By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes......................

Trick or Treat?

I love Margaret Tempest illustrations, this is "the witch's house"

Scary!


This was the Witch's garden at Hampton Court Flower Show

And this is absoloutely The Scariest Witch of all time!

I went with the Magpie to see Snow White when I was very small and this image kept me awake at night for a long time afterwards.


Enough of all that frightening stuff!

Do you fancy a treat?



If you would like a toffee apple festival head over to Bluebird Notes where Koralee has prepared some yummy gooey toffee apples and some other sparkly sweet treats.


Or call in at the Vintage Magpie and see Nicky's latest beautiful creation, Rufus


What about a sparkly Christmas teaser? Head over to Sweden and meet Malin at her beautiful
White Christmas blog just in time for her giveaway, entry ends today!

Or you can help Wendy at Ticking Stripes celebrate her 50th follower with a giveaway too!




"Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in "


Happy Halloween x

What's the story Autumn Glory?

I dont know about you but Autumn always seems the most magical of seasons to me. It prompts a story telling, fairy tale response from me. (Probably something to do with the Arthur Rackham pictures I had on my walls as a child.) The crab apples decorating the tree outside my kitchen window are very Snow White.....................

...............and so like the apple trees on my Bunnykins plates.

I love the promise of the new day as I poke my nose out of the door, Mr.Boodle sniffs the air and squeals expectantly at the iminent prospect of a walk.

So we cross the field and ford the stream

And find ourselves amongst the grassy tips dripping with twinkling spiders webs and crystal dew drops shimmering in the misty light. The tip of every blade has a perfect dew drop suspended.

I am sure if we looked a little harder we would see the shadows of the fairies darting away on hearing us approach.

" Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Lets go..................."

Avenues of trees with the low Autumn sun sun rising, Little Red Riding Hood may have just passed by on her way to Granny's house.

Always remember to look up! I have to remind myself of this as I could easily miss Mrs.Pepperpot hurrying home!

Careful, not to trip over tree stumps! The old man of the woods will stir.....

Home again!

Now these lovely cherry like apples are for Wendy over at Wendy House.

Thank you Wendy for my award, I love it.

Have a look at Wendy-House if you can it is full of lovliness.

In the meantime I would love to hear about your favourite Fairy Tales....

And for those who were wondering, you will be pleased to know that we all lived happily ever after our walk!

x

A butterfly, for three summer days................

I am so excited about the new Jane Campion film Bright Star I just can't contain myself and here I am waxing on about it to all of you! If you have time visit here and click on each of the little scraps and photos to gain an insight into Jane's creative process with her and some of the team that worked on the film.................., lovely!

I really adored The Piano especially the very spare artistic direction and the strange atmosphere that she created and all that supressed passion! I suspect that this will be just as good................

I am crazy about beautiful period costume and set design and from the snippets I have seen they are sublime, locations look wonderful too!

The film is based on the relationship between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. The letters that Keats wrote to Fanny were a source and of course his poem, Bright Star. Fanny kept his letters all her life, thank goodness!

Have a lovely weekend x

post script: There was a lovely article in Telegraph Magazine you might want to check out.

For Silver Pebble! Bright Star is released on November 6th.

"So bright and delicate:Love letters and poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne"

Bright Star is filled with such an enormity of love and feeling, it nearly takes your breath away.

The film's rapturous images and Campion's vision make you long for a world as vivid and true as this one.

Streams full of stars

This hydrangea is for Lucy.

Thank you Lucy for giving me an award, how lovely of you!

This hydrangea is for Kelly.

Thank you Kelly for giving me an award, I really appreciate it!

Please do visit these two ladies at Vanilla Ivy and Kellys Recipes for Life.

Now I'm not too good at always following the rules!

One is to pass these awards on to a specified number of recipients but I cant possibly choose between you so I award all of my 65 Followers! I think you deserve to be rewarded just for reading this!


I am also supposed to let you in on 7 things you dont know about me,
hmmmm, head scratching.................

Well you cant possibly know what I'm thinking.

When I was out early this Morning with Mr.Boodle my heart was bursting with the joy of being up early and wandering through leaf drenched dewy woods where the Autumn colours glowed. I thought "how beautiful" and I was glad to be alive and I remembered this........


LEISURE
W.H. Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows,

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like stars at night,

No time to turn at beauty's glance
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.


I think that covers it x

He is the Champion my friends.................

Back to my earlier musings on this topic.....still havent seen Jenson and Chris Martin in the same room together..................................................

Congratulations Jenson

F1 WORLD CHAMPION

How many ways do I love a man who bursts into a bit of spontaneous Queen!

happy days x

FOOD Glori"OZ" FOOD!

I have been fortunate to travel to Australia several times to see those Faraways of mine and one thing that never fails to excite and inspire me is the food.

There are so many influences at work it is always creative and the ingredients are everything. I could wax lyrical about the Victoria Markets (and probably will do in a future post!) the meat, fish , vegetables, fruit, herbs, breads, patisserie..................wondeful, and brilliantly priced. I love to visit markets they are so vibrant and this is absoloutley my favourite anywhere in the world.

I picked up the Australian "Entertaining & Travel" issue of VOGUE and these images are taken from it. The food styling is so good dont you think? Something else which also inspires me whenever I cross the globe is the detail and design ethos which shines through in all the food images I have seen.

Now I must tell you about COOKIE.

My SIL is the most wonderful guide when it comes to gastonomic tourism, she took me to so many brilliant cafes and eateries and I could literally write a fabulous food guide! This one took the biscuit! ( tee hee)

You enter Cookie from the most unpromising street level lobby and head up in a small dark lift to the second floor where you pass through municipal double doors into this!

Amazing light filled space, with lofty celing height and birds flying around and landing on the beams overhead. The tables are black lacquer topped and each have a square of vintage fabric covered with a smaller square of lace. The walls are covered in blown up black and white images apart from the main wall as you enter which is dressed in the Cookie wallpaper.

There are double stained glass doors the length of the building each leading out to individual balconies where you can sit amongst the tree tops watching Melbourne City life unfold from above.

Oh and the food? AMAZING, fusion of Asian inspired treats we had little spicy dumplings a bit like Dim Sum but more fragrant and spicier. Every plate that emerged from the kitchens was almost too pp[retty to eat. Sorry I didn't photo it, we ate it!

At the other end of the scale from city bites we also visited a lavender farm out near Daylesford called Lavendula, here it is. There was a charming Trattoria here where we ate stunningly good food. Bolognase with Osso Bucco, it was so good as it was a damp drizzly sort of day. And then there were the puddings...........................

Which we didn't need! But could not turn down.

Little Bro couldn't wait to start his Ricotta, Fig and Chocolate tart

SIL indulged in Mandarin and Polenta cake, believe me this was drenched in the most incredible mandarin and booze infused syrup.

And I? Well I had this Sicillian apple tart, I dont know why Sicillian but it tasted amazing!

Love those plates too!

As I said I have more stories in this vein, I just picked out a couple to share with you, are you hungry yet!

Back in Melbourne even the neighbourhood cafes are amazing little gems, there are several near my Faraways and all are better than good. Back to the design side of things all had real character and some even dressed up on the outside.......................

Just driving past this place makes me happy!

Hope you have a scrummy weekend x

The house with the purple trees....

As part of the Birthday surprise for little Brother, Magpie (Mum) arranged for us to stay in this fabulous little cottage on the Mornington Peninsula for a few days.

It was divine, an old shack really lots of wings with rooms leading to rooms leading to rooms, like Varikinov in the David Lean version of Doctor Zhivago.

The light here was celestial as you can see.

The place is actually the family home of an Apple producer and the approach to the house were rows upon rows of fruit trees in blossom......

A pergola ran all the way around the house and was smothered in rambling roses in flower and the deepest blue purple wisteria the like I have never seen before.

In the Mornings we sat and had beakfasts of fruit toast with crean cheese and honey, lebanese flat bread with bacon and melting cheese and wonderful freshly ground coffee.

The smell wafting in form the kitchen doors was Spring!

The lady of the house is an artist and walls were filled with her paintings. the love she feels for her home and surroundings just oozes from the pictures and the colours are wonderful. walking around the gardens I felt I would love to capture its glory too! I only managed photographs.

Oh yes I forgot to mention the lemon trees

I loved the pointy finnials adorning the roof, one of them is just visible below

We spent several days out exploring. At the end of one busy day visiting a beautiful garden a tired but happy 3 year old exclaimed "Daddy, I want to go back to the house with the purple trees!" and so that's what we named it.

Back soon with tales from Heronswood and Cloud Hill,

Love Sarah x