Things of beauty...

Crazy busy week...not quite back in the swing but on my way, I hope. I wish I could say I was having a quiet weekend but the opposite is true - we are hosting a double birthday party for both children, in the garden. It will be sunny! I can feel my yearning for a holiday heightening, starting to count down the weeks to July. We need some family time and quite simply to have nothing to do and nowhere to be for a while. In amazes me how much life ramps up even when you make a conscious effort to keep it edited and easy.

Cameron Diaz...photograph by Mario Testino

j crew summer 2010

via 79 ideas from fri

from voy

by me - my back garden

Kate Bosworth

via edgar modern, painting by Jessica Cooper

photograph by Melissa Schollaert

via poise and vogue

via simple sparrow flickr

via pretty stuff from sushi pedro

Natalie Portman

Olivia P style from from Zara

via modern country style from Cabbages and Roses

via poise and vogue from jak and jil

photograph by Stephanie Rausser

Until next time...

Things of beauty...and some thoughts...

This week has been all about pastures new. In amongst some serious soul-searching and deliberation we decided to go for it and my husband accepted the new job. It was time to make the leap and it's a leap indeed, as he had been with the same company for 21 years. Man and boy. It's the same company that I work for still; think household name, multinational corporation. Before him his father worked there. Along with his mother and his brother in their time. To say it's a family institution is an understatement! So it was with a heavy heart that he tendered his resignation and we now face a very new chapter. So much of our time together is tied up in that company - strange as that may seem. Sometimes places and things can be defining.


I blogged about this decision a week or two ago (seems like a lifetime!), when the new offer was so fresh and exciting, all we could marvel at was the future. Now, with decision well and truly made, the past seems to have become very relevant and so you find me very nostalgic and pensive in this post. In corporate speak this would be described as the change curve...


Notable that even when I have known him 18 years, he still has the capacity to surprise me. When things got really tough at the end when his company were in the final (fairly ugly) throes of trying to keep him, he gathered himself up and showed such integrity and bravery in walking away. Taking the risk. Taking the road less travelled. Made my heart swell. So here's to pastures new...a different road.

You never know what you are going to get in life...

via it's mary ruffle

All you can do is try to live well, make your choices, follow your principles... ;-)

via tiny white daisies

Gorgeously casual Kate Bosworth

There has been a lot of this in our house lately...planning and re-planning, weighing up, thinking it through.

Revolutionary Road

A fair amount of this on his behalf. Posthumous portrait of President John F. Kennedy by Aaron Shikler painted in 1970.

A some of this on mine...my friend D loves this picture, it always make me think of her...'Thoughts of You' by Jack Vettriano.

Funny how I just know this about him and this week he's proved it yet again...

Sometimes you have to look through a different pane of life...

Embrace those new pastures...this is the view from the highest hill around here...

Guest-Post: From Me To Lou....

....the gorgeous Kate Bosworth....

....the beautiful Natalia Vodianova....

....home is where her heart is....

....she loves the beach....

....classic, classy, beautiful, intelligent and very British....Louise, that is ;)

....she loves her shoes!

....I think it might have actually been these rumba pants that cemented our friendship....they sure made us smile!

....feminine and lovely....

....the lovely Kate Hudson....

....and I know she loves her bed!

....and we both love our girls....

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one." ~ C.S. Lewis

I was thrilled to be asked by Louise to write a guest-post for her while she is away on holiday....we met each other through our blogs...although we have since become firm friends, sharing a love of many of the same things and an awful lot of similarities in our lives too!

I thought my guest-post ought to include a selection of the things that I know Louise loves...altho as always the line between her favourite things and my favourite things became a little blurry...I'm sure she won't mind!

I also believe that when you admire and appreciate someone you should take any opportunity to tell them.

I know that Louise has a large and loyal following over here....and quite rightly so.

She is an inspirational girl....wise, generous, loving, funny, intelligent and a great friend, I am very fond of her.

I would be flattering myself if I said that we are two peas in a pod....but I am grateful to her for her ability to listen, for her writing skills which always seem to hit the nail on the head about the really important stuff....and for her friendship.

Have a wonderful day everyone whatever you are doing.... 

Simone

The Bottom of The Ironing Basket