something along the lines of "wild apples". How rubbish is that hey?! So there, I felt a need to go and get some of my own, and fill a little bag. I didn't want much, I'd never made jelly before after all.

Let's just say this: you will now have to tie my hands back to stop me from making jelly. It's so amazingly easy!! Much less faff in some ways than making jam, because you don't have to peel/ core the fruit (anyone who's made damson jam and taken the time to get rid of all the stones will know what I mean). Just bang it in a pan, add some water, boil for a while, put through a muslin cloth overnight, add sugar and boil (exact recipe was taken from Preserves by H. F-W.).

The flavour is really interesting. Not overly sweet or sharp, but quite different to anything I'd tasted before. I'm a convert. If you haven't got round to it yet, there's still time, those crab apples were begging for a jam-jar-home.

Tongue-tied

I have a million things to say and at the same time, not much at all. Ideas are buzzing around my head and I don't know where to start. Similarly, I feel I don't have anything that interesting to say either, so yes, dear readers, I'm feeling a little tongue-tied.

Of course, what is interesting to one might be dead boring to another. Yet more photos of pretty flowers or 'in progress' shots of another crafty projects might not be what you're after. At the end of the day, this blog is really about jotting down ideas, keeping a record of what I get up to, while at the same time interacting with the fantastic crowd of people (you!) who sit behind your screen and read little blog of mine.

It all started over two years ago now and I can't believe it's been that long. 17th July 2009 it was. Blimey.

Life was slightly different back then and work perhaps a little more sparse. Less work = more time for blogging, there's no doubt about that. I'm now facing the fact that I'm not only more busy with work, but I now live in a house which is slightly further away from the train station, hence increasing my commute time. And let's face it, living in a house means heaps more things to do. My mum rightly said to me once, there's always something to do in a house. Always something to work on, to fix. I experienced just that yesterday when I spent a large part of the day gardening, or shall I say weeding. Not so glamorous hey?! But very rewarding, no doubt about that.

So, dear readers, I shall stop apologising for my inconsistent posting schedule. Boyfriend tells me that is why I seem to have lost countless readers and get very few comments these days. My answer to that is that this blog is meant to be enjoyable, enjoyable to both myself and my readers. And if I don't feel like posting, well it's just not going to happen. So I'm sorry to those of you of enjoy regularity, consistency and routine. Petit Filoux doesn't feel quite up to it these days.

Blogging has been a real interesting journey for me and has opened my eyes to a million tiny beautiful facets of the world that I live in. Something I reckon non-bloggers should be forced to take a look at what happens over here because they're missing out on so much. Not appreciating what's right in front of their eyes you know? Not understanding why it is that I feel the need to lie flat down on my stomach at the beach to get that perfect photo of pebbles... Not seen that one yet? Yes, I must tell you about our little jaunt to the sea.

So anyway, for someone who felt a little tongue-tied I haven't done too badly have I?! Well done if you're reading this and haven't felt the need to close your eyes with boredom. Continuous drivel or train of thought? Hmmm... You never know, I might be back tomorrow with a maximum of two sentences and five photographs. Someone's lucky day.

Cheap as chips

We all love a bargain right? Well I'm sure you'll be impressed with this one. A supermarket find. About 5min before closing time. Mr Petit Filoux pointed them out and I just couldn't believe my luck. Not the apples, those are from the garden. No no, look behind.

Aren't they beautiful? So so colourful. This is where when I'll be buying my flowers from now on. They ask silly prices for flowers here at the market, and I refuse to pay high prices for flowers that don't even smell or last very long. At least when you pay 29p to 69p a bunch, there's only smiles all round.

Even more smiles when you get to enjoy said flowers in a bargain jug, found in a tiny little charity shop in Staffordshire last week. I did indeed take 10min out of my working day to peruse around the place and it was oh so worth it. Got a couple more treasures, but will save those for another day! Before I go though, have a look at the other bunch of flowers I got for under a quid. Quite a good flower day I reckon! It's one flowery happy home :-)

Matching frocks

Do you ever get the feeling that something just Has. To. Match? No, just me? Well, maybe I take it to the extreme sometimes, but when I came home to find a delightful and most useful addition to our bathroom, I knew I had to tweak something. It's not like there's some sort of colour scheme in there to be fair, but there was something that just stood out and I couldn't let it slip. It's a room that gets very much used, and I want it to look as pretty as possible while staying practical.

Enter a crochet hook and some yarn. Add a little time, some measurements, double crochet, some frogging and a little more patience.

What comes out? A cover for my contact lenses liquid bottle. I'm starting to feel more and more that unless packaging is stylish, I have little time for it. And this bottle as it was originally definitely didn't help the bathroom look. There's still much to be done of course, but I reckon this little crochet coat helps quite a bit. (Yeah, I'm thinking calling it a bottle 'coat' sounds pretty cool. And probably makes me sound fairly mental. I can live with that.)

Happiness is where the heart is

I felt this was especially true during the last week or so, when I was sent away for work and didn't particularly enjoy it. I'd left my heart at home and felt rather miserable so far away  from it. Having just moved in my first proper home, I felt a little hard done by to have to stay away for so long, which probably didn't help. But work being work, there wasn't much I could do about it. So after a few tears and several phone calls, I managed to pull through.

This little old lady definitely helped me get through it. There's nothing quite like a truly lovely dog who greets you as you're only just getting out of the car, and within a few seconds goes to find the nearest stick (/twig/ piece of tree trunk, whetever was nearest!) to play. (And yes, I'm a little off cats at the moment after my delightful little shit of a cat-neighbour has decided to start using my lovely gardens as a toilet and using my cute little bench as a scratching post. Not impressed). The goat was equally lovely, although it was more interested in eating my jumper I reckon.

That favourite room?

Not that I'm trying to convince you or anything. But you tell me this wouldn't be your favourite room too if this was the view you had first thing in the morning?

Yep, thought so!

Have a lovely Friday everyone, the weekend is around the corner!