Colors and moments I appreciate...

We are home!  We love France...but we all so love coming home to South Africa.

The trip to the French countryside with the purpose of finding linen and French bibelots for the big "KAMERS" event later in the year,  as well as a planned online shop, was  very successful.

I will share more on the beautiful linen  and finds in a later post.

I love coming home to all my favorite  colors, vignettes and just home..

Have a lovely week!

A bientot

Last Sunday Brocante...

...no no no..just for us that is!!! We will be departing on Wednesday back home to South Africa, arriving there Thursday 16.25 pm. yes long indeed but well worth it and all the more reason for filling up the last little shoe and secret corners in my suitcase!
We woke up to clear skies and excited for the day (which allso happens to be Fathers day)
no time to have breakfast- just grabbed some coffee and we were on our way.Today we would travel to three different Vide Greniers in the Brive-la-Gaillarde area.
 Back home in S.A we have a homemade" rusk" which is sort of like a dried chunk of bread, but heavier,and mixed into the  dough  is some bran,  nuts, raisins and muesli...dried slowly in the oven after being baked like a bread. After baking, it is broken into  hand size chunks and then dried. This is often what one has in the morning with your coffee which can last you a few hours.
Apart from a few other things DD (darling daughter) is beginning to miss as you will see later, this is the one little South African habit she misses badly.
We arrived at the first Vide grenier which was located in a suburb in Brive and this was litteraly a block of streets that was cordoned off. In front of every house, the owners have emtied their attics. Although it was interesting to see, it was not what we were after today. A lot of clothing and old household goods were piled on tables and in boxes. If we had space for lovely old books, I could have loaded the car full of these, but unfortunately the bulk of our purchases on this trip has already been shipped back home, so what we find today has to go back with us in our baggage.
 The second vide grenier on our list was all so a no-no and we moved on to the last which should have been the first ..The setting was beautifull and clearly this was a big attraction today.

We arrived at De Belveyre and one could sence the excitement a mile away!! The parking area was full to capacity and people were walking back through fields  with arms full and smiles on their faces... once through  the entry gate, walking along a most beautifull packed stone wall, you could hear the music and smell food being prepared.

and there it was...

I found some monogrammed linen,

bobbin lace,

handmade lace curtains,vieux documents,

and just small pretty can't- leave - it- behind - bits,

 

DD was in paradise,....she could show off her  new pink trolley, she had a crepe Nutella, rode a pony and when I was looking for her ...the pink trolley was parked in the field..apart from her horse she misses back home, she has had enough of the only cardigan brought along - a navy and white striped favorit. We had no idea summer 2010 in France would be this cold. -only in degrees that is. We had a lovely last Brocante Sunday for this trip.

A bientot

just strolling around with a pink trolley..

It is our last weekend in the French country side before we depart back to South Africa...

 

Yesterday we visited Brive-la-Gaillarde (Correze)

a beautifull town 20 min drive from where we are staying near Collonge-la-Rouge...- I find it so interesting that the French give the time how long it will take you to get to a place rather than the distance...

Here are some images of Brive..(as the locals refer to this town)..it was raining most of the day, we strolled around, had lunch and returned to have a early evening. It is our last weekend to do the brocantes...so early to rise and take it all in to savour untill we can return again..

   

stopped here for Croque Monsieur and Espresso...I adore the french school slates..

Both Brocantes were closed for the day...

I captured these two pictures from outside, with my nose stuck to the window, wishing I could be inside.. I have allways loved Madona statues, so apart from these that caught my eye first..I have fallen completely in love with Marriage vases on this trip...

I have a thing for sel cannisters and figurines...here they are put together just for me!

we had lunch at le Grain de Sel- excellent!

DD (darling daughter ) fell in love with this little pink trolley and just had to have it...she can't wait for this weekend brocante so that she can show it off!

Have a good weekend !

A Bientot

Colette X

Finding linen..

No need to wonder where we are...still travelling the French countryside...

What an eventfull day we had!! it started off with a little incident on our way to find the Brocante we discovered last year when travelling the same route...I desperately wanted to visit this particular brocante again since I remember the  room at the back of the locale  stacked to the ceiling with linen- monogrammed everything! I wanted to find those special mongrammes that friends ask for..the innitiales of their names or family names..
I tried to contact the dealer  but with no avail. We decided to take the chance and see if we could remember the area we drove and found it as we came around a corner a year ago....the trip would take a good three hours from where we are staying in Puy- d' Arnac. Little winding roads through woods and walnut orchards, ivy covered dry packed stone walls and cows grazing in fields...just like .the start of a french film- just perfect.

Along the way we would stop every now and then to capture a image. It was one such Kodak-moment that we had to stop for, that it happened...

We saw the statue at a crossroad...unfortunately we could not make out the name as the stone with the inscription has weathered over the years to make it unreadable. oh stop! stop! stop!, we shouted....reversed and then it happened...we felt the jerk and we were stuck...

It does not look like anything...but believe me, we were stuck! the more we tried to get out of the ditch, the more we worsened the situation..the left front weel of the vehicle was in the air.


we walked around a bit, sort of looking what we could possibly do- not to concerned, since Mr Bean has taken us on numerous safari trips in Botswana and surely this was just a not even worth mentioning situation when one travels through the Okavango swamps..nothing.! Before we could even begin to frown...a young farmer came to our rescue.. he saw us from his field.....and drove over in  his tractor.

a French man to the rescue..

Done! 2 minutes,  we took our photo's and we were on our way again

laughing at the thought of how it must  have looked to a bystander..the only other life around were the cows...and this unknown to us- statue-thank goodness the farmer were ploughing his fields!

on to the next village: - MARTEL

 

then further on towards RODEZ

 

a stop along the way...

 the Brocante had closed down in it's original locale, but our French connection ( my good friend Ronelle from "My french Kitchen" kept on phoning around and sent information through to us...by the time we reached the area where we found it previously, she had all the contact details of the new address  for us)

The Brocante that I had in mind all along, often wondered about for allmost a year, not forgetting the stacks and stacks of linen, that inspired the trip to France, was no longer there. The owner had opened a new brocante at her home -still full of lovely treasures, but no room in the back with linen...she did have an armoir full of linen, most of it is going home with me-all monogrammed and beautifull of course.

just proof again that one must live each moment to the fullest...it may not come around again- in the same way..

we drove home,

again pausing for photographs.

We decided to stop for dinner

 in  Beaulieu - sur -Dordogne

we took a stroll through the little narrow streets,

peeped into the church where the door was ajar..

steps to nowhere,but beautifull to capture

and after dinner, on the village square where we parked our vehicle ,which had started the day off by being towed by a tractor, now filled with   precious linen...

This photo was taken at 10.30 pm- the skies still blue with the last of the day light.

a Bientot

Colette X