Post Comment Love 11-13 November 2016

Hello there and welcome to this week's #PoCoLo, it's been a chilly one this week hasn't it?  If you were here last week - thank you - Morgan and I hope you enjoyed our first #BloggersShowcase we're looking forward to being able to share more about you. We've had lots of interest in taking part, which has been great. We're still waiting for your answers to roll in, so this week is mostly about linking up and seeing what our community have been up to in the past week.

If you're thinking about sending over your answers, please do, we could be featuring you next week. Pop over here to find out how to get involved, and for a reminder of the questions. 

To counter the cold I've been keeping busy as usual. It's been a busy blog week with a drive to Devon to visit River Cottage HQ, a trip into town to admire some gorgeous handbags and a craft evening in Greenwich where I made a start on making my own neon sign. 

And that's where my photo is from, this wire is the basis of my design. I've still some more to do to complete my sign, but I had a great evening drawing the design, bending the wire and attaching the neon bit (technical term!) to the wire with a series of knots. I never realised that tying knots with invisible thread would be so therapeutic. 

I'll be sharing more of my craft evening, the handbags and my visit to River Cottage here soon, but oh so many photos to edit first. I've had a brilliant week, and even I'm surprised by how much I managed to fit in around working full time!

An InLinkz Link-up

Packing up the garden

Clearly on a roll after my allotment discoveries last weekend we also headed into the garden for the first time in a while too.  The high-level plan was to prepare it for winter, but that turned into a full day of work. I told you it had been a while.

The plastic cover went over the patio table and chairs, and given the rain this week that's been a good thing. I cut the spent agapanthus flowers, and awarded myself the award for the prettiest trug. 

I admired the berries on the pyracantha, of which there are many, and once again listened to MOH's tales of woe of a cold winter. He may be right, but in all honesty, one year he has to be right. And it could well be this one given how chilly it's been this past week.

The orange chrysanthemums were moved closer to the house so we can see them and their colour from indoors. The solar lights were packed away into the greenhouse. And so were my garden ornaments. Pots were wrapped in bubble wrap. And the fox-proofing greenhouse wire-door has been rolled up and a place has been made for it in MOH's shed.

Towards the back of the garden - and in the working part of the garden - I rediscovered some brassicas I'd sown from seeds and rosemary cuttings I'd taken before the large, woody rosemary bush was sacrificed for the new barbeque stand. Does it make me a bad gardener to admit I'd completely forgotten about them? They'd done a good job though of looking after themselves, and nothing a good drink wouldn't fix. And yes, I mean them, not me. 

I remembered why I'd forgotten them.  I'd run out of room on the allotment so had potted my seedlings on and planned to move them over at some point. Yes I'd over-sown my brassicas by a whole five seed trays. There's curly kale, cabbages and purple sprouting broccoli to plant out.

And now, for the first time I know how those vegetable gardens I covet manage to grow cabbages in line. It's the closest I've come to that, but I know in reality they will just be shoved in the allotment where the tomatoes have been and where we can fit them in. But maybe next year I'll be more organised and be able to plant cabbages in lines. Who knows.

Next to the temporary brassica staging I noticed the strawberries were looking well and healthy. On closer inspection I realised one was flowering and that I've at least a couple of strawberries too. I don't think they'll do anything, but they must be pretty confused plants.

My small Christmas tree is thriving, butI have no plans to move it indoors, I think that's just as well as it's looking very settled. Next to it my white berried plant is doing well. Not many leaves, but lots of berries. Cue the lots of berries equals a cold winter conversation. Again.

The sage which I cut back hard when it flowered is having another go and growing well. The speckled leaves look pretty, but it's the young green ones I like fried. 

I also spotted a little bit of moss in my greenhouse guttering. And while it shows off my tardy greenhouse side, I couldn't help but share as it makes for a great picture. Or I think so anyway. If anyone asks, it was an experiment to see how it grew. But yes, it's another job on the list for Spring.

Do you have a growing list of jobs for next year, already?

Love This #72: Joyful Living, Norfolk

Sometimes when you walk into a shop you just know, don't you. You know it's a place where each time you visit you'd find more than one thing you could leave with. For me it was a case of ooh I like that, and that, and that too. So it was the kind of place that I could quite happily have left with lots of items, the trouble was that I didn't really have time to talk myself into (or out of) many of the items, so I did the next best thing and took some pictures so I can have a leisurely browse and so I can ponder some more.

It was these vases, candle holders and generally shiny things that had me hooked. Not only their design, but the fact they go together without looking like you've tried too hard and that the same design is available in multiple sizes. I'm already in the TOTOATOT frame of mind - yes the This One, This One And That One Too - and it's hard not to be.

I've realised though that I haven't told you where I am. Well exactly where I am. I'm in Joyful Living in Norfolk. It's a shop by Jo Griffiths in the what seems to be ever-growing Drove Orchards in Thornham, just along from Hunstanton or Sunny Hunny as you'll often hear me call it.

On their website they say the items often "feature neutral textures, rather than bold patterns, for calm, easy-going living" and that it's a great "mix of old and new, more beautiful and functional than fashion-led" - I knew there was a reason it appealed to me.

The natural textures, the old style typewriter and my new favourite of diffusers. Oh and some yellow chevroned rugs.

It's the type of shop that I could look round endlessly, but the type of shop that MOH rolls his eyes at. Luckily for me though my dad was there and mum and I sent them off on a exploratory mission down towards the barn to read a sign. My mum's a clever woman, we had time to browse in peace, they were off doing something useful and you know what I don't think we ever did ask them what the sign said.

The shells and the glassware was much more important. As was the potted history of the old medicine bottles and our local chemist, Beales. I do remember having an old gunked up bottle of pink, chalky chamomile lotion in the bathroom cupboard in such a bottle, but that was it for me memory-wise. I'd happily have some of these though.

Usually I'm not drawn to shells. Well not shells I'd like to have in my house anyway. I find them fascinating, but usually I'm happy that they're in someone else's collection. Not these though, I think it's their whiteness and cleanness. And in the picture below the shininess. Or maybe it's because it's in its own dome. It's gorgeous either way.

When I saw this crocheted throw, I knew that was my cue to leave the shop. For the record I left without the throw, but I was sorely tempted to take the caressing of it a step further, to unfurl it from its rung, to ask the price and then to convince myself it's just what I've been looking for.

In fact it is what I've been looking for, it was that pearlised cotton that just feels nice to the touch. I've been meaning to teach myself to crochet and now I've seen this, it's what I had in mind. I just didn't know that until I saw it. But of course it's slightly ambitious for a first project, especially when I can't even crochet. Yet.

So I left, almost with the blinkers on, but not quite. It was everything about this shop that I liked, even the storage. But I knew it was time to go as staying any longer would be dangerous. So if you're ever in the area, do go along to this shop. But don't leave with the crocheted throw or we might never speak again, that is, unless you leave with it wrapped and with my name on.

Do you know that a shop's just you, as soon as you walk in the door? Or is that just me?