Delphine Bone China Pastel Rainbow

Chic pastel rainbow and white vintage gilded bone china from Delphine, an elegant set for tea ~ six of each cups, saucers and tea plates,  in perfect condition. Made in England by one of the best china companies, in a delicate pastel rainbow, hand gilded and with a shiny glaze, this china appears to be unused.

A delight to use and display ~ to mix with your china for that eclectic touch of shabby chic Tea definitely tastes better from a bone china cup!

Cass Abrahams Cooks Cape Malay...In Germany..!

If any of my readers are lucky enough to be near the Schwarzwald, and particularly near the town of Rust, between the 1st and 15th August, there is a special treat awaiting!

Star Cape Malay chef, Cass Abrahams is cooking up a storm of traditional Cape Malay and South African dishes at the Colonial House in Europa Park, Rust. Cass has been visiting Germany for the past 4 years at the invitation of Thomas Mack of Europa Park, and while there, along with her assistent chef, cooks up a storm of familiar South African favourits for the geusts.

Last year I went along with my daughter who was invited by Cass, and it was absolutely fantastic. I met Cass and her team, who slave all day long in the kitchen preparing the wonderful dinner. Of course, we are making a family outing of it again this year and taking along some friends for a bit of Cape flavour from the old heimat.. There was a full on braai, with Boerewors, skaap tjoppies, ostrich fillet, sosaties, fish braai.. you name it bud..all done to a turn! There was also the Cape Malay buffet with a chicken curry that was so great I can't even begin to decribe it, words fail me, this was accompanied by yellow rice with raisins, and of course Cassies delectable home made chutneys, blatjangs and sambals. There was Babotie and bredies, salads for Africa, Malva pudding with custard, souskluitjies, dark chocolate cake...there was such a huge variety of mouth watering dishes a person would need 3 stomachs to try everything! All accompanied by a selection of fine South African wines.

Europa Park laid out the venue at the Colonial House so beautifully, building a lapa outside where the buffet is served, the braai fires going alongside, live music, and the tables set out in the garden under the trees. It was absolutely beautiful, and a big hats off to the organisers who work so hard to make it a special evening!

Booking is essential, as over the past years word got around about this feast, and Cassie cooked for a sold out house every night last year. I will post an update of our evening next week. Hope you can make it too..!

UPDATE - It was lekker...!

My working environment...

I thought I would make all you poor office slaves stuck in a concrete block all day a wee bit jealous, and show you what a loverly office I have in a protected nature reserve. It is in a little fachwerk building, situated right next to a river surrounded by potplants and flowers.

Am I not a lucky girl..!

The river banks are full of trees and plants, and behind my office is a small patch of woodland area.

In the early morning I take a walk round the back and just enjoy the quiet, and listen to the birds. The ground is covered in wild grasses and buttercups, and othere small wild flowers. I have red squirrils that run up the tree next to the office occassionally, and have even had a hedgehog come sniffing around by my door. I usually only see hedgehogs squashed on the roads, so it was a real treat to see one up close and alive!

There are many wild birds that nest around the area, and apart from many black ravens that nest in the tree tops, I have even seen the fairly rare 'Blaumeisen', which is the cutest little blue and yellow birdie ever..
.

Spring time in the city

The city is looking beautiful with all the trees in bright spring green.

The Rathaus

cars and bicycles

Colombi Schlosspark is looking really pretty with all the spring bulbs blooming

Black Forest Cup and Fruit Jogurt Cup at the Ice Cream parlour on the Rathausplatz is a must after a hard days shopping!

Dappled shade in the park behindthe church

Floral detail on the wroght iron fence surrounding the churchyard

The lawn around the church is full of buttercups and tiny white 'Gänseblumchen', little miniture daisies.

A wreath of sandstone roses adorn an old tombstone in the churchyard

I was delighted to see Bluebells growing among a tangle of weeds and ivy on an old overgrown grave.

Real Bluebells, although common in much of Britain and Ireland,  are rare in the rest of Europe and absent from the rest of the world. The populations in the UK represent about 30% of the global population. The species has greatly declined over the past 50 years and is globally threatened.

Beautiful old Gothic tombstones covered in moss

This lady buried beneath this pretty tombstone, Emma, was born in 1858 and died in 1878.

The Beautiful Chelsea Pensioners Garden

The Ecover Chelsea Pensioners' Garden was Julian Dowle's 26th garden - and 26th award winner - at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2005.

Julian's inspiration for his entry came from discussions with a group of Chelsea Pensioners over a pint. The result was "A Soldier's Dream of Blighty", - a nostalgic vision of an English country pub garden in 1945.

The pub, the "Chelsea Pensioner", has a thatched roof with traditional rendered walls covered with climbing roses. Outside is a stone terrace, with benches and tables, surrounded by a cottage garden.

A timber-framed shelter provides a seating area beside the "Dig for Victory" vegetable patch. The vegetables were grown by the Royal Hospital Chelsea using varieties selected from a 1939 catalogue.

A stone gravel path links the pub to a village green and duck pond. The village green - as befits five years of wartime neglect - was awash with wildflowers, symbolically dominated by wild poppies. Both fence and pub were adorned with Union Jack bunting, representing celebrations of the homecoming.

Creeping, climbing beauties..

Renovations, renovations...Living on a building site

Hi Folks,

Well, here I am, back in action and with the new look for the blog...!

Thanks to those of you who mailed me to ask what's up...no, nothing sinister is happening...I was just sick of the old look, I have had it for over a year or so, and it was getting old hat. Not to mention the black background, which might look slick, but it is just absolute hell on my eyes to read. So I closed up for a few days to do the necessary renovations...hope you like it, and that it is kinder on your eyes too. I've also tidied up the links list, deleted old links that have dissappeared and added new ones..

..and speaking of renovations...the past months since we moved into our 200 year old antique house...a national monument and tribute to the workmanship of builders and craftsmen of days gone by, we have all been very busy working on the house.

As time allowed, we managed to get a lot done. A family project where we all pitched in to make it habitable a.s.a.p, as who can afford to rent and pay off a house, while still spending money on renovating? In the past weeks I did the room downstairs, where I want to set up my painting and decorating studio, re plastered and painted and moved in. As promised previously, here are some pics of the progress in the rest of the houses so far.

Studio

Before
Just look at that horror wall...it had water damage down to the brick work after a pipe burst in the kitchen upstairs some years back. I had to chop plaster off down to the brick, re plastered with a heavy duty cement plaster, then a layer of ordinary plaster, and then a smoothing gypsum..was a mission, but finally got it sorted out.

After

Last week Tuesday I moved all my kantundu from the old studio over to the house. Major stress moving the kiln...but all went well, and now everything is under one roof. At a later stage I will put in the new ceiling in this room, as this trip I was pressed for time..all the rough clay work I will do in the garage outside, which is massive, so there is enough space for a workshop for both Pops and me..

Before

After

Downstairs Kitchen

Then I also helped Cheeky Chops renovate her kitchen, which now looks much better, clean and new again.
Stripping layers of old mouldy wallpaper off the walls and re plastering.

I will add the after photos as soon as Cheeky Chops tidies up and makes the place look more presentable..!

Dining Room
Before

This is the small dining room off my kitchen upstairs. It was panelled with wood that made for a wonderful place for cockroaches to establish a Kakerlakville, so we pulled all the wood off, and found an old tap behind that thin 'cupboard' like door...heaven knows what the hell that was for..Please note the very 'rustic' light fitting just peeping out the left hand corner...I've still got it in the cellar if anyone wants it..

Wood off - Paint on

After

A new look, with my Stinkhout en Geelhout Muurkassie finally hanging on the wall where it belongs after years of being hidden in a corner of by bedroom...My Klimt, framed antique spoons, Imari plates and other treasures displayed on the walls. Rustic light fitting replaced with Moroccan glass lamps.

Before

We had to deal with a lot of water damage under the window, that was coming through due to bad drainage outside.

Breakfast in the dining room. We a actually had this room done before Christmas, so it has been put to good use since then.

My Bedroom

Before

110 layers of old crappy wall paper, poeffie stained carpets, wading ankle deep in dust balls. We stripped the wall paper and chipped the plaster off some of the old oak beams.

Walls stripped of wall paper

After

Once the walls were free of wall paper, we re plastered to get them even, and I repainted in two different colours, distressing and stippling in a teal and then in the lower half in burgundy.

Dressing room

Before

The small dressing room leads off my bedroom and is an absolute pleasure now that it is fixed up.

In both the bedroom and the dressing room we ripped out the carpets and sanded the beautiful old strip wooden floors.After

My kitchen upstairs - A Horror Story

Before

Need I say more....

We knocked down the wall into the passage and got rid of the door to gain some space. Ripped up the linoleum, knocked off the old 70's retro tiles, and re plastered and painted the walls, and tiled the floor with with terracotta.

Pops almost lost his nerve and had a heart attack when it looked like this (above pic)...he recovered his composure after we had plastered and started on the floor tiles..

Before we took down the wall...

Afret we took down the wall

Almost there...but still a bit to do..

Since the above pic was taken we have finished the last bits, and must just get the dosh together to buy decent kitchen cupboards. In the mean time we make do...this renovating business is expensive stuff...

Downstairs Lounge
Before

..again, heaps of old vrot wall paper to strip off the walls, re plastering to do..ripped out the old linolium, new plaster and paint..and voila..!

After

a much more comfortalble lounge, and the old kacheloffen works like a charm. We fired it up all winter..

and bedroom
Before

...and....

After

All re plastered and painted up in pink..!

Downstairs Bathroom

Before

....and...

After

Downstairs Passage

Before

Grey...boring..!

.After

....messy...but colourful!

The Pope Room

This room is right at the top of the house, hence the scew ceiling. It was so smelly and yik, full of pigeon nests in the eaves and we hauld out loads of crap from the little 'cupboards' on the side (the kids call it the Jüdenkammer, where we could hide Jüden..) Sonny had to don a NASA space suit to crawl on hands and knees into the deep recesses of the eaves to remove pigeon nests and half a ton of poo crawling with bugs and other assorted goggas..was a dreadful job..poor lamb...he felt quite ill after that poep operation..!We put in a small kitchenette for Sonny, but still in desperate need of some kitchen cupboards to hide all the 'goedters'..slowly slowly as Rome wasn't built in a day..

Before

We had to insulate the whole top level, get rid of the numerous Pope pictures, tear out wall and wall paper (again), sand down the floors, put up new panelling and paint..see the difference..and thats it for now..to be continued..! Work in progress. Next I will be doing my bathroom aand putting in my French slipper bath tub!