catching up

 

We entertained some of my dear school friends and their partners over Easter weekend at our house. We'd only had the windows completed three days before the first guests arrived, so there was some frantic tidying and dusting beforehand. Somehow we managed to get it all ready and had a lovely, relaxed few days with lots of good food and some windy walks. We climbed the hill opposite our house to pick wild garlic for a risotto I had planned to cook. The view from there was pretty amazing, especially in the changeable weather that was sweeping overhead that day. The fact that our own house made up part of the view is kind of beside the point, but it was good to see how it sits in the landscape, with the hills of the Clwydian Range marching off into the murky distance.

On Easter Sunday, despite some pretty unpromising weather forecasts, we decided to be brave and took an indulgent picnic for eight people to one of my favourite places  - Llanddwyn Island, which I've written about before. The weather turned out to be just fine, if a little windy, and the four miles of beach and shoreline walking was perfect. There is something very British, but very magical, about picnicking on a beach with clouds scudding overhead and the threat of rain in the air. I loved every minute of that weekend and feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends who were willing to travel so far to come and see us.

The following weekend, we went to see an acquaintance of mine who sells industrial vintage stuff in Manchester. He's just set up shop in a new warehouse and wanted to show me some of his latest goods. I'll write about this in a separate post, as he very generously donated some bits to me to have a play with in the house. I've been too busy with work and stuff lately to have done anything yet, but I'm really excited about dreaming up some ways of displaying and using his vintage finds.

Last week we attended our first antiques auction in over a year. This one is in Froncysyllte, near Llangollen, and was pretty quiet so there were bargains to be had. We got a 1920s oak desk for the husband's office for the princely sum of £35.40 which, once it's been tidied up, will look just spiffing. There were lots of items that we had no interest in at all: the usual parade of Staffordshire dogs etc., but it was a fun day out. Plus, like our old auction haunt at Willingham, they do a splendid bacon sarnie. What's not to like?

What else, what else? Drawing? Nope. Sorry. Lost my mojo there, I'm afraid. I think there's not enough room in my body for both a baby and a brain. I'll see what I can do to remedy this in the coming weeks. I hope to finish work within the next week and a half, to start properly on nursery and other baby stuff I've been procrastinating about and maybe to do some creative stuff too.

Meanwhile, I hope you are all well. Only seven weeks til I'm meant to pop now, so not too long at all. Eep!

a few things

Damson crumble, using fruit from our trees, that was so good I nearly wept.

The last of the damsons bobbing in gin, to be ready for Christmas. The colour is jewel-perfect.

Gorgeously scented roses from Jenny - one of them smells like lychees. And flowers from my neighbour.

Happy Monday!

How was your weekend? I ate a LOT of food - at my parents' house for a belated Chinese New Year dinner with some family friends. There was lobster with noodles, amongst about nine different dishes... yum yum. (Photo by my friend, Wai Lo).

Manchester Museum and other stuff

Yesterday I decided to take a trip into Manchester for a bit of drawing fun, and to get out of the house. I've been working pretty hard for the last week or so, so it was a day off, if you could call drawing for nearly five hours in a museum a 'day off'. I visited the Manchester Museum to draw the stuffed animals and skeletons - one of my favourite subjects.


What fascinates me about them is not so much the animals themselves, but the way in which they are displayed, and the ideas of preservation, education and human curiosity that they represent. A lot of these animals were killed and collected for personal or scientific interest a very long time ago. To shoot some of these species just for your collection is now absolutely unthinkable, when so many are coming close to extinction. Similar ideas interest me about zoos - I have drawn many times in zoos but, whilst their ostensible purpose is to conserve and protect species, sometimes they make me acutely uncomfortable. These thoughts pervade some of my more formal work and I'm hoping that in the coming few months before Helfa Gelf that I will create a body of work that relates to it.


On more frivolous days, I imagine them having conversations with each other:
"So, how was last night?"
"Pretty wild, actually."

For lunch, I met up with the husband to check out the veggie cafe at the Eighth Day health food shop. We shared dhal and a Sri Lankan cashew nut curry, both with brown rice. Absolutely wonderful. They also have a delicious looking take-away at the main shop counter with all sorts of wraps and pies that made my mouth water even after we'd stuffed ourselves full of lunch. If you ever happen to be hanging around the universities in Manchester, this is the place to go (as long as you like high-fibre food!). They even have their own recipe section full of yummy looking dishes.

Have a good weekend!

the weekend

Hi peeps. I'm still sorry that I've not done any new drawings for the blog yet. Something seems to have gone wrong with my creativity. I think it's a thing called life - I am up to my eyeballs in paperwork and phone calls at the moment, and when I'm not doing that, I am trying to be inspired for a job I'm working on at the moment (failing horribly). How was your weekend? Mine was pleasant, quiet... we went to have a gander at our nearest farm shop on Saturday, and discovered that it is pretty amazing - we didn't bother to go to the supermarket after we'd been there. On Sunday we went to have a nose around a local auction house and to see The King's Speech at the cinema - what a lovely film it is!

That's all I have to report, I'm afraid. I'll see if I can come up with something fun later today.

My brain is fried

Good morning! I'm so sorry. I have been a bad bunny this last week or two. On the positive side, I've been away earning me some money, which is quite useful, I think you'll agree. On the negative side, I haven't got much to tell you about because I've been holed up in my desk space for days with little stimulation. Let me see...

1. My fingers are still swollen like hams.
2. I've been sneakily shopping on eBay for all sorts of wonderful things, including brown parcel paper. Yeah, it's that interesting around here.
3. We went to Manchester on Saturday to have a proper look around. What a fabulous city! It's the closest thing to a mini London I've seen yet, with great vintage clothes shops and wonderful things to eat. We had lunch at Oklahoma cafe (facebook), which was also a sweet gift shop full of quirky things like Japanese paper balloons and amusing teatowels.
4. I still haven't done Christmas cards. The picture above is one drawing I've rejected, incomplete.

Oh dear...

foodie gifts

These teatowels from Rockett St George would suit me just fine :-) The one above is the seasonal seafood guide, but you can also have a guide to seasonal vegetables, wild food and garden flowers.


This rustic enamel tiffin is also quite charming for a picnic.

the weekend

We had a marvellous weekend involving more house-hunting (hopefully our last trip!), walking and eating. On Sunday we walked up to the ruins of Dinas Bran, perched high above the town of Llangollen. Our photos in no way do this place any justice - it was stunning up there, with immense views of the Dee Valley in one direction, and of England in the other. I think my poor camera just doesn't capture the sheer depth of the landscape.


After that, we went and gorged ourselves at the International Food Festival in Llangollen. I think I drank a little too much wild bramble liqueur amongst other things. I hope you had a good weekend too! I'll be back later with a drawing.

Yorkshire

What a marvellous few days I have just had! I feel like we kind of deserved it after the trials of house selling that we have been burdened with lately, and it was a hugely welcome break from sitting at home twiddling my thumbs, waiting for work to come in.

We went to Yorkshire on a whim, after hearing that my parents and sister had booked a hotel there for a couple of nights. They, of course (!), were very pleased when the husband and I decided to join them and, because he is a Yorkshireman, the husband could therefore act as an unofficial tour guide to the holiday places of his childhood.

We stayed, as I told you last week, in a railway carriage hotel called The Sidings, near York. I've written about railway carriage living before (and here too), so it was a chance to see what it is like. It was fun and quirky, but not the best place to stay if you like things a bit more luxurious than what was on offer. The decor was a bit tired, it was rather cold at night even in summer, and unless you are an extraordinarily sound sleeper, the violent rattling and vibrations from the freight trains passing by at night could be seriously disturbing! I would only recommend it as one of those experiences that you'll never forget :-) Nevertheless, the hotel retained a faded beauty and I was delighted by the little details to be found on the train carriages.



That last photo is of the four-poster room, which costs £10 more per night than a standard room. Needless to say, miser that I am, we stayed in a regular room :-)

Where did we visit? Knaresborough, Whitby (AMAZING fish and chips at The Magpie), Scarborough (gorgeous banana milkshake at the famous Harbour Bar), the North York Moors, Yorkshire Wolds and the Yorkshire Dales. All in roughly two days. Holidays with my family are always conducted at breakneck speed. There were waterfalls, walks, beaches and picnics. Crazy but fun!


Knaresborough.


The Harbour Bar in Scarborough.



Evening view from the Yorkshire Wolds.


Gordale Scar, Yorkshire Dales.

We had a house-fixing day on Saturday involving handing over fat cheques to plumbers :-(, followed by a rummage at a car boot sale and Toy Story 3 on Sunday. The film was exceptional, a constant delight - it left us quite speechless.

I hope you all had a good weekend too!

house hunting and the weekend

View from Offa's Dyke Path near Bodfari. Photo by the husband.

We spent a windswept and squally two days in Wales, looking for a house to rent. Happily I can report that we have found somewhere! It is a little converted stable in the grounds of an old rectory. The last occupier was an old lady who taught piano until the age of 93, and the piano is still in there. I think we will ask to keep it and try to find some piano duets to play! There is also a stair-lift, which we will ask to be removed :-) Fingers crossed that we can secure the tenancy, as the rent is cheap but the area is stunning. There is a footpath just opposite that leads up into the Clwydian Range, from which there are gorgeous views of the Vale of Clwyd and places as far away as Snowdonia.


Bwlch Pen Barras.


Bwlch Pen Barras.

I hope you had a good weekend. I got to see my family and make fun things to eat, like black sesame daifuku-style mochi, ice-cream mochi (hilarious and messy fun). I helped my dad make wontons for lunch, which was just the kind of thing I was hankering for last week. His filling is so much better than mine and I can't work it out, even though I use the same ingredients. Like him, though, I am a cook who feels her way around the composition of a dish rather than following a recipe, so I suppose I am just getting my proportions a bit wrong!

tired

I know you probably have worked this out already but I am having a tough time at the moment. There are so many things going on in my life and consequently my head, that sometimes I feel like I'm going to burst and collapse into a big, weepy pile. The combination of work and house-selling/renting is driving me to the brink of my already limited sanity. I just wish I could escape it all for just a little while.


If I could, right now I would like to:
1. Eat pierogi and borscht at Veselka, New York.
2. Play on the beach. Any beach.
3. Make silly stop-frame animations with my teddies. Pure idiocy.
4. Go swimming somewhere hot, or in the lake at Annecy.
5. Go hiking in Scotland.
6. Gorge myself on panzanella and trippa alla Fiorentina (that's tripe, oh yes) at the amazing diner in the Mercato Centrale in Florence.
7. Go home and get my Dad to teach me all, like, EVERYTHING, he knows about Chinese cooking because he is so talented and I want to cook like him.
8. Go somewhere out of my comfort zone (and no, that doesn't include moving house to somewhere 250 miles away): Indonesia, South America, India. Somewhere fabulous. But armed with insect repellent.

The husband and I will be away on Thursday and Friday, looking for a hovel to rent up north. Have a good couple of days, and enjoy the weekend! Wish me luck.

Bridge End Garden

We had a good weekend here of thunderstorms and lazy picnics. We didn't stray far from home this time, only going as far as the lovely Bridge End Garden in our local town where we ate an enormous picnic and read the sunday papers before wandering around the maze and pretty Dutch garden.




Smoked salmon trimmings, Quorn sausage roll, mixed salad with beetroot, homemade bread, French pavé saucisson. All eaten from our sweet Blyton picnic tin which was a gift from my sister. Oh and washed down, of course, with ginger beer :-) Bliss.

Happy weekend!

Sorry I'm away again today - animating characters for a website. Hooray! As my reward, hopefully we will be going here tonight with some friends. Image from jamieoliver.com.

Hope you have a good weekend!

today...

I have nothing to say for myself. I've got a work deadline tomorrow and I am, as always, procrastinating with a mind-blowing amount of skill. My talents in this area are nothing short of phenomenal.

I spend five minutes working, then twenty reading blogs and looking at eBay, then two minutes working, then I go and make some tea. Or maybe I'll think about lunch (today I will attempt my first jerusalem artichoke soup because the husband is at home and I want to make him flatulent). I will write it up on my other blog if it turns out well. Now I am spending twenty minutes wondering what to write about here. Maybe a few links will do for today so I can actually get some work done!

I read this lovely post by Jena at Modish the other day. I thought it was inspirational and encouraging. I have always struggled with self-image issues - feeling different because I'm Chinese in England, feeling like I'm not thin enough (for what?), hating my flat little nose, hating my legs, hating how the back of my head is a bit flatter than other people's, hating my short sightedness. It's exhausting hating yourself so much. I try every day to like myself a bit more and I'm slowly, slowly, getting there. Nowadays I seem to actively try to stand out like a sore thumb and enjoy being different. It's the differences that make each of us unique and interesting.


I saw a set of tiny plywood school chairs for sale at my local junk shop a couple of weeks ago but they were too tatty (even for £4.50 each) to contemplate. Plus buying them would make it look like I want to have a child, which is NOT on the cards yet. Not for a long time. However, these beauties have turned up at Pigeon Vintage and are adult sized. OK, they are nearly ten times more expensive but you know, I like chairs and they would be worth it. The husband and I have recently given back the chairs we were loaned by his grandma and are now left with two chapel chairs and a solitary dining chair (which I use at my desk) for ourselves. Maybe it's time to get some more?! These would go nicely with that sort of mid-century retro schoolhouse vaguely industrial sparse look that I am currently liking.



This little pennant from Fine Little Shop, run by Elisabeth Dunker of Studio Violet fame, would go nicely too. I am having a bit of a pennant obsession at the moment, but the ones I've seen on eBay haven't been quite right yet. I think I need to look harder. This one from The Bucket Tree is great too.


OK, that was longer than expected. Back to work. Whilst I've been writing and procrastinating, I got a phone call about ANOTHER job. Will it never end?! :-P

some junk

I picked up these sweet Broadhurst ironstone cake plates (seven of them!), and eight little bowls in a charity shop in Cambridge on Saturday for £3.45. Imagine my glee. I couldn't help myself. They were perfect for serving the lovely lemon and almond cake that we made at the weekend. I have written the recipe up here.