Autumn fruits

Suddenly autumn is there! Last week i celebrated the first day off autumn with my friend picking apples at a local farm. It is our yearly ritual. This year was kind of extra special because my friend carried her newborn with her. It is incredible: last year my friend was hardly into the thought of getting a baby and now she is carrying her everywhere. They are so cute together.
An apple harvest ritual is a great way to celebrate life, friendship and nature. It marks the transition from an outdoor to indoor life, physical but also mentally. It is a good time to look at the fruits of your life and count your blessings!
My friend and i always go back to the same orchard. It is nice to see what changed there (just like in our lives) and what is still the same.  After the picking we go to the farmershop to buy biological vegetables and goat cheese. Then we eat our apple with some fresh fruit juice and watch all those happy people picking there own fruit. And of course, back home, we make a lot of different apple recipes like apple cake/ bread/ crumble / mousse etc........Love it! Here come some autumn pics, from a sunny weekend in and around my home town Dordrecht!

Project Allotment 2013

My parent's in law invited us to the Tuinen van Appeltern, a walk through garden information park. Although we are not really people who like finished concepts ( our creative process goes slow and we rather learn what we like by trial and error), it was fun to go there and we did find inspiration for our allotment land. So these pics are for our scrapbook Project Allotment 2013!

Italian old doors

I have this thing for old wooden doors. I remember that when we were looking for a new home (6 years ago) the first thing i checked out was of there was an old entrance. The red old door from our 18th century house was love at first sight.....

In Italie this summer we saw the most beautiful old wooden doors! My favorite ones come from 

 the Etruskian little village called Sorano, number 7 and 8c below. Would love to take a look behind....

Rome

Rome

Rome

Santa Fiora

Sienna

Sorano

Sorano

Sorano

Rome

Garden Calendar

I can't help it, but when fall is coming i am already making my wish list for my birthday at the end of the year. It is mostly about interior stuff.  As soon as summer holiday is over it starts itching everywhere, i really want to redecorate my whole house. This year i am especially focused on our allotment house, our tiny little outdoor place just 10 minutes from our urban place. It is now stuffed with boxes because we are preparing our second level self-building project at our urban place. Means our allotment house is not that cozy as i hoped it would be this summer. We are people who like to do many projects at the same time. Working, renovating, studying, gardening, training for outdoor sports, starting a fertility treatment.......And of course our friends & family have to fit in this busy life! They are really important for us.The result is that we are always busy and there always seems to much great things to do. Our projects are never finished. Sometimes i wish we would be more rational, just do it one by one at the time. And maybe a bit more conventional. But i know it does not suit us. And i truly love my love because of his funky ideas. At the moment, he is making a grass roof porch down at the allotment.....It is hard to belief that it was just one summer away we just got our allotment place. Back then it it was very neat piece of land, with sharp lines and no flowers at all. Just squared places for growing vegetables. Now it looks like a colored wilderness.......More our style!

But: next spring i do want to have a cozy indoorplace there. So i am now making a promise to my self: march 2013 is all about making it indoor ready! And this new Garden calendar from Rifle paper co.......would totally suits there, don't you think?

Bright summer colors

Top 5 of my favorite (allotment) flowers 2012:

1. Delphinum

2. Echinacea purpurea (red sunhood)

3. Dahlia
4. Centaurea cyanus (korenbloem)
5. Cosmea