Category Archives: Out and about

Gabby O’Connor: what lies beneath – the return

By Alice | Published: July 27, 2011

A friend curated this installation of work by the New Zealand artist Gabby O’Connor at the North Wall Arts Centre here in Oxford. The installation is exploring what lies beneath the tip of an iceberg. The pieces are made of triangles of dyed and lacquered tissue paper, you can read more about it here on Gabby O’Connor’s site. The pictures don’t really do it justice as in person these icebergs do feel mammoth as you look up at them, it’s a really interesting piece of work, made me think. Well worth checking out if you are in the area, it is on until 20 August, there are more details here on the North Wall Arts Centre site.

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just this and that

By Alice | Published: July 27, 2011


I noticed when skimming the pictures I had taken recently that whenever I sit down I always have my bracelet in front of me and my sunglasses. The sunglasses I lost in Seattle were no longer available so a few months back I bought the Rayban Honey New Wayfarers.


See :) We were discussing taking the train to Berlin next year sometime and looking at maps. My suggestion of cycling didn’t go down well.


Went to this poetry / music / visuals event yesterday as a friend who is also a talented video guy was showing some work he’d made for this, his stuff is really cool. It was an interesting evening and I was also very impressed by the poet Caroline Bird.

I’m getting a huge backlog of photographs lately so I might have to post a little bit more than my usual 3x a week for a short bit.

Also posted in Days and nights, Opinion, Oxford, Travel & Places | Tagged | Comments closed

Day In The Life Revisited

By Alice | Published: July 14, 2011

A million years ago some bloggy friends and I would do regular ‘Day In the Life’ posts together on the same day, so each documenting what they got up to on a particular day. There was a resurrection of this on Tuesday which I am joining in on. You can see the other posts here. Thanks for organising it Claire (Claire is the dynamo behind this excellent shop BTW).

It wasn’t a particularly exciting day so I am not sure how interesting this will be! It was however a nice quiet day, one of those happy days that fills the gaps between bigger adventures.

Something that might be unusual to others is that I don’t require much sleep, I’m not sure of I have mentioned that on here before? I am kind of known for it amongst my friends and I have always been like this since I was small. Unless I’m ill I feel awful if I try to get 8 hours sleep, but on 5-6 I feel great. I love it as it means some days I get twice the day that other people have. There is a whole world of early morning that is pretty cool if you are around to see it. I try to be considerate to all you sleepers though and be quiet. So my day starts at 5:30-5:40am every day, on this day I caught up on news, Twitter, emails etc. via my phone. The Japan time zone is ahead of us so there is usually quite a lot of interesting news from there that has happened overnight. I did the usual getting ready, shower and so on, and made lunch, the little guy in the top right is a sandwich pick. I played with the cats (who scrunch the rug up like that).

On my feet I used Butter London in Macbeth, it’s a great colour as it is not quite pink or red, and because it is Butter London it doesn’t contain Formaldehyde, Toluene, or Dibutyl phthalate. It’s always much slower getting ready when the cats are around as Ira follows me back and forth all the time and waves her paw at me to get my attention. I don’t know where Beep was while I was taking pictures, probably under the bed.

I left for work at about 7:30am, it was a warm but gloomy day. I arrived early, the first one in so the office was in darkness, I got some porridge and did inbox-to-zero, I am pretty fanatical about inbox-to-zero :) Then when my tea buddies were in at 8am we went for tea. Then work work work. Lunch was a quick sandwich and a walk into town to collect the results of two rolls from my Lomo LCA. The picture of the fountains is my favourite I think. I will post them on here soon. Then work work work. I actually ended up staying about an hour late to get something big done. I went to collect Gloria who was parked next to a tandem. Then off home.

I took a detour to cycle along the Thames, I’m not a huge fan of that route as there always seems to be quite a lot of dodgy business going on around there but it’s lovely to see the water and a change of route is always nice. To cross back over the water I have to wheel Gloria over Iffley Lock. Then it’s just a short ride to home through a park. Two days a week we try to really limit the amount of time we are working on projects in the evenings to only about an hour as otherwise it feels like endless working even if it is on fun stuff. This night was one of those nights so after dinner (sausage and veg) we hung out and watched Iron Man 2 which I thought was a bit rubbish, I also did my ironing which is a pretty rare occurrence. Then about 11:30pm-ish I went to bed. The end.

Now, wasn’t that exciting! :)

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Happy New Year

By Alice | Published: January 5, 2011

Happy New Year! I had a very relaxing Christmas and new year holiday. As it’s 12th Night, the last day of Christmas, I thought it time I end my holiday hiatus, sort through my Christmas photos, and resume my regular posting.

Looking back, I had a good 2010. A little bit of travel, I went to Rome, Berlin (twice), Copenhagen, Malm√∂, Sligo, London, Birmingham, Shropshire, Exmoor, Bristol, and Bath, as well as the usual little adventures. We didn’t go anywhere too far as we are saving for a big trip that we want to go on this year (more on that another day). We decided to build a house. I gave myself a bit of a break at the end of the year and postponed a few big projects that I want to do. So now it’s 2011 and I am looking forward to throwing myself into all sorts of things.

As for resolutions I have quite a few small general ones but my main feeling is that in 2011 I want to throw myself with enthusiasm into the various projects I have, no procrastination, 2011 is a year of action.

So to finish off an other year of posting here are the final pictures of the last week and a bit of 2010….


Simon’s birthday.


Amazing igloo on the green outside my father’s house. Like something from Where The Wild Things Are. There were three snow chairs inside.


The Christmas dinner that I cooked for that family on Christmas day. That’s only some cuts from the turkey in the middle of the table, the whole turkey was big. I might do the main cooking but the Christmas meal event is really a collaboration with everyone chipping in e.g. my mother made the ham, my dad shopping for the ingredients, my aunt made the Christmas cake, my other aunt brought the Christmas pudding, my sister helping me serve and stir, my sister and aunt doing the decorations and laying the table. It’s good that way.


Best part of the Christmas meal – Christmas pudding! I make zabaglione to go with it which is a family tradition.


After Christmas meal.


My mother has real candles on her tree, it’s very pretty.


Visiting friends. Playing Street Fighter II after watching Scott Pilgrim.


Bedside table in chaos but my birthday flowers lasted for ages, the tulips puffed out.


North Leigh Roman Villa remains, on one of our many small explores over the holidays. I was imagining Romans from Rome shivering and ill from the damp in togas in this marshy place by the river but apparently they might have been Romanised Britons. No one knows.


Everyone had many naps.


Anne Hathaway’s cottage (Shakespeare’s wife’s family’s house). We didn’t go in. Just passing.


We also poked our noses into The Swan part of the RSC in Stratford-Upon-Avon and had a look at the renovations.


My dad’s tree.


New year’s eve.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Also posted in Cake & Dessert, Cats, Cooking, Oxfordshire, Savoury, Travel & Places | Comments closed

birthday adventures

By Alice | Published: December 20, 2010


We had plans to go off in the car on adventures and go out to a village for dinner in the evening but in the morning it snowed and snowed and snowed so we postponed those plans in favour of close-by things.


Instead of going for dinner we went for a long lunch at a local place that’s had lots of great reviews. It was lovely. The chance to have a long leisurely lunch is so rare. This was a winter salad with hazelnuts, pear, and goats cheese curd.


This pie said for 2/3 to share, we barely ate a quarter but they wrapped up the rest for us to take away so we had the leftovers in the evening.


Dessert!


As I’m the one with the camera there aren’t that many pictures taken of me so I asked Simon to take a picture. So many outdoor clothes that people have in the background and I’m wearing the biggest jumper possible.


We went on a walk after the meal. This is Simon after being hit in the face by a blizzard. He didn’t like snow getting in his ear.


We stopped at a local shop for some birthday supplies (champagne and ice cream ;) ).


Then home to hide under blankets and watch films. The lens fogged up after being out in the cold. Beep sat on us.


Then the next day we made a mission over to my dad’s house for a family celebration. I was really touched by the big effort that was made by my family to come from all over the place to celebrate.


This sculpture in my dad’s garden was made by my sister when she was small, in the snow it had Marge Simpson hair.


The boots started adding up in the hall. The blue boots in the centre are my new winter boots, they are brilliant, warm and comfortable to walk and cycle in.


Much feasting! This was dessert, there were lebkuchen, stollen, different mochi wrapped in leaves, and cake.


A lovely birthday weekend, and I still have celebrating with friends to happen this week. Thank you everyone who left birthday wishes :)

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