flowers, fleurs, flleurir

Earlier on this week we had my in-laws round for a proper afternoon tea, scones, clotted cream, cakes and little cucumber sandwiches, the works!

But it was my flowers that I was proud off.

Just four little plain glass vases going down the center of the table,

filled with flowers from the beds behind,

crane bill geraniums, pinks, honeysuckle, parsley, oregano, lavender etc

Simple, my type of flowers

And they transferred well to the mantelpiece,

rather surprised at how long they are lasting as well!

(title English, French, Guernesais)

Island Magic

One of my all time favourite books is Island Magic (1934) by Elizabeth Goudge.

Elizabeth's mother was from Guernsey and the island and its stories were a huge influence on her.

The plot revolves round the du Frocq family in 1888,

(its always been a huge source of pride to me that one of my great great grannies was a Mary de Frocq, as there are no longer any of those names in the phone book)

Their struggling farm is on the south coast cliffs, I think near to Moulin Huet, and the main story revolves around a shipwreck and a washed up sailor who comes in too their lives.

But I wont spoil the plot for you!

If you love Guernsey and you love history, I think you will love this book,

but for years its been out of print, so its been a question of trying to find copies in antique and junk shops, as you can see from my motley collection!

 That is until this week, Hendrickson Publications has re printed it,

and 10 copies have arrived at the Tapestry Gallery, very happy day (£9.99)

One last little snippet on Elizabeth Goudge, her 1946 children's book The Little White Horse was J.K Rowlings favourite book as little girl and a big influence on her Harry Potter books.

My birds are ready to fly!

As I was chatting about in greedy gannets as few weeks ago, I have been focusing a lot this spring on sea birds that call the Channel Islands home.  I wanted to choose birds with very distinctive looks, some are easily confused when looking at just their heads,

such as Cormorants and Shags (snigger....), Herring Gulls and Lesser Black backed Gulls etc. 

 In the end I went the Shag as it turns out he is more common in our waters than the Cormorant and has a more impressive quiff!

The Herring Gull, cause he's every where

(especially at 4 am last Tuesday when a huge mob of them were attacking our bin bags, never new they could be quite so loud, it was unbelievable! And not in a good way...)

 And the Gannet, beautiful colouring and very distinctive markings round their eyes and bills.

 I have decided at the moment to only have the Gull and Gannet turned into cards,

who knows the Shag (snigger..) might happen later!

 The sharp eyed among you will have noticed that the birds in the cards are facing a different direction to the original embroideries.... 

 ....that's because the muppet that I am, had wanted the cards to work as a set with the Puffin I did a few years ago, but did I check which way he faced.....no......

All of my cards and new embroideries will be on display down at Arts Sunday tomorrow on the Sea Front, I will be somewhere between the Tourist Information Office and the Weybridge, so please do come and say hello!