une tasse de thé s’il vous plaît.

my piggyself was lucky enough to be invited by shinface to waddle off to paris for a few hours on saturday courtesy of eurostar. Being last minute people we wiki-travel-planned our journey (okay don’t judge me) we had a plan of going to a few places in what we assumed was reasonable approximation to one another (south and a bit more south). so we rented bikes and did all the navigation all by ourselves (… somewhat unsuccessfully).. in our fourth hour we finally managed to find the catacombs (Les Catacombes de Paris) the first site on our trip which just so happened to be closed. so we proceeded to our next stop the Rodin museum.. which we decided to give up on and just cycle around instead.. and there was a lot more to see instead of eyes on map, road signs and roads and pedestrians. being safety concious tourists.. (trying not to run over anyone or be run over) we didn’t take that many pictures.. hands on handle bars, feet.. um balancing.. as one does..  here’s what i did manage to snapple up when we paused to glance at the map only to reestablish we had no idea where we were.

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unfortunately we didnt munchie as much as we really should have.. this is the only bit of food porn i could bring you and this was on the eurostar homeward bound.. which btw.. has very nice food.. better than what youre going to get from a short flight. om noms… this was a apricot tart with thyme. also the carriages were very nice.. in terms of nice lighting yellow rather than harsh blue light.. (not that most people mind or notice) anywho if one does go to paris, i would highly recommend renting a bike, you really get to see the city from what i imagine is more of a locals perspective of the city.. the buildings are beautiful.. well i happen to like looking at buildings a lot.. as im sure you know by now. also i would like to say that french motorists are very forgiving a huge contrast from our narrow london streets and for the few people i nearly did run into .. as well as my poorly spoken franglais. thank you france, eurostar and my dear shinface for a nice little getaway.

roll up! roll up!!

well we sort of pulled it off. time for rest. well done everyone!

brighton

part one. the fooood. go check out bill’s if you’re ever in the area. ahh also! i love cakes in the second to last pic. oranges browns blues and pinks. such a lovely harmony of colours.

black mountain

some more pics, this time from easter break. dad and i went for an impulse march up that hill the little grains in the middle of the picture is the car we arrived in.. and this picture was taken from half the height. my was that a trek. (all of these except for the last were taken whilst moving.. again.. so had to give these little mountains a bit of a digital makeover)

(tagged this as swansea.. although black mountain isn’t really swansea at all.. well worth a visit btw.)

not so obvious

i guess that describes all the pictures. the first one is obvious. the second is actually a frozen lake. the third, stranded and the last picture is something for you to guess. 

these are all from my time in swansea over the winter hol. never got round to posting them. maybe i’ll make my way to easter pics soon. more to come!

ruffles and whipped cream

Just a little something i dug up after rumaging around badly named files. untitled-2.jpg asdf.jpg in various numbers and forms. Before i left for swansea I went on a little trip to the natural history museum and came across these amazing little things. Incredibily perfect repeating units making a beautiful structural, functional patterns. aka ruffles, why not. this just really makes me want to go buy yards and yards of lace and netting and just go crazy stitching ruffles goodness knows what for. they might make fairly decent neck scarfish ornaments. apologies for the noise/cctv screencapture wannabes, my camera really really struggles in low light. enjoy anywho!

work hard.

my tutor suggested that I should make my merry way to tottenham court road to check out home furnishing stores for my latest project. absolutely knackered. my parents came to visit so they tagged along. didn’t find much inspiration but thankfully we did find these delicious om noms!

a few more observations from bristol..

ignoring the work at the V&A’s china design now exhibition.. theres something about chinese products , shops and even shop names that make you think EWWWW. i found this place in bristol.. hurrah! enough of the bloody Golden gate, dragon, pheonix rubbish! cheers to a great name that high fives chinese heritage.. nice old schooliness about the sign too!!

nice!! no idea if its a banksy.. if only all  vandalism was so pretty.

really unusal looking wooden sign that had the text debossed.. very stylish and different

heres a rarity.. charity shops really making an effort to jazz up their window displays…its not really overly visable but its a mini set made with layers of printed papers.. there were several in a shelf.. with every other shelf displaying their crimbo goodies!

bristol colours

a few observations i never got round to posting in the holidays. most of these were taken on the back of a moving motorcycle so excuse the poor quality.

just a few things before i dash off..

…chiswick

been cooking a lot lately.. a bit of russian beetroot soup and at the bottom some christmassy ginger and cranberry biccies… looks a bit like ice cream..

wondered around Angel with a friend.. we stumbled upon this lovely little shop.. nigerian fabrics made into waistcoats.. the textures are lovely and they sold strips of fabric too.. will definately be returning at somepoint..

even though im a bit strapped for cash couldn’t not buy this… its a cute little house thing.. with potpourri that no longer smells… a fiver from an antiqueshop.. just another novelty to add to my collections..

dan came to visit me. he brought me this .. a childrens book… ‘yeah.. i got you this because i knew you like korean things..’. the piggy illustrations are so cute…

seen two shows recently .. monkey and wicked.. monkey as amazing as it was was slightly dissappointing.. monke could have been so much more awesome and a much better fighter.. loved the back up fighters… lovely martial arts stuffs.. Wicked was amazing.. i love elphaba and kerry ellis completely stole the show.. amazing.

wip… a nice bargain i found today. the glass is cheap but the glass goes straight down rather than some weird bottle neck.. purrfect.. more to come on this..

just an advert that i thought was very clever.. its perhaps everything an advert is not supposed to be but it does the job and the writing is witty.. its a great series of ads!

this is so random.. in the sainsburies in Angel theres a slice it yourself bread machine.. nice! im going to go back and take it for a spin!