A Saunton Tea

Its my mum's birthday, the weather is gorgeous and we are off for afternoon tea at the Saunton Sands hotel.

We sat on the terrace in blazing hot sunshine. Saunton really is the most beautiful beach and from the hotel you have a wonderful view.

We were full to the brim after eating our way through cucumber and smoked salmon sandwiches, scones with lashings of strawberry jam and clotted cream and then little cakes, my favourite being chocolate torte, delicious.

A perfect afternoon, happy birthday mum!

Summer update

It has been a devastating summer with the death of baby Florie. Susie and Steve after the funeral have flown out to France and have taken the Pickwell Camper around France. We very much hope that they are finding rest, recouperation and comfort as a little family unit at this difficult time. All of our thoughts are with Beth, Sam and the girls too.
At Pickwell we are having a wonderful summer now we are back from France and have met some really gorgeous guests. We arrived back to find the house alive and buzzing with laughter and the sounds of family fun. The tennis court, croquet lawn, terrace and games room have been a hive of activity. Cream teas over the last 2 weeks have been a delight and given us the opportunity to hear peoples holiday stories, where they are from and a little of their love of Devon.

Molly and millie have been wonderful helpers, setting out the tea cups and picking flowers from the garden to make everything look beautiful and welcoming. Well done girls!

Our favourite family activity on a warm summer evening is to pack up our supper and head down to putsborough beach. Vegetable stir fry on the beach with the most amazing view in the world, there is nothing like it.

wow!

It has been great being back and reconnecting with our lovely friends and hearing their holiday stories so far. I made everyone try my new found love of French apperitifes; cassis and Rose wine (introduced to us by a lovely french family camping next to us in Vendee). I'm not sure everyone liked it as much as me, Paul said it reminded him of communion wine!

The kids all tucking into sunday roast, yum!

It is lovely being back.

Precious Florie

Let me introduce you to beautiful Florence Briah Hardwick.

She is my neice, my sister's baby. She is 1 week old today. Yesterday she developed breathing problems, became lethargic and couldn't feed properly. When she stopped breathing, on her way to hospital, she was airlifted to a specialist unit where she was worked on for 9 hours. She was diagnosed with a genetic metabolic blood problem.

At 3am this morning Florie passed away.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Beth, Sam, Martha (aged 3) and Elsie (aged 22 months). We are thanking God for the week that this precious family had to spend with this beautiful little girl.

Beach Chic

Beach life is fairly fascinating. I love people watching, but also tent and wind break spotting (i don't surf, unlike my husband and children!). Even though every family or group is different, we all seem to have the same things in the same design.

I have been on the look-out for different kinds of designs and some semblance of individuality.

These were Liza's favourites. A cow and a...blue spotty animal??

I love this one for a big group. Easily spotted if you are looking to meet up with friends.

Purple flowers..

or stripes...

This has a 'Cath Kidston' vibe to it and has to be my favourite tent find of the day...however...

nothing can compare to a beach-hut! (we do all look normal in real life, i'm not sure what happened on this occasion)

We celebrated Becky's birthday (Becky lived with us at Pickwell for the winter) recently by hiring out a beach-hut on Saunton beach. Just as well as it poured with rain.

The darkness and the rain just made the beach-hut even more cosy. Jo and Trev had made a gorgeous lemon meringue sponge birthday cake. (that doesn't sound right, may need to check that. It was definately lemony though)

When i met up with Tracey by the car ready to go, we had our usual bags packed with our usual evening beach items (lanterns, blankets, hot water bottles, flask of tea, cadburys cream eggs etc) but Tracey was also holding a picnic basket. On enquiring as to what was inside, she replied "oh its just the baby rabbits, i thought we could all sit with one on our knee". In my search for individuality I think the beach-hut filled with cake, rabbits and hood wearing devonites definately qualifies.

As a result of my findings I am also taking a leaf out of my friend Sarah's book and making my own wind-break. Here I am enjoying the help of a few friends to help me to do it! I always get these high-falutin' ideas and then always seem to get it wrong. Cakes and sewing are just a general disaster. Nevermind. as long as I get it done by the end of the summer that'll do nicely x

Holiday Guests

I don't know how we manage it, but these days we seem to have a continual stream of gorgeous people coming through on holiday.

The weather has been so good here that we ate our cream tea, with the guests, on the Terrace in blazing sunshine.

Most days have followed a pattern of all the children playing together in the morning...then out with their own families to the beach...and then meeting up and playing until 10.30pm at night, as the evenings have been so warm.

A group of the girls all came to me one day and asked if they could completely re-design the games room! I heard their plan and then together we began moving things around to how they wanted it.

They did a fab job, including the creation of a comments and suggestions box for our future games room which will be relocated within the grounds this winter. Thank you to Maddie, Izzy, Tilly, Grace, Trinity, Liza, Loulou, and Grace.

The rabbits have gone down a storm this summer. They have been given so much love they are really tame. Our rabbits have just produced another batch...we weren't quite quick enough at separating them, and had no idea they bred so quickly. NOW i know where the expression comes from!

Zac has been supervising the wittling of sticks (with parental permission of course)and the boys have had a great time peeling off all the bark and making a proper weapon to take back to London...! Really hope they dont get stopped on their way home.

As evening falls the children all gather together again which means the parents can relax, read a book or enjoy a barbeque in the garden. One evening I went to find Zac, as he had been playing 'IT' in the woods, when i found these lovely people..

It does generally follow that if the kids are happy then the parents are happy, right?! These guys seemed particularly happy when i found them having a barbeque next to the bog garden..

This is our 'bog garden', it was built as a memorial to the last owners' wife. It is quite something with its giant stones imbedded into the ground. There is a decking area nearby which we have designated as one bbq area. You get to it by following a path through the woods.

A couple of the girls dropped something onto our kitchen table before they left... It was quite sad to say goodbye on Friday! x

The Garden in July

Over the last 6 weeks the garden has just bloomed with colour.

Our rose arbour at the bottom of the italian garden.

from a different perspective

Holly's daughter Thea, enjoying picking off the heads as a gift for mummy. (a painting scaffold tower is in the background as we painted all the house windows in-between weddings!)

A favourite route for the bride to walk to the alter, if it is an outside ceremony, is through the French gazebo and along the cobblestones. This way the guests can catch a glimpse of the dress through each pillar of the rose arbour. A very moving moment, I can tell you!

This is the small rose arbour, the licensed area for an outdoor ceremony.

The view from the Terrace.

The view from the rose arbour. Lovely everywhere you look x