Time with family in Gloucester

After our stop off in Nailsworth we got to Gloucester and spent some time with my Dad and I rescued two vintage (old fashioned we called them when we were young) suitcases from his loft that I am going to clean up and use as storage. We then went to my Brother and Sister-in-law's house and  we spent the rest of the evening with them. It was so good carching up after our summer adventures. Their eldest son has just returned from the Toronto Mission where he was on a Spanish speaking mission. My Sister-in-law Emma cooked the most delicious Vegetarian Chilli or Vegetable Chilli, I have only ever made it with vegetarian mince and never liked it really. I highly recommend this recipe, well done Emma, my half vegetarian daughter-in-law will like my veggie cooking more now!!!

Vegetable Chilli
2 Courgettes
1 Onion
2 Potato
1 Sweet Potato
2 Carrot
1 Parsnip
1 Can Sweetcorn
1 Can Kidney beans in chilli sauce
1 Can Mexican beans
1 Can Butter beans
2 Cans Chopped tomatoes
Chilli powder to taste

Chop and saute all fresh veg few minutes, add canned veg and little water add chilli powder to taste, bring to boil and simmer for about 20 mins. This makes a lot so adjust ingredients to suit your family.

I made this one

Winchester-who knew!!!!

I have not been to Winchester for many years for many reasons. Some years ago they had a lot of car free days and seemed to go through a stage of being full of charity shops and I couldn't buy the things I neede for my family when they were younger then I got out of the habit of going there at all. Anyway a lot has changed and I have been there twice in the last two weeks. There has been a market as well on both of the days I visited, on Thursday there was a lady with some lovely French style things and someone with some peruvian things I wanted to buy a blanket but the person had wandered off and my car parking time was up so I will have to go back again. The Cath Kidston store is always beautiful to look in even if you don't buy anything.

Looking up the high street

Window detail

Street entertainer

Cath Kidston windows

Market stalls

Oxford Street Trip

I had promised the girls I'd take them shopping in London during the holidays but the weather hasn't been great. In the end only Xenia wanted to go and after one false start when she couldn't actually get up in the morning we set off for our Oxford Street adventure. Xenia didn't think I could actually find my way round London so she was quite nervous going with me but we made it to Marble Arch then hit Primark and H&M teen-age girls' heaven. We had lunch at 'Garfunkels', good choice and then headed back to Waterloo. Got back without going wrong even once, if you can read you can find your way on the tube. Still going back on my own one day soon.

Marble Arch

Not the prettiest shop but teenage heaven

She's off!!!

Serious business...

Parts of Oxford Street, very pretty

Do Bloomingdales know these are here?

Highly recommended

Ready for nourishment

Home beckons

Waterloo roof

St Raphael Market

You can barely move in St Raphael on a weekend evening in August, however if you get there early enough during the week you can 1. Move your car. 2. Get a parking space. 3. Get a seat in a decent restuarant. 4. Have a lovely time browsing the market stalls that are put up all along the waterfront in the evenings. The girls always have a hunt along the jewelry stalls. There are crafts, paintings, leather goods, (plastic goods) and lots of jewelry as I mentioned, a fun evening.

Boats in St Raphael

Games Stall

One of the many jewelry stalls

Close up of soap stall

The soap stall smelt wonderful

Honey stall

Amazing hair style

Dusk

This lady personalises leather bracelets and had just done one for Xenia

Art stall

Ready to go home

Visit to St Tropez

We had a wonderful but hot day in St Tropez towards the end of our time in France. We just about caught the boat from St Raphael and had a good trip to the harbour. The old Port and town area is just lovely as you can see by the photos. It's painter and photographer heaven. We found a great place to eat on the harbour, the food was great as ever I highly recommend the lemon chicken and the potato dauphinoise was just delicious. After more looking around and photographing beautiful scenes we ate lovely ice creams and caught the boat back to St Raphael.The car couldn't go fast enough back to the villa where at last we could jump/fall in to the lovely refreshing water of the pool glorious pool.

On the boat to St Tropez

Lighthouse in bay

A normal street

Oh those shutters

The girls are like models

James

The sign means no stopping or parking here however the girls can't read French

Every street you look down is a photo opportunity

See what I mean?

Our boat

Chris has got a new car!!!!!!

No surprise because Chris has been going on and on and on and on and on..... well you get the picture about the new Fiat 500's for ages. I love them too so when I got a surprise call from Chris from a Fiat garage telling me about a black Fiat and I asked if there was another colour and he said there was a red one I said get the red one. It's gorgeous and very retro looking. I love it. Chris loves it and Chris is happy!

So cute!

Very retro!