Another garden party!

 

And last weekend it was time for another party in the garden!

The weather was gorgeous and so, late in the afternoon, we received about 20 friends at home

 for what will probably be the last BBQ of this season... unfortunately ;)

 

Apart from cleaning, preparing & cooking I love to do some tablescaping!

Not that easy if you have to fit in 20 people on your  terrace.

But we managed!

 

This time I chose red tablecloths... with little white polka dots,

napkins in white with little red polka dots (I used them here too),

white flower bouquets, mix match of red & white china.

Lovely food, nice company, latino music, samba, salsa and aché :)

 

See you soon again!

 

 

 

Doorwerth Castle

After our Tour d'Europe we had another 2 weeks of holidays left.

We celebrated my birthday, had friends over for diner, BBQ'd a lot and enjoyed being back home.

The second week Mr. Abacaxi & Hortelã Junior went on a week long summer sailing camp so Mr. A&H and I filled the 'no child' days with exploring the Netherlands a bit more. Thus we headed to the eastern part of the Netherlands, to Winterswijk . A lovely town with a nice atmosphere and surrounded by lots of green space where we followed parts of the Scholtenpad . It was hot, but the wind made in bearable. Of course Senna came along and she just loved to run back and forth and I guess she tripled the distance we walked!

At night we had a nice diner in the garden of Restaurant Stad Munster, I can absolutely recommend the place!! Food is delicious, atmosphere is cosy, dedicated personnel and the price is right!

After a good night's sleep, we headed out in the direction of Doetinchem where we shopped a bit and had a lovely lunch at an even lovelier place: Met Liefde by Robbert (pictures by iPhone and inside...):

The menu (glued on the inside of old newspapers, talking about re-using!):

 And then we continued our trip to our hotel in Doorwerth, near Arnhem.

After coffee & cake near the waterfront, we went out for a hike and enjoyed the view of the neighbourhood and Doorwerth Castle.

Wishing you all a nice & sunny weekend!

The continuing garden tour

Here we go... we continue our walk through our garden:

 Hope you liked it?

As our summer holidays will start in a short while (school's been out for 3 weeks already), I might not update my blog very regularly nor visit all of your blogs, it's time to relax, unwind, unplug from the computer ;)

Not sure if I will manage, but will give it a try!

Have a great summer!!

BBQ time

Yes, we did have some summer in the Netherlands... and of course we took advantage of it while it lasted: BBQ time!!

It's always nice to change the decoration...

So one night 'diner in blue' & the other night a 'diner in pink'.

Which one do you prefer??

I really hope there will follow more summer days to enjoy lunch or diner outside in the garden!

Fingers crossed!!

Beautiful nurseries in the south of the Netherlands

I had promised you some pictures of my visit to 2 beautiful nurseries in the south of the Netherlands.

Together with my mom and aunt, we first visited Marnis nursery (sorry, only in Dutch).

Iris 'superstition'; a gorgeous nightblue variety!

Papaver orientale 'Indian Chief'

Papaver orientale 'Türkenlouis'; fringed... & in real life even brighter

Rose 'Scharlachgut'

The actual reason to go to this nursery was this rose. I bought one about 9 years ago, just before we left the Netherlands to go & live abroad for a while. So I never actually saw the rose in bloom in my garden. Now that we're back, I couldn't find the rose anymore (guessed that one of the renters didn't really see the beauty of it). So I went back to Marnis & bought a new one. It's a single rose and it looks very fragile in a very, almost neon-like, pinkish red colour.

I planted it last week & all of a sudden, I saw another rose making it's appearance.. it looked a bit neglected with ugly branches. I decided to let it stay there and waiting for the buds to open before deciding to take it out or not. And guess what? When the buds opened, it was the same rose!!

I have 2 now and I don't mind at all :)

After lunch we went to another nursery,  Bastin

Bastin is well-known for its mediterranean plants like many different kinds of salvia & lavender.

I didn't take any pictures there (it started raining and I had my hands, of course,  filled with plants!!), but I'll show you some of what I bought that is in my garden now:

 

Salvia 'Hot Lips'

Cistus x purpureus 'Betty Taudevin'

Campanula La Belle

Verbascum Linda

Verbascum Chaixii Album

I hope you liked the little tour & if you're in the neighbourhood, these nurseries are well worth a visit!

Very dedicated and well-informed people, with a heart for their work!