Croquet on the lawn

Last summer we visited Lacock Abbey, a country house in Wiltshire, England. In search of 'Harry Potter' we roamed the grounds and found one of the medieval classrooms that featured in the movies. I believe the cloister court was used in the movies as well. The interior of the house is not really special, but the many architectural styles and atmosphere are.  The garden and grounds are beautiful to walk in. At the time we visited there were flower borders full of colour and the wood was filled with blue wildflowers. My two youngest daughters enjoyed playing croquet on the lawn. The village lacock itself is beautiful too. I have written about it in one of my older posts and will show you some more pictures soon. What I enjoyed most was the peace and quiet of the place. When I look once more at the photo's I made, I realise I was not the only one.

Wish you all a Happy New Week!

Lieve groet, Madelief

Last years garden highlights

Hi everyone, I wish you all the best for a Happy, Healthy and Creative 2011! I hope it will be a good year for blogging! I would like to thank you all for your sweet comments, cards, emails and friendship over the past year. I appreciate it very much!

I can't tell you how happy I am that it's January. The darkest days are now behind us. Spring is approaching! I visited my garden this weekend and was amazed to see some plants, like the irisses, already popping up, or showing tiny buds on their branches. I can't wait to see the first snowdrops appear. Meanwhile I have a huge pile of gardening books, which I carry with me from room to room. When I have a moment to spare I open one of them and let my imagination fly. My head is filled with colors, structures, seeds, vegetables and flowers. Do I want some more roses in the garden or is eleven different varieties enough, which annual flowers do I want to grow this year and will it be tomatoes or potatoes in the vegetable plot? Leafing through the books is so much fun already.

To remind you of how my garden looked like last year, I posted some highlights. The colours & sunshine in the pictures make me look forward to the new gardening season even more. Happy day!

Lieve groet, Madelief

Almost New Year!

Only a few more days to go before the New Year! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas? Ours was different from other Christmases, because my parents couldn't join us. My mother slipped in the snow and hurt her knee badly. She is still in a lot of pain and moving around on cruches. We also had a sick daughter and a very tired and sick niece and nephew who visited us, but spend quite some time sleeping. I wasn't feeling too good either. I suppose all the dinner parties, lunches, perfomances with my choir and the shopping for Christmas, had taken their tole. Luckily I still have a few more days left to stay at home and relax :-)!

Today's pictures show the turban I always make the day before Christmas. It's so big that we can eat from it for quite some time. It's just a simple cake filled with small pieces of chocolate and nuts, but we like it very much. It looks very decorative too with the sugar glacing and the silver pearls.

I would like to thank Sabine from the blog Beldecor, who send me and my daughters three lovely scented bags that she made herself. Bine they are really beautiful! Thank you very much for sending them! Please have a look at her blog. It's one of my favourites!

I wish you all a Happy, Healthy and Creative New Year, full of love and friendship! Take care!

Lieve groet, Madelief

Homemade

Holland is covered under a blanket of snow. I so love this weather. It looks absolutely magical! I have been in the kitchen all morning preparing Cranberry relish and cupcakes. The house smells like heaven.

The Cranberry relish will be a present for friends and family. Most of the cupcakes will go with me tonight, when I have a performance with my choir in Schiedam. We will be singing English and German Christmas Carols and some American Christmas songs.  Afterwards we will have tea, coffee and cakes. I am a bit nervous, but also look forward to it very much. It's always such a happy event!

It's a special day today as well, because my beautiful eldest daughter Myrthe is celebrating her 21st birthday! Dear Myrthe, when you read this, one more big kiss to you!!

I am not really sure if I will have much time left next week to leave comments. The week is filled with work, lunch and dinner appointments, one more performance and the preparations for a Christmas brunch and dinner with the family.

I wish you all  lots of LOVE and a Merry Christmas! Have Fun!

Madelief