villa augustus

 

A couple of weeks ago we visited Villa Augustus, a restaurant (and hotel) in Dordrecht. I knew they have several gardens, and while I'm always in for trying out new restaurants, I was also very curious for their gardens, now that I'm in my garden fase (as you might have noticed :).

It was a sunny day, so we lunched outside on the terrace, where you can overlook the vegetable gardens. The food was delicious and special, I had a salad with pansies and octopus terrine, yum. After our lunch we wandered through the gardens and enjoyed the views and the sun.

And if you ever visit Villa Augustus, don't forget to take a look at their market shop! They sell the most lovely things, from notebooks, to tableware, childrens toys and supplies for your garden. Especially the bookcorner was a fun suprise, as they are one of the few shops that sell my father's children's books :)

On the last photo's you can see the wisteria that covers the building of the restaurant. Two of the photo's show the wisteria last month, when WJ and I visited and the wisteria still had flower buds. The other two show the wisteria in full bloom, as I visited the place last week again, see next post!

smile

This is a picture my father made of me when I was young. The picture of me on the left, he made a couple of weeks ago. Both pictures have the same photographer, the same girl, and the same big smile.

window garden update

Of course I knew and expected that the little plants in my window would grow, but somehow it still amazes me how much they have grown in the last couple of weeks. Here you can see how little they were just a month ago. I have seen them grow day by day, and now there is a little green jungle on my windowsill.

I love how you can see the different shapes of the leaves on the fourth photo, from left to right they are sunflower, hollyhock and red chili plants. Oh, and on the second photo you can see all my tomato plants.

This week I'll be planting the first tomato plants outside on my roof garden. I have far too many tomato plants for just my garden, so I'll be giving some of my plants to family and friends. Hopefully we'll be all eating home grown tomatoes this summer!

mini garden

 

Today I made a small garden in front of our house. Many neighbours have one as well, what makes the streets look really cheerful and pretty. I planted hollyhocks and sunflowers. If all goes well, they will reach 2 to 2,5 meters, what means that we will even be able to see them from our bedroom window. I can't wait to be greeted by sunflowers in the morning.

shadow play

 

I made these self portraits a few months ago, and even though they are a bit grainy, I do like them very much. I love how the shadows are strechted, what makes the images distorted and surreal. Almost like two sides of one character.