My 2018 in photos: July to December

Today I’m sharing the second half of my year in photos, featuring posts I enjoyed and which have sparked memories as I’ve looked back over the past year. I’ve also realised there’s many more posts that I haven’t shared, so that’s good news, as there’s plenty more to come - and plenty more lovely gardens to keep us entertained during the winter.

SEPTEMBER: A CROCHET UPDATE

SEPTEMBER: A CROCHET UPDATE

NOVEMBER: IN MY GARDEN

NOVEMBER: IN MY GARDEN

I think these photos, along with those in the first post are a good reflection of the best bits of my year. 2018 was in many ways a tricky year, but it wasn’t without its high points as I think my year in photos shows.

My 2018 in photos: January to June

Today I’m sharing some of my favourite posts of the year, well just the first half of the year - and at times it was hard to stick to just two from a month so there’s a couple extra thrown in along the way - enjoy!

APRIL: THOSE POM POMS IN THE BOTANICAL BEDROOM (AND UNUSUAL ARTWORK)

APRIL: THOSE POM POMS IN THE BOTANICAL BEDROOM (AND UNUSUAL ARTWORK)

Looking back like this has prompted many memories, and that’s only half of the year - I’ll post the second part of my year in photos next week.

Wine tasting at Roccafiore

Well, when in Rome - or more accurately, Umbria…

Exactly, we just had to visit a vineyard on our trip to Italy this autumn, and MOH lost no time trying to find just the one. And that’s how we ended up at Roccafiore, a vineyard in Todi close to where we were staying. What interested me was what they call the “natural and sustainable viticulture” which we learnt means a more natural way of producing wine.

A view over the vineyard's gardens and terraced patios

It’s just a small vineyard set in the hills of Todi, the terraced gardens where we had our tasting were very pretty - usually the tastings take place inside, but as it was unexpectedly warm we were more than happy to sit in this pretty setting. When we arrived the workers were having their lunch, and they were a great advert for their company - I’ve said it before, but you can tell a lot by a company by their workers, and later when we saw them at work, they looked equally as happy.

A place to perch and enjoy the Italian Countryside

Having our tasting outside meant more work for our host as she fetched and carried everything we needed, including a pretty jam jar of flowers and a wine passport for us to make notes about the wines in, and some weird dog-like biscuits (in the basket) which I wasn’t much of a fan of.

The serious business of wine tasting was ready to begin
admiring the roccafiore merchandising

We’d chosen to have lunch alongside the wine, which is always a good move, and the lunch included some of the charcuterie from pigs kept on the land, which tasted as good as it looks. There’s also olive groves on the land and they also produce olive oil, which we tasted slathered over bread, and also very tasty. Tasty isn’t a word I thought I’d use about olive oil, and it’s here we realised that we don’t use olive oil in the same way at home, and it’s wasted how we do use it!

local charcuterie to accompany the wines
the best tasting olive oil

When it got to the part of the tasting that the price list came out we surprised ourselves by considering the olive oil. We didn’t buy any though as there were only 3l cans available, and this summer aside, we couldn’t think of when we could make use of so much olive oil to do it justice, which was a shame.

We also did the calculation on the optimum bottles of wine to ship home, which turned out to be three cases. Red, of course, although even I was tempted by a couple of the whites. And so a couple of weeks after we returned from Italy, some of their Il Roccafiore, a Sangiovese and Prova d’Autore (a blend of Sagrantino, Montepulciano and Sangiovese) followed us home.

A jam jar of flowers no doubt picked from the vineyard's gardens

As I said at the top of this post, when in Rome (or Umbria)…