Thursday Doors – Garden Gate & Dappled Sun

We’ve had some wonderful sunny autumn days here on the Hillside this week and in the early morning the sun is playing lovely games with light and dappled shadows in the courtyard. I thought I’d include  a couple of views of one of the wooden garden doors here for my contribution to Norm’s Thursday Doors…

Boundaries, Lines and Grapevines

The grape harvest (vendange in French) is well underway all around the hillside and watching the machines trundling up and down the rows of vines I decided I’d better get out and about with my camera before they finish and the grapes are gone for another year. The vines are one of the things I…

Change – Sunflowers After the Sun

We’ve had the delight of fields of yellow surrounding us on the Hillside for a few months, but the sunflowers are finally being harvested. Here in France they are called ‘Tournesol’ which literally means turn to the sun, and this is exactly what they do. For several weeks seas of bright yellow faces look up…

The Last Iris

Busily preparing and framing photos for a photography exhibition, I re-found a set of photos I thought were lost when my computer crashed a couple of months ago.  With the first day of Autumn arriving officially tomorrow with the September solstice I thought it might be a good moment to post this reminder of the…

Monochromatic – Rhapsody in Blue

I’ve been wanting to finish my marathon fruit photography series with the wonderful damsons we’ve just picked from the orchard.  The colour of the bloom on the fruit is so blue and beautiful I’ve been wondering how best to capture it and had finally decided my plain blue crockery would be the perfect compliment. I…

Growing Tomatoes and Connecting with Nature

I’ve thought a lot about the state of the world lately as we’ve been picking the fruit in the orchard and harvesting vegetables and herbs from the potager and the herb garden. It seems to me a sad thing, that for all the miracles of modern science and technology, so many of the supposed advances we…

Blackberry Tuesday and the Colour Purple

Anyone looking at my recent blogposts would imagine I had a serious obsession with medieval churches and fruit. I’m going to add to this impression with my post for tonight and I make no excuses, it’s a busy time for fruit on the Hillside.  Most of the apple trees in the orchard are ready for…

Darkest Fruit

Before moving to France 13 years ago I had always dreamed of having an orchard and indulging in a variety of homely pursuits like baking apple pies from my own apples and creating jams and conserves from my prizewinning strawberries and raspberries.  We now have the good fortune to have just such an orchard and…

Enveloped – Weekly Photo Challenge

Enveloped Enveloped in a golden sunset, the earth sleeps, wrapped in dreams of summer……. The hillside was bathed in glorious sunset light the other evening when I took this and I thought it would express perfectly my idea of ‘enveloped’ for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge. I’ve included a monochrome version too…………. ……and a colour…

Lilac Time – Vintage version

 AS I WAS ARRANGING THE WHITE LILAC I HAD CUT FROM THE GARDEN FOR YESTERDAYS’ POST, I KEPT THINKING OF MY GRANDMOTHER AND THE BEAUTIFUL GARDEN SHE HAD WHEN I WAS A CHILD. My grandparents’ house dated from the 1920’s, a solid suburban red brick and slightly tudoresque affair, blessed with a large plot to…

Spring #3 – Lilac Time

EVER SINCE WE ARRIVED ON THE HILLSIDE 13 YEARS AGO I HAVE DREAMED OF MAKING A BEAUTIFUL GARDEN. In my imagination the lawns are mown into stripes and squares, flat and rich enough to welcome the most stringent player of bowls or croquet. The borders are full of exquisite flowering shrubs and unusual specimens arranged…

Glorious Spring

The hillside has exploded in a riot of blossom and colour this week.    I know I’m in danger of repeating myself by offering up another post with blossom as its’ subject but when I went out onto the orchard this afternoon to the glorious sight of the fruit trees abuzz with the industry of…

Rustic Beauty – The Humble Turnip

After the lovely promising spring weather of a fortnight ago we’re suddenly plunged back into the damp and chill winds of November here on the Hillside.  Our sunny moods have departed with the warmer temperatures and so my plans for more spring inspired images for this post have been moved aside to make way for an…

Spring # 2 – Fragile Blossom

In the courtyard on our French Hillside is an almond tree. It has never been exactly prolific in producing fruit but its’ show of magnificent pale white-pink blossom is always our first herald of the arrival of spring.  The tree itself is need of an expert prune as all the blossom is now bursting forth…

SPRING – Tender Tulips

Signs of Spring are appearing everywhere on the hillside now – tiny blue forget-me-nots, wild violets, the first cowslips, the early daffodils, even some very precocious iris are in full bloom seeking the warmth of the sun.   Opportunities for photographs abound and I have a score of ideas for posts for the coming days.   I…

Winter # 3 – The Quietly Beating Heart

Here and there amidst the silver bare winter’s landscape are vibrant reminders that the pulse of life continues through even the darkest days and the longest nights.  The berries in the hedgerows and the hips of the roses are rich and blood red with the promise of Spring……..    ALL PHOTOS © JANE MORLEY  

Winter # 2 – Life is Sleeping

The hillside is really in the grip of Winter now. The trees are shivering in the winds from the north and the warmth of the autumn colours has been chilled  to a palette of  brittle greys.  Only the laburnams and the lime trees are still clinging to their delicate copper- coloured  seed pods as if…

Winter – Ghost Leaves

The colours on the hillside are changing now from their glowing autumn shades to the darker hues of winter. Nature’s astonishing architecture is becoming visible everywhere, in the bare branches of the trees, the hips on the rose bushes, the cones in the evergreens and in the fallen leaves which carpet the garden.  On our…

Little Acorns, Mighty Oaks……..

A while ago on one of our walks, Freddie the Labrador and I collected some splendid acorns and oak leaves. I fully  intended to snap a few pics while they were still fresh and colourful but haven’t somehow got round to doing it.  Today I was going to throw them all away as they’ve dried…

A Summer’s day in a tiny flower…..

Autumn is really showing its’ beautiful glowing colours here on the hillside and already throwing some surprises into the meteorological mix. Yesterday afternoon was a busy one in the boutique and all my Sunday afternoon visitors were completely unprepared, after the mild morning, for the fierce downpour and hailstorm which turned up around 4.00pm and…

Gold, Copper, Chestnut, Conkers – Hello Autumn!

I had a very different idea in mind for today’s post but as I strolled along the path through the wood after lunch with Freddie the labrador, we stumbled across some exciting treasures which simply demanded to be photographed.  Freddie was delighted to have found a fox poo and a badger burrow plus a few…

Sunset Colours and Autumn Vines

Every day of September here on the hillside, has been warm, balmy and beautiful; the evenings noticeably cooler as the Autumn approaches but full of astonishing light and colours. I decided the other evening to take a walk down the hill towards the poplar wood where the sheep live, passing en route the tiny vineyard…

Apples, hornets and apple pie……….

The strange weather conditions of this year have left the orchard looking bedraggled and bewildered.  The spring cherries were waterlogged and the Maytime plums annihilated by hailstorms, now the apples, usually so abundant and wholesome, are rain-damaged and fast being eaten by wasps and hornets.  There is , as always a silver lining for someone….

Cosmos , Marigolds and the end of Summer

This weekend heralds the end of the official summer here in sunny France, as thousands of holidaymakers wend their way back home to prepare for ‘La Rentrée’ – the re-entering, literally, of work or school. over the next week to 10 days.  The summer has been a disappointing one weatherwise, some sun to be sure…

Summer Storms and Teeny Tiny Toads

 In which we consider the return of Noah’s flood to the Charente and tackle a hoard of teeny tiny toads in the wine press………. The weather has achieved Biblical proportions today here in sunny France. After an impressive build up over the last few weeks and months, with a few minor monsoons here, a mini…

The Pomegranate, the Seasons and a few Greek Gods and Goddesses

Wandering around the aisles of the supermarket the other day, I came across the section devoted to ‘exotic fruits’. All kinds of alien forms and textures populate this particular aisle  – spiky, fleshy, hairy, succulent – all originating from countries I couldn’t hope to place on a map and all ultimately fascinating and mysterious.  Not…

Oh No! Here Comes Summer!…….

In which we consider the excesses of French summer weather and wish we had a decent deckchair…… Well finally, here in South West France, the sun has put in a long awaited appearance and the Summer has arrived, at least for the next few days.   This is, of course, great news for those of us who…