bit of pattern for your viewing pleasure

A little run around the house with my camera set on macro yielded some lovely designs. Just a little splash of colour to brighten up a Saturday evening.

a few things around the house

1. brushes in a jar on my desk

2. a postcard of a portrait of Fanny, the beloved dog of Mrs. Soanes, which I picked up at the John Soanes Museum in London. If you haven't been there yet, GO! It's amazing, and free, but you'd be crazy to not want to give a donation  before you leave. The postcard is framed by a magnet of a red light house in Amsterdam and a sheep and lamb magnet I bought from Howlett's

3. a random blurry shot of some books in the bedroom. (L to R):

• Guide to the Architecture of London  
• Lost London 1870-1945 
• Annie Lewin Plants and Places
• Shutting Up Shop: The Decline of the Traditional Small Shop
• Miki
• Grayson Perry
• The Georgian Group Book of the Georgian House
• The Dinner Party: From Creation to Preservation
• Oscar Wilde's London
• Art: The Whole Story

4. detail shot of the newest painting I'm working on


5. some early house-scapes and Official ♥ Graffiti photo in hall


6. La Chinata smoked paprika powder and other tins in the kitchen

in a land far far away...

Local Off-Licence

Martyr's Field Off-Licence just down the road. Bit blurry because it was just me holding my Ricoh (which isn't great for night shots anyhow) but I have to get back into this blogging business somehow, so here it is! Look at that welcoming door! :P

Whoopsie!

Life has thrown a few curve balls in the last couple of weeks, and the blog has suffered. Will be up and about with some new posts very soon. In the meantime, enjoy this little bizarro ditty from my garden.

To-Do list

In an effort to give myself a break and stop worrying about all the stuff I "should" be doing and enjoy and appreciate the things I am doing, I made myself a relatively simple to-do list yesterday. morning. ** yesterday was, I think, Wednesday, but Blogger was down and it's taken me this long while working the day job to get this post posted! ** Suffice it to say, "should" is one of my least favorite words in the English language, and I do try to fight against it when I'm aware I'm succumbing to it.

On my list:

1. Nettles: There was a ever-growing family of stinging nettles getting out of hand on the right side of our garden that got to the point of actually blocking the path on the way to the bird table (gasp!) Nettles simply don't let themselves be ignored. I tried, but it didn't work. So I went to town on them in the midday sun, and I'm happy to say the area is now nettle-free (although still not altogether pretty!) and I only sustained two minor stings! This last bit is definitely an achievement because it seems like you could be wearing a coat of armor and they'd still manage to get you somehow.

2. Re-pot plants: The plants we got from the boot fair last weekend definitely needed re-potting immediately. They were in the tiniest little pots and their roots were desperately trying to get out the bottoms! This is one of those funny kinds of chores that I will put off for ages, but once I start getting dirty I really enjoy it. It occurred to me yesterday that if we owned our own place I could really get stuck in to some gardening. Something to look forward to in the future...

3. BBPhoto: That's scribble code for Blackbird Photo. A doofy blackbird was getting ecstatic on the edge of the deck the other day, with its mouth hanging open... and then it began to SING. I grabbed my camera and got a couple of shots through the kitchen window before it flew off. I was going to try to use one of them for my banner on here, but wasn't super happy with how his face was shaded. Any opinions?

4. Marlowe: I kept meaning to look up the Marlowe Theatre online to see about an upcoming production of Top Hat, apparently the first ever stage production of what used to be one of my all-time favourite Fred Astaire movies. Slightly cautious of disappointment, but I think I might take the risk! Stay tuned...


5. Howlett's: Was briefly thinking about taking the train to the sto near our favourite conservation park (read: zoo, but without all the nasty bits) and getting their free peak season shuttle bus into the park. Dan and I go all the time when we're off together, and I wondered what it would be like to go on my own. The task on my list was simply to look into the option, and as it turned out that's as far as it got! ... but now I know, for future reference.


6. Video for Monkey: I really didn't think I'd be brave enough to complete this item, but towards the end of the day (evening really) after I'd treated myself to a vodka and diet pepsi, I took out my Ricoh, set it to video mode, and ventured out to the deck in the garden where my newly potted plants were to show my great friend Monkey (aka MONKEY) the work I had done. Sorry, but this video was for her eyes only! ... but I did it, that's what counts right?


7. Blog: and this final item was to do a blog post, and as was mentioned before, it's taken a few days to complete it!


All's well that ends well... ?

One of those days ...

... but there might be something nice in there, right?

Oh my cuteness! (1)

HOW INCREDIBLY CUTE ARE THESE??? 

Via Happy Rainbow by way of Three Eggs

I'm not sure how 

you could bring 

yourself to eat them!

Hamster Colony

Is it wrong to want a complete Iwako Japanese Eraser Hamster Colony? Well, I really DO!

I especially LOVE the sweet ones on the bottom row ... I really must visit the Japanese Eraser Museum (how can I find a way??) Their site made me realize a VERY interesting little fact... you can assemble your own hamsters to make different colour combos. The pieces pop apart really easily! And now I know, because I just tried it. Sausalito Ferry Co. sells the whole colony, and the bottom row set that I love. Uh oh...

Like Riding a Bicycle

Not much time to spare this morning, but I just had to steal a moment to mention my reintroduction to crocheting!! Bought some wool yesterday, and a couple of hooks and put my fingers to work. Turns out THEY, (they being my fingers), remembered a LOT more than I would have guessed! So my first little effort turned out to look like a little hat, which I have to admit got me so excited I wasn't able to fall asleep for hours.

Where should little hats go? Well, on little heads of course! I always wondered if my sheep was French. She looks perfectly at home in a purple beret.

 

Hatted Ewe | temporarily removed from my windowsill for modeling purposes

Gifts!

I'm dangerously close to overstepping my self-imposed "at least once a week" blog post again, so I thought I'd share with everyone some really sweet gifts I've been given recently just for being me! It's so touching when someone just wants to give you something, for no reason in particular and with nothing expected in return. It's even nicer when you feel the need to exclaim with delight when you see what they have given you!  In order of the giving:

My talented (in many more ways than one)friend Alys presented me with this outstanding piece of work after I showed admiration for another not so traditional cross-stitch pattern she had created. To protect the innocent, the slightly (and of course obvious) censored version of the text was "F*ck The Dumb Sh*t." I thought it was brilliant and told her so. She immediately offered to make me one, but then said she could make whatever I liked. First of all, how sweet is that? Second of all, I decided to consult Dan to see what he might like hanging up in our lovely future Georgian home. After some deliberation ,(and nearly a domestic), he told me while driving around admiring the countryside one random weekend: "I had a thought about our gift from Alys. It's specific to us." or some such. On the edge of my seat I waited. "I say tomato, you say tomato" he said. I imagined it quickly in my visual mind. "But... it's spelled the ... PERFECT!" 

When pondering what I've just said, remember (or be newly aware) of the fact that I am originally from New York State and Dan is from England. Perfect. Just perfect. Thank you Alys... and those tomatoes you laboured over were not made in vain. :)

 At the end of a particularly stressful and generally rubbish week at the day job, my friend Claire came up to me midday to tell me "she bought me something." She had seen me admiring (read: squealing over)these adorable Ty Japanese Puzzle Erasers (erm, they call them rubbers here in the UK, but I just can't make that adjustment to my vocabulary willingly). We had three styles in and when I asked her which one she had gotten me she exclaimed "all three!" with a big, generous smile on her face (also part of the gift, in my opinion). SOOO cute! Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, she also bought me a bag of Percy Pigs, a particular indulgence of mine. I obviously don't have a personal photo of those because they were long gone VERY quickly. YUMMY! Sorry, Percy, but you're just so damned tasty! Thank you Claire, for making me feel valued and for noticing and nurturing my crazy quirks!

 

And last, but certainly not least: Dan gave this adorable pencil to me when he met me out the very same day of Claire's gifts! What have I done to deserve all of this? ... well, we mustn't question these things I suppose and just feel VERY GRATEFUL to be reminded that people are thinking of us. He acted as if he didn't know if I'd like it that much, (but he KNEW), and I DO! 

So probably needless to say, the erasers will never get rubbed and the pencil will never be sharpened, but the cross-stitch will certainly be hung and all enjoyed and appreciated immensely! Oh, and for the Percy Pigs? Well, they were certainly not the first, nor the last of their line and I enjoyed every bite! Let's just say they fulfilled their sweet destiny. Now to see to fulfilling mine...

A lovely and unexpected gift

Lookie what I found waiting for me when I got home from a inexplicably draining day! Hand-made by my lovely Monkey, and which traveled all the way from Seattle, WA. I clearly need to dust this mirror, but given how haggard I look at the moment, I'm quite happy with how the photo turned out :)

Things I Organized Neatly #1

Alright, just after my post about the mess on my desk I discovered through a facebook post of a friend a very interesting site called Things Organized Neatly. Coincidence you say? Well, these days I acknowledge synchronicity wherever it might seem to appear and try to learn something from it.

So, I've gone and organised a few things of my own (namely, 36 felt deer) and gotten some real pleasure out of it, despite its simplicity! I'm going to submit the result to the website and see if it makes the cut.

Deary Me, I've organised something!

Boxing Day Me

Wasting a little time before we went out for Boxing Day lunch. Thought I better get with it and post something on here before the year is up! Not sure what kind of schedule to set myself for this blog... maybe at least one post a week? I suppose once I get momentum creatively everything else will fall into place. Yes, that's what will happen. Happy New Year!

The most you'll get from me...

... regarding politics on this blog

proof of a higher power...

...and it might well be Mexican

Special Presentation, complete with drums

As a complete surprise I found Snoopy Come Home was on TV the other afternoon which threw me headlong into early childhood nostalgia. I distinctly remember rambling on about the Halloween Charlie Brown special in this other blog way back when. Peanuts played a prominent role in my formative years, clearly. What was even more of a pleasant surprise was, after some minimal searching, finding THIS -- the original 1973 CBS Special Presentation Intro to pretty much any TV special of note in my innocent childhood world. I can't believe the memories that flooded back just on hearing and seeing those magical (and ultra 70s) 5 seconds of psychedelic loveliness. Watch and enjoy -- and then watch and enjoy again, and again, and again...

once upon a time...

... I thought blogging was kind of fun. Then I got bored... and now I'm thinking I might start up again even if only to document flights of fancy or materialistic smiles ... DO DO DO DO DO ...

Ladybugs, Ladybirds and the ensuing nightmare

These are a lovely little gift I received yesterday from a friend. I know them as ladybugs, scientists apparently prefer the title lady beetles, some kind of social cripple might use the Latin name coccinellidae, but here in the UK they are referred to as ladybirds. There's a heart warming English nursery rhyme which reads:

Ladybird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your children all gone,
All except one and that's little Ann
For she crept under the frying pan.

Why this one little bug Ann was safe under, of all things, a frying pan in a blazing inferno one will never know, but I suppose as far as English nursery rhymes go, this one's relatively harmless...

...As opposed to, say, Three Blind Mice which is meant to refer to three suspected Protestant subversives who were not dismembered and blinded as is suggested in the rhyme, but much more comfortably burned alive at the stake by Queen "Bloody" Mary I.

Then there is Ring a Ring o' Rosies (which I, being American, used to sing as "ring around the rosie"). Little did I know in my innocence that I was singing about the horrific suffering of the Bubonic Plague, and when shouting 'ashes, ashes' and bursting into laughter while throwing myself to the ground I was in effect celebrating the cremation of the wretched dead bodies. Oh joy.

And then there's the old fave Jack and Jill ... which is said to refer to the beheading of French King Louis XVI followed by his wife Marie Antoinette during the Reign of Terror in 1793. Apparently the rhyme's words were sugar-coated a bit at some point to make them more suitable for children. You know, because vinegar and brown paper are commonly known to cure decapitation. Everyone knows that.

Now that I've got the shivers and am reasonably convinced I was subconsciously damaged during my childhood, I'm just going to go play with my pretty glass ladybugs...

** postscript -- apparently, according to Dan (the British representative of this blog) the aforementioned bug-life saving frying pan was (as is apparently meant to be common knowledge) 'upturned'. So perhaps little Ann might have ended up nicely roasted or smoked as opposed to char-grilled. **

Random Wildlife

While playing Badminton in the garden last night Dan and I spotted two of these and were beside ourselves ... in a good way. Ours weren't dangling so gracefully from the plant life, but were awfully cute nonetheless!