Lazy days

Half way into the holiday in France and we have hit our stride, and are enjoying long lazy days of swimming, eating and generally lounging around. Fantastic.

Cevenne sickness

This has been my view for the last 24 hours as I have been struck down by the Cevennol sickness that I always seem to get when I stall here. Still it's not a bad view and at least it puts the brakes for a day at any rate on the vast quantities of good food and wine that are being consumed by me.

French Market

Tomatoes

Zander does not like tomatoes in their round form.

Plums

Much happier with this.

Sketching

The boys are swimming in the river and I am starting to sketch. Not my favourite picture but I am at least drawing. It is however very pleasantly peaceful. Until lunch that is.

France

So here we are in France after a lovely visit with Mandy and Graeme in Basel.We has a bit of a drama on the way down with a cracked windscreen but all survived, even the windscreen.
This is me about to have the first swim in the river.
The boys have been building a camp in the stream.
The orchard on the way to the river.
I have often painted this view. I love the palm tree against the house, the mountain and the bluest sky.
And this is the terrace where all our meals occur.

It's Friday so it must be Belgium

Brugge to be exact and it's beer o'clock.

For the boys it's sweets o'clock
and waffle o'clock. Aah summertime and the living is easy.

It's Fris

afriday

Fun beside the seaside

A seaside supper down the old town last evening.Fish and chips and pop for the kidlets,

Oysters , half a pint of brown local shrimps, and a lager top for me.

London

We had a weekend in London catching up with friends courtesy of Nanny and Granddad. This was the foyer in our hotel.
London at dusk on a hot summery evening. Same colours as the foyer.
Liverpool station.
I love this photo. It could be New York perhaps?

De La Warr Pavillion

Hard to believe its England. These pictures are from Bexhill on Sea at the De La Warr Pavilion which has been restored to all its Modernist glory. It was built in 1935 for the Earl De La Warr and was the first public building in the modernist style. Its now an art gallery and very lovely especially in the summer sun.

Cherry cake and cousins

We have cousins coming over today and so I thought a nice cherry cake might go down quite well. There hasn't been a lot of drawing going on as you can probably tell.

The cherry cake is one I do a lot. It is dead easy and almost fool proof. My type of cake.

Cherry cake

Ingredients

225g self raising flour
100g ground almonds
275g glace cherries
225g butter softened
225g caster sugar
3 large eggs
few drops vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of milk

It's your basic cream the sugar and butter, add the beaten eggs, then add the flour and ground almonds and lastly the vanilla extract,milk and the cherries. My Granddad was a baker and he said you need to roll the cherries in flour before adding them to the mixture so they don't all sink to the bottom of the cake. That's what I do and it mostly works.

Spoon into a cake tin or loaf tin about a 9 inches is what I used. Bake on a middle shelf at about gas mark 4 or 180 degrees for about an hour or until a skewer comes out clean. I decorated mine with icing made with icing sugar and water and the rest of the very large tub of cherries I bought.Yum!

Mercatoria

The sun continues to shine and so we paid a visit to our favourite pub Tiger Inn in East Dean.
I continue to browse the wonderful shops, this time in an area called Mercatoria. You wouldn't believe it was a run down East Sussex town would you. It looks more Parisian.
I got Jos a t shirt in the same design as the bear is made from.
The view at the top of our road.