Summer greetings...

Dear blog readers,

Have you entered the summer "lull" yet, 

the lazy days,

 the stopping what you are doing long enough to spot the most wonderful of growing inspiration, 

of "Nothing Is Impossible" and two fingers in the air to anyone who says 

poppies cannot grow out of a dry stone wall if they feel like it...

Does you laundry smell wonderfully fresh from spending hours in the light summer breeze, weaving more than fresh air into the thread count of the sheets, storing life and new beginnings in the same...?

Is your home-made elderflower cordial drunk yet, 

drunk with sparkling water to the tune of the ice cubes clinking and clanking in the glass,

drunk till the last drop of golden summer flavours is devoured 

and the longing for next year's harvest has begun...?

Has your vine started producing grapes yet? 

And more importantly... 

- have you stopped to smell the roses?

I confess, I am not quite there yet. 

My work has not gone on holiday, so neither have I.

But occasionally, and eagerly encouraged by my youngest son,

I do stop to smell the roses.

Literally.

My son says:

"Mamma, you have got to come here and smell this one. It smells like lemon."

Although he says it in Swedish. 

"Den luktar citron, mamma!"

"Oh, and come here. This one smells like raspberries!"

So I stop.

And I smell.

And he is right. The yellow rose does smell a little bit like lemon, the red one like raspberries.

So I pick one, put it on the table.

The scent of lemon, summer and sweetness fills the room.

Wraps us all in the arms of summer, despite the boys still having a week left before school finishes and my having more work than I dare to think about...

Lemon. Roses. Raspberries.

Sometimes that is all it takes.

Helena

♥

Why I think I might start drumming...

Every now and then I hear other parents tell me - not seldom without a poorly hidden despondency in their voices - that they have just bought a drum kit for their child, because said child really, really wants to become a drummer...

I have often wondered how I would react if one of my boys presented this idea to me...

Glorious, GLORIOUS part of this home, housing the indoor swimming pool.

I am not sure I would jump up and down with joy... 

I think I would rather spend the rest of the day trying to convince them that the instruments 

they are already playing are SO much better for them, for so many reasons... 

Noise level being one of them... 

However...

... having today fallen completely and irrevocably in love with this 

stunning house and its equally stunning gardens...

 I am beginning to think that this drumming business is not such a bad idea after all...

If this is what Nick Mason, former drummer in Pink Floyd, is able to call home (one of his homes) today 

(and yes, this is his home, on the outskirts of our little town)...

... I think my view of my boys potentially choosing a drumming career might just have changed dramatically...

In fact, I think I might give it a go myself!!!

Summer greetings to you all!

Helena

Garden glimpses...

Scruffy shed at the back of the garden?

Nothing that a few pots of lavenderishious loveliness and a couple of 

gently green garden chairs (from ASDA) cannot fix...

My peaceful friend joined me in the move from the old house...

 ... and now enjoys the scents of summer from the perfumed plants, 

whilst contributing to 'the calm and the cosy' 

in this little corner of contemplation.

The view from the chairs or the bench above?

Well, a lawn crying out for a haircut and the garden path leading back to home, sweet home!

Dearest readers,

I am - again - humbled by your kind words, 

your greetings here on the blog and via email, your warmth and your kindness. 

Thank you all SO much!

With love,

Helena

Resurfacing...

Dearest blog readers,

Now how did that happen?! A blog silence so long that even I was beginning to wonder if I would ever find my way back to the gates of Bloglandia. As you can see, I have resurfaced, but only with the help of some recycled photos from previous autumns. My camera lies dormant in its case, and I, I neither lie nor am I dormant very much... Instead, it seems I have boarded life's own speed train, with a ticket that will last at least another few months...

As for you, dear readers, I wish you all the best, hoping you are enjoying many revitalising autumn walks and special moments with friends and family. The season for going a little candle crazy is here, so bring out the hot chocolate and the fluffy throws!

Helena

Flirting with turquoise...

Now, many are the eyebrows that might now be raised a little higher than usual in front of the computer screens... Turquoise, she says? Aqua colours in the Swenglish home...?

Well, lately I have, to my own surprise, felt drawn to this strong and cheerful colour. Perhaps it is because of the magical summer we are having, where temperatures seem to have soared many weeks ago, only to surprise even themselves by then getting stuck there, high, high up in the unusually sweaty register... Perhaps this is why I am drawn to this slightly cooler colour, a sort of surrogate dip in the ocean for a Swede longing for school to finish and mental doors to open for beach days and splashing galore?

Perhaps this is why, during a visit to Camden Market in London at the beginning of the summer, I was surprised to see myself point at this large piece of fabric and say "could I have that one please?" and a moment later find myself in the street a few pounds shorter but with a bag full of aqua-coloured joy?

(Love versatile garden equipment..., like here with a tray placed on an upsidedown leaf bin/butt/barrel -instant side table, hooray!)

And this little fellow, he and I met in Sweden in June, and I invited him to come home with me. I am very glad I did, as with him came some wonderfully calming vibes...

Fruit... oh how we eat fruit in the summer heat! Pears, melons, strawberries - any and every fruit seems to lodge in our fridge, but only for a brief moment before it is enjoyed, giving us the juicy, fruity kick we are craving...

So there we have it, a quick and long overdue hello from a warm Wiltshire, where we are now getting ready for some proper summer holidaying, hoping the weather will not already have exhausted itself completely...

  Lake splashing, here we come!

So, from my little corner of turquoise tranquility, a warm hug to all of you who still pop in to visit The Swenglish Home blog. What is your colour that has got you tingling this summer?

Helena

❤

Lollipops, lucky clover and a surprise little black number...

Just outside our double doors to the garden, there is a small patio between the house and the steps that lead into the actual garden. If you have visited my blog before, you will have seen this little corner of my world a lot, as this is an area that changes with the seasons throughout the year.

With the baskets of pansies looking less than... well, less than alive, shall we say, after my visit to Sweden (when they were left without the tender love and care they crave), it was time to invite some new players to the team...

Can you see all the four-leaf clovers in this beautifully coloured clover-y plant? I look forward to many lucky moments in my life over the next few years, if this is a sign to go by! And my new lollipop mini-trees - what is it about me and my lollipop trees? I can't seem to get enough of them. They are just so... cheerful!

For the second time in my life, "a little black number" has found its way into my decorating. Or two little black numbers to be precise, both old terracotta pots that had a close encounter with a jet black paint brush the other night... The greens of the clover and the other fluffy green loveliness seemed to demand to be offset by a black pot, and I obeyed, of course.

And my dear Buddha seems to have survived last winter without any cracks or blemishes, and sits on his special spot on the steps, spreading vibes of serenity and calm to anyone walking past.



Cluttered with pots? Perhaps. But as our neighbours have recently cut down all the bushes and blackberry branches that used to form a little roof over this seating area and offer a leafy feel to the place, as well as covering some of the not so pretty parts of the old wall, well, this abundance of green and purple eye candy works for me!

Today the winds reign here in Wiltshire. Everywhere I see people muttering and mumbling as they pull their coats tighter around their sun-longing torsos. The sky shows very little promise of anything that does not involve wet and damp, but I will cling on to the hope that we will have more of those lovely temperatures that only a few days ago spoke of summer and planted sunshine in our hearts and in freckles on our noses...

May the sun be with you, in heart and happy freckles!

Love,

Helena

Taking a Bluebell Break...

Dear blog readers,

Sometimes, when the rain finally holds back for a brief moment, 

the clouds part long enough for the sun to caress our skin and souls for a few precious minutes...

... we ought to find our own little bluebell spot and allow ourselves to sit down, 

breathe slowly and gather our thoughts...

With a feverish little fellow at home from school today, my planned morning walk had to be abandoned and I found myself rushing around doing laundry with one hand and lunch preparations with the other...

... whilst also making a few fish-shaped biscuits to cheer up the little man...

But then I saw them.

And I heard them.

Those seductive, cajoling rays that chanted 'come out, come out, enjoy us while we last'...

So I did.

A few moments of time out in the garden.

In the very wild garden in bad need of a haircut, a shave and a general face lift...

I hope this weekend you find your own bluebell spot and the time to enjoy it!

All the best,

Helena

Ps. Thank you so much for all your kind comments. I appreciate every word.

'Purpling' the patio...again!

To see the whole image, please click on it.

Dear readers,

Some of you may think there has been a little too much of other people's gardens here on my blog lately, so it is time to 'bring things home' again, and to do it in the way I like best... the purple way...

About a week ago, I could not wait any longer. Outside temperatures were still not very impressive, but the garden-greedy colour-yearning soul inside me just NEEDED some purple violets. Yes, it was definitely a bit of an emergency.

The rest of the garden is still looking more savage than tame, but a quick sweep of the patio, some petal power and a few hastily scattered accessories, and we could welcome our Sunday lunch guests to some outdoor living... or at least to enjoy the view from the table inside, as it was far too cold to even consider lunch on the lawn!

The new three-legged metal friend was a bargain but oh-so-heavy find from a local second-hand shop, thought to have come from an industrial unit, but I am not quite sure what it actually is. In my eyes, however, it screamed 'garden table' and after a quick choppety-chop with the bandsaw, a left-over floorboard became (yet another) table top. I will probably have to find some more durable wood for this outside all-weather friend, but for now, I can just take the table top in when the rain comes.

And the purple petal pretties? Well, I am in loooove!

Purple or not, I wish you all a very pretty week!

Helena

Ps. Recently, I 'caught' the most wonderful BUG, 

and next time I thought I might introduce him to you...