Well there hasn't been much to cheer on about lately with terrible things happening in the world but I will take positivity where I can find it without seeming saccharine.
I got surprised by a lovely little parcel from Teresa at the witty and straight shooting blog Blue Booby last week that made my week.
Knowing my love of magazines she sent me a few issues of
Garden & Gun which I have only just discovered thanks to her and a Tennessee tea towel.
Thank you Blue Booby!!
Not only are you a true Southern wit but you also have great taste and I love that you introduced a new magazine to my repertoire.
Thanks to her I decided I should have a give away .
I had decided against it when I hit my 18 month point ( I am mentally plogging along in 6 month chunks.) but this inspired me to do one.
If you have entered my giveaways before you are automatically entered so no need to enter again unless you are vehemently against it in which case I will take your name out.
I will also add a few new known followers and commenters to the mix since my last giveaway.
If there are newer joiners that are normally quiet then please let me know so I can add you.
I don't know what the heck the prize will be.
In fact I will pick two names out of the hat and according to the person I may do what Blue Booby has done and
just tailor a present.
The giveaway will close 26th of August so either comment below if you have never done so before or you can email me on couldashouldawoulda9@gmail.com
Good luck!
Garden and Gun? Very glamorous in a scary kind of way! Love that BB - she is one thoughtful lady and always a hoot!!!!
ReplyDeleteWell put me in for the giveaway. Is there a British version of Garden and Guns? Tiaras and Trucks?
Country Life darling!!! Loads of ads for decrepit leaking roof houses and the place to go to if you are in need of an estate manager and wife combo to hire for that country pile! You were in anyway Wendy :))
DeleteYou are most welcome baby. I do hope you enjoyed...horrible name but I am quite fond of the magazine. Much love.
ReplyDeleteIt was quite a treat BB and I love the whole vibe of it so much xx
DeleteLove that Southern package of delights and the Boobster, I miss seeing tea towels like that, we always had tons of growing up, now tea towels are all styled to within an inch of their life.
ReplyDeleteCountry Life and Scottish Field - my Dad used to drag me to agricultural shows, boy do I loathe the country, not just here but in any part of the world.
Tea towels are great fun and I quite like them camp too! In my dreams I live in the country but in actual fact I don't think I would survive too well - hyde park is more than enough for me and I don't do any of the maintenance :)
DeleteLeave it to G & G to be out front on a breaking story "Mexican Moonshine Crosses the Border". That may have been what made the Obama Admin to suddenly take notice that our Southern border is leaking like a sieve.
ReplyDeleteI love this G&G thing and wish the UK and Oz would do something like this with its upbeat vibe!
DeleteI adore Garden&Gun magazine. I first started reading it visiting my Dad in Georgia.
ReplyDeleteLovely gift from our thoughtful Blue Booby, she's so kind and generous!
Love your term plogging on...
BB is a little treasure for sure! I love the south so it is a double bonus too. Keep calm and plog on Dani :)
DeleteCan I enter your giveaway more than once?
ReplyDeleteYou get one and the missus will be another entry ok?? ;P
DeleteOkay, sure, but if she wins, I still get the prize...
ReplyDeletei wont tell if you wont!
DeleteI've been a G&G subscriber since the early, wobbly days when they asked the faithful readers to subscribe far in advance. Always good writing. The name is a tad off putting; it's meant to conjure up two big Southern interests: gardening and hunting.
ReplyDeleteIt appeals to my Southern wanna be side very much and hope I can make a mint julep and pass as it was made by a "local"!
DeleteGarden and Gun-I wish we had something cool like that up here. Yankee mag is a bit redundant and dusty: all lobsters and foliage. It can be found in nursing homes, podiatrists waiting rooms and under the dog blanket in the backs of old Volvo station wagons. And Vermont.
ReplyDeleteLove BB. Now I don't know whether to refer to her as the 'Boobster' or stick with 'Blue Booby'
" and Vermont" ! hehe Mentally I refer to her as the Boobster and BB. Did you know that I thought she was referring to boobies and that the two triangular blues on her picture was a blue bra instead of bird. Honestly. I can't believe I just admitted that as well.
DeleteOh my goodness I did too! I just enlarged the her avatar to see it actually is those Galapogan webbed feet!!!
DeleteWell I have had blue booby before and I can assure you its no laughing matter. It is one of the perils of living where there is so much snow
Deleteps: Im sending both of you reading glasses
DeleteGSL and I just see different thing on those Rorschach ink blot test thingos!!
DeleteBebe, after first frost, you really need to switch out that brass bra for something in heavy lace.
DeleteGSL you know those are just for witches....don't let my secret out out or I'll wiggle my nose and turn your laptop into a hissing cobra. After all, Alconleigh was the border to where all the accused women of Salem fled for safety....
DeleteA hissing cobra?!?! Please Bebe, you do know mongeese study my moves on youtube!
DeleteGarden & Gun, what a name for a magazine! It conjures an image of a Southern belle toting a rifle. I must check it out if I ever visit the Southern states. Anyway, I am all in for another giveaway - very generous of you. Here's to more plogging!!! ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt is rather camp no? You must visit the South - it was my soft spot favorite bit of the states! yes plog on Louise x
DeleteI've never heard of this magazine but I LOVE it when people send me presses of foreign magazines in the post.
ReplyDeleteThe news is dreaders right now. I seriously couldn't sleep last night after hearing about a 3 year old burns victim in Gaza who is now a double amputee…so sad.
World is mad. xx
Was a lovely surprise bc I was looking for something new to read as well. Fingers crossed on the ceasefire being permanent xx
DeletePlease consider this my entry in your giveaway.
ReplyDeleteI do like your blog.
You are in Margaret! :)
DeleteThere are some mags in Aust focusing on country life and all its accoutrements. One that comes to mind is Highlife based on "life" in the Southern Highlands of NSW.
ReplyDeleteLike FF I too love a foreign mag. is that the give way ? hope so
have just caught up with your post on Banksey..really fantastic seeing his work
I don't know what the giveaway is and will tailor it accordingly! I will google that Highlife out of interest so thanks for that tip SMRm:)
DeleteDear N
ReplyDeleteHave to admit just the name of this mag is a big turn-off for me. Garden I love, Gun no. Hunting no. I'm just a city girl who loves visiting the countryside but doesn't want to kill off everything that moves that isn't a dog, sheep, cow or horse.
Maybe the mag is fun and attractive, but the basic premise is anathema to me. If it's the prize, would still be curious to see it but can't imagine ever subscribing.
Perhaps we'd find a housekeeper/ estate manager for our historic pile in the country - if only we had one. Perhaps a villa on Lake Como, or near the sea in Beaulieu-sur-Mer or in the countryside near St Remy?
So generous that you're having a giveaway - and fun too to imagine what it might be. You must get lots of unusual mags! Pammie x
I love the whole Southern thing - possibly because I don't live there. I have a wish to live in the tropics but know that would ultimately bore me and what would I complain about hehe
Deletegood luck Pammmie! xx
Lived in the tropics for two years - Colombo, long long time ago. Had all sorts of beautiful tropical things that grew like weeds in our garden. Wasn't boring - so many things always going on and such interesting people, as long as you didn't get them started on cricket. Sadly not long after we left the civil war began.
DeleteBut I don't think that's the kind of tropics you mean. You would have had plenty of things to complain about though: power cuts, water cuts, phones that wouldn't work after rain and it rained nearly every day during the monsoon, cockroaches the size of mice, mosquito plagues, snakes and rats in the ceilings, leaking roofs with buckets strategically positioned all over the top floor, dengue fever, dysentery, many many things. Yet we really enjoyed our posting and cried when we left. Pammie xx
Garden and Gun. Well, I never. What a fabulous gift. I keep thinking I'm country but fled my pastoral vacation at the mid point, happily paying rack rate just to get room service.
ReplyDeleteIt is quite detailed and fun without trying to emulate something else which is refreshing. I like the concept of the country but don't know if I could really do it in real life...
DeleteHi Naomi,
ReplyDeleteI live here near London but was born near Charleston, South Carolina where Garden & Gun's offices are located. The name for the magazine came from Garden & Gun’s first editor in chief, John Wilson, who suggested the title after dining at Hank’s Restaurant in Charleston and learning that it used to be a gay bar called the Garden and Gun Club. Both gay and straight came to dance the night away on the weekends. So the name almost gets a humourous twist with that history.
Love your blog and yes, I'm one of those newer silent readers!
I looove Charleston! And I love that back story on it so thanks for sharing that tidbit. Thanks for coming by and you are in the hat :)
DeleteGardening with a gun? Some new form of weed whacking? Interesting.
ReplyDeleteYou could stick me in the middle of nowhere with just a Swiss army knife for company, and I'd have a full couture collection, car, house and guest cottage, jardin potager, stables, pool, and supper for twelve sorted quicker than you could say "where's my Gun&Garden magazine".
The Boobster. I like it.
You're right. That avatar could be mistaken for a blue bra, especially with a name like Blue Booby.
I quite like the gloss of southern country! And yes you are the McGuyver of living well and I can't wait to see what you are going to whip up soon :))
DeleteI'm whipping as fast as I can!
DeleteDarling SJV,
DeleteCould we accompany you to the middle of nowhere.....we suspect that we should have a fabulous time but we are totally useless in the wild. We could bring champagne!
Bien sûr Jane and Lance, vous êtes le bienvenu.
DeleteNibbles at 20:00
Hello Naomi,
ReplyDeleteWell, it may surprise you to know but we have never subscribed to Garden and Gun, even in the heady heights of our gardening days. Indeed, we can only imagine what articles may be contained within its pages........hot shot horticulture.....red hot perennials which bring fire power to the borders....or, perhaps, how to solve a rabbit problem......permanently?!
Whatever, we too like Blue Booby's shoot from the hip style. Amusing, self deprecating yet also informative. Blogland needs writers such as you and her to give a cutting edge.......or should that be point and shoot?!
I had never heard of it either until I got it in the post! It is great fun and it is other worldy bc it is so not English country but has a pep and sun filtered through! Yes BB is a straight shooter ( no pun intended ) :)
DeleteWill you be doing a Garden & Gun review?
ReplyDeleteYay! I love a giveaway. Maybe I will be lucky this time as Aug 26th is an auspicious day for me; wedding anniversary. :D
ReplyDeleteOoooh I hope one of my readers send me a new handbag because they all know how much I love bags!
ReplyDeleteHow generous of you to do a giveaway and how exciting that you don't know what the prize is going to be. My eyes will be peeled around 26 August xx