Taking the train to Paris, Angers and Tours

At the very end of May we set off with a heavier than expected suitcase, a small wheely case and plans for a complete break. With MOH still on ‘light duties’ I think it was just the thing we both needed, especially for him as it was good for him not to attempt too much and jeopardise the holiday. Typically we’d booked this holiday just two days before any of this, so we were grateful that we were still able to go, even if that meant changing our plans slightly and definitely no cycling.

Newark to London and onto Paris

One of the things we loved about Newark when we were looking to move here was its connectedness, and the ease of getting into central London. Turns out that worked even better for getting to the Eurostar as it is just literally across the road from Kings Cross.

You can’t beat the Eurostar, and it’s been a while since we’ve been on it - but it is just fabulous.

Gare du Nord to Montparnasse

We stayed in Paris overnight close to the station at Montparnasse where we’d pick up our train to Angers the following day. People often say that Parisians are unfriendly, or brusque but I found exactly the opposite, especially with the suitcase and stairs on the Metro and more than once. Those people who offered to carry the case don’t know just how grateful I was.

Staying in Paris also meant that we had the perfect excuse to revisit our favourite Parisian restaurant, and even though it had changed hands it was just as good as we remembered. I’ll share more in a future post on this and another bouchon we visited when we returned to Paris, but in the meantime, here’s a glimpse of why it’s so special.

BOUILLON CHARTIER, MONTPARNASSE

Montparnasse to Angers

The next morning we were at the busy Montparnasse station earlier than we probably needed to be to make sure we could locate our train to Angers, which of course we did and was easier than expected. We settled in to our upper deck seats, yes the case came up the stairs too, and after a short taxi ride, arrived at our base for the week, a very pretty little chateau.

CHATEAU DES FORGES, ANGERS

It was perfect, and our room had a great view of the garden. It was a little out of town, but we knew that - and let’s be honest, not many chateaux are in the centre of town are they.

From here we explored the Jardin des Plantes with it’s spectacularly shored up tree and so much more, dodged a brief rain spell and discovered another art deco gem in a department store and saw the new bedding purchase which beat us home!

We visited the cathedral with its newly opened porch which was built to protect the fragile and deteriorating facade following the removal of the mediaeval porch. I didn’t realise at the time, but it was only officially opened in April of this year and was designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. We explored the town and I was unexplicably drawn to these large apples by Bruno, which were almost 2000 Euros and nonchalantly on display outside the shop.

And we enjoyed walking beneath the floral arched tunnel alongside the river on our way to the Castle, though MOH and his hayfever possibly less so. The Castle gardens were impressive as I peered in and looked over the wall, but those on the ramparts were even more impressive and I’ve more to share from this visit, including the vineyards on the ramparts and the Apocalypse Tapestry - the largest medieval tapestry known in the world.

Another day we left the hotel on foot to explore the nearby Ile Saint-Aubin and marvel at the Bac, a small chain operated ferry which is the only public access to the island and its 600 hectare nature reserve.

We went along to the Museum of Fine Arts which was fascinating though both MOH and I preferred the contemporary pieces, and then we spent a full on day at Terra Botanica which if I’m honest I wasn’t sure about beforehand. Afterwards though I’m a complete convert, and we had a great day - though we walked just under six and a half miles that day, including getting there and back to the chateau. It’s billed as a theme park for gardens, which was what put me off, but it was brilliant - and I haven’t yet worked out how I can share what I saw there yet, we saw so much.

It was our first time in Angers, and it was brilliant - there was so much to see and do, and it definitely lives up to its reputation as France’s greenest city, but it was time to move on.

Angers to Tours (via Le Mans)

We were back at the train station, this time heading to Tours for the second main part of our trip. We needed to change at Le Mans, so we got to see some more of the French countryside on our not quite so direct route. Once in Tours, a city we’d visited before, some ten years ago we immediately noticed some changes, and yet familiarity too.

We took the tram to our next hotel, also a chateau but more along the lines of a larger corporate hotel, but no worse for that. We came to Tours for one main reason, and that reason was to revisit the Chateau de Villandry.

In 2016 we’d arrived by bike, and that was our original plan to for this trip - but as we couldn’t a taxi did very nicely, and much more comfortably instead. Again I’ve much more to share from Villandry, and somehow I never shared my photos from there before, but this sneak peek will explain why I was so keen to get back there for another visit.

Yeap, it’s a wow of a garden isn’t it? Wait until I tell you that the section at the top right is a potager and is filled with edibles, yes my mind is blown too. It’s probably my second most favourite garden ever with Huntes Garden in Barbados firmly in number one spot.

We also found time to celebrate our nineteenth wedding anniversary with a spot of wine tasting, as you do - and it was just as well that MOH insisted on bringing his wheelie case as that went home three bottles heavier. Well, when in Rome and all that…

Tours to Montparnasse and onto Gare de l’Ouest

Just a couple of nights later we were back in Paris, arriving once again at Montparnasse and this time taking the Metro to our hotel located within walking distance of both the Gare de l’Ouest and handily for the next day the Gare du Nord. We also found ourselves in another Bouillon which was just as good as the one we knew and loved.

BOUILLON JULIEN, PARIS

Paris to London and home

With supplies of baguette and pastries secured the night before we back at the Eurostar to start the final leg of our journey home, but there was still the chance to put some final holiday stitches into my holiday embroidery project. It’s far from finished - and of course I haven’t touched it since we’ve been home - but I’m loving how it’s going so far, and it’ll be a great keepsake to have of our trip.

I’ve plenty more to share from our trip and I’ll do that over the coming weeks and months, and as and when I do I’ll add links to this post so eventually the story will build up with several layers.

New to my craft room in June

This month there’s more to share than in previous months, maybe there’s more around or I’m more susceptible to a nice bit of fabric at this time of year, who knows. The past month has also spawned ideas for two new projects - one inspired by a sewing magazine, and the other by this gorgeous new fabric from Liberty.

FAT QUARTERS FROM LIBERTY’S NEW GIFTS FROM THE GARDEN RANGE, TOPPED OFF WITH A TULA PINK FREESPIRIT CHARM PACK

The main pile of fat quarters is the new ‘Gifts from the Garden’ range from Liberty and they’re full of ‘cheerful florals, fruity prints, orchard charm’ and the email where I fell in love with them optimistically suggested they’d be great for my next project. Well they will be a project and used together at some point, but I suspect it won’t be my next one!

Not only do I love the fabrics - and surprise, surprise I couldn’t choose between the colourways - I also love their names. The pinks are called Jam Jar, the yellows Lemonade Stand. Then the blues are Orchard Breeze, with the orange selection as Marmalade Market. I know that the quilt that these make with be filled with zing and colour.

In the photo they’re topped off by a charm pack of Tula Pink’s Freespirit fabrics and I’ll use these 5 inch squares for the applique project I spoke about last month. I’m still planning how to make that happen, but ideas are percolating.

I’ve also added to my scraps and reuse piles this month with nets from the many lemons and limes we seem to be using at the moment, plus there’s a red onion net there too for a different colour. The squares are from our trip to France, they were at the napkins at breakfast at our last hotel and I was intrigued by them, so brought them home. I thought perhaps some embroidery, but then MOH used them for a wine bottle mat, drips and all so at least I now know they can withstand water!

Towards the end of the month I’d booked myself on a workshop to find out how I could make a pattern from clothes I already have. It was a useful day, and I took along a much loved jersey dress which has faded through wear and washing and is now one of those pieces of clothing that you only wear at home.

The tutor helped to make the pattern pieces of the top half, which is the bit that’s the most tricky - the skirt is just straight, so even I can manage that I hope, even though it does have pockets inserted into the seam. And so now I have to try it out - or make a toile - at home. A while back I’d bought some material from the market stall in Newark who was closing down, but I don’t want to go straight to that so my plan is to use the grey and orange striped material in the image below.

This whole pile of fabric came from the Gedling Play Forum a not-for-profit community scrapstore, fabric room and play forum, which for us is on the way to Nottingham, and who had organised the pattern drafting workshop. By joining I could access their scrapstore and fabric room (there’s a very reasonably priced craft shop on the site for non-members) and left with this pile of fabric, which including annual membership cost me £16.

Of course I have plans for it, well all apart from the ribbon which just called my name! The orange and grey striped fabric I’ll use to test out the top half of my new hand drawn pattern, and all going well I could end up with a new top! The two blue patterned bundles and the blue herringbone design, along with the roll of continuous zip and the luminous thread I’ll use to make zippered storage bags for our garden cushions so that they can be stored in the garage over the winter, and in the summer when they’re not in use.

Then the gold/bronze geometric fabric, which is quite soft and drapey, I’m thinking that I’d like a dress out of this - which is a bit random, and probably will be the only one of its kind, but it was too gorgeous to leave behind.

The workshop, and subsequent scrapstore visit, inspired these next additions. The dot and cross paper for further pattern creating ventures, the curved rules to help with shaping arm/shoulder pieces and of course necklines.

I think I now also have a lifetime supply of zipper pulls, as even by adding two to each storage bag for a double zippered effect, I’ll still have plenty left. I like the bright colours of these, and have no qualms about them not matching the zip - I mean, look at the thread I’ve chosen for these! My thinking was it’ll be easy to see if I need to rip it out if I go wrong!!

A friend from my sewing group has recently opened a stall at Newark market, and so I went along to be supportive - and did well to leave with just two additions to my fabric pile. The black - an unusual choice for me - is for another potential project, the one I saw in a sewing magazine, and will ultimately be for my greenhouse, bear with me on that one!

And the other? Well once again, text printed on fabric got me - I’ve no plans for this one but will be happy to admire it for a while!

Talking of sewing group, there were more items in their donation/de-stash pile which came home for me for a donation. I’m currently thinking that the gold flowered design might work with the geometric material above, but I need to check that out. Then the pink will be good for some more charity village quilts, and the final two smaller flowered pieces will come in handy at some point, I’m sure.

There was also a bag of patchworking pre-cut and some pre-sewn pieces. I didn’t want to leave someone else’s work behind so these also came home with me. The cut squares were quite an eclectic mix, but could mostly work together - and I’m sure I can do something with these, at some point!

So that’s another month in my craft room, check out my previous updates for earlier additions, and remember to let me know below what you’ve added to your craft supplies this month.

New sofas and pondering paint colours

Back at the start of the year we had a flurry of house improvement type of activity, which included buying and installing the blue chandelier and some new sofas. We’d actually seen the new sofas when we stopped off in Bruton overnight in the December, whilst on the way to visit family in Devon.

Clearly they were meant to be.

MOH pointed the new sofas out in the window of a small showroom, and while he may not have fallen for them immediately, for me it was the sofa I didn’t know I was looking for. It took us a while to decide they were right for us, and after much measuring we took the plunge and ordered two rather expensive sofas.

We didn’t expect them to arrive until around Easter, so we thought we’d have plenty of time to consider our decor, and so the paint charts came out. I’d envisaged our lounge having dark green velvet sofas, and I wanted a relatively dark wall too.

But these sofas were not dark green, though they ticked the velvet box.

A rethink was needed.

I was still keen on green though, and the small show room in Bruton were really helpful pointing us towards greens that would work with the sofas we’d chosen. So we worked our way through various paint charts but mainly sticking to the Farrow & Ball colours which we had worked so well for us in our previous home.

Larger samples were ordered of the two that we thought would work best for us, and Farrow & Ball threw a spanner in the works by sending the samples in a green envelope - which was more like the green I’d had in mind originally.

Argh!

GREEN SMOKE, CALKE GREEN AND DIBBER

The Green Smoke was immediately dismissed for being too grey in our room - strangely adding it here confirms that it’s not for us. The Calke Green is still a favourite colour of ours, but not for the lounge so it’s likely that we’ll use that in another room, which leaves Dibber. On its own it isn’t a colour I’d choose, but with the sofa samples it changes from a drib muddy browny-green to something that gives me the darker colour I wanted, and goes brilliantly with our sofa samples.

The bigger challenge is choosing a white which goes with it as having these larger samples has shown that the builder’s bright white kills this colour, and it needs a softer white. The same goes for the Calke Green, builder’s bright white isn’t the match. And while on the Farrow & Ball site they give options for whites which match their colours, there isn’t a common white for both of the colours we think we’ll use in our downstairs decorating.

We don’t need - or want - three different colour whites in our downstairs, so the hunt for the white which doesn’t subdue the colours is still on. It’s harder than choosing the colours, I’m sure.

Our hunt was cut short by an earlier than expected sofa delivery, they arrived at the end of February taking us quite by surprise.

But looking good. So very good.

As you can see we still have the builder’s white on the walls, but life got in the way a bit and we will get the walls painted at some point, just as soon as we’ve found the white that works with both - and booked the decorator!