The Good Life
Good company and conversation, wonderful food....sunshine....bliss!
I went with the boys and Grandfather Lady to Coton last weekend. We were celebrating Alex's birthday a week late and came armed with champagne, Laduree and gifts, through rain and thunder until we reached Northamptonshire and we were suddenly in a micro-climate to equal Shangri-La! Coton has beautiful gardens which if you are ever up that way you should experience - and is famous for the bluebell woods which are incredible and flower at the end of April/beginning of May, there's some great pictures here. Alex lives here with her parents, the house is beautiful, but my favourite room is the kitchen. It's like my fantasy kitchen with an aga at one end and a huge sociable table in the centre, where much of the wittering and laughter took place. Alex and Tom cooked their tooshes off as you can see...
The potatoes we were eating had been picked from the garden less than an hour earlier (apparantly 45 minutes is optimum time lapse from ground to mouth so we didn't do too badly!). In fact, foraging with Alex for potatoes was one of my favourite moments of the whole weekend! I'm such a towny I've never picked potatoes or seen how they grow....
...it really was a treat to dig around for treasure, and they were the most exquisite tasting little pototoes. We've got a thriving tomato bush on the balcony which I'm very excited about but this was proper country living!
I called Nathaniel in London who informed me it was grey, dull and wet, but here we were stripping off and running down to the pool which was a windless suntrap - fenced off so you could take your eyes of the small people occasionally without worrying about them taking off on some dangerous adventure or other....
...and the boys got a bit more confident again in the water...
..under the watchful eye of long-suffering sainted dog, Alfie....
There was much rolling around on the grass, running laps around the pool to keep warm and generally having long lazy chats...
Joe found and tried to make his pet a tiny frog, but we managed to magic it away before he killed it with too much love...
We managed a barbecue before the rain set in on Sunday afternoon and ate it in the Garden School where there are actually daisies growing between the steps! How fantastic is that?!
So lovely to see the boys playing together, they've known each other since Harry was one day old and I really hope they'll grow up loving each other as much as they do now....
More magic, this time with aubergines, sprinkled with pomegranite and pine-nuts....incredible. Alex just got the cookery book for this amazing food shop in Islington, I've forgotten the name, I'll let you know later....it's especially great for vegetable dishes....
Only away for one night but I felt like I'd had a holiday.....as we drove back to London late Sunday night I still felt the sun on my face (actually it burned a bit I realised the next morning!)....
Thankyou Alex....
Madame xxx
I went with the boys and Grandfather Lady to Coton last weekend. We were celebrating Alex's birthday a week late and came armed with champagne, Laduree and gifts, through rain and thunder until we reached Northamptonshire and we were suddenly in a micro-climate to equal Shangri-La! Coton has beautiful gardens which if you are ever up that way you should experience - and is famous for the bluebell woods which are incredible and flower at the end of April/beginning of May, there's some great pictures here. Alex lives here with her parents, the house is beautiful, but my favourite room is the kitchen. It's like my fantasy kitchen with an aga at one end and a huge sociable table in the centre, where much of the wittering and laughter took place. Alex and Tom cooked their tooshes off as you can see...
The potatoes we were eating had been picked from the garden less than an hour earlier (apparantly 45 minutes is optimum time lapse from ground to mouth so we didn't do too badly!). In fact, foraging with Alex for potatoes was one of my favourite moments of the whole weekend! I'm such a towny I've never picked potatoes or seen how they grow....
...it really was a treat to dig around for treasure, and they were the most exquisite tasting little pototoes. We've got a thriving tomato bush on the balcony which I'm very excited about but this was proper country living!
I called Nathaniel in London who informed me it was grey, dull and wet, but here we were stripping off and running down to the pool which was a windless suntrap - fenced off so you could take your eyes of the small people occasionally without worrying about them taking off on some dangerous adventure or other....
...and the boys got a bit more confident again in the water...
..under the watchful eye of long-suffering sainted dog, Alfie....
There was much rolling around on the grass, running laps around the pool to keep warm and generally having long lazy chats...
Joe found and tried to make his pet a tiny frog, but we managed to magic it away before he killed it with too much love...
We managed a barbecue before the rain set in on Sunday afternoon and ate it in the Garden School where there are actually daisies growing between the steps! How fantastic is that?!
So lovely to see the boys playing together, they've known each other since Harry was one day old and I really hope they'll grow up loving each other as much as they do now....
More magic, this time with aubergines, sprinkled with pomegranite and pine-nuts....incredible. Alex just got the cookery book for this amazing food shop in Islington, I've forgotten the name, I'll let you know later....it's especially great for vegetable dishes....
Only away for one night but I felt like I'd had a holiday.....as we drove back to London late Sunday night I still felt the sun on my face (actually it burned a bit I realised the next morning!)....
Thankyou Alex....
Madame xxx
Labels: Alex Pasley-Tyler, Coton, Northamptonshire, the countryside
2 Comments:
Ottolenghi? For the vegetables I mean...
Yes!!!!! Have you been there?! Alex and i went once and it's amazing!!! It's a bit Middle East and a bit Italy - yum!
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