The season of food and flowers.....

We have spent the day working on a list of odd jobs needing done around the house. After doing our weekly grocery shopping this morning, we drove to a garden nursery to buy some plants for my window boxes on the French balcony. We are used to buying our plants up north now so after the sticker shock, I bought 4 winter heathers in pink and 2 Gaultheria mucronata or Pink Snowdrop. I kept the ivy in the planters already and here are the results. I had to hang out one of the French doors in our living room to take this photo so it is not great.

I wanted to give you an impression of how the back of our house is. We live in what is referred to as 'wall~houses' as they are all built in the water connected to one long wall. The other windows and doors you see if you enlarge the photos are other neighbors. You can see the awful blue paint that was used when the houses were built. We are changing the colors of the house now as we paint and I will reveal the new color hopefully tomorrow as I show you our front door.

Of course, doing up the window boxes led us to cleaning up our garden in the front. We did some pruning back as it was looking very overgrown and tired. We completely cut back our clematis as we have clematis wilt. We should have waited until February for this type but it just looked so bad. We felt it was better to cut it back now than look at it as it is all winter.


To me part of celebrating the season is including the seasonal ingredients in your dinner. We have a true autumn feast tonight. I made us venison steaks with port sauce. I must admit I made up this sauce as I was going along and we both enjoyed it so much that it will now become a regular thing for us. I served Swiss rosti with spring onions, baked herb and cheese tomatoes and grilled zucchini and carrots alongsside the steak.


For dessert, I have bought a wonderful dark chocolate delight which was so delicious. We have a small glass of dessert wine with it. I really love to cook and try to achieve the same pleasure as we would have by eating out.

A few responses:
Thanks to you all for your comments about my photos. I really do love trying to take a photo that sets the scene and shows you part of my world. I also love seeing your own photos on your blogs.

Kim ~ I don't blame you for waiting to find a cloche at a thrift shop if they cost $30. I thought I probably overpaid when I finally found mine. I bought both of them for around $25 so I didn't do so badly then. I really had no idea how much they should cost.

Angela ~ I love to smell books too! How funny as I have never heard anyone else say that besides my sister. I used to play librarian when I was little because I thought the best thing in the world would be to work in a library and have that smell around me all day.

Julie ~ Thank you for complimenting my name. I too like it. My mother asks people if they like their name whenever she hears someone being called Heidi. Many times they tell no they don't like it but I never minded being called Heidi. In fact, when I used to get the typical jokes in school, I would laugh them off and be sure I had a comeback ready.