Summer Decorating Ideas

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"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 

And summer's lease hath all too short a date". 

-Shakespeare

Anyone who has spent the Summer in England will go away thinking this is the most beautiful country on the planet. Summer turns England into a gorgeous cornucopia of colours - forests turn lush green, meadows bloom with wild flowers, fruit trees burst into flower to entice bees, wisteria blooms over doors and the brilliant blue skies form the perfect backdrop to all this prettiness. Yes pretty, for I am sure the word pretty was invented to describe England in Summer.       

You can see I am smitten, and to add to that, this weekend has been endlessly sunny and warm. The kind of lazy summer days when you want to make a big pitcher of lemonade, call some friends over for a bar-be-que and while away the day in the garden under the shade of a big tree. Here are some gorgeous design ideas for just such days. So that you can spruce up your home in time for those summer gatherings.

Wish you all a lovely happy Summer! 

  

   

Images courtesy of apartment therapy, Bhg, Ikea family live, adored by Alex, happiest are the prettiest, honestlywtf, grass, Marimekko, petite vanou.    

Food Discovery Friday - Pink Radish!

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Food discovery for today has to be the pink radish, for it is such a contrast to the radish commonly eaten in India. Back home a radish is usually white and extremely pungent, so pungent that it would make your eyes water. They certainly always made mine water and I never liked them. So imagine my surprise when I saw these small pink jewel like vegetables in the radish section. They looked so pretty, I had to try them and I am glad I did, they taste much milder and sweeter than the radishes I am used to.  

As the weather slowly gets warmer, I am beginning to like salads again and salads are the perfect place to put pink radishes. Being so mild, they lose their flavor on cooking, so they are best enjoyed raw and combine very well with most types of salads – you can toss some with mixed leaves to create a pop of pink or mix them with potatoes to make a Russian style salad, they also go well with cucumber and apples.

However, the recipe that I really like combines them with oranges. It makes for a very colorful salad with the zingy citrus flavor a perfect partner to the peppery radishes. Adding Parsley enhances the sharp citrus theme of this salad and the green looks gorgeous next to the pinks and oranges. I like to call this my Vitamin C salad, as all the ingredients are rich in this Vitamin; in fact, Parsley contains more Vitamin C than oranges!  

Here's the recipe. It serves two people. 

10-12 Pink Radishes

1 Large Orange

Handful of chopped Parsley

Juice of half a Lemon (for the dressing)

Slice the radishes thinly in round disks. Peel the Orange and remove skins and seeds from the slices, chop these in half. Now just combine these with the Parsley and Lemon juice. And you're done! 

My vitamin C salad sitting on the window sill and matching perfectly with a Cherry tree in bloom.  

No I do not have an in-house stylist, it's just a happy coincidence.Thank you Nature!

      

Space for sunny Sundays

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We have been having such gloriously mild spring weather here in Cambridge. Such weather just begs you to be outside and its times like this when I wish I had a small outdoor space. Outdoor areas like decks and gardens are just perfect to while away sunny Sunday afternoons. Specially when this space is as beautifully done up as Veronika and Mark's home in Surrey. The multi-functional family dining area and workspace has big glass doors opening out to the deck which makes it perfect for al-fresco dining and entertaining guests. At the same time the soothing color palette provides a sense of calm and relaxation.

All images courtesy A new home in a new country from Ikeafamily.

A spring morning at the Orchard in Grantchester

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Friday: It’s a cold rainy evening and we are having dinner with some friends. Recenty back from a backpacking trip across China they are full of stories. As the waiter starts serving green tea, John tells us about tea gardens in China. Sitting for hours in a garden sipping tea, as your cup is topped with hot water. He considers these gardens the epitome of civilization. Poles apart from the drink and dash culture in the western coffee shops. There people have the sense to sit and reflect, laugh and talk with each other. You won’t find such a thing here, he says. Here people only like to show off the Starbucks logo on their coffee cup, who is interested in actual conversation.

Well actually we have a tea garden in Cambridge too, Jamie says – The Orchard at Grantchester! Everybody laughs, but I am intrigued. Let’s go to the Orchard I say to H as we drive home. No, let’s wait for summer! It is much more beautiful then, he replies.

Sunday: It is the second last day of February and the chill is refusing to go away. Little daffodils are valiantly trying to stand up straighter against the cold wind. Then one morning the sun decides to listen to the daffodils, and shine! In the morning we wake up earlier than usual, rubbing our sleep filled eyes in surprise. The entire room is awash with sunlight – bright, sharp and cheerful.

It is simply not a day for breakfast in bed! H and I scamper into our wellies and out of the house. It is a nice day to go to the Orchard he says, as we get on our bikes. I just raise my head to the sun and smile. Grantchester has decided to call me to itself!

So off we go, cycling along the river and across the meadows. I cannot honestly say that it was at its most beautiful. Two days of continuous rain had made the path muddy and slippery. The fields looked worn and tired but there were signs of spring everywhere - swatches of purple and orange daffodils and flashes of forsythia brightened the way for us.

The orchard itself is ideally located at the end of the cycle track, providing a perfect spot to rest after cycling all the way to Grantchester. And what a grand resting point it is! They have a collection of mouthwatering pastries, cakes and the famous scones baked fresh every day and served with an assortment of jams or honey. I decided to sample a fruit scone with Morello cherry jam.

Then of course there is tea, for which the orchard is famous in the first place. Taking tea is an old tradition at the orchard, started in 1897 when a group of Cambridge students made the excursion to Grantchester and asked Mrs. Stevenson to serve them tea under the blossoming apple trees. Unknowingly on that spring morning, they had started a great Cambridge tradition. It might have looked exactly like the picture below.

But the actual credit of making the orchard famous has to go the poet Rupert Brooke. He took up lodging at the Orchard House in 1909, wanting to escape his hectic social life in Cambridge. However, Brooke was so good-looking and popular that he attracted a regular stream of visitors. Adding further appeal to the orchard was its mention in his poem “The Old Vicarage, Grantchester” which he wrote in a homesick mood in Berlin while remembering his idyllic time in Grantchester.