If It's Sunday, This Must Be France

We went to Cap d'Antibes yesterday.

Our good friends Olga and Eric live around the corner in a gorgeous old 1929 Mediterranean villa. In about thirty seconds, we can walk from our little English cottage to the South of France, no passport required.

Olga's back garden is a magical paradise that always reminds me of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Villa America in "Tender Is The Night." Lush vegetation surrounds a stone pool, clambering vines adorn a separate guest house, and romantic walkways lead to a myriad of outdoor seating areas. She designed it herself but modestly deflects all praise. (She's a coy thing.)

She was wearing a fitted bateau shirt with red and blue stripes. Tall and willowy, she possesses that particular brand of Gallic style that's chic and effortless.

Unwinding with them over a bottle of wine was just the restorative we needed after a unusually hectic weekend. Luca disappeared upstairs with the children and peace spread over the land.

We drank a Bordeaux that tasted of earth and figs and black currants in thin-stemmed crystal glasses. (Well, les femmes did. Eric and Piero drank Lebanese beer, just visible in the background).

To say that Olga is a Francophile is an understatement. Everywhere you turn, there is a reminder of the mother land. In a shady corner, a traditional bistro set in Provençal blue creates an artful haven for her children.

Flowers -- roses, camellias, bougainvillea -- were in masses everywhere. The scent was heady and intoxicating. I want a garden like this.

Here, Olga has used a wire frame to train little trumpet vines around an arched window. Imagine what this is going to look like framed with flowers.

Inside, she has created a sanctuary for her family that resounds with colors, textures, layers and personal history. See that white sofa? It used to belong to Valentino (the silent film star, not the designer).

Editor's Note: There are so many wonderful historic homes here in Los Angeles. Magical pleasure domes built in the 1920's and 1930's, they are a heady reminder of Hollywood's Golden Age. Within a stone's throw of my house are a Spanish villa, a Georgian manor, a French chateau and a half-timbered Tudor, all richly weathered and bearing a nobility that only the patina of age can bestow. Despite their different architectural styles, they all work beautifully together. It's my "cocktail party" theory - the most memorable ones are filled with people from all walks of life and all points of view. Houses and neighborhoods are no different.

Sustainable Graffiti for the Soul

This is one of those brilliant ideas that looks so absolutely right that you wonder why no one ever thought of it until now.

(All photos via here)

Guerilla gardener Anna Garforth emblazons walls with mossy graffiti in her quest to meld intrigue into the transitory landscape of urban spaces.

My work needs to make an immediate impact given its ephemeral nature. There is a lot of wild in the city. My eye has become attuned to the plant life that pushes and grows its way through all the cracks in the concrete. Once you have noticed it, it's everywhere....

~Anna Garforth

Garforth uses nourishing ingredients to affix the moss to surfaces. "I collect a common moss that grows well on brick walls and glue it to the wall using a mixture of natural (bio active) yoghurt and sugar."

I've spent the last year watching my ivy delightedly clamber over my own brick wall and now I want to pull it all off in favor of an inspiring quote. There's something so elementally profound about it, don't you think?

It's Arcadian poetry transported to the urban jungle.

Listen to the way Anna describes herself on her website...I think you'll agree she lives with passion and purpose:

I am the crazed woman with mud on her face, bristling with moss and screaming against the wind on a bike laden down with foraged materials.

And now for the question of the day: Given the chance to emblazon your own wall, what quote would you put up?

My personal top three picks would be:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

(Robert Herrick)

There is strong shadow where there is much light.

(Goethe)

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

(Andrew Marvell)

******

Editors Note: I'm off to Kauai for a brief spell. Back soon. Be good.

Monday Miscellany

I am waiting for my breakfast and then to be driven to adventure camp...

...and I am waiting to be let outside so I can go lizard-hunting and bring back a trophy tail...

...and I am waiting to have my flowers gently collected and dried and made into lavender sachets (as you keep promising to do)...

...and I am waiting to be recovered in something fabulous and slightly unexpected...

...and I am waiting to be used in a way that enhances my flavor profile...

...and I am waiting to be devoured...

...oh and please please so are we...

...and I am waiting to be rehung so that I can gaze upon a more scenic vista...

...and I am waiting to be listened to...remember how happy I make you?

(Charlotte Gainsbourg CD, available HERE)

...and I am waiting patiently to support your future endeavors...

...and I am waiting to be noticed, right now, right this minute, in my very last explosion of beauty (when I'm gone, remember that I lived fully and fearlessly, won't you?)...

...and I am waiting to be tucked in because I have camp tomorrow.

What is waiting for you today?

Sunday Respite

This blog is about a lot of things, but hopefully the constant thread that runs through it is to live with style, grace and a healthy dose of eccentricity. For me, lately, it's all about making the little moments count. I am never unaware that the clock is ticking, ticking and whereas when I was in my twenties, this would strike panic in my heart ("Hurry! Do something! Make your mark!"), now I find this knowledge empowering.

Do you know the poem "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae about the young soldiers of WWI? There's the most heartbreaking phrase in it:

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Armed with this state of mind, even the littlest moments can be as memorable as the life-changing ones.

While the coffee brews, I unload the dishwasher. Because it's Sunday and I'm not rushing off somewhere, I can take my time. And I do. The simple repetition of stacking plates on top of one another becomes a meditation in blue and white.

The flowers I bought at Trader Joe's two days ago are reclipped and given fresh water. They are grateful and immediately crane their necks into a sun salutation.

Piero is returning from London this afternoon, and Luca is in a state of fervid anticipation. I suggest he go outside and burn off some energy. I perch myself on our brick wall and watch him go up and down the sidewalk on his new skateboard.

I restrain myself from giving him any helpful tips (because shouldn't kids have to figure out some things for themselves?) and watch his precarious balancing attempts. My latté is steamy-hot and milky-sweet. Above me, two birds catch up on each other's lives in plaintive harmony and the dusky fragrance from a nearby privet hedge wafts over to me.

I close my eyes and feel as though my whole existence consists of three things: scent and song and the rhythmic clackety-clack of wheels on sidewalk.

I don't want to move. I just want to stay here, exactly like this, for eternity.

Luca: Mom? I'm done.

It was brief, my little idyll. But it was good.

Life's A Peach, Isn't It?*

*I know squinting is not an attractive trait, but I truly believe that looking at the world with an uncritical and slightly blurry gaze can infinitely expand your sense of contentment. Rose or peach-colored glasses will provide the same effect.

I love this 1908 advertising poster for the London Underground which I found in the wonderful book, "Everything You Can Do In The Garden Without Actually Gardening" by Philippa Lewis.

(click to enlarge)

The charming little house with its casement windows, the mother and child ensconced on the tidy back lawn, the husband in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat watering the sunflowers, and the sleek city train in the distance -- it's a perfect evocation of English suburban life at the turn of the last century.

And, how much, really, has changed? One hundred years later in Los Angeles, I have a not-dissimilar little plot of land that I also consider my refuge from city life, my haven for careless days of peace. I am looking for lawn chairs just like the one pictured. I love the idea of gardening in a proper outfit. As ridiculous as it may sound, I wholly believe that just a stone's throw from the tumult of Hollywood and Vine, I am living a miniature version of country life.

Whether anyone else agrees with me has no bearing on my rose-colored vision.

You may look at my garden and see tiny; I see endearing.

You may see too much shade; I see a refuge from the Klieg lights of the city.

You may see emptiness; I see potential.

You may see leaves in need of a rake; I see a layer of texture and color.

You may see a lack of design; I see grass waiting for bare feet, cartwheels and spilled lemonade.

(Snacktime in the Secret Grove of Holly Wood)

And Now, The Conclusion to "Give Me Liberty":

I went, I saw, I bought.

At the Target I visited, the homeware, garden and outdoor items had not yet arrived, but clothing was plentiful and I found a few lovely things. The mens flowered Tana Lawn shirts surpassed my expectations -- they are well-constructed, finely woven, perfect for summer and at $24.99, a fraction of the regular £125 cost. I purchased two for Piero (he took one with him to London yesterday, so here's the other)...

...and bought one for myself as well, along with a few pairs of $5.99 boxer shorts (perfect for underneath a dressing gown). I just couldn't resist all those colorful prints.

(Post-laundry, pre-ironing)

I didn't buy any of the womens clothing, but my friends did and were in ecstasies over their retro sleepwear. I am resigned to the fact that Target will apparently be rolling out items over the next week or so, which means a return trip (or two).

The Garden Chronicles

(Detail of my garden)

It's that time of year again when a girl's fancy turns to all things abloom. Visions of picnics and chairs dragged out on the lawn and watering cans and flowered gloves and a tea table heaped with hot scones and lashings of jam and butter come immediately to mind.

(Illustration by George du Maurier, 1834-1896)

Yes, I am an utter romantic when it comes to my Lilliputian grassy kingdom, and I make no apologies.

My own garden, however, is still in "Early Eliza Doolittle" phase. We have privacy, a pool and a new troupe of grass seedlings busy making a brilliant fledgling debut, but not much else.

Most of the gardens in my neighborhood have been transformed into wondrous outdoor living areas. They are truly incredible; however, the downside is that they have given up most of their lawn in the process. In place of grass, there are hardscaped dining areas, stone fire pits, pebbled pathways, fountains, petanque alleys and other assorted features.

But I'm reluctant to give up my plot of verdant turf...and therein lies the rub.

You see, I don't own a dog, but I have a son, which amounts to much the same thing.

Luca uses that grassy stomping ground to chase his friends, lie on a blanket and read, and hurl as many types of balls as high, far and fast as he can.

I can't bear to take that away from him.

And, to be perfectly honest, I love looking out my kitchen window and seeing that little swath of green. It's an enchanted Arcadia to me.

(English countryside)

I do have some immediate plans, though.

1. I want to plant potato vines...

(via here)

...beneath the wall of ficus trees that extend the length of the property and let their pale green tendrils clamber up the branches and sprout delicate little white flowers. (The restaurant Ceccconi's in West Hollywood does this and it's wonderfully effective in adding texture and drama to a living wall.)

2. Over in the corner behind the pool, I plan to erect a wooden pergola and then create some kind of reading/dining area beneath it. It's especially lovely to sit somewhere and gaze back at the house (it creates the feeling of more space), so I want to make the most of this little visual illusion. I will paint the structure in Railings from Farrow and Ball, which is the most wonderful blue-black...

(color via here)

...and then cover it with pale, pale pink flowers in a color like this:

(color via here)

What kind, I don't know, as I am a novice gardener of the highest order. (Any ideas?)

3. Next, I would like to find some pale grey cement planters and perch them around the edge of the pool so that it feels like a little Victorian bathing pond. Whatever type of plant goes in them needs to be sturdy, structured and unprickly.

(photo via Bardy Farms)

4. I'll leave one corner by the pool bare to give me room for one of these cement poufs from Harbinger LA which I absolutely can't stop thinking about (they come in 25 colors). They'll look even better after a couple of years in the sun, wind and rain -- they'll be seasoned, literally.

(via here)

5. A beloved tree which gracefully overarches the pool...

...and which we adamantly refused to chop down...

Pool Contractor: But the leaves will make a mess.

Us: Isn't that what a skimmer is for?

...will gain an extra function with a wooden seat encircling it, á la this photo of designer Peter Dunham:

(photo via here)

5. Other than that, I guess our garden furniture will have to be restricted to the portable kind for now. But as I mentioned in the opening of the post, there's something wonderfully old-school about dragging indoor furniture outside. Plus, it gives you the freedom to create whatever type of environment you like, whether you seek to emulate the civilized luxury of a Victorian fete...

...or something a bit more sybaritic.

(Photo by Lee Miller of Nusch and Paul Eluard,

Man Ray and others, Cannes, 1937)

It's a work in progress. I'll report back.