Why not fill a pretty conch with concrete and use it as a doorstop!

And the blogging is silly. I can’t help myself, and I laughed with glee when it was revealed to me that Frederic Edwin Church, that OH so important central figure in the Hudson River school of painters….sanded back this fine antique acquisition because he found the dress ‘too white’!! Gasp’s all round, but makes perfect sense to me and I feel he did indeed improve it - but there I give myself away as a decorator I suppose don’t I? Reckless disregard for the fine arts. Well Elsie (Mendle - is there any other?) would have approved, I’ve no doubt what-so-ever!

Last year I found weeping putti in the Czech Republic click here…..then fighting putti in the Albany Museum upstage NY. This spring i found a wee thumbsucker on a marble plaque. I don’t know what the point of all this is…but I suppose I AM a mother in the end, and just find it all irresistible!

Much of spring was spent touring the beauties of the Hudson River Valley with the Attingham Trust…36 houses in 10 days meant I could barely breath! But a favorite (and there was more than one I confess), was Montgomery Place with its Classic Revival charms and passionate views of the Catskills. I mention it primarily because it’s open to the public and being only an hour outside of Manhattan, it is well worth a little drive with picnic basket in the boot (or the trunk I suppose but that doesn’t sound very romantic does it?)

Don’t I LOOK pleased!!

Did we all enjoy this Vanity Fair issue of ‘extraordinary’ Homes and Gardens?

And do we all think we too should hang a Braque in our ‘basket room’. Did we all remember to include a basket room in our homes?

And if you, like me, are sitting dockside and a little dopey from the sunshine…here is a little something found on facebook I actually found amusing in my salubrious summer state.