Friday Flowers

Ah! Its a lovely warm day, the swallows have returned, and everything looks alright.

I must apologise for a week with no posts, but my computer was stolen last week, and I've just now got a replacement. So what did I do with all the extra time not spent writing blog posts, editing photos or surfing (ahem, researching) the internets?

I baked bread,

banana bread,

I started an exciting new project (more on that when it's ready),

sewed a spring shirt, which you can see more of on my other blog,Confessions of a Lazy Bee
and collected flowers.

I know I've already posted the anemonies, and there are all those other flowers around to document, but they were just so abundant and pretty this week, and they'll be gone soon. The satin texture of the petals is so beautiful, and the colour!

Hope you're all enjoying the first blush of spring, or the last warmth of autumn if you're south. Get outside and breathe deeply! But if you must stay on the computer, have a look at the Caper & Co. website at www.caperandco.com

Andrea

4th most beautiful garden in Italy

Not ours! Definitely not!

Beppe and I today went scouting for a location for a special new excursion, to be launched once the weather warms up a little more. Its an absolute delight to have access to such a special place, and get to call it work. So here's a few photos from our day in the Florentine hills.

The garden's still sleeping, there was ice on the surface of the ponds, all the statuary was wrapped up and no flowers were to be seen, but even the forms of the hedges were beautiful.

                                                       Fancy a cup of tea here?

                                    Look at this view, over olives.
                              The other direction looked right down on Florence.

                           Even the streetscapes around the Villa were incredibly beautiful:

I'm really looking forward to this new project, and will reveal more when it's all set in motion.

On the way home we managed to indulge a favourite pasttime, checking out abandoned houses.

 Isn't it a beauty?

So thats all for our day in pictures, except bread:

 

Oven cooked with poppyseeds. Delicious!

Careful what you wish for- Baking

In the name of a chili eating bet centred around a sauce aptly called 'beyond death' we had 15 people around on Saturday night for a pizza night.

I spent about an hour kneading dough for pizzas and also for the bread I wanted to bake while the oven was still hot.

The oven, a 500 year old original, is huge, and the guys were preparing the fire from 4pm. An interesting note about the oven is the cross carved over the entrance, to bless the bread that was baked there.

Heres the pizzas in the oven:

The coals after raking the fire out for the bread, doesn't it look like a gallaxy of stars, or civilization from a mountain top?

and the bread, wholemeal and grano duro (I don't know the translation), delicious!

So yes, I've been getting all the baking in I could possible want, and more.