The Swenglish Home

Looking back...

As is customary this time of the year, many of us take a moment to reflect on what the year has brought us, small and big, on the surface and deep within. This year, however, a new dimension can be added to my summary, this in-between public and private dimension that we call a blog. 

I have seen many fellow bloggers express a similar experience to mine, that of a warm and encouraging community in which inspiration, creativity and friendships are born and nurtured. Again, I would like to thank you all for contributing to making this "parallel universe" such a nice one to inhabit, and more in particular for taking the time to stop by at my Swenglish abode and leaving behind you gifts of kind words and encouragement.

Before I endeavour on this rather extensive journey through the rear view mirror, I would just like to welcome all my new readers, many of whom may have found your way here through two fellow bloggers who, by coincidence, both featured my blog on Dec 20th. Thank you dear Mari in Italy, with the blog CreaMariCrea, and dear Tara in the US, with Between You & Me - Living Authentically - I felt very honoured!

With the Christmas holidays packed with lovely family visits and therefore very limited time for blogging, I am very behind on replying to lovely comments, but I have read and hugely appreciated every single word - thank you!

To those of you who may wonder whether the photos below really represent reality, as some of the images may look a little "staged", you may be right. From having started this blog with no idea what direction or form it would take, it did develop into an arena for my uninhibited and "uncensured" creativity, sometimes leading to a playful and somewhat exaggerated styling of a corner of the garden, or a scarf "casually" thrown on a bench where it would not stay for long, as it would risk getting covered in pigeon "gifts". However, the core of every arrangement is genuine - and many in their entirety, as are all the decorations in the house, where the only "beasts" to worry about are the junior gentlemen in the family...

Trying to sum up my first blog year in only one image per month failed miserably, so hold on to your seats as we stroll down memory lane with the attitude that "More is More"...

February...: Blog birth!

My first stumbling steps, trying to "show off" my craft and decorating 

ideas without "showing off"... where is that fine line?

March

The month when spring really began to show its floral fireworks, 

and when I started playing more with the camera and the decorations...

April

With April came the first days when it was really possible to live more outside, 

and my passion for decorating indoors surprised me a little 

by continuing to grow equally excitedly in my exterior "rooms"...

Glorious inspiration at "The Naked Gardeners'", a k a, The Abbey Gardens in Malmesbury:

Eastern lullabies in the bedroom...

First meal in the garden...

Loving weed...!

May

Cherry blossom...

Rhubarb feasts...

Tea for two in the garden...

More Eastern tunes when fresh orchids were placed in a glass wrapped in a page from an old Turkish book...

Flower power and free love... 

Flowers picked by the side of the road meet recycled food tin...

June

After a trip to Sweden, a pelargonium entered the UK in a certain Swenglish suitcase...

Clover - not just for cows...

Summer vibes with a wreath dressed in leaves and ribbons from a torn sheet...

July

The garden kept showering us with gifts to harvest...

Purple by the pond...

Bringing the inside out and the outside in was a theme that saw no limits this year. Whether weed or "accepted" greenery, whether familiar or as in the case of the berries below, unknown, leaves and twigs were welcome to join in the fun...

LOVE playing with food...

With a summer so dry, SO dry, the lawn lost all its colour, and I, 

I tried to compensate with an explosion of red...

August

It was time for the Swenglish family to go on holiday, and the blog was unusually quiet for a few weeks...

...but only after I had played with my food once more...

September

With September came school start for our youngest, and with both boys at school, 

a familiar guest showed up on our door step... it was time to great Mr Autumn...

An apple a day keeps the doctor away...?

With the seasons changing, I felt the urge to surround me with warmer, 

more autumnal colours, accessorized sympathetically by a late harvest of orange tomatoes...

I must have overdosed on autumn vitamins in September, 

as the season-inspired blog entries kept coming...

... and coming...

... and coming...!

And then it was...

October

November

Perhaps more than any other time, autumn is the season when Mother Nature offers such an abundance of gifts to decorate with, inside and out... Flowers may not be in abundance like they are in spring and summer, but who can resist a fallen down birch branch, and isn't there just something irresistible about twigs and moss???

November was also the month when I whispered something secretive on the blog about "too much to do", disappeared from the scene for a few weeks and prepared for a big craft sale of my handmade items. Exhausting, admittedly, but heaps of fun too!

And before we knew it, it was...

December

And with this, dearest blog readers, 

I wish you a spectacular New Year and an equally stunning start to 2011!

Love, 

Helena