fairytale wedding

Beautiful Grace Kelly style dress. The tiara was the Queen Mother's and the veil similar to the one she wore for her own 1930's wedding. But the fifties dress and 30's medieval inspired headdress melded perfectly!

Best bridesmaid. My husband was captivated by this view of Kate's sister but I have to say I was too! The simplicity of the dress complemented both the bride and the bridesmaid.

Best 'mum'. Whether she upset another designer or not Catherine Walker was definitely the right choice for Kate's mum...

I said it first - she should have worn a hat! No doubt terrified of echoing Cherie's grandiosity Sam Cam, style icon, looks fabulous post- latest baby, but a hat would have done it. Best politicians wife of the day though!

Joss Stone leaves Indie behind and scrubbs up as the best looking 'commoner' of the day!

Sorry, but the Bad Fairy has got the better of me - these have to be the two ugly sisters to Cinderella...
All photos courtesy of Femail - link on header. Some great inside stories too...

Butterfly World Gardens

This morning, before the cold front pushed in, the sky was blue and I was wearing shorts in the garden but this afternoon we watched the clouds roll in and the rain pelt down. But before all that we went over to look at the Butterfly World project near St Albans for the first time this year. The project is to build a huge geodesic dome like the Eden project, focused on butterflies, but that is still a year away. This will be the third year and we hope they can fund their ambition. Meanwhile the butterfly and pupating sheds are interesting and the showcase designer gardens are being revamped, and this is the newest one which they were busy working on today. As you can see an Alice in Wonderlandish garden: a house full of indoor/ outdoor rooms with changing views through open windows and doors created from junk and recycleds and growing plants and driftwood and all manner of beautiful, random and tarnished tat that looks absolutely fabulous! The other highlight is the play area which recreates sand dunes so that children can play in the sand in sheltered hollows and grandmas can sunbathe while they bury themselves and each other, haul themselves up the hills on ropes and career down the bumpy slide to land in the soft pit at the bottom.

sometime last summer...

Gardening Weather!

Fat buds on the Japanese Cherry look inviting, especially to bullfinches, but I can't bring myself to shoo them away. Meanwhile blue tits busily scour the tree for small pests - you win some you lose some... The tree  is enveloped in a cloud of perfume and  the humming of bumble bees.

The garden looks its best now with so many narcissus and daffodils whose names I have forgotten but all with a different personality. Jack Snipe, Paperwhite, Pheasant's Eye, Tete a Tete and a dozen more jostle for attention among the green shoots. This week we ate the last of the leeks - they have fed us from November to April - in leek & potato soup, and today I planted the new season's in my smart raised bed. Together with spinach, radishes, onions, shallots and parsnips, all tucked under a covering of warm soil and bubble wrap! Perfect!

Biutiful

Films - Biutiful - Javier Bardem is compulsive viewing in this gritty story of life in the less than glamorous suburbs of Barcelona. The soundtrack is fabulous.

True Grit -  Hailee Seinfeld steals the show with her assuredness and wonderful enunciation of a beautifully crafted script. And again, the soundtrack is haunting.

Books - When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin. A moving portrait of loss - of a country, a family, a life. Some politically correct reviewers have trashed this book but it gets rave reviews from ordinary people. Like me.