Ladies Morning Tea

Sometimes it is very hard to spend time with each of the children separately and I think they crave this one on one time with parents so they can have both you and your full attention all to themselves. So on Saturday I took B2 into St Peter Port to buy her some new sneakers for her up coming Sports Day and to have a bit of a wander around the shops.



What ladies morning out would be complete without a little light refreshment. We went to a patisserie which has a outdoor deck but unfortunately the clouds resulted in it being a little too chilly for alfresco so we settled on an indoor table. B2 was allowed to choose anything she liked so naturally a chocolate milkshake was the order of the day. I had a very well made Latte with full fat Guernsey milk, my favourite.

B2's eyes were as large as saucers when she saw the cake cabinet and after several minutes of careful consideration, which involved many questions regarding decorations and flavour, she settled on this slice of deliciousness. I am not a fan of cream cakes and have only eaten Black Forest cake once before in my life so unfortunately I had totally forgotten about the alcohol it contains. This was a tradition Black Forest made by a very skilled patisserie chef but sadly it was not to the taste of one little girl. She did eat all the cream and tried to eat the cake but the alcoholic flavour was just too strong for her. So it lay, very sadly, uneaten. I felt so sorry for her as I remember looking at cakes like this as a child and imagining that they would taste better than anything else in the world.

I have promised to take her out for another Ladies Morning Tea in the Summer holidays. I will prepare myself a little better this time and scout around all the coffee and cake shops in Town to be sure to find one with just the right slice of dreamy sweetness for next time.

Always keep a half chewed apple in the footwell of your vehicle!

My husband cycles to work each day and each day he passes this field.



He knew I had been looking for a few more buttercup based photo opportunities so he took me to show me this display; not to mention the field's handsome inhabitant.

Peek-a-boo. Oh, sorry make that inhabitantS.

'I now you've got it. I can smell it a mile off!'

'I'm coming over looking as sweet and cute as possible.'

'Please, please, I don't care that it is half chewed. Yes, yes I know it has been rolling around back there for three days, that just adds to the flavour, don't you know.'

'Mmm thanks alot, those buttercups look great but they don't taste the best! Are you swinging by tomorrow by any chance?'

Short back and sides

My Mum bought me this lovely lady last August and like me she never quite finds the time to get to the hairdresser.

So I am afraid it is a home job for you as you are giving Bumble Bee Cottage a bad rep!

Ahhh..much better. This new do definitely makes you look slimmer and has taken years off you. You really should have done it sooner. Perhaps I should take a leaf out of Henny's book ;P

It came from beyond the stars

No-one saw it land.

It offered no greeting.

All attempts to communicate were ignored.


No-one knew from whence it came.

Was it trying to tell us something?




Was this the secret of the fabled Easter Bunny?

Did he really live in a Guernsey Farmhouse in St Saviour?

Now we will never know as it disappeared as swiftly as it came ......

Images of Cobo Bay

I was up at the point between the Cobo and Vazon Bays yesterday. It was chilly, wet and very, very windy but beautiful nonetheless. Please click on the images to enlarge them to get a true feel for the area; my little camera does not do long distance shots that well.



Looking back towards Cobo. The sand on this beach is as close to Australian sugar sand as you are going to get in Guernsey. This is the most popular swimming beach in summer. Tourists and Guerns flock to beaches, suncream covered, tents and wind breaks in hand, buckets and spades, beach volleyball nets, rockpooling nets, picnic lunches; they may still be seen late into the evening making the most of the long summer days.

Grey sea, grey skies; this image makes me envious of people with a sea view. We need to stand up and look out our bedroom window to see the ocean though you can hear it at night when you lie in bed. The crashing of the waves in the distance is very soothing and lulls you off to sleep.

Looking back towards the point.

I have come to appreciate the beauty in boats. I never want to own one and am not that keen on motoring or sailing about in them but I can look at them and see why people are so drawn to both boats and the ocean. We lived a one and a half hour drive from the beach in Brisbane so we never went there very often as it always involved a bit of an epic journey coupled with weekend beach-goer traffic = not much fun.

Buttercups are everywhere at the moment but are very hard to photograph well. Their petals seem to reflect the light so I am unable to get a decent close up to show you that they really are more than the yellow blobs they seem in all my snaps.

The bracken ferns have appeared out of nowhere and are growing centimetres by the day.

This rose was just growing in the hedge next to the roadside. I know this probably seems normal to people who live in the British Isles but it noteworthy to me who has only seen roses in home gardens where they are assured of regular water.

The coastline of Guernsey is reminiscent of a vague memory of a movie I have seen once but can't remember when, nor who was in it, what it was about or where it was set. I suppose I mean it has a touch of the surreal to me. It is not contrived in anyway nor staged but its like has been reproduced in the media so many times in different forms that it seems sometimes that I am looking at a movie set rather than real life. It is the quintessential British seaside town (although I know Guernsey is NOT part of Britain, but you know what I mean).

When we first moved here its beaches seemed so cold and uninviting. There were people sitting in beach tents or behind wind breaks so they could enjoy the sun without the cold winds. Children swim in wetsuits so they can make the most of the fine weather but not be chilled to the bone by their watery activities.

It was totally bizarre to me that even when it was 12.5*C (plus the wind chill mind you) people would swarm to the beaches provided there was a smidgen of sun; now we happily join the sun and sand worshipers. We have not gone so far as investing in wetsuits yet but we probably will before the summer ends. We have been here 22 months now and I still find things that locals see as 'normal' quite amazing but I think a little bit of Guernsey has found its way into this Aussie girl's heart; something I was sure could never happen!

Pink Saturday - Rose Pillow

For B2's birthday last year she received this rose cushion from Granddad. My Dad quite often gets me to buy Birthday and Christmas gifts on his behalf as he says I know what the kids would like better than him. I bought this cushion so B2 would have something very special to keep from her Granddad, toys are fine but I think life long keepsakes are a sentimental necessity.

The lady who makes these lovely cushions lives in Canada. Her Ebay seller name is angelafre

I have never seen its like anywhere and B2 loves it, which is the most important thing. Eventually I plan to get one for both B3 and for myself at some point. I think a handmade gift adds that special something all the mass produced gifts never can - individuality.

Happy Pink Saturday and thankyou to Beverly of How Sweet the Sound for hosting it once again.

Cherub Garden

This is the view out of my kitchen window. Our house plot is less than 540 meters square so I try to make the most of every little bit of gardening space I can. When we first moved into Bumble Bee Cottage our furniture was stuck on a dock in England but fortunately the people we purchased the house from had left it partly furnished and were more than happy to let us have their old furniture as it saved them having to get rid of it. Included in the things left behind were some gardening tools. After enduring eight weeks in a two bedroom flat being to frightened and stressed to drive far for fear of becoming lost in the lanes I was so excited to get outside and do some gardening. So I began on our first weekend in the house, two days after we moved in. This raised garden bed is fairly small and there were a lot of plants in there which were not to my 'plan'. If you ask Mr Bee he will tell you I always have a 'plan' of some type on the hop. So chop, chop, chop and out all the plants came except the espalier conference pear tree and three roses, all pink. This became my pink, white and pale blue bed.


The lady we bought the house from came over the following week to collect some mail and literally stopped dead in the middle of the kitchen floor when she caught a glimpse of the view from the kitchen window. All her hard work was now destroyed with only four plants still standing. I could tell she was a gardener as the garden was well cared for but it was different from what I wanted. I think she was in a little shock at the fact they had only sold us the house six days before and that I had caused such destruction in such a short period of time.



I hope she would forgive me if she saw it now, preparing to burst into flower.

My children bought me this cherub for Christmas four years ago. He was scrubbed with bleach and wrapped in cardboard, making the long journey from Brisbane to Guernsey in one piece; thank goodness.

Mr Bee dubbed this plant the Triffid as it came up by itself last year. I was convinced it was some type of perennial so I let it grow. A large flower head poked up and Mr Bee said if there were strange lights in the sky one night he was going to take to it with an axe before it ate us. It is some kind of pink poppy (I think) and it has self seeded throughout the cherub garden. There are about ten of them this year; perhaps it is part of their evil plot for world domination but hey they suit the colour scheme, are very pretty and, best of all, are completely free!

The people we bought Bumble Bee Cottage from built this house in 1987 hence the wall plaque.

I bought this little cast iron bird bath three Christmases ago in Evandale in Tasmania, Australia. The bird bath together with three other pieces of cast iron work were jammed into my luggage for the trip back to Brisbane. My bag had to have one of those 'warning ridiculously heavy bag - what has she got in here the kitchen sink!' labels on it. I didn't think a bird would actually use it, I just liked it for its decorative look. Imagine my surprise that within a few days of my placing it in the garden not only were birds drinking from it but bathing as well. They get right down low in the bath with their chests and ruffle their feathers, then standing upright to spray water every which way with a good old flap about.

My two metal birds come from the Fremantle Markets in Perth in Western Australia. Mr Bee has alot of family there so we try to visit fairly regularly. They were shiny when I bought them but the artist promised that they would rust up to a lovely finish. He was true to his word.

These too were jammed into my luggage. When I bought them Mr Bee did raise an eyebrow and enquire how, pray tell, was I going to get those home as they are rather long. I told him not to worry and just leave it to me that I would take them on as hand luggage if need be. This was in the days prior to psycho security measures of course, otherwise they probably would have claimed that they were a deadly object and confiscated them. It is probably lucky that I do not have that many clothes as I always seem to come home from holidays with something difficult to transport.

Finally my delphiniums have unfurled their flowers. I have been eagerly anticipating this for a few weeks. They are truly gorgeous. In Brisbane I always dreamed of growing traditional cottage garden plants and finally I can. Last year when I planted these their flowers were only half this size. Growing perennials is certainly a different prospect to plants that I have previously grown.

I just love them. It sounds silly I suppose but sitting outside with the kids racing around while I am watering my garden always makes me feel happy inside, that everything is right in the world.

I planted this rose last year so this is its first flower. I wish I had photographed it before the petals were bruised by the rain but nonetheless it is lovely. I am looking forward to enough blooms to have a bunch on the kitchen bench.