Tuesday 22 September 2009

Wonderful Marvelous Skype!

Last night was a little chilsome so wrapped in my new scarf (a lovely belated birthday gift from oldest friend S) and warming mug of tea in hand I was flicking through some papers waiting for N to call from Singapore. At about midnight my laptop started to trill and then instantaneously up popped N in full real time video glory. Shirted and suited and ready for work (it was about 7 in the morning there) he looked lovely. We couldn't unfortunately hear each other due to some inexplicable microphonal problem but we could see each other as we instant messaged! How amazing that he should be here:

and I should be in a little village near here, nearly 7,000 miles away:

and yet we can see and talk to each other (almost!) as if we were together. It surely must be some kind of tricksy magic...

(Yesterday I had an email from his company confirming that they have booked my flights to Singapore - so excited! )

Monday 21 September 2009

Oh my goodness!

On Friday afternoon I finished work early, gathered together some afternoon tea paraphanalia, cupcakes, mini cupcakes and cookies, jumped in my car and headed accross the bridge and accross the border to England. I was heading to Dr D's house to meet her lovely new little boy and catch up with her, Mr D and Dr G (who was heading up from London for the same purpose).

It was the worst possible journey with horrible horrible roadworks. A journey which would normally take just over 45 minutes took 2 hours and with my eye on the clock the time frame for afternoon tea was slowly passing. Slightly frazzled and a little on the stressed side I pulled into my friends village and pulled up outside her lovely mint green cottage. Dr G opened the door looking absolutely amazing and blooming (she's expecting a little girl in November) and with slightly hushed voices we gabbled our way to the lounge where Dr D was sitting on the sofa with baby F and oh my goodness! What a beautiful little boy! He's three weeks old and as gorgeous as can be! An absolute little beauty! I can honestly say I have never seen a lovelier baby! Serious matchmaking plans are already underway for baby F and Dr G's soon to be arriving little girl! A really lovely evening of baby chatter and cake nibbling ensued. On the drive home I realised that next week it will be 10 years since we three met as we unpacked our unopened text books, pulled new bedding out of its packaging and set up our first home away from home at university. We were the first people we met as our 19 year old selves ventured forth onto the corridor of our hall of residence to make friends and look at us now all grown up!

Friday 11 September 2009

The Friday Picture(s)


Berenice Abbott, pictured above, (b.1898 d. 1991) was an American avante garde photographer who focussed much of her work on photographing the changing landscape of New York. Abbott left Ohio University for the city in 1918 sharing an apartment with philosophers and writers in Greenwich Village. She pursued writing, jounalism, and the theatre before deciding to study culpture in Paris and Berlin. She became interested in photography when she was hired by Man Ray to be a dark room assitant in his Paris studio. Man Ray soon spotted her talent, alowing her to use his studio and his gallery to promote her own photography career. In 1929 Abbott visited New York and at once saw the photographic potential of the city.

Using a large format camera Abbott set out to document the ever changing landscape of New York, capturing the interaction between the diversity of the cities inhabitants, the stage upon which they existed and their daily activites upon that stage. She aimed to empower people by forcing them to realise that their environment was a product of their collective behaviour (and of course vice versa).

"Let us first say what photography is not. A photograph is not a painting, a poem, a symphony, a dance. It is not just a pretty picture, not an exercise in contortionist techniques and sheer print quality. It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term - selectivity" (Berenice Abbott)




Tuesday 8 September 2009

Blogging Black Hole

I have been shamefully reticent in my blogging duties these last months and I appologise wholeheartedly. I've been so busy during the crazy wedding season I have neglected not only this blog but also (and shamefully) friends, N, and the great world of fun. Hooray then that we have reached (almost) mid September as things quieten down a little now until November / December when the winter wedding season starts in earnest!

Exciting things which have happened since I was last posting:
  • my business has been crazily busy which is fantastic and it has recieved some wonderful national press coverage.
  • N is being sent to Singpore for two months with work
  • His company are paying for me to fly out and visit him (yay!)
  • My good friends Dr D and Mr D have had a beautiful, gorgeous, scrumptious little boy!
  • N and I have started looking at areas to buy an abode in (v. daunting)
  • This blog has reached it's first birthday!
  • I have become obsessed with Lost (I know I'm a little behind the times!)

Friday 28 August 2009

Happy Blog Birthday!!!

The Cwtch is one year old today!! Thank you for reading and following my random mumblings!

Monday 20 July 2009

California - Day Three, part two

After a few horrible attempts of taking a photo of ourselves (why do we try to take these when they never ever work?) in front of the golden gate bridge we were back in the car and really setting off on our adventure.

Fueled by Starbucks we drove out of SF and headed south to Monterey. The drive was amazing, you don't have to go any distance outside of San Francisco and you hit beautiful farm land, with roadside vendors of fresh fruit and vegetables and then in no time at all we hit the sea. Ah lovely. At this point we stopped for a breath of chilly blustery fresh sea air and I took the wheel. I drove us along the coast road almost as far as Monterey where we had scheduled to stop for lunch but let N take over before we entered the town. Me try and park the Vanilla Beast? no way jose.

Monterey was the site of holiday stress number 1. After looking around for somewhere to eat we finally found a fairly inexpensive looking nice cafe - we stood at the counter and ordered our food and then we went to pay. N reached for his wallet and started rooting around in it. He started to look very stressed and declared that all his holiday cash had gone missing from the wallet. So he checked his rucksack. Had it fallen out in there? No. I checked his rucksack. Well where was it? It must be in the car. Off N treks back to the car park. He's gone for ages. The food comes. He comes back looking really stressed it's not in the car. We eat halfheartedly. He doesn't talk. I feel sick. Where could it be? The last time he had his wallet out he had taken money out to pay the toll on the bridge. The money must have fallen out in the car. We go back to the car. There's no money. We look in a nearby dustbin as we'd discarded our Starbucks rubbish on arrival. Not there. N looks more and more stressed. He takes his wallet out. He says 'I just can't understand it, I mean I put all of my notes in this compartment'. There's a pause. He turns away for a moment. He turns back. He opens his arms and smiles. Oh no I say. Oh yes he says, look it was here all along. I scowl. He says 'give us a cwtch'. I can't speak.

At this point we say 'solloks' (ever seen Noel Coward's Private Lives?) decided to move on and take the 17 mile drive from Monterey to Carmel. You have to pay to drive on this private road and it was an interesting little route - you get to see Pebble Beach golf course (N was interested in this) and some big houses perched above the water but knowing now how amazing the coastline gets further south I probably wouldn't do it again. This road does take you to Carmel where Clint Eastwood was mayor back in the 1980's. It's a funny little place but more on Carmel later. We didn't have too long to linger as the day was getting shorter, mist was rolling in from the sea and we had to drive a fair way down the coast road to get to Treebones and our yurt....

Tuesday 16 June 2009

California - Day Three, part one

Another early start. We packed our bags and left the hotel in the fresh clear sunny morning and walked a block to the car hire place, trundling our cases behind us. This was the bit N was looking forward to, getting the car and heading out onto the open road.

We had booked a car in advance, which we thought was a reasonable size but was still within our budget (which wasn't much). From the pictures on the website this car looked way bigger than either of our little cars at home so we were pretty happy with our choice. Talking to the man at the desk you would think that we had ordered a mini to transport seven people. He looked at us, then at our luggage (two cases and two handluggage) and shook his head. You'll never fit it in the trunk he said. Hmmm we were a little bit suspicious. You need to upgrade to a bigger car he said - the suspicion grew. We'll be fine we said. No you wont he said. Stand off. How much is the bigger car N said. $5 a day he said. Okay I have to admit this changed things a little. This didn't seem like a lot of money as we were only hiring the car for a week and shared between two it would only come to $20. Plus this was the bit N was really looking forward to and surely it would be more pleasureable in a better car? So we upgraded (suckers!)

While N was sorting out the paperwork I nipped accross to Starbucks and picked up a couple of coffees, orange juices and bran muffins and made my way to the car lot. I almost dropped my bag of goodies when I saw the beast we had been assigned. Our car was officially gargantuan. I have never seen a car so big. Enough room for our luggage? You could have happily fitted all of Imelda Marcos's shoes in the trunk. It was twice as wide as anything I'd ever driven before. And we had to drive this thing out of the car lot and through the streets of SF. And this is us, used to the smallest cars imaginable. Oh. my. god.

Strapped into the car with what seemed like a mile separating us we started to laugh with nervous hysteria. Luckily N was driving first off and we plunged into the city's quiet streets thankful that we had made an early start. This thing was so wide that the car literally took up the whole lane and every time a similarly wide-loaded car passed by I winced imagining the wing mirors flying off. Soon N got the feel for it and we decided to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. Across the other side we found a little park and a bench where we had our picnic breakfast looking across to the city. This was it. After breakfast we would get back into the vanilla beast, drive back across the bridge and set off on our adventure...

Tuesday 9 June 2009

California - day two

Plagued by crazy jet lag, we woke up on Easter Sunday at about 5.30 in the morning totally and utterly wide awake. My lovely sister had given me an Easter gift bag to pack in my case - we opened it up to find: two little tubes of Cadburys mini eggs (yum), a cd of The Beach Boys to play in the rental car and a card version of Monopoly! What a lovely sister I have. Feasting on a pre breakfast of two mini eggs each we dug out the guide book and planned our day.

Forty five minutes later we deemed it just about okay to get up and out. Our fist stop was to be Dottie's True Blue Cafe as it had been recommended as a top breakfast eatery and it was only a few blocks over from the hotel. It was pretty quiet on the streets but as we neared Dottie's it was clear that we were entering a bit of a dodgy neighbourhood and I have to say, although quite travel hardy we did both start to feel a little threatened by some of the people, a couple of whom started to follow us... eek. We found Dotties but blimey! there was already a queue outside. This was our one and only day in SF and we didn't want to spend it in a queue however lovely the food so we decided to forgo breakfast and get walking. We walked for about an hour and it was lovely - up hills and down hills passing by beautiful colourful buildings as we meandered our way down to the sea front.
We hit Washington Square to find a beautiful green space filled with people doing their morning Tai Chi exercise. We stopped and observed them for a little while envying their amazing composure and aura of calm and the bells of St Peter and Paul church started to chime for the morning Easter Service.
Not lingering too long we climbed Telegraph Hill to the top of Coit Tower and beautiful views of San Francisco.


Our next stop was pier 33 where we grabbed a bite to eat before lining up for the boat to Alcatraz. In the queue amazingly we bumped into one of N's friends from London! We all sat on the boat together catching up as we crossed the sparkling sea to Alcatraz. 
What can I say about Alcatraz? It was fascinatingly beautiful and yet dark and ugly. The escape stories were fascinating and yet chilling. The audio tour was highly evocative and really gave you a sense of what it must have been like. We listened rapt to the escape stories and at certain points were almost gunning for the fleeing prisoners (but then remembered that these were some of the most dangerous criminals of their day!)  This is the outside of Alcatraz - look how pretty it is:

The beautiful view of SF from The Rock:

Back on the mainland, and feeling a mite peckish we took a taxi over to the other side of SF to Louis Diner at Point Lobos. An unassuming little diner, this place was a gem. Perched overlooking the Pacific with windows all around it has spectacular views and delicious toasted sandwiches. yum. We took a postprandial stroll down towards the huge Ocean Beach, nestled our toes in California Sand and indulged in a little bit of people watching. Next we walked the length of Golden Gate Park where loads of people had gathered for Easter Barbeques and teas.


We also espied bison and visited the Japanese tea garden before walking out of the other end of the park, along the Panhandle to Alamo Square. Sitting on the hill in Alamo Square, drink in hand, surrounded by beautiful wooden 'gingerbread' houses we admitted defeat. Our feet and jet-lagged bodies would take us no further. Ah the relief of finding a taxi! Ah the relief of sitting down! Ah the relief of a lovely shower! And then we were in a taxi again and on our way down to the waterfront to Green's restaurant - a bit of a sacrifice for N as it is a vegetarian place. But oh my goodness absolutely delicious food. And what a view we had from our table!

Monday 8 June 2009

A very lucky girl!

Wednesday was my birthday! The big 29, heralding the last year of my twenties! It has been the most lovely week. I had the day off work on Wednesday and my sister took me to a spa where we had lunch and facials and I fell asleep on a lounger next to the pool (old age - see - afternoon naps already!!). The spa is right on the waterfront in Cardiff so we finished off our day of indulgence with a bag of hot salty, vinegary chips overlooking the bay - delish and then headed to the theatre.

On Friday I took a train to the big smoke and N and I spent the evening eating dinner on our laps whilst watching a French film called Paris which I adored. I can definitely recommend it. Directed by Cedric Klapisch, it tells the stories of a series of individuals- an aging university professor, street market vendors, a bourgeois boulangerie proprietor, a fashionista, social workers and poor immigrants whose lives all weave together in Paris. The lynch pin which connects these disparate individuals together is Pierre, a moulin rouge dancer with a life threatening heart condition who is waiting in his fifth floor apartment for a heart transplant. Unable to venture forth from the building and beset by melancholy he entertains himself by observing the lives of the individuals below him from his balcony. It really is a thought provoking, excellent film with a fantastic cast.

On Saturday N had planned a day of treats and which began with a bus to Notting Hill and a stroll through the streets to Westbourne Park. Along the way we marveled at the beautiful building which houses Beach Blanket Babylon and its fab decor and we popped into Melt to feast our eyes and our noses with the scrumptious sights and smells of their beautiful chocolate. Yumm. Passing along and nosying into a few galleries we came to our destination: The Ledbury, where N had booked us in for lunch. We had a vegetarian tasting menu which was absolutely delish - we were there for 3.5 hours just eating tasty morsels of deliciousness. It was heaven not a mushroom risotto dish in sight! My favourite was the miso glazed aubergine - I could have ordered a whole plateful. Each course was served with a different wine, oh the loveliness of it! Only just able to walk we stumbled out of the restaurant and took a postprandial walk along Portabello Road back to Notting Hill where we jumped on a tube and headed for Embankment and Festival Hall. N had booked us to see Kodo - a group of Japanese Taiko drummers. They were phenomenal: such strength and the music had such power it was absolutely awe inspiring with 14 drummers on the stage at one time. We rounded the evening off with a sneaky drink at the Buddha Bar and then we were ready to head home and sleep off the day's excess!

So this is it. The last year of my twenties! I'm on a mission to make it a particularly good year!

Monday 25 May 2009

My other blog - updated

By profession I am a chef de patisserie, and more specifically, a cake / cookie maker and provider of afternoon teas. I have, up until now, had another blog for my business called Posies and Pearls. Sadly I've been having a few technical problems which has meant that I couldn't upload any new photographs (rubbish). The only remedy I could find was to start a new blog. It's taken me a little bit of time to get it sorted but now my new 'other' blog can be found here.

California - day one

We boarded our flight at Heathrow early on the Saturday morning - a little bit excited but knowing that the flight would be a long one.  We sat ourselves down, buckled in and made ourselves comfortable in our little square of space: stuffed books, newspapers, packets of mints and bottles of water into the seat-back pocket in preparation for the journey.  As soon as we had lift off I nipped off to the loos to change into ugly comfy clothes and big fluffy socks.  nice.  We were flying Virgin and I was really excited to see that you could pick from about 40 different films to watch.  I'd missed out on watching quite a few of the big films during the year but couldn't quite bring myself to watch them on a screen no bigger than my hand and so I watched:
  • Marley and Me
  • Fashion (a Bollywood film)
  • Vicky Christina Barcelona and (dare I admit it)
  • The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (or some such bizarrely titled teen movie)
Four films, dinner, afternoon tea and a choc-ice later and we were coming into land in San Francisco!  Finally!  I'd been feeling a little weary but the excitement of landing chased it all away.  Super quickly we were through immigration, had collected our luggage and were in a taxi on the way to Union Square.  

Our hotel was just a little door on a busy street.  We made our way up to our room which was lovely - compact but lovely.  We had opted for a street facing room so we could hear the trolley cars ding-dinging on their way down the street.  It was about half past two in the afternoon SF time and we'd been on the go for 15 hours so we decided to have a little rest before heading out to explore the city. Unfortunately  a Hare Krishna devotee chose that particular moment to begin a half hour drumming sesh just below our window.  My tired brain began to throb in time with the drums.  Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom.  We attempted to turn it into amusement by making up raps to the beat, which made us giggle.  N's raps were posh style and mine were yanked out of the 80's - lines tended to begin with 'Yo!' (to give you a flavour)  It soon became clear that rest was not in the offing.  So a quick freshen up and we were out on the sunny streets of SF and heading down the street to the end of the cable car line.  Passing the Hare Krishna man I couldn't stop myself from bestowing a scowl upon him...

We had to wait in a queue to get onto the cable car, so we shared a salty pretzel dotted with yellow mustard and observed what was going on around us.  This talented man was tap dancing:



These people were protesting:



and this beautiful working tram trundled past us:


Then the trolley appeared...


We clambered on and enjoyed the ride down to the waterfront (that's Alcatraz in the distance):



When we got to the waterfront, a little blustered and hair a little bouffed, we had a wander and found a fantastical sourdough bakery, meandered around stalls selling clam chowder in bread bowls and breathed in the reviving salty sea air.  

We didn't have too long to wander as we had plans to meet N's brothers: M and W, and W's lovely lady; L for dinner at 6.30.  They had flown to the US before us and had been exploring Yosemite.  That night was their last night in SF and our first so over a scrumptious dinner they gave us lots of top tips for what to see and do in the city.  Beginning to feel a little weary, but not wanting to bring an end to the evening we persevered and we went to this fab beatnik bar called Vesuvio in North Beach. We lasted until about midnight when looking over at N I realised he was pretty much asleep with his eyes open.   It had been a long old day and bed felt so good that night!

Friday 8 May 2009

Last weekend / This weekend

Many apologies for the lack of blog posts! Everything has been crazy since I got back from holiday and I just haven't been able to get near to the great world of blog. I promise promise promise to do better next week! Starting with holiday pics which are now finally sorted (plus I have managed to thieve a few good 'uns from N).

Last weekend, N came to Wales and we went up into the mountains for a long walk. It wasn't a set route, we just parked up at a pretty looking spot and headed for the peaks. We walked for about 2.5 hours - along the way we bumped into a fair few sheep and three army men who were doing a spot of weekend training but that was it, apart from that we were on our own in the fresh sunny air walking away, lovely.

Being a girl of the country I keep a pair of wellies in the boot of my car so I was well prepared, N on the other hand had only brought a sturdy pair of shoes with him. At one point we hit some marsh land and there was I splashing my way ahead completely oblivious until I turned around and spotted N behind me looking a little disgruntled. So I trekked back to him... he'd walked straight through the marshyness - his feet and the bottom of his jeans were soaked through :o( poor N! In fairness he didn't complain once and we carried on walking away. I think he was saved by the little burger kiosk parked in a layby near the car. We purchased steaming hot polystyrene cups of nescafe coffee and a pack of home made welsh cakes and headed for the car. With the engine running and the heat on full blast (and directed solely at the feet) he soon dried out with a welsh cake to cheer him up! Last weekend was also the best boy (my cousin's son)'s seventh birthday so there was bbq to celebrate straight after our mammoth walk. I can't believe he's seven already!

This weekend (shock of shocks) I'm off to London again. N is helping out with a party his parents are organising on Saturday so I have a fine day of shopping and exploring planned. This will be followed up by meeting S the chef for a drink and a lot of gossiping after she finishes her shift at Claridges at around 4.30. Afterwards I'm off to meet another S - oldest friend S for cocktails and dinner - I missed her birthday while we were in California so this is a belated do! I am looking forward to hearing all about her new Australian fella!...

Tuesday 28 April 2009

And the winner is....

Cee Cee! Who got a fabulous 7 out of 8 right. I am sending you a big slice of imaginary cake! The answers were:

  1. The Jolly Postman - Janet and Alan Ahlberg
  2. The Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
  3. Mrs Tiggywinkle - Beatrix Potter
  4. My Naughty Little Sister -Dorothy Edwards
  5. Topsy and Tim - Jean and Gareth Adamson
  6. Babar - Jean de Brunhoff
  7. The Famous Five - Enid Blyton
  8. Heidi - Johanna Spyri

I love them all.

Friday 24 April 2009

Friday Fun...(nostalgia)

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of that bastion of fantastic children's literature ... The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle ... here is the little fella:

You've got to love the way he munched through a red apple, two green pears, three purple plums, four red strawberries, five whole oranges on days 1-5 of his existence and then on day six: chocolate cake, ice-cream, pickle, Swiss cheese, salami, lollipop, cherry pie, a sausage, a cupcake and a whole watermelon. Come to think of it, the very hungry caterpillar's diet is a little like mine over the last couple of weeks: his days 1-5 were my ever so virtuous preparation for holiday eating and day six, well day six was like the holiday itself. (I should take note then that on day seven the caterpillar eats only a leaf before becoming a beautiful butterfly! Hmph salad for lunch then!)
Some of my favourite characters from my favourite children's books include:

A. B. C.
D. E. F.
G. H.

Ten points and a big slice of imaginary cake for anyone who can guess which books they are all from.... (I was always read D as an example of me!!)

I'm Back!!

Yes we touched down into Heathrow from sunny LA on Wednesday evening. Three hours later I arrived back in Wales feeling a little dazed and sleepy. Thank you to the nice man who carried my case down the steep platform steps in Cardiff - it weighed an absolute tonne and I'd never have managed it. The holiday was fabulous!! Truly lovely! San Francisco was a whirlwind of fun, Big Sur freezing but stunning, Paso Robles beautiful with its rolling hills and vineyards and the Wedding in Orange County was just glorious! Now I have unpacked and sorted out my washing (yawn!) I am going to turn my attention to my photos (I took so many I had to buy a new memory card!) and get ready to share...

Friday 3 April 2009

The Friday Picture (s)

This week I am featuring some beautiful beautiful photographs by Shelby Nycole Clark. You really have to feast your eyes on her stunning blog! The photographs are sumptuously gorgeous. Amazing mood is created through use of light and colour, pulling you into the photographs. I truly love her style. Gorgeous.



I am v. excited as I found out last week that I am to be the lucky recipient of two of Shelby's beautiful photographs which she was giving away to mark a year of blogging. I can't wait to receive them. But don't be too jealous - you can purchase some of these lovely lovely photographs at Shelby's etsy shop.

Weekend with my ladies

I am so looking forward to this weekend.  I am trolling my way to the big smoke tonight - N is going to pick me up from the station then tomorrow morning after a spot of breakfast I am going to make my way across London to spend the day/night with two of my favourite ladies: Dr G and Dr D.  These two ladies were my close friends from the first day at university when we met on the corridor of our hall of residence.  We lived together in a flat, along with three men friends - Mike, Mike and Michael (confusing eh?) in our second year and in our third and final year we stayed together in the flat, although we replaced one of the Mikes (as he had graduated) with my N ... but that's another story.  

Although we have gone on to do very different things in very different parts of the country the three of us try to get together as often as possible and once a year ditch our menfolk (who incidentally are close too) for a girls only get together.  This weekend is going to be even more exciting as Dr D is expecting a baby in August (the first of my friends to be expecting)!  So no glass of wine but instead cake, baby scan pictures and general baby excitement.  Yay!  I feel a spot of knitting coming on.  How delish are these:

   
*Elijah the Elephant: Ysolda*Fruit rattles: Bla Bla*

Wednesday 1 April 2009

Spring has sprung

Hooray! No coats needed today thank you very much! I am feeling all sunshiney and spring-like and inspired to pack away my black clothes and splash out on a little bit of colour. Here are some lovely things I have my eye on:


*Freya Dress by Bellaju *Debo by Toast* Sequin Mule by Toast*

Wednesday 25 March 2009

Two weeks and counting...

Everything is booked! Now I can start to get really excited. Here's where we are staying on our whistlestop tour of the good state of California:

San Francisco - budget boutique:

Big Sur - yurtin':


Paso Robles, working farm b&b:

Santa Barbara - cheap trendy motel:

An interlude in a villa N's parents have hired for the wedding.

Then (so excited)...

Santa Monica - one night of luxury (permissable due to the bargainous nature of the motel)

*Union Square Hotel * Treebones*Orchard Hill Farm*Presidio Motel*Viceroy*

Cannot wait. What's amazing is how different all the places we are staying in are. The road we are travelling, US 101, follows the route the Spanish explorer Juan Gaspar de Portola followed in 1769, which later became El Camino Real, the King's Highway. The road served as the main north/south road in California until the 1920's. It follows the coast for much of the distance with apparently amazing views. We will be covering about 480 miles of 101 in total from laid-back SF to pumped LA. I may even get to drive if I can wrestle N away from the wheel!

Daffs

We've had beautiful glorious spring sunshine over the last couple of weeks here in Wales. Daffodils line the roadsides and bring a cheery warm smile to my face, every time I head out of the village. I love a daffodil, bright, happy and altogether sunshiney in the otherwise flowerless early spring countryside. They mark the end of the gloom in bright riotous yellow. Love them. They are also really cheap to buy which is always good so I have a little bunch on my designing desk which I refill every couple of days. Nice.

They do come in all sorts of hues and shapes though - check out these little beauties:



*Pink Trumpet Daffodil * Frilly Daffodil* White Daffodil*