Tagged

I've been tagged by The Sneaky Magpie to list 7 things I love... much harder to select just 7 things than I imagined, but here are the 7 things which came to mind first.

1. My husband, for so many reasons, including the fact that he reads me to sleep at night, Pete has to take the number one spot in a list of things I love.

2. Pete's paintings are incredible, it really isn't enough to see them reproduced in photographs. To be captivated you need to spend time viewing them at various distances and from all sorts of angles. There is so much to see.

3. Japan has a very special place in my heart. We've visited twice and I spend a lot of time longing to go back.

4. Coffee any time day or night, I alway fancy a nice cup of coffee, whether it's a fresh brew on Saturday morning in our Chemex coffee pot or a flat white from number of fine, specialist establishments.

5. Black cashmere crew neck sweaters are always what I want to wear.

6. My camera recently had to be repaired and I was lost without it.

7. Murder, She Wrote... I have no explanation as to why I love this show, I just do and can watch it any time, episodes back to back over and over again. Can't wait for series 10, which will arrive on 26 December.

Weekend

Time is flying by and I'm not really sure where it's going... among other things, I've had no time to post nor to catch up on all my usual blog reading. On the plus side, I'm sure there are lots of wonderful posts for me to catch up on.

This weekend started with my first Christmas get together, a very pleasant evening with friends for drinks and supper at Crazy Bear. The food was great, as always, so I was far too full to indulge in their (and my very favourite) salted caramel dessert.

We had a day of household repairs planned for yesterday, but instead decided to take ourselves off to the Norwegian and Finnish Church Christmas fairs. We stopped for a delicious coffee at Monmouth on Maltby Street, which is where they roast their beans. It is only open for a short time on Saturday morning and they are joined by Neal's Yard Dairy and Fern Varrow. The fairs were both fruitful, I came away with a variety of toadstool decorations from the Norwegian fair and a Finnish Moomintroll baking pan and Moomin some cookies.

Today I had the second of four Sewing Clinic classes at City Lit. I'm finally learning how to use a sewing machine and hopefully is my first step towards this little dream.

KeepCup

For the past 18 month or more, I've been using my own cup for my morning (and lunch time, and afternoon) coffee, driven mostly by the desire to cut down on unnecessary waste but made a little sweeter as there is also a small discount on the price of my brew.

I finally retired my effective but rather cumbersome thermal Planetary Design mug last week, when I popped in to Dose for a lunchtime flat white, in favour of a new smaller, slimmer and lighter 12oz KeepCup.

I'm really very pleased with it... Dose didn't have many to choose from, but I've been having fun mixing all the various colour combinations which are available, take a look at the last tab.

The cup isn't thermal, it mentions on the website that it is, but I contacted KeepCup to ask how long it would keep a drink hot and they explained that it's not thermal in that sense but rather it's insulated so as not to be too hot to the touch.

plainMADE

Everything is beautiful and unbelievably desirable at plainMADE.

felt pouch

hiding hood

false knit

Festive Decorations

November brings with it planning for Christmas, arguably my favourite time of year... and probably my favourite part of preparing for the holiday is decorating our tree, which we always get at Columbia Road.

These stainless steele ornaments from Prismera would be a lovely addition to this years decorations!

Cake Stand

I love the way clever people can transform old, unwanted things into completely desirable, must have things, like this powder coated brass candlestick attached to a hand-finished corian top.

From Iacoli & McAlister

Moleskine Desk Calendar

365 days all at your fingertips... I'm very keen to get a look at one of these Moleskine desk diaries.

Tea and Crafting

Have just spent a thoroughly enjoyable evening, learning how to crochet granny squares in a two hour class taught by Jane of Tea and Crafting.

Am very pleased with my first square... now, how long will it take me to crochet a whole blanket, I wonder?

Happy Birthday Deerylou

Bright, early and chilly start today, to meet Deerylou for a birthday breakfast at Monmouth in Borough Market...

Happy birthday Dolly!

Weekend

I went looking for shoes yesterday morning and ended up with a very sweet wool cape from Muji instead. On my way home I popped into Wild and Wood and sat in the cosy nook for a very well made flat white and a quick bite.

Today was a lovely grey rainy London day and for a change Columbia Road was quiet. We had coffee and breakfast in the rain at Ezra Yard and brought home some red anemones. I picked up Paumes Copenhagen Apartments, which I was very happy to find in Lapin and Me, and a copy of the newly released I Choose You from Elphick's. It's a lovely book by Silver Jungle, who are helping to protect endangered animals in the wild, and is illustrated by Lisa Jones.