January 3rd, 2009

Notes from a small island

Thirty eight weeks yesterday. And we’re on the mend.

Today I redeemed my New Sewing Machine For Christmas voucher at John Lewis. Today I didn’t spend twenty quid on a cab. Today the bus driver let me on free when my card failed. Today I sat next to a lovely lady on the bus who was a psychic counsellor with arthritis and dyslexia. Astrid played peek a boo and smiled at her down her long eyelashes. The psychic counsellor with arthritis and dyslexia wanted to give Astrid a cuddle and take her home.

Today as we walked across the Heath back home, new sewing machine in hand, the sun shone. Kevin noted the Heath looked different. I mused it must be they’ve cut the grass back. Kevin wondered whether it wasn’t the light. I suggested a brisk walk might even warm one up with that sun. Today. We couldn’t be sure though.

Tomorrow I’ll cut voile. Tomorrow I’ll cut double gauze.
Tomorrow I’m letting myself loose on a quilt adventure.

Yesterday flights to Auckland were booked. A way off yet. A bit of time before that next adventure.

ps. Yvonne’s just told me that my rss feed has vanished off bloglines – so if you have lost me try this link – and you’ll get photos too.

6 Comments

December 30th, 2008

the Astrid Dimension

Sunday was Astrid’s second birthday. Monday mummy and daddy noticed Astrid has got even cuter. Again. Sunday morning mummy couldn’t pull herself together to stop crying. She cried and cried and cried and just wanted to stop all this sickness and make everyone better again and to go home and never be so silly as to leave ever again. But we tried to make a nice birthday for Astrid. We wrapped up warm, got Astrid into the buggy. Shoes off, sleeping bag on. All snug little bugglie. The cold wind made our runny noses cold. We walked up to Hampstead and were all suddenly very very hungry and we went to we cannot believe it MacDonalds for chips. For birthday chips.

Astrid likes birthday chips in the warm. With tomato sauce. Astrid is a big fan of tomato sauce on anything. Astrid is even a big fan of tomato sauce on its own. Astrid also likes strawberries, yoghurt, sausages, roast pork, rice crackers with peanut butter, rice crackers with vegemite. Astrid loves tomatoes and she likes soup. She like to dunk her buttered vogels bread in her soup. Her favourite soup is tomato soup. Astrid used to love asparagus but she doesn’t any more. Strawberries are her favourite. Bananas are also quite good. Usually whatever mummy is eating is best, but it must be fed to Astrid by daddy using mummy’s fork.

Astrid can say no very well. She can shake her head most profusely. Sometimes that might also mean yes. Astrid is also good at pointing. Often she’ll point up to the kitchen cupboard, which we think means vegemite. Sometimes it also means banana. Pointing at the biscuit tin often means rice cracker. Pointing at the fridge might mean yoghurt. Or strawberries. Or jam. Often we are totally wrong and Astrid ends up with a pile of The Wrong Food. And, she also likes peas.

Sometimes.

Astrid whilst good at shaking her head, as in I… Am… Shaking… My… Head… And… That… Is… A… Definite… No… doesn’t have such an action for yes. So we taught her the Astrid wiggle, which involves shaking the body and head from the waist up from side to side. The Astrid wiggle means yes. These past weeks however we seem to have lost the Astrid wiggle. Lost in time along with our favourite ever Astrid passtime, the Astrid purr.

Astrid likes Teletubbies again. She gave them up at one but they’re back in her good books it would appear. In the Night Garden is quite good, but her absolute favourite is The Simpsons. Which she watches with Daddy every night at 7 o’clock. Her second favourite thing to watch is the DVD lead-in for In The Night Garden. We think it’s the music.

Astrid is very well dressed. The labels Astrid will wear are Anemone, 6.5st and a+b. She also wears Flora and Henri and Nature Baby. She is especially fond of Linnet fabrics, Nani Iro, merino and charcoal cotton. Her current favourite outfit is Linnet wool trousers lined with grey organic double gauze, with Petit Bateau tights in aubergine, navy stripe singlet and navy stripe bodysuit by Nature Baby, with either her a+b yellow wool floral Linnet smock top, or her 6.5st pink Linnet apron top.

Astrid we believe is saving up her sentences for later. She understands everything that’s going on. That we do know. After lunch every day she will gather everyone’s shoes and hand each person their correct shoes and socks so everyone can go out. Astrid likes to tidy things up. She’s very good at clearing up at the end of the day, putting books back on shelves, toys back in boxes, rubbish in the bin. She doesn’t like to leave any mess lying around and all laundry is put in the laundry basket before we go downstairs in the morning.

So far we’ve been graced with a smattering of words. Tiger was the first. Now we’ve had bin, apple, water, mummy, daddy, hello, hiya, yah yah yah yah yah (at the same time as the Astrid Wiggle) – but no word for no yet.

Well, young Astrid – it’s been quite the year for all of us, you’ve learnt to walk, started to talk, we’ve moved countries, made lots of new friends,  entertained a lot of people here who find your quirky little habits very endearing, soldiered through this awful English winter, you’ve made sure your parents are kept very busy and filled our lives with your mad humour, your enormous grin, your cheerful smile and your sweet love for life and for us and the pussy cats.

We love having you, the Astrid Dimension, in our lives – you just get better every day. And long may this adventure continue.

Happy birthday beautiful girl !!!!
We love you so very much xoxox

12 Comments

December 23rd, 2008

The happy hum

My sewing machine came to a very noisy grinding halt the other day. It was only a few hours later Polly’s vintage Husqvarna was humming along happily, finishing the quilt for my niece, and the Christmas presents that had been cut and overlocked – all waiting for finishing.

Little double gauze and cotton jersey trousers – two pairs made, more pyjamas for Astrid, muslin wraps for the baby. All week I’ve been grateful I bought good fabric last year when I had some money. Things like nani iro suzuran field bias tape, a bolt of purple flower double gauze from Linnet, neatly folded italian wool carefully tucked into bags – one piece just enough to make winter trousers for a two year old, another perfect for a small coat, pink and white pindot voile for lining, a bit left over to make hankies, metres of soft, light organic japanese cotton voile, pretty florals and soft grey flanels, linens in rose quartz and mulberry for teatowels and napkins.

Lovely treasures from Japan. Lovely treasures with which to clothe and surround ourselves with.

I bought a box from muji to file my yarn in. I’ll have to show you that another day. And the sewing. When the light’s better. And then I can tell you about meeting Melissa, who carried my muji shopping around Soho for me, about Yvonne coming to stay and our trip to Loop and Cath Kidston and Skandium. But now I’m going back downstairs to finish cooking dinner, to blow my nose another thousand times and to get some rest.

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December 13th, 2008

To the islands

porcelain flower by ande - astrid’s second grandma

A few people have asked me why we came here, as in back to London. A few reasons really. One of the main reasons, in fact the very most main reason that was the one that overrode all the doubts that arose in the weeks before we left was the reason that I needed to get my UK passport and be back here before my visa ran out to apply for it. Something I had qualified for in 2001 and never actually got around to filling in all the bits on the form and sending it off. I’d always said it was ‘my degree’. Something I also never got. Yes, so maybe I spoke too soon about it being like my degree after all. The last time we came back I’d been advised I just had to stay a year and I could get my passport. However. Rules change. And it would appear the rules have changed. According to the letter I received today.

So now I need to be back three years. Well five actually now. Because I’m no longer married to the person I originally came here with and I’ve been out of the country too long. So yes marrying him was my degree. You learn a lot living on the North Peckham estates for three years you do. But I still haven’t learnt to grab the bull by the horns. Get things while I can. No, I still sail along, thinking things will always be there. Like a friend who sold 20 acres of waterfront land on Waiheke for a pittance twenty years ago thinking they could easily buy more later. But it doesn’t really matter. Life goes on. We’ve had fun here. It would certainly have saved us a bit of aggro if we’d stayed in New Zealand, but there are many good things here. A nice working holiday. A lot of good yarn. We’ll stay here a few more months. We did need to come here. We really did. We’ve done a lot of shedding which needed doing. But now the life plan is saying to move back to New Zealand.

The life plan that is taking the shape of a wonderful adventure. It’s always been a wonderful adventure. The life plan that will see us move not back to our old house, but to the place that is really in our hearts, our spiritual home, my childhood home – a place we can stand and look out over the water, across clay cliffs to peninsulas, to the islands. A place to enjoy childhoods. Traditions and knowledge to be passed on to our children. Memories to be born. The special “New Zealandness” of growing up by the beach, of walking in the bush, of swimming in rivers, of barefoot adventures on hot asphalt, gingerly crossing prickle-filled summer lawns.

Cream horns in Opotiki. The jetty at Tolaga Bay. Windy sands at Ninety Mile Beach. Baches untouched since they were built in the 50s. Clambering around endless rocks along endless bays. Freshly dug pipis, but only one or two. A garden with fruit trees, hydrangeas and nerines. Fish and chips at Cheltenham looking out to Rangitoto at sunset, toes tucked into the cool sand. Poking little finger tips into anemones in rock pools. Gorse. Toi toi. Freezing cold swims on Christmas day. Jelly tips. Fru jus. Lemonade popsicles.

Yes.

To the islands. To the islands it will be.

25 Comments

December 4th, 2008

So, what did you do today Charlotte?

Forgotten Tales from Hedgehog Fibres - I love this

Well, I dropped Astrid off at Lorraine’s, went for coffee and knitted a couple of inches of Astrid’s wrist warmers. Then I came home, sent an email or two, during the course of which I wrote a list of things I wanted to do and things I had to do. Got the post and spent the next half hour trying to convince myself my new plum cashmere custom yarn is a semi-solid. Then I put the bugaboo and the maclaren on ebay. Then I wound yarn – with a winder, but still no swift, which involves unwinding the wool in little trails over a chair and around my tiny room, wind, repeat, avoid playful cats.

I ordered some lovely camel for a christmas hat, as in present, not themed. I made another cup of tea and sat down with a Biona maple syrup waffle biscuit, decided to take photos of said wool and current knitting projects and then I sat down to write a long overdue blog post which isn’t about any of the blog post subjects I’ve been mulling over the past week at all. And then put everything on flickr and ravelry for good measure.

Yesterday on the other hand I made a dress, finished a bag and little pyjama pants and a blanket and a little hat.

7 Comments

November 24th, 2008

The Alchemists

Such magic has been around me this week. Knitting time. Time to meditate. Winding time. Time for calm. Time for patience. A time to begin, slowly slowly, to transform what resides in the mind. There is simply no arguing with, nor hurrying along, tangled silk.

A green, forest path, an enchanted forest, an emerald forest, with paths of lichen and moss, willowy branches laden with crystalline leaves, rustling ever so gently as they sparkle on by. This magical silken forest will become a cardigan to drape the shoulders of a soon to be born daughter.

A favourite flower, the wild purple lupin, is the colour for Astrid. Hand dyed with natural dyes, a fine merino in dusty purple. The purple that sits at the edge of the sky waiting to become night. The purple before darkness. The purple before sunrise. A mysterious purple, a shifting purple, one of nature’s secrets. The bearer of the night. The bringer of the dawn.

And something for their mother, cashmere wrist warmers for winter, in the colours of deepest forest berry, colours for being stored away by winter squirrels. Colours for family from far away to gather, colours of mulled wine on Christmas eve, colours of baked fruit pie with vanilla ice cream, with cinnamon and spices. Richest deepest plum for winter warmth.

Somewhere I’ve read, maybe a few places I’ve read – one of the secrets of the Alchemists was that the turning of base metal into gold was a metaphor for the transforming of the mind, of turning the contents of the mind into ‘gold’. Imagine an empty mind, a still, quiet vessel  – containing but a pool of marvellous colours, shifting and changing. A deep pool of tranquil peace. A deep pool of serenity and beauty.

As I’ve walked over the Heath this past week I’ve been thinking about the dyers of these yarns and the beauty of the colours they create. That’s what’s been in my mind this week. A little bit of alchemy perhaps.

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November 14th, 2008

Astrid’s first (proper) word

Yesterday Astrid said her first word while they were all out at the zoo. She said Tiger. And she said it again last night just before seven when daddy asked if she said Tiger that day. Astrid said Tiger! And it was a real, proper, audible word!

Mornings before daddy goes to work and before Astrid gets dressed and has breakfast with mummy she sometimes has some of daddy’s cornflakes.

19 Comments

November 13th, 2008

immer hin

There’s a phrase in german, immer hin, which means something along the lines of always going there, always getting there, always moving towards it. Immer hin. Yeah. Things might take a while but you’ll get there in the end. A little conversation about rhubarb cake reminded me of it recently.

I like immer hin you know. I like the idea of not giving up, unless something really is worth dumping by the wayside, but other things, other important things, to keep on doing them, working towards things, even if it’s just a bit every week; it all adds up over the years.

So this last week I’ve talked to the blog a lot. I’ve started thinking again. And I’m glad of that. Astrid and I have been out walking. Walking around the Heath. Over to Swain’s Lane, around past the ponds, up the hill, through the glade, traverse kite hill, down by the terrace houses, over the railway bridge and back home. I’ve given up on coffee for the time being. My nose has been blocked and my energy levels plummeted and I’ve been huffing and puffing barely really pushing the pram. Feeling as fed up as fed up can feel.

We watched a rainbow kite scoot across the cold blue sky. We watched it till the path curved around and we couldn’t crane our necks any further. We watched parched autumn leaves trip across the path, tumbling over and over, their journeys still underway as they pass us. We watched the wind blowing in the trees and we watched the leaves raining down. We saw green leaves, yellow leaves, brown leaves, grey path, happy dogs, barking dogs, playful dogs, blue sky, windy sky, grey clouds, white clouds, big fields, green grass, muddy paths, groves of trees. We ate exciting pan au raisin and we ate not as exciting carrot cake.

Astrid points while I narrate. Most sentences end in little pot, or little chop. Look! It’s a rainbow kite little pot. Shall we get you a kite for christmas little pot? Astrid will point. Yes, it’s brown leaves little pot. In the back of a kubota mini truck thing, little chop. Do you know mummy knows the 1970s theme song from the Kubota ads little pot? Mummy knows a lot of jingles from new zealand from the 70s and 80s. She must have watched an awful lot of television, little chop.

And so the blocked nose just got all too much and the tiredness and the puffedness and the running up and down the stairs and shouting every time the phone went and being bloody fed up and being in a really bad mood. A Really Bad Mood. Saturday morning I decided I was a complete failure so the heath walk narrative to Kevin as we walked past the running track, began this week, this morning as I lay on the sofa not wanting to get up and move I decided I was a complete and utter failure because I’ve never finished anything and I’m always just ok at everything, never really really good. Always quite good, but never really great, I can just never be bothered putting in enough effort to be really fabulous at anything. But Kevin got me up off the sofa and out of the house, and up the road where the narrative begins, and I said well, it’s these stupid damn new age books I was brought up on that tell you you can do anything if you put your mind to it. And you can be the greatest at everything in the world if you want to and Kevin said well, that’s true, which I suppose it is, but I was just so pissed off that there’s all this stuff that says you’re meant to be so great all the time. And you can do anything you can dream of (which I agree with). Anything – but so often these were suggested as being such lofty goals. So you’re meant to be a multi millionaire with your own empire and this and that.

So there’s this great big tug of war where I have set my ambitions a bit lower than best in the entire world firewalk with me Antony bloody Robbins and I’m wrestling with myself that maybe I’ve set my ambitions too low, or that I failed because I haven’t got my empire yet. And I’m not a multi-millionaire when i really should be, because if I am supposed to be able to have everything I can dream of then why am I not all this stuff? And this all boils down to Charlotte in her previous life taking the red pill and her ambitions changed although the mind hasn’t really caught up yet. Charlotte used to be a very good corporate cog, taking her sharebroking papers, wearing nice Charles Jourdan boots, with Lisa Ho black outfits, driving her shiny blue Fiat uno with a personalised plate, working late, feeling happy for giving her soul to a company so she can get given flowers for working late and being a Very Good Girl. And finding herself several years later at a company dinner at The Banqueting House in Whitehall standing up clapping for a Very Right Wing Politician, having no idea who he is, only to find out later and feeling horrified she didn’t actually walk out then and there.

So back to the running track, and the narrative. And this week pondering all these thoughts, the blocked nose, the draining of all the energy. And all this mad running around without stopping to think about anything. And realising I’ve not really thought about much of anything for many many years. And thinking that winging it on my intuition would be fine. When really it was just winging it. And being too lazy to think. (And also being saved as if by magic by my intuition on many an occasion. So thanks intuition. You do deserve credit.)

And I was so annoyed at myself for having given away all control of my life to other people, happily being told what to do, being told what’s important to me, where I should live, why I need to do this and that. And I was so mad with myself, because I had just gone along with it – and never really stopped to sit down and decide what I wanted. So it was high time I came up with my own life plan. To really decide what I want. Where I want to set my ambitions. What I want to do. Things I want for our family. And I must remember for next time the story of the humble japanese potter and gardener. And those kind of ‘ambitions’. That kind of philosophy. And not the grandiose new age you can do it book ambitions. Because that’s what I want to think about. That’s what I want to base the life plan on.

I remember when I was eighteen, my life plan was to be an interior designer. I would have a simple modern clean all white home, and a yellow porsche. A 911. Nothing fancy. A bit of rust would be fine. And I’d still like that (although I might change some of my colour preferences). So this week I decided to work out my life plan. But first I needed to recover. So I sat down yesterday evening and just breathed through my nose, and made myself do it. And eventually I could breathe through my nose again. This morning I had enough energy to go up the road twice in a row because Astrid needed her warm coat for the zoo. And today I’ve knitted on the sofa and drunk tea. And eaten oven fries with tomato sauce and mayonnaise.

Tonight I will roast organic beef from Pomona and cook using the new cast iron pans that arrived yesterday. I will practice my breathing. I will focus on slowing down. I will do my life plan over the next few weeks, but my immediate goal is to simply breathe and to slow down.

We’ll get there in the end. We are here now.

28 Comments

November 6th, 2008

just in case anybody wants to know

We left all our pots and pans behind in the assumption we’d magically be able to afford a set of Le Creuset when we got here. Instead we’ve been living with a £5 set of crap from IKEA, which keeps food colder than the plates do.

Anyway, they must be discontinuing the colourway, but the satin blue range is all half price at amazon. Yesterday I picked up a couple of casseroles (I’ve been told not to buy the saucepans due to rusting handle inners), ramekins, a frying pan, two baking dishes and a mixing jug for just over a hundred quid.

This is all part of The New Interest In Food that is taking place in this household, since again, with this pregnancy too, I completely forgot how to cook around 22 weeks. So I am very excited about new pans and baking things, ready for a bit of a food blogging run perhaps.

Right. I’m going downstairs to rug up and knit a little cardigan.
Still haven’t shaken this cold.

note: I am not resting downstairs at all – I have now decided to have a massive clear out.

12 Comments

November 3rd, 2008

us and the bump we go walking

Lovely Shops has been updated including Yvestown + Shinzi Katoh, an amazing exhibition of creatures, the new Cath Kidston site and some rather delicious body creams at Beauty Expert.

Did I mention I now have a terrible cold? This is on top of losing my voice a few weeks ago, not to mention the nocturnal vomiting and daytime nausea of last week. As Lorraine said this morning as I dropped the newly emerged devil-child off – “Welcome to London”. I’d forgotten my New Zealand immune system took some building to get back to UK levels. Astrid got the cold last Tuesday. I got it on Saturday. And yes, Astrid is now totally grown up and doesn’t need the highchair which means she can run around whilst eating dinner, or, if we do decide she does after all *have* to sit in the high chair, she can scream at a pitch that rattles the rafters until she’s nearly sick, pause to ensure she isn’t sick, then resume screaming.

We know this will only last a week or two – as did the “I’m never ever ever going in the pram again I am going to walk everywhere, no, no actually you are going to carry me everywhere even if you are six months pregnant” phase. You see she does get her stubbornness from somewhere, and for now grown up fish beats baby goat – although I will not be rating my chances much when she’s got a bit more heel-digging practice in. Did I mention babychops ii is also destined to be a little goat?

This is all a lot of fun with a cold and a huge bump that is now requiring quite a bit of effort to carry around all day while we walk across the Heath – up to Kenwood – up through the woods to Hampstead. To buy lovely paperwhites and hyacinths for the kitchen. At a lovely little shop in Flask Walk, who so loved my little card purse they would now like to stock some please. Then down the hill a bit for coffee from Carluccio’s and three slices of ham to go with the baguette bought earlier from Forks in Swain’s Lane before we got our morning coffee from Kalendar – home of the divine redcurrant cheesecake.

So much coffee I’ve decided to buy an espresso maker after I left mine – along with some very beautiful handmade plates I bought at Liberty back in the late 90s when Liberty Had Really Good Sales – at my old flat over the road. For some peculiar reason I forgot to pack properly and left all sorts of nice things behind. Or was it that I did a bit of shedding, some leaving-behind on purpose of many worldly posessions, of reminders of my previous life. I even left a name behind when I left that flat. While I’m in random thought mode I have in fact been thinking about that phase of my life a lot lately. I was talking to Kevin about it as we walked over the heath to Swain’s Lane. But that really is a story for another day. In fact it’s a thousand stories. It’s another blog. With another name. The name that got left behind that day. The day I left my plates behind. The day the espresso maker was abandoned, along with nearly everything else bar a few boxes of fabrics and clothes and photos. The day, dare I say it, the day I grew up.

So where were we? Yes, baguette and ham, paperwhites and hyacinths. And now while I miss Auckland a bit – I do – I miss our friends and the beach and I miss that they are now having Spring and we’re not. But I love that we can walk one way to one little village, then through what is in effect countryside in the middle of London, up to another lovely village – and it’s all marvellous and civilised and pleasant and pretty. And we are all quite content on our little walks. Us and the bump.

And all that delicious coffee.

10 Comments

October 30th, 2008

A week of feeling (home)sick

In the spirit of Yvonne’s publication of her email to me on the matter of her having a shit week, here’s the email I bashed out during a precious moment of Astrid-sleep. I’d been planning a week of feeling (home)sick post – and, just like Yvonne’s, my email was destined to become a (highly unedited stroke rushed) blog post.

Astrid – on the mend

++

Hi you,

I just read your email again.

Ah well, at least it’s funny at the same time as being bloody awful.

I was up vomiting the other night. Astrid was up vomiting 4 nights running.
Kevin got it. He was up vomiting the same night as me and I begged him to go to work - he got a new contract immediately [ note to blog readers; Kevin got sacked for being off sick with Astrid’s last bug, just a couple of weeks ago, and because he was still in his probationary period there wasn’t much to be done ] - it’s for 5 weeks and so possibly no work over xmas but who knows. But yes, Kevin went to work ALL WEEK. I have been thinking about writing a blog post called, Kevin our hero, or something like that. Because to manage a week of work feeling like that makes him a bloody marvel. And it makes me love him even more because he did it for our little family.

Yes, so Astrid’s at home while we still pay for childcare and Kevin’s work is, well, uncertain. But he can always get work easily anyway. It’s just a bit scary with me not working, out, earning regular money - which was the point of us coming here - and Christmas coming up.

But that is us to a tee. Life on the edge and all that. Ha. Neither of us are the kind to stay somewhere – especially not when there are idiots running the show. Today I resisted a dress on sale at Whistles, which would have been perfect (ie it would fit the bump and look nice). So next week i AM going to make myself those robe rouge dresses I keep promising myself, from the marc jacobs cashmere and the cotton jersey I bought before we came here.

I cancelled my wallpaper subscription about half an hour after ordering it. In a way i really enjoy living on a super tight budget. And all these postal taxes and charges are really, really helping! And i am supposed to go on maternity leave as of monday, and suff is NOT finished. Because I’ve lost two weeks work out of the past four due to having Astrid home sick. And i am desperate to make all this stuff I’ve got lined up.

Including stuff for you which i bought just the best ever linen you’ll love and things like linen ribbon for MONTHS ago and haven’t had time to make yet. I’ve also got dolls designed, little aprons to make up, baby bags, baby blankets to sew and knit, treasure pouches to be sewn, cards to be bagged up, a set of cards to gocco up and a shop to open.

I had a blog contest before we left Auckland and the poor old winners still haven’t got their stuff. Although I’ve got a little pile going. I suppose that’s just the way a+b contests work. Run the contest really early. And send the prizes out on time. On time being at least six months later. If not longer. Hmm. Not convincing.

And to top it all off, well, the above made me really homesick – especially as Kevin would have got that promotion in Auckland – and then a friend emailed saying come home. And then I got really homesick.

… but then it snowed. It really snowed. We were all too sick to go out, but we looked out the window and there were big huge fluffy snowflakes falling. And they blanketed everything. A proper, big, snow. And I thought also we’ll visit you in Spring, definitely. We’ll rent a car and drive over. And go to Provence next Summer. Because that’s why we came here. To shop at Muji and Liberty and Loop and Upper Street and Selfridges and Heals and Marimekko and Borough and Spitalfields and Brick Lane, to do some amazing work to put on our CVs, to see snow, to live by the Heath again, to visit you, to take Astrid to France in the Summer, to walk everywhere and to learn to knit at Loop. So instead of wishing we were back home the snow reminded me to enjoy where we are.

It’s been a shit week hasn’t it! At least I’ve got some knitting in. And your house will be brilliant once it’s all done. As I always say, everything is always over in the end. Now it really is high time I sent you your chin up package.

x

ps. Astrid is starting to talk now. This morning she pointed at everything in the kitchen cupboard and wanted to look at everything in detail and know its name.

19 Comments

October 24th, 2008

Lovely news

It’ll be a while before it’s got everything in it that I want, but I’ve made a start on www.lovelyshops.com – a little project that’s been bubbling under for some time, waiting for me to finish other bits of work.

Lovely Shops will be a pure shopping guide of all my favourite, mostly online, shops from around the world.

It will be highly edited, so I won’t be posting just for the sake of it – but it will be the repository of places I shop – because goodness knows I love the postman and the delights he brings with him! And I’m sure my favourite shops will keep us all busy for a while.

As will the other lovelies – I’ve resurrected Lovely NZ, and there’s another little project or two I’ll be launching very soon.

9 Comments