My Grandma is amazing at putting interiors together. She has always been very young at heart and has an amazing house which, even now, she is constantly updating with new colours and pieces. Years spent as an antiques dealer have taught her so much as well as having a natural flair for design, without being too slushy (yuk!) she is an amazing role model and I would love to have one half of her energy.

Aaanyway... My grandma's great rule for creating interiors applies here; Use one colour that clashes and stands out. This may seem simple but I believe that most people get so bogged down in creating a 'scheme' that it seems too matchy matchy and ends up flat. You need one tiny thing in the room that literally screams at the other stuff. Then you go from "nice room, could see it on the pages of the Next catalogue" to "holy sh*t how unfair that room is so effortlessly cool" Its about contradiction and making an interior personal and lived in.

You can see how this works in the photo above. The one reason it is so beautiful is the red sash. If it was dusky pink or champagne gold in colour, I believe, no one would have looked twice at this image, let alone pinned it.

With this photo in mind I have tried to show how you could use this colour philosophy to create a room that would be a calming yet lived-in bedroom or living room.

What do you love about colour?

xHx

Antoinette fainting sofa by ‘Kiwi’. Beautiful mustard colour, a lovely combination of modern shape with classic fabric and style www.urbanoutfitters.com

Duck egg wreath http://pinterest.com/pin/27443878949134738/

French country Eau de Nil wallpaper. 1950’s print and beautiful Eau De Nil colourway. http://www.wallpaperspace.co.uk/

Red Lampe Berger http://lampebergerparis.co.uk/page/4/ I recently got a Lampe Berger for Christmas (mine is blue) They are a little known French refillable fragrance lamp and they are a beautiful way of perfuming your home. The scents are very pervasive and only 10 minutes of burn time gives an impressively long lasting effect. They are pricey but I would definitely recommend.

White lamps http://pinterest.com/pin/18288843483759456 Playing with texture rather than colour in an interior really looks calming and classy.

Frankie Loves the snow, he would stay out in it all day if I would let him. He hates his coat that I make him wear (all the other dogs at the park say it makes him look fat)

He has been playing all weekend with my little sister on the sledge. They go down the hill; her on the sledge, him hoppity jumping down along side her and then he tries to bite the sledge as she drags it back up the hill. Its a simple game and a simple life for a little girl and a little dog, I am starting to think they have a comparable mental age. I'm not sure whether that is worse for the 2 year old collie or the 9 year old girl.

We took Frankie for a walk in the woods and took some photos, happy snow day!

xHx

Brrr!

Why is it so so so so cold? My house essentially becomes a big brick freezer in the winter. I sit here wearing multiple layers, leggings under jeans, hoodie, a dressing gown over my clothes like a sexy house coat and still I can see my breath. The dog has become a shimmering ice sculpture in the corner and the cats are stomping around in their snow boots (maybe I’m exaggerating just a bit but it is cold) the forecast says we are not out of the woods yet either! I have a recipe for a lovely warming soup to keep the cockles warm. I make this a lot, it’s really quick. Just remember don’t add too much water, no one likes watery soup!

Butconut spicy soup (think it'll catch on? or do you not want a soup that brings to mind both butts and nuts?)

Ok,

1 onion

1 big butternut squash

1sweet potato

Half a hot red chilli (something like a birdseye)

1cm ginger

Ground cumin 1tsp

Curry power ½ tsp

Salt

Pepper

Chicken or veg stock about 2 pints

Crispy bacon lardons & chives on top if you want to be poncey.

So chop the onion (just hack it up everything is blended) and sweat it out in a medium pan with olive oil for around 5 minutes

Chop all the other veg and add to the pan, you may need to loosen it up with a splosh more oil. Add all the spices and season and cook it all up until the veg softens just at the edges and the spices smell aromatic.

Finely chop the ginger and chilli and add to the pan to continue frying for another few minutes.

Put the heat up and when it starts to sizzle alot pour in your coconut milk and stock and bring to the boil.

Simmer it all for about 20 minutes until you can break the squash up a bit with a fork.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly, break out the hand blender and wiz it all up until it is smooth and creamy

Top with fried lardons and chives, or don’t bother if it is a weekday!

xHx

(picture at www.theguardian.co.uk/lifestyle/2009/sep/13/nigel-slater-growing-vegetables)

No not really! As much as I wish this was our garden... it isn’t. This is my dream garden which really belongs to TV cook Nigel Slater. It is amazing isn’t it? There is a reason I haven’t included photos of our actual veg patch! It is a bit of a mess. Tim dug it over at the weekend and covered the soil to warm up a bit for the new years’ growing season. All we have to do now is decide what to grow.

Last year we had a burst of productivity and made ourselves two raised beds out of scaffolding planks. We were very pleased, even though it cost Tim a fingernail and a nasty trip to A&E when he hammered his finger to one of the planks. We had varied successes and failures (tomatoes a big flop) (potatoes yum yum yum). So, with a view to learning from our mistakes (don’t grow radishes and beetroot if you don’t like radishes and beetroot, you won’t like them any better just because they grew a metre from your back door) we need to decide on what we actually want from our limited space, and what will work.

This is the layout of our plots... we had potatoes in the square last year and courgettes, petit pan, beetroot, chillis, lettuce, beetroot and other various guff that didn’t grow in the rectangle. This year I know I need to move the potatoes into one part of the rectangle because of crop rotation. So I have a little quandary over what to do with the square. I’m thinking either a cute little herb garden or... cover the plot with a net frame and make it a fruit cage... That would be rather cool wouldn’t it? My grandparents had fantastic success with 2 little blueberry bushes last year but they were in pots which would be more flexible for later years. I will have to ponder that one.

My idea for this year is not to do what we did last year and try to grow some of everything... even things we didn’t want to eat really. This year I would like to focus on growing stuff, or varieties, that we can’t get easily at the shops. Herbs would be good, because they don’t last long in the fridge, I can’t cook without them and they are expensive to buy. I have been saving my loo roll tubes for propagating seeds, I’ve been saving them all over the bathroom floor in fact!

I will be back with photos when it’s all looking pretty and not a second earlier!

xHx