July List!

A little late, but there we go...
From top left, clockwise:

1. Mini-break - Five of us (parents, sister, brother-in-law and I) journeyed down to the Loire recently to participate in a 'Balade Gourmande' - a 5km walk round pretty villages and vineyards, from one local food and wine tasting stall to another, accompanied by various musicians along the way. Got a little bit drunk and a little bit sunburnt and a little bit stuffed... All in all, a good day.

2. Reading list - Spotted this flagged up on the lovely Angry Chicken. It's a handwritten/hand-drawn zine with all kinds of information and tips about "how to craft a sustainable domestic life outside of consumer consciousness". Available here - it looks super.

3. Organic Cotton Sun Dress - from Lav & Kush, available here on Mudshark Streetwear. Gorgeous.

4. Visitor! - this is a picture from my trip to Bangladesh in Februrary to visit my good friend working out there. Looking forward this month to her trip back to the UK. yay!

5. Southbank - for the last few years the National Theatre's held a festival of outdoor free events throughout summer, called Watch this Space. In the past I've enjoyed: circus skills graduate shows after work; a crazy show involving a lot of fire, acrobatics and firemen dancing on podiums; and sitting in a deckchair watching old films and short films projected onto the concrete tower. This year they have a parkour week coming up, so hoping to get down to see some of that. I love the athleticism and grace of parkour, as well as the way it treats the urban environment as a playground.

6. Summer footwear - I like this smart looking flip flop from Melissa Sin at the Inhabitat shop. It's made of recycled plastic in a closed loop manufacturing process apparently.

7. Sunshine clutch - have been eyeing up these Bobelle bags for a while. They're made of eel skin - a a by-product of the food industry in Korea. All BoBelle products are hand made, hand dyed and fairly traded, according to their website. They also have some great looking hand bags and cute coin purses.

Back again, with bikes

I'm just back from three days out of the country and in the sun. The distance and time to relax and sleep and enjoy eating, drinking, conversing has made me feel a bit less weary than last week, and a bit less fraught about work, so I thought I would pop in and try and post something at least.

Lots of post material has been building up over the last couple of weeks in my head and on the camera, so hopefully I'll get time to share some of that with you soon. For now, I think I'm just going to post some photos. These are from the summer solstice a couple of weekends ago. We had friends over for dinner and I mentioned I'd read about a solstice bike ride taking place the next morning. We liked the idea, we realised we had four bikes between the four of us (none of them being mine) and decided to go.

A short nap later, we reconvened and I got on a bike for the first time in probably 12 or 13 years. Swept down dark and empty streets, through the park, down towards the clamour of the city centre. Into soho, where being sober at 2am felt like being thrust into a circus or asylum, people shouting, swaying, talking to themselves, pirouetting, vomming, carrying friends, acosting rickshaw drivers.

A group gathered and we set off. It was short, and a little disappointingly lacking in the bubbles and music and costumes and general jollity you see on the critical mass rides, but I loved flying through dark streets surrounded by a sea of flashing red lights, and we made it up to primrose hill to see a (cloudy!) sunrise and drink tea, and it felt like a little adventure.

Now I really want a bike.

June List

June's here! And it's actually sunny, hooray!

So, from top left, going clockwise.

1. I love this ring from artisan look on etsy. Gorgeous

2. Also lusting after the lovely caoba top - another etsy find by Zelaya. It's made of organic cotton, can be worn two ways, and looks perfect for warm weather (apart from the fact that I ban myself from buying white apparel on the grounds that I'm just too prone to spilling things).

3. Hoping to catch the The Photographic Object exhibition at the photographers gallery in its new home. It's one of my favourite London galleries with a constant turnover of small and interesting exhibitions and I haven't visited since it recently moved.

4. I'm sure this golden sands brooch from Calexandra would make everything in my wardrobe look better.

5. Comfy and chic, and coral, one of my all-time favourite clothing colours, this Peopletree bubble dress is another item on my wardrobe wishlist.

6. Having finally managed to keep up regular(ish) running training since January, planning to run a 5K this month, with Sri Chin Moy races in lovely Battersea Park.

7. Cherries have started to arrive on the streets of London and I can't get enough of them. They just taste of summer. I went to my first picnic this weekend just gone and sitting in the sun in the company of interesting people, with a handful of cherries and a glass of prosecco is a good recipe for a Sunday afternoon...

The May List!

May has to be a strong contender for the best month of the year, doesn't it? A teasing peek of summer to come, flowers in bloom, and best of all - not one, but two bank holidays! woo woo! So this May, I am:


Planning to

- Finally get round to visiting the Madness and Modernity exhibition at the always-fabulous Wellcome Collection, which looks really interesting. (picture 1)
- Check out the Slow Food Market on the Southbank this weekend. It promises "40 stalls furnishing a delicious array of artisan food and drink, including rare cooked meats, fresh mezze, salads and sweets such as cakes, pancakes and baklava... and a programme of free access demos, tastings and workshops." (picture 2)
- Start on something from my lovely new Kim Hargreaves book (picture 8), very possibly with some organo-phosphate free and (fairly) local alpaca yarn from the Farm Yarn shop (picture 9)


Lusting after

- This gorgeous gathered print skirt (picture 3) from Sika, who use vintage fabrics sourced from Ghanaian markets to make their fabulous creations. All pieces are hand-made by local seamstresses in Ghana using traditional techniques such as tie-dye and batik and the income received from their sale goes back into the local community.
- Jess LC's handmade State Street necklace (picture 6) and earrings (picture 7) . Classic but funky, they would go with everything.


Looking forward to

- Visiting my lovely friend Shelley in picturesque Devon (picture 4)
- Starting a six-week beginners tennis course! (picture 5)


Hoping for

- Sunshine! (picture 10) - see items 2, 4 and 5 above!!

Picture credits (all from Flickr Creative Commons): Slow Food - Orin Optiglot ; Tennis Ball - StuSeeger ; Totnes - dachalan ; Sunshine - JunCTionS

chateau kings cross

I mentioned the other day I'd read about this vineyard planting day on a Central London commercial estate...

So I turned up last Sunday, a lovely sunny morning, to a commercial estate just 10 minutes walk away. A few others were milling around the car park of the Alara factory and we contemplated the grassy verge that was to be our 'vineyard' (above) - it didn't look quite like the vineyards I've walked through in France or Switzerland...


Tools were dished out, lines drawn up and we all grabbed a space to dig (left). I LOVED the digging! Something hugely satisfying about throwing your whole strength into something and seeing this physical result accummulate...


(And refreshing too to have no Health and Safety rigmarole - I know it's a good thing, it's just boring. Somehow it's much more fun when people are swinging pickaxes and hefting shovels without having to sign pieces of paper and get kitted up in protective this and that...)

And here is a photo of the hole I dug! You may not think it looks much, but I was immensely proud of that hole. It came up to my knees. And I had to dig balanced on a slope!

Holes dug, we ferried to and fro with compost and water and made nice little homes for our baby vines.

(This is a painting of the day some super painters made whilst we were working... )

Once all the vines were in, we mulched with wet cardboard (old boxes from Alara's warehouse) and weighed down with stones and soil. My hands were FREEZING by this point, but ...

... once we'd finished they fed us all lunch - by this time quite a crowd had come and mucked in in the spring sunshine.

Yum! (there are some nettles on that plate that they picked from the verge before we started digging and blanched over an open fire of old unusable pallets!)

As an added bonus to a really lovely day meeting people and working in the sunshine, Alex, the man behind the Alara company and its attempts to create permaculture gardens around the factory, including this vineyard day, gave us some free muesli before we left, as a token of thanks.

I really hope the vines do well and can't wait to go and see them in a couple of months' time to see how it is looking. Apparently the first harvest will be in about 2 years' time.

something interesting in central london

I try not to read the free london papers too often, because they're so full of brain-rotting drivel, however glad to be perusing one on Friday last, as I came across an article about organic vineyards, to be planted in central London!

The wholefoods company Alara, has their hq near kings cross and is planning to plant some vines on some old railway ground there.

Even better, their inviting people along to help planting, and providing a free lunch to volunteers! see http://alara.co.uk/193,l2.html . I can't find anywhere to sign up so I assume you just turn up. I have put it in my diary and just hope it is as beautifully spring-like a day as today!