Lavender Ladies 1031

Margaret had given me some lovely fat-quarters of pretty fabric, so I spent many happy hours handsewing these. I'm having a stall at the vide grenier in Bussière at the end of August, so I'll take them to sell. I won't get rich on it but I enjoyed the making of them.

My brother's garden contains a long hedge of lavender, which has been covered in bees for the last few weeks. Now, just before the flowers are finished, I harvested a bunch.
Ever since Christmas when Tony gave me the book of sewing projects I'd wanted to make some Lavender Ladies, stuffed with the fragrant flowers, for hanging in a wardrobe.

Our garden is fruitful. The orchard is growing some lovely peaches and pears, just one quince, but the single apple tree in our garden has been dripping with apples. Every day the grass beneath is littered with fruit, some full of wasps but most are rosy, sweet and perfect. We've juiced one batch successfully and are about to make another. The courgette plant gives us a good one every two days - we were just keeping up until our neighbour Claude brought us round a basketful of huge courgettes and surplus cucumbers from his veg garden.

Poor Fido came home with a horrible injury to his face. Off to the vet next morning, who cleaned up the wound, applied gel, gave him a painkilling jab and gave us a course of liquid antibiotic to administer at home. That means the poor little chap is confined to quarters for 10 days. He's very good though, suffered the car journey and the vet's attentions very calmly and just spends his time sleeping and gazing out of the window. Ah, bless.

Tony and I celebrated our 27th wedding anniversay with a nice quiet evening in... with a bottle of pink, real, champagne, followed by a skinny dip in the pool under the stars.

Pizza party! With Graham, Jocelyne, Kieran, Heloise, Roger and Pauline, with some of the best pizzas we've done to date (our technique is improving) and plenty of wine... a fab evening. afterwards, some of us went for a cooling dip in the dark, when I had to rescue several bugs from the pool first... including a praying mantis. Whatever next!