By Alice | Published:
January 5, 2012
Between Christmas and New Year we visited Kew Gardens, I had been quite ill after Christmas with a horrible tummy bug so this was my first trip out feeling quite pale and delicate. We often seem to go to visit gardens in the winter, they certainly are quieter! :) My dad had strongly recommended we find the Marianne North gallery which is hidden away at the edge of the gardens, it is really interesting, I now strongly recommend it too. Afterwards we paid a very quick visit to the Petersham Nurseries tea house but they’d run out of lunch items so instead we went to Wallace and Co for a quick lunch.
By Alice | Published:
January 2, 2012
Seems like ages since I did this last! These are the books I read over Christmas.
A D Miller Snowdrops
: A central crime story with interesting description of expat life in Russia.
Christopher Isherwood Mr Norris Changes Trains
: Maybe not the best Isherwood? But it kept me reading, again it is an expat story, this one set within Berlin during the rise of the Nazis.
David Hieatt The Path of a Doer
: My sister got this from Santa :) It’s a short book of inspirational statements, you might know the author from his setting up of the Do Lectures and Howies.
P D James Cover Her Face
: The first PD James book, a whodunnit introducing us to Inspector Dalgliesh. After starting it I realised that I’d read it before but as I couldn’t remember who had done it I read it again. That sandwich is my Christmas sandwich which I look forward to it all year :) It contains a tiny bit of everything from the Christmas meal. That’s my dad in the background.
Caitlin Moran How To Be a Woman
: An interesting book, part autobiography, part rant, part making very good sense, it’s good to see gender issues being discussed and in an accessible way.
Kathleen Jones A Passionate Sisterhood: Wives, Sisters and Daughters of the Lakeland Poets
: The wives and children of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, and the other surrounding figures of that circle, had difficult domestic circumstances and had to deal with illness, addiction, and hardly any money. An eye opener as to what it must have been like.
By Alice | Published:
December 31, 2011
It is the time of year when many people start thinking about resolutions, me included. I generally like to have a couple as I do like a good ol’resolution. My smaller resolutions of last year were to sign my name with a capital ‘A’ unless writing to my family (just because) and to have a lunchtime walk every day unless I really really had too much work on, both of these were successful and things I will carry on doing. It was also going to be my year of action and getting various personal projects done. It was a year of a great deal of action, a highlight was our month-long USA road trip which we really really loved. However there are still some projects that had to be postponed due to being too busy so I am looking forward to getting on with these this coming year. One of these projects being moving house!
For this coming year I could list all sorts of resolutions such as brushing Ira (our fluffy ginger cat) every day even though she doesn’t like it and does her sad whhhyyyy face at us, vowing to clean the bathroom more often, making sure to post pictures on here more often, and trying to reduce the amount of junk email I get but I feel that these are things I will be trying to do anyway without needing extra resolve. So this year I only have one resolution and that, quite simply, is to give myself a kick and to not get side-tracked and to make sure to get the big projects done.
As well as resolutioning this is also the time for looking back on the year, while I immensely enjoy reading other people’s ‘best of 2011′ lists I feel in much more of a looking forward mood. If this is the time of year for reflection that my main feeling from 2011 is so thankful that I have such a great family and wishing good health and happiness for them in 2012. The picture above is from an adventure with them I never got around to posting where we had a crazy summertime party at the opera for my aunt.
So, happy new year! I hope it’s a good one for you and your loved ones! :)
By Alice | Published:
December 20, 2011
It was my birthday on Sunday and I celebrated with days and days of events spread over two weekends. I really love having my birthday and it’s exactly a week before Christmas so feels very festive and people are in a happy jolly mood.
Birthday number one was with my family, we met at an Italian place for lunch and then went to One Man, Two Guvnors and after we had dinner at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand which is a fun place to eat as it’s very traditional British food and they come and carve at your table.
Birthday number two was going with some friends for pizza and drinking. This was also jointly Simon’s birthday as our birthdays are close. We ate the pizza at La Cucina which was excellent and coped really well with having lots of people.
Then on my actual birthday we had a whole plan of going off to London but the weather was a bit crazy so instead we went for a delicious lunch around the corner at the Magdalen Arms (like last year), and went for a walk. The weather was indeed pretty crazy!
The annual picture of me when I make Simon take one :)
It was a very good birthday.
By Alice | Published:
December 19, 2011
I made this Christmas wreath by cutting out two rings of cardboard, one smaller than the other. I covered them both with felt. Then I wrapped lengths of ribbon around the bigger ring sticking down the ends. The ribbons were just ones that I’d gathered over the years – from gifts and here and there. Then when all the ring was covered I stuck the little ring to the big one so it had a nice neat back. A fun project!
The other decorations I made were these. They are for my family. I try to make one decoration for them each year. Working in the countryside now I have so much more access to pinecones so after a couple of lunchtime walks keeping my eye to the ground for the really small ones I had enough to take home and dry out. I did some experiments trying to string them on wire but in the end hot glueing them to each other was the easiest and most satisfying. I them painted them with gold enamel as that’s what I had to hand, spray paint would probably also be good, they had two coats. I didn’t worry too much about getting the gold in every crack as I think it’s nice having a bit of the natural colour showing. Final thing was to string them on a ribbon. I did try adding a bow but that seemed too cutesy. I hope that my family like them :)
