To Market, To Market

The Magpies and I market is this Sunday at the M Shed in Bristol. I've been stitching, sourcing, painting, printing and packaging for the last few weeks (in between the day job!), and finally feel that I'm nearing readiness. I've been trying to anticipate how the market is going to go; I don't know whether there is any way of predicting the success or outcome of a day spent presenting ones wares to the world (or a corner of Bristol at least) but I feel satisfied at least by the efforts and I have LOVED the process of preparations. 

Take a look at my Vintage, Upcycled and Handmade items, and come along to say hello on Sunday. 

Photoshoot

I was lucky enough to spend a wonderful afternoon with my good friend Amy of Hearthwitch Cottage yesterday. She is in the process of building a photographic portfolio, as well as quite an impressive collection of vintage and modern cameras! You can see her exciting 2012 project here. Amy was kind enough to take photos for me and of me for the market marketing. It was such a beautiful day, and even though I tend to be much more comfortable behind the camera than in front, I actually quite enjoyed myself!

The Joy of Travel

I have itchy feet. I suppose this has something to do with the fact that I have been confined to my sofa with a chest infection for a week now, but also because the weather is just a little too nasty and grey; I want to get away. 


There was a period of about 8 years, during my late teens and early twenties, when I seemed to be travelling around all the time. A gap year spent travelling 'around the world', university holidays backpacking round Italy, jet-setting adventures with friends when I was living in London, a long, working trip to America, and a rather gruelling solo-cycling trip through France, but since I started teaching full time, I haven't been able to manage travels in quite the same way. It's a sign of feeling more settled, which is wonderful, but it also has to do with having more financial obligations and ties, which is frankly a little dull. 

I don't think I realised how much I missed it until last week, when I booked myself flights to Spain for a friend's wedding. I've decided to go a little early and spend some time in and around Madrid, and all of a sudden, I am remembering the joyous feeling of anticipation of a trip, and how wonderful it feels to be somewhere unusual and just a little warmer than here! 

Madrid. Photo from www.laspalmas24.com

Being a creature of habit, I quite enjoy the rituals of being on a holiday. Days spent walking around exotic cities, long, lazy lunches in the sun followed (preferably) by a little siesta before heading out and about just that little bit later than you would at home, and feeling just a little more relaxed about what time you get in to bed. The smell of warmth, the taste of food that has felt the sun, the unfamiliarity of a local drink or delicacy. It is on these kinds of trips that memories are seared into our minds because the simplest things are so much more out of the ordinary for us. 

Jardins du Luxembourg, Paris, 2009

We often try to recreate these rituals at home. Sometimes successfully, most often not. My coffee drinking habits are most certainly influenced by plenty of cafe noisettes in Paris, and I am increasingly able to settle to reading some trashy novel imagining that I am away from the ironing, the marking, the housework. But that feeling of holiday ritual is so special, so particular to being away that I don't really mind its elusiveness when I return home. Home is home; secure, familiar, day-to-day. Saving those unfamiliar rituals for unfamiliar climes helps to maintain their exoticness, and makes the anticipation of travel all the more thrilling.

Les Tuileries, Paris, 2009

Pastries, La Durée, Paris 2009

Saturday Lunches

There is no better meal in my week than Saturday lunch. Without any pressures of work, it is very much wind-down time; the morning chores have been completed (today's involved taking a very unhappy cat to his check-up at the vet - and the more pleasant task of booking some flights to the sun...) and evening commitments are a long way off. I have always preferred eating at home to eating out, finding the formality and expectation of a meal out sometimes enough to ruin perfectly good food, but Saturday lunches epitomise casual, homemade and delicious meals at their best. 


For today's lunch, I made a family favourite of gorgeous guacamole with a good salad of local salad leaves, fresh bread and good cheese. The recipe below is tried and tested and is sure to be appreciated by all - adjust the chilli to suit those eating. 


2 ripe avocados
1 clove of garlic
2 ripe tomatoes
Half a red onion
Juice of half a lime
Fresh red chilli to taste
Generous bunch of coriander
A glug of olive oil
Salt and Pepper


Peel and chop the avocados and put into mixing bowl. Chop and de-seed the tomatoes, dice the onion and crush the garlic; add to the avocado. Add the lime and a generous glug of olive oil, followed by the coriander, roughly chopped. Add chilli to suit, and season with salt and pepper. 


Serve in a pretty bowl with crisps, crudités or pitta bread.

Satchel Love

My friend Vic has a new satchel. It kind of makes mine look a bit tatty, but I don't care - I still love them both! One tatty and vintage; one smart and monogrammed. Lovely.

Exceeding Expectations

This weekend had been in the diary for months as one to look forward to. Two of my favourites had booked in a visit as something of a retreat; we all have busy lives and January had taken its toll. In the days preceding, (my last few of term), each of us had our little challenges, but exchanged regular, excited texts, tweets and emails in anticipation of the weekend.

Generally when visitors arrive at mine, we have a list of plans and expectations for their inevitably too-short stay. Most of my friends still live in London, and so there are obligatory visits to pretty, provincial towns, markets and usually some time spent in Bath, but this weekend, we decided to cancel our plans in favour of just hanging out at home.

We chatted, we drank good coffee, good wine and a bottle of prosecco left over from my sister's wedding, toasting all the good things in life. We took a walk and came across some lovely men planting trees, who kindly let us join in and plant an oak tree each, and then we crafted - two of us cutting out letters for my market sign, and one of us making a collage for a lovely boyfriend.

It was a wonderful weekend.

Paper

Working with collage means that I have developed a magpie-like eye for colours and textures. I once bought a table on the basis that I liked the peeling paper that was stuck to the top, so taken was I by the fragile texture and shade of the paint that cracked and crept across its surface.

Working on the Art Journal all Year project has meant sorting through the boxes of collage papers and magazine cuttings that I have been storing for a long time. It is wonderful to be using them for a good and constructive purpose.

Old, amaretti papers (although I prefer to call them amoretti which means little loves. Apt), a receipt that once fell out of a charity shop book, pattern papers and linen cloths. And Dolly. I can't wait to use this image for something!

The journal asks that I layer images from magazines, papers, fabrics and embellishments, before adding a 'journal challenge' thought. I downloaded a laptop wallpaper the other day which had the phrase 'give yourself a break' printed across it. It is a useful reminder at the moment. Luckily, half term is on its way...