Its nice in Nice!

Err, no - that's not me (I wish!), just a neighbour on the beach.  I had a trip to Nice in France last week visiting my sister and nephew, who was graduating from The International School of Nice.  I'm not a city person but Nice really is a lovely city.  Here's a few images that might just tempt you to a visit some time.

Since my last visit 18 months ago a beautiful modern park has been created on the site that was previously home to an ugly bus station and car park.  Now the Promenade du Pallion stretches for almost three quarters of a mile from the center of the city down to the promenade and the sea.

There's beautiful prairie-type planting on both sides of the long narrow park, shady and sunny sitting places, really imaginative play areas for the children, lawns to picnic on and simply wonderful mirror fountains that temp both children and adults to playfulness.

This little girl, about 3 years old, certainly made the most of cooling off on a hot day.  Although you might think there could be falling dangers here, the shiny marble like floors were not at all slippy.

 

A wander around the Old Town is a must if visiting Nice - narrow streets between high buildings full of small shops, restaurants, and opening up into squares where you can linger and enjoy an ice cream or cold drink.

And finally opening out into the Flower and Produce Market - a camera here is a must.  I wish I'd had a bit more time here but there's always my next trip. 

At night the stalls are cleared away and restaurants, which line all sides, bring out their tables.

And of course Nice old and new is full of the most interesting shops.  I managed to resist the patisseries (well almost) but did bring home my usual packet of herbes de provence and a little something from this olive oil shop.

We did have time for one excursion and chose Haut de Cages, one of the many "perched" medieval villages in the area.  This one kindly laid on a free bus to the top of the old village, though we held our breath as the driver squeezed through the narrow streets with just inches to spare!

When at home I find it hard to get myself into travel mode but I always enjoy my trips to Nice and its lovely to see my sister between her visits home at Christmas in the summer holidays.  We had our usual meal out on our last night and as we wandered through the Promenade du Pallion home, again stopping to watch the fountains, I was already planning what to do on my next visit!

Bonjour from France

I'm spending a few days with my sister in Nice - we arrived Friday evening in a thunder storm and pouring rain (very sick-making landing!) but woke this morning to warm sunshine.

I travelled with a cousin who hasn't been here before so we spent the day walking in the town.  Its half term here in France too so there are lots of visitors around still and the promenade and beach were buzzing.  Although there was only a light breeze the waves were spectacular.  I find it hard to drag my gaze away when the sea puts on a show like this - and I wasn't the only one!

A very welcome innovation since my last visit is a lift from the promenade to the top of Le Chateau, the park high on the hill overlooking the city.  Its a perfect place for getting away from the bustle of the busy streets and many people were enjoying the spectacular views from every vantage point.......

or a bit of peace and quiet on a shady bench.

However a wander round the narrow streets and alleyways of the Old Town is always a must, with the obligatory stop off for a coffee, ice cream, or cake.  But not these beauties.......

which I could only afford to take home on my camera!  But we did manage an ice cream - mine's a double coffee cornet please - delicious!

I'm here till Wednesday so am sure to want to show you some more delicious moments - our itinerary depends on the weather.  Rain is forecast tomorrow - but it was forecast for today too.... so we won't take any notice of that and what will be will be!

Madeleines à la Française

Well I'm still on course to post every day this week. But I was a bit stumped for today's subject as its one of my work days and I have LOADS of stuff to finish for the craft fair on Saturday. I meant to blog about my Madeleines last week when I made them but didn't get down to it - so I'm doing it now instead.

I've been wanting to make Madeleines ever since I bought a lovely orange shell shape silicone cake mould while I was staying with my sister in France last year. I looked at lots of recipes on line but then I saw this really simple one on Artycho's blog AND she had used my mould! What's more she's French! So I had to have a go and although my little cakes don't look quite as light, they tasted fine. Next time I'll use an electric whisk instead of mixing by hand.

And I have to show you where I bought the mould. Isn't this a fabulous shop? I'm not sure what you'd call it, but as well as kitchen equipment, baskets, and shopping trolleys (which everyone uses in Nice) you could buy just about any shape and size of glass bottle or jar, choose between dozens of different shaped corks and stoppers to seal them with, and those interesting cardboard boxes behind the counter were full of the most delicious vintage labels to stick on your preserves. Oh, I could have spent a fortune there but when one's limited to a single piece of luggage on the plane one needs to be sensible! But I'd love to visit again.

A forgotten gift!

When I got home from our visit to France last week I realised I hadn't brought a gift for one sister - I don't know how I missed her out as everyone else was catered for. So I decided to at last try and create something with the sea glass I picked up on the beach whilst I was there. This is my first attempt and I'm not completely satisfied with it but I learned a bit in the construction so hopefully my next will be better. I saw some great instructions for drilling sea glass on Anji's blog here - am I brave enough to try it - not sure yet! But her drilled jewelry is gorgeous! I will present the necklace in this little favour tin - I lined it with some azure coloured felt cut with a Nestie and decorated the lid with a circle punched from a French bus ticket I saved - easy! Hope she likes it.

Back home just in time for OWOH ride end!

Arrived home from visiting my sister in the South of France last night after having to stay an extra 2 days because of SNOW - yes really! Nice airport just couldn't cope with it and all flights were grounded! I know it was probably very inconvenient for many of my fellow travelers but it was no hardship for us as we didn't have any commitments waiting and were able to go back to my sister's nice warm flat. And our extra day was a beautiful day - we spent a lot of it sitting or walking on the beach in the sun - most of the snow disappearing quietly in the night.
However, while my son was taking his afternoon snooze on the beach I was busy adding to my collection of crochet flowers ready for the last day of the OWOH blog event tomorrow - you can see them in the photo with my souvenirs of the trip. I found the silicone cake cases for sale at a bargain price in a favourite shop selling hundreds of different preserving jars and olive oil bottles and I've again added to my collection of sea glass - I really must do something with it soon! I've seen some lovely jewelry on my carpet trip and have some ideas for encasing the nicest pieces of glass in silver wire. Watch this space!

Now, I want to thank everyone for visiting my blog over the last couple of weeks and leaving such lovely comments - I've never had so many visitors and I've been delighted by so many sweet compliments. I hope to visit all commenters at my leisure over the next few weeks when all the frantic blog hopping has ended. There's lots I want to investigate thoroughly.

And I want to specially welcome each and every one of the new followers to my blog - its so flattering to have you interested in what I'm doing and its a great incentive for me to carry on creating and blogging. I'd like to buy you all a posy of mimosa from the flower market.

So tomorrow evening I will be choosing my winners - I think I will have enough flowers for three second prizes so I will ask the Random Number Generator to pick me 4 numbers - good luck everyone! And good luck to me too - fingers crossed I can win a prize somewhere.

FOUND!

Good news and bad news! The good is my camera has been found - the bad is that its been found in Turkey and is now on its way to Nice in France! It somehow got into my nephew's luggage when he and his Mum, my sister, left after Christmas last week to visit family in Istanbul. Of course I'm delighted that I haven't lost it in the street or somewhere else like that and that my photos haven't been lost - but I will have to wait until February to get it back as another sister and I will be visiting Nice then. So sadly no posting of projects until then.

However this does mean I can get back to my passion for digital scrapping - which I have really neglected recently. Here I am with my nephew on Nice beach last February. We're looking for sea glass - you know, those pieces of coloured broken glass which have been worn and smoothed by the waves and when wet look like jewels. I've been collecting it since I was a little girl but I don't think I've been to beach which had more of it before. I like to think it came from all those glamorous beach parties of the 1930s..... or wine bottles thrown from fabulous private yachts that have been sailing around the Cote d'Azur for the last 100 years or so.

For this page I've used Sweet Pea Brushes by Rhonna Farrer at 2Peas in a Bucket, the background paper is from Nantucket by Sue Cummings at Oscraps and the clipping mask by Vinnie Pearce at Pixelcanvas.

PS: Thank you so much Lindby for my first blog award - I'll upload it as soon as I can think of 7 interesting facts about myself........ hmm, this may take some time!

Flower Carnival page

This is the first layout I've produced with the photos I took when I visited my sister in February. I wanted to get something "blogged" to show her so I didn't extract the cut-out images as carefully as I should have and cheated by blurring the edges. So Steph (my expert digital scrapper blog-friend in California) please don't look at it too closely! But I still like the overall effect of the page.

The Flower Carnival was lovely but we wondered where on earth they were able to get all those thousands of flowers from in February! The idea is that the girls throw flowers to those watching and the tradition is to throw Mimosa - which was in flower everywhere. At the end of the parade they were also throwing flowers from the displays so some lucky people ended up with armfulls of beautiful exotic blooms - but were happy with our Mimosa and it looked lovely in my sister's mosaic vase at home. Here are two more photos of the beautiful floats in the parade. Unfortunately lots of my pictures had hands in them as there were excited children standing in front of us!

French Heart

I've been making these little heart sachets as small gifts for more years than I care to remember. They are so quick and easy. I made this one for my sister from vintage tea towel fabric I bought on my recent visit to Nice in France and have filled it with dried lavender flowers from Provence (and toy stuffing). It is already filling the room with the scent - lovely! I read a handy hint somewhere about stuffing small items - use a pencil with a rubber on the end - and it really does make it much easier.

You'd Love Eze

Here I am in France staying with my sister for a week - so I won't be creating anything but have already taken about 200 photos!Of course most will be deleted post haste! Yesterday we visited Eze, a lovely village on a hill and then went to watch the night-time carnival parade here in Nice. All of you would have loved Eze - so pretty and picturesque. So we are quite tired today and will just mooch around Nice. Here are a couple of photos - just to keep my blogging up to date.