The Month of July

Started with receiving a date for our move. Hurrah.
Celebrating a birthday with drinks in town. A great night but bad pub. I was asked if I wanted ice with my G&T!
Friends for lunch delicious time to cook together for Warmth and I before hand.
Celebrating Warmth's birthday with an evening of 20-20 cricket at Lords with friends.
Buying an iPad. Oh how we love it.
Supper with dear friends at Rocket.
Joining Mama and Papa Warmth at Cleaver Square Fair.
A second visit to The Summer Exhibiton with printmaking friends. Lovely to see favourite paintings again and seeing others for the first time.
In the midst of rain an afternoon at The Berkeley for Pret-a-Portea. It was delicate. It was delightful. It was delicious. And there was a very lovely pistachio green cake bag to take a few treats home with me.
Then onto Baltic to celebrate all the recent birthdays with Warmth's family. And the next day another meal out to celebrate all the recent birthdays in my family. Yes basically everyone I know is born in June or July. I'm running behind on presents and cards too....
Back to my dear and much missed friend Portobello Road for leaving drinks with dear friends at The Electric. Even though they're leaving the area we will return for Porn Star Martinis. We even have the date in our diaries.
Finally the end of term. The end of the school year.

Paris in July celebrations
Reading Ripening Seed by Colette, rereading Chocolat by Joanne Harris, The Cat by Colette.

By the time you read this we shall hopefully be in our new home. I've decided to take the month of August off blogging as there will be too many lovely/tiring things to be doing in our new home.
Happy August and see you in September!

My Mark

Today is Granny's birthday. Our first without her with us. Granny had asked for this to be part of her funeral and it seems fitting to post it today.

'My daughters, I am written into you forever.

When you have children I'll be written into them too.

There will always be a genetic inscription that reads - MY MARK.'

Morris West - Eminence

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Frailty and Endurance

Sunday would have been Granny's birthday. I didn't manage to post this before she died but I think her final months expressed how true this quote is.

'...human can mean frailty and endurance both at the same time.' Irene Nemirovsky Suite Francaise
ballet

Chocolat

Instead of 'I sit here writing with my feet in the sink...' it's 'I sit here posting about Chocolat whilst eating some delicious chocolates..'

Here are some of my favourite mouth watering passages from Chocolat.

'On a white marble shelf are aligned innumerable boxes, packages, cornets of silver and gold paper, rosettes, bells, flowers hearts and long curls of multicoloured ribbon. In glass bells and dishes lie the chocolates, the pralines... truffles, mendiants, candied fruits, hazelnut clusters, chocolate seashells, candied rose-petals sugared violets...'

'... I went into the kitchen for two meringues, which were still warm and treacly inside their chocolate envelopes and served with thick creme Chantilly and chopped hazlenuts.'

'We make the delicate liquer chocolates, the rose-petal clusters, the gold-wrapped coins the violet creams, the chocolate cherries and almond rolls in batches of fifty at a time...The smells of vanilla essence and cognac and caramelized apple and bitter chocolate fill the house.' Joanne Harris Chocolat

chocolat chocolat chocolat

What's your favourite chocolate?

Never let him go

In amongst all that angst there was the hope of this....

'But some day I'm going to find somebody and love him and love him and never let him go.' F. Scott Fitzgerald Tender is the Night
ruffled

Romantic Travails

I read Charlotte Grey in 1999 and stored this quote away to give me perspective when fretting over affairs of the heart and to try to make me remember not to bore my friends too much.

'...how absurd and irritating most people found the romantic travails of others. How different her own dilemma was, how much more serious... everyone was convinced that their own plight had a particular poignancy, a special unfairness. She was just like all the other young women; her crisis was as perpetual and comic as theirs.' Sebastian Faulks Charlotte Grey
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Champagne

How can we have Paris in July without a little champagne?

'He was on familiar terms with everyone with whom he drank champagne, and he drank champagne with everyone;' Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina
champagne & macarons
Do join me for some champagne, and a macaron or two, this Friday afternoon.

A Pervasive Aroma

'He felt assured of his welcome, however, when he saw the studied half-light in the salon and noticed the almost invisible table from which rose a pervasive aroma of slow-ripening peaches, of red cantaloup melon cut in slices the shape of crescent moons, and of black coffee poured over crushed ice.' Colette Ripening Seed

peaches

What would be in your perfect summer feast? This sounds very close to mine...

Stripes

'There is no doubt a new dress is a help under all circumstances.' Noel Streatfield quoted in Vogue September 2002

As this blog is called FlowersandStripes and it's Paris in July I felt we should have some Gallic stripes gracing the pages...
Sportmax,maxi, French Connection<

What helps you in all circumstances?

Eyes surfeited with beauty

I'm enjoying reading Ripening Seed by Colette for passages like this. Although it is making me want to be on holiday, by the coast, in France.

'An off-shore breeze wafted the scent of the new-mown after-crop, farmyard smells, and the fragrance of bruised mint: little by little, along the level of the sea a dusty pink was usurping the domain of blue unchallenged since the early morning. Phillippe did not know how to express such a thought as: 'All too few are the occasions in life when with mind content, eyes surfeited with beauty, heart light, retentive, and almost empty, there comes a moment for the senses to be filled to overflowing: I shall remember this as just such a moment.' Colette Ripening SeedWhat moments are you remembering this month?

Regretting Rien

As well as collecting quotes from novels in my note books there are also a few from newspaper articles. This one is from The Times (2oth November 1999)

Alan Jackson: "And when you look back at your life, meanwhile, are you Frank Sinatra-ish 'Regrets? I've has a few.' Or do you come down on Edith Piaf's side, regretting rien?"

Qunetin Crisp: "Dear boy, you can only regret things if you turned down alternatives. Why did I marry such an awful woman when I had the chance of this one or that? Why did I stay so long in this dreary job instead of taking the offer of that one? ...No alternatives, and so nothing to regret."
Edith Piaf

Are you Sinatra or Piaf?

Rouge Coco

So, to get ready for Paris in July it feels as if one should look right.

'I strolled through a grove of dress material and found myself at a counter piled with jars of face creams and lipsticks. ...I caught sight of my own face, colourless and worried-looking, the eyes large and rather frightened, the lips too pale. I did not feel that I could ever acquire a smooth apricot complexion but I could at least buy a new lipstick, I thought...' Barbara Pym Excellent Women

And of course it has to be Chanel

Paris in July

Hurrah another annual blogging event. Paris in July hosted by Book Bath and Thyme for Tea.

I so enjoyed it last year and look forward to this year. I shall be reading Colette and finding some more French themed quotes.
we heart it

Will you be travelling to France this July?