December 12th, 2011

Nigella Lawson secret sale

Today I came across a Nigella Lawson secret sale on eBay totally by chance. Today I spent such happy piles of money at their amazing sale they refunded my postage. The best thing about this secret sale is that it’s full of Nigella Lawson Living Kitchen things – in Rosebud PINK.

Yes, pink. I kid you not.

Now, I’m not sick of pink at all. In fact I’m just learning to like pink because pink is the new colour of our household thanks to two girls who want pink everything.

So today I bought a pink breadbin – I’ve wanted one for years but was always waiting for it to be on sale at a good price and today is that day. Usually £70. Today £45

Serving dishes in blue usually £61. Today £35.
Ceramic mixing bowls in beautiful pink, ah such sweet delight! Usually £63. Today £39.95.
A much required lemon juicer in cream. It was £9.95.
Also much required measuring spoons in cream again. They were £5.95.

My research leads me to believe Bliss Home are the ones behind the amazing sale. Bliss Home being the people who are behind the Nigella Lawson range as well as my new favourite, the Orla Kiely Homewares range.

A bit of a good secret sale discovery indeed!!

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November 22nd, 2011

Party season

When I was young and sociable I used to often host afternoon tea parties with canapes and bubbles. I still make the same food. The party now starts an hour later at three and I definitely don’t wear fancy Steffen Schraut dresses like I used to.

But I can bake better than I used to. And I now use almond meal in everything. Apart from the other day because it was late and I for the first time in my life bought self raising flour. And I forgot. The muffins were good though. Jolly easy to make – from the Edmonds Cook Book.

I also baked a Hazelnut cake from the Silver Spoon, which I forgot to photograph, and I baked my usual cake, also forgot to photograph it. And I forgot to photograph all the little toasts I made with incredible Chicken Liver pate – again, from the Silver Spoon. I even baked biscuits from the Silver Spoon; flour, sugar and olive oil. That was all.

We got presents. Lots of bunches of flowers, what a lovely surprise! Some people dressed up in special party dresses. Some people dressed for a walk on the Heath complete with gumboots. I like both!

And another little present which I’ve tucked away – out of the way of little fingers that like to take little bites out of biscuits and put them back on the biscuit plate before Mummy will see – tucked away for a little winter fashion photo shoot soon.

{ Happy Birthday Bala!! }

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November 21st, 2011

Eight years on…

When I met Kevin, a friend of mine, Mark Matthews, asked whether Kevin knew I’d dump him within a year. We laughed about that. Kevin laughed too. I think.

Six months later
Kevin and I had moved to Auckland. Set up Transcend there. Renamed ourselves Uniform. Became addicted to Kingsland coffee and brioche. Got ourselves a little cat family. Bought a house. Decided to move back to London.

Two years later
Kevin and I were back in London. I was studying aromatherapy and oriental medicine. We were back living at Kevin’s brother’s place in Baron’s Court. The cats had to stay in Auckland. We missed them like mad. We even visited them once that year from the UK.

Three years later
Kevin and I were back in Auckland. Reunited with the cats. I was pregnant with Astrid. We were back in our old house. We sold it. We moved to a big amazing family home in Mt Albert. Our forever family home. The unborn daughter enrolled already at my old school. Life was looking nicely mapped. Astrid was born. My mother died. My UK visa expiry date was moving closer each week I was away. Edith was conceived. Six weeks later we flew back to London. Our beautiful home rented to friends. We were going back to Roderick Road, where I used to live when I met Kevin.

Five years later
Kevin and I were back in London. Overjoyed to be back in the wonderland of NW3. So happy to be back in civilisation. Wondering at the hot London summer. Pregnant. Astrid was 18 months old. I had to start working again. And Astrid went to Lorraine’s during the days. Amazing to think Astrid didn’t speak back then. Let’s see how many paragraphs till she can talk. I remember the little house was so tiny we used to cram in the kitchen at a little IKEA fold out table, the Edith-bump dangerously aimed at the table corner. When my maternity leave started we were so poor we lived on tuna, pasta and bread for months. I have such fond memories of our time at 47 and a Half. Time spent with Astrid before Edith. Time spent sewing and blogging. We started meeting people in the area. Shopkeepers say hello to us. Matthew and Marie and Annie are our neighbours. Those were the end of those days. The dawn of Edith brought a much deeper responsibility to provide for the family. It was the winter of our discontent when Edith was born. I’ve never finished writing her birth story but it was the worst night of my life. Apart from her. A few weeks later we booked our tickets back home – a journey that would wait six more months until we could take it.

Six years later
We arrived back in Auckland. We stayed at Dad’s for a night. We had all caught the flu in Hong Kong. It was cold and damp. Dad had moved from warm and dry to cold and damp. We got the ferry to Waiheke and moved to really cold and damp. But ours. I loved walking down the hill to Little Oneroa in the early morning moonlight to wait for the bus to the ferry. I adored Waiheke. We had to wait for our house. So we moved to Parnell. We had cats and no garden. Rufus escaped. I came home from work and got him back in. I used to walk to work in my Muji raincoat each morning. My hair was an inch long. I’d had it all cut off. Eventually we got back home to an overgrown garden. I cut and cut and hacked and chopped and clipped and chucked. And then planted and mulched and tidied and landscaped. Then we painted and carpeted and had the kitchen fixed and we sandblasted the deck and washed the house and then not that long after we’d moved back and we were so happy back there and we bought amazing furniture from Malcolm and we had two saabs and I had an amazing job. I then didn’t get the CD job I so nearly had so then fuck you Auckland we booked flights and four weeks later we were in Singapore signing papers selling our house. On our way back to London. The last time we move back to London. It was a very deliberate house sale.

Seven years later
we were back in NW3. In Estelle Road. A few months later we found our house. A year and three months later we are still in the same house. We’ve looked at other areas. We could buy a house but not the neighbourhood we’re in. We’ve looked at renting houses closer to the school. We’ve looked at schools closer to us. More expensive schools. But things now just won’t shift. We tried to move schools and it refused. We looked at buying a house in East London. It’s refusing to happen. We don’t want to go anywhere.

Eight years later
We’ve been wrestling with the idea that we need to buy a house even in a place we don’t like because that’s somehow better than renting in a place we love. We had a neighbourhood party. Yesterday our neighbours all came. Our new current street neighbours. And some old ones too. Lorraine came. Matthew came. We’d be mad to leave. We don’t want to leave.

We’ve found our place we want to be. We are here. We are here.

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September 30th, 2011

Autumn by the Heath

Photos from my Lovely UK flickr stream

Well. It would seem we are having an indian summer. People are posting images of the weather forecast on their blogs and twitter streams. Melrose and Morgan have invited us up for coffee and cake. I have fallen off my diet.

But who cares because the sun is shining. Life is exciting and good. London is as beautiful as ever.

Yvonne came to stay again and I have some lovely photos of the things she brought for the girls. Hand made scarves, amazing rainbow leggings and lovely grey knit dresses. We had such a laugh going to see Much ado about Nothing when David Tennant was off sick that night. We were both very much on our diets and eat very little at Wagamana. I spent £16 on a tiny bottle of bubbles that we shared at the start of the play and the next day we went to Canterbury. Poor Yvonne I am such a terrible passenger. And Astrid loved every minute driving down with us, she made her pink Starbucks cake pop thing last all the way from south of the Blackwall Tunnel down to Canterbury.

We had more Wagamama when we got there. Hey, if you’re on a diet it’s pretty amazing lean food. And even Astrid loved it. We conjured up some ace ideas for the end of the year. Books, ideas, photos and some travel.

Tonight I’ve got my headphones on. Loud St Etienne. Loud Kaiser Disco. Loud Smashing Pumpkins.

Life is pretty damn beautiful when it’s an Indian Summer in London.

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September 29th, 2011

A missing post

Sometimes I hide things later.

Being a secretive Pisces. Who sometimes stays up late and writes silly things. And sometimes people see those silly things and save them. Sometimes they like those silly ideas I have very late at night and so perhaps they weren’t so silly after all.

Yvonne saved this one for me. This is my post London Riot post. It was a bit late. I think I’d probably been out. And written it god knows when. It was after I’d emailed a bike shop who’d been broken in to during the riots and they wrote back saying they weren’t after donations but wanted to do something for their “Late night shoppers”. I’ve not heard back from them yet so I’m sure they’re still thinking about it.

Dear Penny and Matthew,

I love your idea of involving your late night shoppers and perhaps even some of the people like Aaron Biber might donate some of his extra money to the youths who need help. Thanks to the lovely Björn, Sophie and Omid from BBH, Aaron was the first to be taking donations when we all wanted to help somehow.

I was wondering if perhaps we could combine photoshop looter and the dare digital This is our London piece and offer some places in advertising for your late night shoppers.

What I think we need now is to join together and listen to the people who wanted to nick all that stuff.
I feel pretty responsible working in advertising.

I mean, we all know we are selling shit to people, and most of us working in advertising don’t buy much stuff. As far as I can see we all dress pretty badly and don’t buy anything much apart from books, furniture and trainers. We sometimes work long hours, are all very dedicated and are all intensely creative.

But mostly, we know we are selling shit. That’s why we don’t buy it.

The perfume I wear, I bought three years ago. It was a huge bottle of Marc Jacobs. So far I’ve used about a centimeter. It’s going to take me 10 years to use it all. So far in my life I have had huge bottles of Aveda Toner, Shu Uemura cleanser – that were both so awful I couldn’t give them away – but still they sell that crap for £60 a pop. With no chance of a refund when you discover it’s not actually that great. The Marc Jacobs perfume is lovely and I wear it every day, but it’s still going to take 10 years to use up.

I know I am not especially attractive to the opposite sex regardless of my Marc Jacobs perfume. But that also I’m not especially bothered about. I’ve got two daughters. They are all I care about. When I thought trouble was heading our way I brought in all our window boxes and took the girls upstairs to their bedrooms. I worried like mad for them.

I don’t want them to be brought up in a war zone.

It was my choice that I carried on working in order to send them to the school I want them to go to. It’s not posh. It’s a school where they learn about spiritual values and that means more to me than anything and that’s the whole reason I had children. But that’s another story.

My point I’m making is perhaps this: there is absolutely no point in going to university – well, for me there wasn’t. I could see no reason at all to go into debt to learn shit from idiots. I instead chose to learn on the job, to talk my way into jobs. To sell myself. And the reason I could do that was because my mum told me that without a doubt I could do anything I wanted. I was capable of doing anything at all, ever. Nothing was a barrier. Because I am infinite, and I can do anything.

So I went to university and I hated it. It was boring and stupid. What is the point of sitting and learning stuff that has nothing to do with me. I wanted to be involved. So I became a calligrapher. Then I decided I liked sharebroking so I insisted to some people I would be indespensible – as long as I learned to type – and so I took a typing course. Then I saw a job advertised for a junior designer so my boyfriend at the time called up and sold me over the phone and I got the job. Because I demanded it, I got a lot of money. The payroll lady said I was earning more than the others – the reason – because I asked for it – and I worked hard – and I was good.

Then I applied for another job – and they said no way. So I appealed, I really wanted it and I knew I’d be good. So when they said no, I told them they were wrong, I would be great. I got the job and I stayed two years. They loved me. I worked hard. I was eager to learn. I was always so annoyed I didn’t have a degree but I carried on and did it. And that job formed the foundation on what I do today.

When I arrived in London at the age of 25, I was told there was no way I could be a designer because I didn’t have a degree. People would hate me at cool East London parties for not having a degree. I always felt pretty inferior for not having studied. But I didn’t want to. After my year in Germany I knew there was no point studying for anything – the best way to learn, was to be there learning.

So I got the designer job. And I moved on and I moved on. I demanded jobs and I was determined to be good. And I was good. And I was committed. And I was resilient. And I was there. No matter how hungover as I was in my younger days I would always turn up.

Working hungover is better than not turning up no matter which way you look at it.
Especially in advertising.

My first bit of work experience was at Marilyn Sainty. She was the best fashion designer in New Zealand when I was 15. We had to choose a place to do work experience and I said I’d like to go there. That was my first choice. And they said, sure, of course. I didn’t learn a thing about fashion design. I wasn’t put up the top doing the best job. I had the worst job possible. Ironing. And that was all I did for three weeks. After that I was given some absolutely beautiful pieces of clothing. And I met Marilyn who gave them to me.

It might also be useful here to mention that I did have a very priveledged upbringing. My mum said I could always do anything I wanted (apart from owning a shoe shop). I was always pretty angry with her though because she was always a lot nicer to my brother than she was to me. How many years I have spent basing my identity on feeling hard done by. But that is silly and a waste of energy. My life is my life. And there is no point in wasting a single second feeling resentful.

I spent three years in the North Peckham Estates in Furley House. It wasn’t great. But it toughened me up. It was all I could afford at the time. I didn’t have a penny for anything apart from food and wine. We’d spend our nights at the 12 Bar Club or out with friends. Or on the cheap train to France. But you know I seized life by the balls and I did it.

Now I focus my energy on being concious. What does that mean? It means observing myself and my thoughts. And avoiding being controlled by my thoughts. My mind is a tool only. I do not want to be taken over by my mind. So instead I now sit back and watch myself being overtaken by my thoughts, my mind. And I am the observer. I no longer get caught up in my thoughts. I observe them instead. Well, when I’m remembering to pay attention.

There is so much arsch in my head, and it’s all made up by my mind.

So instead I just think, is there a problem? No there is no problem right now. So I am ok. I am at peace. And I breathe in and out.

And in the spirit of Matthew and Penny from MiCycle. Let’s not make fun of the rioters let’s not condemn them. Let’s just make them a cup of tea and teach them photoshop and advertising instead. Or even better some Eckhart Tolle.

5 comments

September 7th, 2011

Our new sofa

A few weeks ago Kevin and I went to Heal’s and bought the most amazing sofa in the world ever. We knew it was long. And we knew it might not fit up the stairs. But we secretly wished it would fit up the stairs so we bought it anyway.

And it doesn’t fit up the stairs.

So we have got a really amazing sofa now in the kitchen. And it looks SO amazing there. Except it’s probably going to get a bit dirty and jumped on and stop being such a beautiful special sofa. So this weekend it’s getting moved to the sunroom aka the new office.

Downstairs.

It’s going to be a huge disappointment putting the horrid old white IKEA sofa back into the kitchen after the splendour of the Chrysanthemum velvet sofa which has transformed the room into a burst of crimson wonder. Bet you didn’t know (I know I didn’t) that a sofa is called a couch in New Zealand. Lots of couches on villa verandahs in Auckland. Ha.

Of course you know what this means. Don’t you.
Yes. We are going to have to get another new sofa for the kitchen.
Not as good as the marvellous crimson chrysanthemum. But something that can withstand the children’s mucking about, eating and jumping and generally harassing the cats.

Poor old cats.

I know it would be sensible to be sensible and buy some nice domestic leather sofas. I’m not sure.

Nothing’s ever going to come close to the pinky red velvet.
Like Hotlips Hoolihan the sofa is. Yeah. That’s a good name for our new sofa. Hotlips Hoolihan.

6 comments

September 3rd, 2011

Late night baking

The other night after we got back home from the Zoe and Morgan jewellery preview for next Spring and Summer I discovered we had about four 2kg bags of Riverford apples in the fridge. And some pastry that needed using up. So at 10.30pm it was time to bake an apple pie.

I based the recipe on the one in Donna Hay’s Modern Classics 2. I used double the apples and about four times more lemon juice. I added a jar of Biona wild blueberries and because it was so late I couldn’t make almond meal so I pounded a couple of handfuls in a plastic bag with an old jam jar.

Recipe

16 apples, peeled, de-pipped and slided
1/3 cup water

Juice of 2 lemons
1 jar wild blueberries, drained (about 400g)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup sugar

1 cup almonds, ground or roughly pounded

A pack of puff pastry (home made is obviously preferable)
1 egg, beaten to brush on the top
Sugar for dusting

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C
Boil the water in a pot and add the apples. Allow to simmer, covered for 5 minutes.
Drain and allow to cool.
Line a big pie dish with pastry and cover the base with the almonds.
In a bowl mix the cooked apples with the lemon juice, the blueberries, the cinnamon and sugar.
Pack the pie filling into the pastry-lined pie dish.
Put the pastry lid on, trim to size and crimp.
Brush to lid with the beaten egg and dust with sugar.
Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

I am posting over at Lovely Shops too – most recently about the beautiful new clothes we’ve been buying at SMALLable.com

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August 23rd, 2011

Los Girlios

Here they are. Dragon and crocodile. You like them. Mummy does too. Mummy likes T H I N G S.

ps. I am sorry about the missing photos. I have no idea what has happened. If you click the missing photo icon you can see the jolly photo.

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August 7th, 2011

Columbia Road Flower Market

This is the second time I’ve posted this weekend. How can that be? Well. It’s because my last six month contract finished. And I have my life back. Thank you kindly new contract for that. I’ve even spent most of the weekend in the kitchen – oh happy days.

Because we’ve got Carla over from the Stuttgart Steiner School for the holidays we’ll be out and about a bit more on the weekends. Today we went to Columbia Road. Our standard exciting Sunday out. Not sure it’s the greatest thing in the world for a seventeen year old so next week I think we’ll take her to Spitalfields and Brick Lane instead. More photos for me as well.

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August 7th, 2011

Pesto morning

While Riverford has got huge bags of Basil, and as I’m currently really into cheese and nuts it seems only the proper thing to do to make Pesto on Saturday mornings. This morning I also marinated aubergines, blended sun-dried tomatoes, and went to the farmers market to buy Buffalo Ricotta and beautiful organic beefsteak tomatoes.

The girls liked their barbecued sausages in bread, and the crumbly cornish pasty we got to take home for lunch. They also liked the Chegworth Valley apple juice samples in child-sized cups. We did get garlic too. Which means I can make hummous in the morning. And we got purple cauliflower. Can’t wait to get that in the oven with some Ricotta. Did I mention we baked bread this morning? No I forgot about that.

And tomorrow we get the rather large queue of plants coming down from pots in the roof terrace to the freedom of the actual real garden where they have a bit of room to spread their roots and blossom once more.

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July 7th, 2011

New paint

Well, we have lived in our dream ramshackle house by the heath for almost a year. Perhaps, just over half a year. And we adore it for its rusticness. And we adore it because it’s the right house for us.

We were very lucky our landlords wanted to paint it. Because it hadn’t been painted in about six years. And they were going to paint it white, as initially I had suggested, but the week I spent working at Zoe’s parents house I noticed their house was painted in proper grown up colours. And I looked around and thought, “colour”. And Zoe told me about Farrow and Ball. Of course I already knew about Farrow and Ball. But Zoe SOLD me Farrow and Ball.

So I instantly went online and chose a couple of good colours and emailed our landlords and said, “Oooh. What about some colours?” And they said, “Yes. Brilliant idea. You choose them”.

Then one night I felt like staying up late. And I thought I could just do a quick sketch. But instead I did a diagram of our house. All four floors. In Omnigraffle. And then at about 1am I looked at the colour chart and picked a few that looked good in the 1am light. Some that I had already chosen, so not so random as it sounds.

And I plotted out the colours on the walls in my Omnigraffle diagram. Put in some blackboard paint. Acted as though I knew about paint. I mean, hey I choose colours all the time. Colour theory, right?

We went to France and the painters moved in. The house looks incredible. And in two weeks they’ll be finished and we’ll get our amazing new cleaner over to give the place a good old clean and I’ll be ready to photograph.

Nothing like a nice tidy house as Yvonne will testify to. When we did our little Hampstead cottage for the book shoot she said all I needed to do was hoover and dust. And put out fruit and flowers. To celebrate our new amazing cleaner who was recommended by our gorgeous neighbour I’m going to invest in a good Cath Kidston ironing board cover and a proper Dyson Hoover.

Kevin will be glad about that too. Because he’s the tidy one. Maybe one day I’ll blog about the pre-Kevin Charlotte. The very messy one indeed.

And for now I shall be happy about the new tidy Charlotte. And the new beautiful painted house.
It’s beautiful and brilliant. Very very brilliant.

6 comments

June 19th, 2011

The Luberon

Here we are in the most beautiful part of the South of France, the Luberon.

It’s Sunday and we went to Isle sur la Sorgue market, in search of antiques. This trip my sense of direction has entirely failed me. It took three hours to drive here from the airport – probably a one hour drive. And today I couldn’t find antiques in the market although with small children and Kevin with no hat and a hot sun we weren’t in meandering mode.

Tis the most wonderful house we’ve found. I knew the photos weren’t doing it justice in the ad, so in a leap of faith I booked it, and oh my word, what a splendid place it is. It’s like a little boutique hotel with three bedrooms, each with their own bathroom, a kitchen table, a dining table, sofas and even air conditioning! And, on top of that even, a beautiful terrace with geraniums in pots, an outdoor kitchen with barbeque, another dining table, an outdoor fridge and lovely wrought iron comfy armchairs which we must move if it rains. Below the terrace is a pool – I looked and looked for a house with a pool with roman steps but just couldn’t find one and our pool has turned out to be very deep indeed. I can stand up in it on tip toes only.

The owners are lovely – the man is a retired fireman who built the place himself, and his wife is very sweet – she must have decorated it – the house truly has had somebody’s heart and soul go into the decorating. Dad’s room even has an amazing hand-beaten copper hand-basin on wrought iron pedestal.

So, in my diary I have a list of markets that are on each day, underlined are the prettiest ones, with help from our hosts, along with other recommendations such as the paper museum for the children at Fontaine de Vaucluse.

This is my favourite part of France – not that I know that many others. It’s the place I visit whenever I can. The Luberon with such pretty countryside – the place with cherry trees growing in fields along the roadsides. I always am so excited by unfenced fruit trees. The idea of being in a place where it’s ok to pick a handful of fruit on the way by. It reminds me of childhood when we picked blackberries on the East Cape on a long long Summer holiday when I was about seven. And of my childhood in Devonport when one could easily just pick a grapefruit over a fence to quench the thirst from a long Summer’s walk.

Today we went to a fruit shop after the market and filled one basket each for the girls. Melon, parsley, pears, apricots, strawberries, peaches, two bottles of Rosé, a baguette ancienne, a wonderful cheese to be eaten with quince jelly, garlic and pan au chocolate as a gift from the shop owner as we were leaving – for the girls. Which they ate whilst watching Peppa Pig on the laptop this afternoon.

I forgot my camera lead so it’s going to be instagram this trip!

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