enjoy the weekend lovelies :)

Garden of the five senses

A couple of weeks back, we visited Le Jardin des Cinq Sens

(or the Garden of the five senses) in the medieval town of Yvoire, France.

It was a glorious day, we took the boat from Geneva and sailed for

a little over 1.5 hrs to finally get to the 700+ year old town.

'One of the vegetable gardens surrounding the 14th Century castle in Yvoire was transformed in 1986 and opened to the public.Within this enclosed space the paths, pool and fruit trees were kept and taking the five senses as a theme, a plant maze was created using the techniques and symbols of the Middle Ages.'

'The hornbeam hedges and the espaliered apple trees

of the Jardin des Cinq Sens ®

divide the garden into four rooms, each representing

one of the senses of sight, touch, taste and smell.

The fifth sense of hearing is represented by the sounds of birdsong and water.'

'The labyrinth is, in fact, the castle’s former kitchen garden,

restored according to the art of medieval gardens:

maze of the five senses, espaliered fruit trees, old roses,

hedged cloister with medicinal and scented plants, fountains, birds…'

As you explore the labyrinth, narrow hedges lead you to

'The Garden of smell' and these yellow flowers

that smell like jasmine greet you.

The Garden of touch is filled with texture, the most unusual geometric shapes

and pods and thorns and buds.....

'The Garden of sight' has magical shades of blue, mauve and pink....

It is said about this garden that if you revisit the labyrinth,

it'll never be the same experience. It constantly changes colour and

promises to be feel like your first visit each time.

'Un jardin qu'il faut decouvrir lentement avec une âme de poète'

~A garden that needs to be discovered with the soul of a poet~

Hope you enjoyed, I couldn't short-select the snaps so posted almost all :)

Tweet Tweet....

Hubby came home with a package he picked up in the mail,

wrapped pretty in a brown-paper - full of texture

and beautifully stamped with little birdies in teal :),

all the way from Daly City, California........

my orders from Birdnerd are here !

I fell in love with Chelsea Groves' birds the moment

I bumped into her shop, while randomly browsing through Etsy one morning.

The bright blue ink is hand screen printed on a heavy linen,

the European Starling is a splash of blue in my

red-brown-earthy-toned living area.

The Cedar Waxwing is a beautiful piece in a very Indian red.

The item description read 'Introducing bird art that you can hug!'....so true.

Even the tags threaded around the little birdies look so organic and cute:

I am totally loving the back of the plushies just as much,

printed fabrics in springy colours loaded with more texture.

'One of the things that makes me happiest in the world is when I am outdoors and a bird perches close by on a branch and silently stares at me before flying away.

It's as if all of nature has stopped for a moment and said,

"Well, hello there. I see that you exist.'' '

- Chelsea, from her website

She has an exhaustive collection of her artwork on FlickR.

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet resting on our CD rack/library at the moment......

You can read all about the kind of work Chelsea does

and her techniques here. Her paintings, collages (which she likes to refer to as

''painting with paper'') are so intricate and full of delicious detail.

I especially like her linocut prints,

this print on Thai Unry paper is one of my favourites.

I had to make this post as soon as the parcel arrived,

our home is tweeting a happy tweet right now.

Thank you Chelsea :).......

a bit of a birnerd myself, I feel totally pampered today.