Before I went on holiday I stopped off at Waterstones and got me some "Buy 3 for the price of 2" paperbacks. The first one I got stuck into was unputdownable so I finished it in double-quick time. Luckily, this is one that my mum didn't have already, so she started it after me and it was wonderful to see her laugh out loud while reading...
Yes, it was Dawn French's autobiography, "Dear Fatty"
It's written in the form of letters to loved ones (both in real life and fantasy) and "Fatty" actually refers to her partner-in-crime Jennifer Saunders. If you want to get a flavour of the book, click on that link and check out the "Look inside" feature. It's well worth the read. More anon.
I was recently told about this book by Miguel Angel Ruiz that came out in the 90s. I haven't read it yet, but I like the premise:
Be Impeccable With Your Word.
Don't Take Anything Personally.
Don't Make Assumptions.
Always Do Your Best.
And you know what? Reading those four little sentences, I am struck by how exactly they match the life rules of that special man I have the privilege to share my life with. He is so innately insightful that he doesn't need to read personal development books. He just seems to KNOW. Blows me away every time.
Me, I have a bit more of a hard time with a couple of them... but I'm working on it.
(PS: I realise that, if you are an Oprah follower, you've most likely already heard of this book or even read it years ago)
You'll have to forgive me for not posting sooner, but what with one thing and another, I haven't been up to it. Before I post last weekend's pics, did you see the Royal Wedding? Sigh. It was lovely, wasn't it? I did get a bit choked up at times. I hope they'll be very happy together and we can look forward to the patter of tiny Royal feet very soon. I'm sure Kate won't want to wait too long, being nearly 30 and all!
Anyway, this one will be picture heavy but light on words. I just wanted to show you my pictures of Camden:
(yes, that's a table full of weed in front of Mr Marley there!)
Loving this wall in the curved staircase. Wanted to take a moody picture of the boyf leaning against the bricks, but he wasn't having any of it. I'm a poor, misunderstood artist...
Next up, we left The Stables Market and went for a walk down the High Street:
You wouldn't guess that it was a scorcher of a day with clear blue skies - it just looks washed out here.
And lastly, our Easter choccies and presents:
I prepared the baskets for Claire and the boyf - he doesn't "do" holidays, so I didn't get him an Easter egg, but rather a box of After Eights instead. Claire was too generous, and got me the Glee egg + mug you can see, together with a sweet card ("Easter Tweetings"), a bunny lollipop, Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert and 3 sweet Cath Kidston notebooks, which I've started using already. She's my darling girl!
Right, I'm done in after cutting the grass in the garden earlier today, so I'm going to call it a day. Toodle pip.
Yesterday Claire came home with a present for me - just because. She knows how much I love my Philippa Gregory books, and how I've been waiting for The Red Queen to come out in paperback. Well, now I can read it! I love my daughter so much, especially when she does sweet little things like that.
Not only that, but she surprised me in the morning by doing the washing up, unprompted, too. I don't like to gloat, but she's a good 'un, my girl.
Well, Good Friday is here, and it's Hot Cross Buns for breakfast, diet or no. Then I need to get my decorating mojo on, and if the weather is fine I shall be doing some gardening later too.
How interesting it is that that book I mentioned in yesterday's post leads to so much discussion! I had heard that people had said the film was rubbish, and several people mentioned they didn't enjoy the book, but I don't listen to critics any more - mainly that's because the films that are panned always turn out to be ones Claire and I really enjoy. Funny, that.
I must say, I'm being pleasantly surprised by this book. I like the spiritual side of it, I like the light-hearted way she writes, and I especially like the idea of going off and "finding myself" for a while. If only we all had the financial means to do that, right?! At the moment I'm reading the part where she's in Italy. Apparently, the bit where she's in India "drags a little", but I hope it'll keep my interest.
Right, I can't sit here all day chatting. I've got stuff to do. Toodles!
I thought I'd blogged about this but obviously not. Maybe I posted it on my Facebook? Anyway, the Continental Market was in town this weekend and we had absolutely amazing weather for it. Claire was going to take pictures, but ended up just lugging the camera round for nothing...
We always love it when they come to town. It's great going round the stalls jabbering away in French to the stallholders, who always seem to come from near my mum in Normandy. On Friday we bought a baguette and some cheeses, not forgetting a pain au raisin for the OH. Claire also got some croissants to take to her colleagues, although it was her day off. She wanted them to taste REAL croissants, not faux croissants!
The next day I got a text from Beth who was out with the family, asking if I'd join them. Sadly it was newsletter delivery day and I was volunteering all morning at the Community Centre. After lunch I got another text from Stéphie asking the same thing, so despite a headache I met her in town. Funnily enough, on the way we bumped into Beth's lot coming home, so I got my baby Alex fix after all (he was wiggling his bare toes in the sun, and looked very happy). At the same time we bumped into the OH coming back from town, as he'd been out earlier. Quite the little reunion we had, in the middle of Market Street.
So Claire and I met up with Stéphie and Eloïse, and we went round the market all over again. This time I got some rillettes and what I call "proper" ham (jambon de Paris). Oh, and as I needed some instant coffee I treated myself to some chocolate-flavoured coffee.
I was more tired than the day before, not surprisingly. Two outings in two days is still a bit on the ambitious side for me. Luckily for me, S was tired too, so we sat and chatted over an iced coffee in Costa while the girls went clothes shopping.
Yesterday the weather was also gorgeous, so after I'd done a bit of laundry I took myself out in the sun to read. I have finally got round to picking up my copy of Eat, Pray, Love and am really enjoying it so far.
Well, looks like it's really April this time: it's gone all cloudy and I'm sure we're in for some showers soon. I do hope the rain stays away for the Royal Wedding, though. Wouldn't it be glorious to have a hot sunny day on 29th April? Talking of the Royal Wedding, I'm loving all the bunting and Union Jacks that are everywhere in the shops. Why are we Brits so afraid of being patriotic?! I managed to sneak a pic of the John Lewis display (by pretending to be on my phone - the security guards are ferocious if you get a camera out).
I finally took some pictures to show you of one of Claire's presents to me and of a present I bought for myself.
First of all, you might remember I posted about a wonderful TV series called "Turn Back Time: The High Street". I was so surprised to open a gift from my wonderful daughter on Christmas day to find a book about the series. She knows me so well!
My favourite chapters are the war years - I've no idea why I have a thing for the forties, but I loved it when Claire did "The Home Front" in history in primary school. These pages remind of that.
"Make do and mend" is all the rage now, with the hard economic times we have today....
And here's the present I bought myself when I was in Covent Garden. I love love love Penhaligons. The shops are so luxurious and smell so delicious. I preferred it when I could buy this fragrance in an oil for my ring burner, but the guy in the shop (lovely, VERY camp salesman) said it's not the fashion now. Instead the demand is for candles so I have to make do with this.
My little touch of luxury - contrasting quite starkly with the "make do and mend" of the forties, eh?! They pop it in a luxurious, shiny, paper carrier bag stuffed with fragranced tissue paper, and it makes quite something of a smallish buy. I was admiring their silver compact-like solid fragrance line, and thought that Artemisia smelled quite delicious, so the salesman put a little sample in the bag for me. It's divine! I wish Typepad had a "smellovision" button so I could share both fragrances with you, but you'll just have to take it from me.
So there you have it, a little bit of what's making me happy these days.
... but at least it's nice and warm indoors. I have this song on the brain though:
It snowed really hard the other day (can't remember which day as I've lost track of time) and we still have about 10 cm / 4 inches out there - nothing like the 23 cm my brother's had in France, but we're going to get more this week apparently. I'm just glad I don't actually have to go anywhere! The news is full of stories of people stranded at airports etc, which is really not a nice way to spend the time. So, much as I miss my family especially at Christmas, it's a good job we are just taking it easy here this year.
I thought I'd post the pictures I took in London on Monday after my hospital appointment. First of all, I had no idea that the wonderful Persephone bookshop was round the corner, so that was a lovely surprise.
I had one or two of their books already, and as I had this one on my wish-list I decided to treat myself.
Entitled "Few eggs and no oranges", it is a book of wartime diaries by Vere Hodgson, and I'm finding it very readable indeed. That's a picture of the inside cover. Persephone books all have a dove-grey jacket and a gloriously colourful inside cover, each one different, each one a reproduction of a fabric or artwork matching the date of the book. In this case it is "'London Wall', a fragment of a Jacqmar scarf showing a brick wall as the background to the brightly-coloured slogans that were so much a part of wartime life."
The bookshop is on Lamb's Conduit Street, which is a lovely little road in Bloomsbury lined with lots of small independent shops. On looking for a link to give you I came across this really cool website where you can check out a 7 minute video about the shops on this street. I hope you'll have the time to take a look.
I liked this collection of panama hats in the tailor's window....
Well, as you can see, there was no snow on Monday, thankfully, but since then we've had our fair share as I said earlier. This is a picture taken out of my bedroom window yesterday morning:
...and it got thicker after that! Lovely and festive - if you don't have to go out in it.
Talking of being festive, last night we were invited to pre-Christmas drinks at a neighbour's house. Their place is so cosy and beautifully decorated for the season. We had drinks (mulled wine for those who drink alcohol, OJ for me), and also some delicious home-made mince pie. Mmmmm. They told us about a carol service at the local football club tomorrow, so I'm planning on going with them for a sing-song. Let's hope it's not cancelled - we can walk there, but maybe people who have to drive here will avoid going out in the snow. We shall see.
Anyway, that's it from me. I can't quite believe that this time next week Christmas will be all but over. How time has flown by!
Let me say right now, I take back everything I ever said about Facebook. Ok, some of it anyway. I never understood why people got hooked on it, but when I was in hospital I discovered it was easy to update my status on the iPhone so that everyone could see how I was doing rather than emailing them all individually, which was beyond me at the time. I also found it interesting being able to read what everyone else was up to while I was stuck in there. I couldn't spend long online in one go, but still, I felt connected to the outside world.
Well, using the "share this post" facility on Typepad I link my blog posts to my Facebook account and thanks to that, a friend saw my plea for something to read and brought a selection of books round last night (thank you Beth!!). How lovely is that? I am now reading Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult, and I have plenty more to get my teeth into when I'm finished. It's like having my own personal lending library, with doorstep delivery. Lovely!
While I'm reading, I'm sipping some Robinson's Lemon Barley Water, which is making me feel very summery! I used to crave it when we lived in France - every time we watched Wimbledon we'd see the bottles just waiting to be used (not that I ever saw a tennis player actually ask for some!), and I'd sigh and think "I wish I could have a nice tall glass of Lemon Barley Water right now". Every time I came over to England to see my grandparents I'd have some, so it is also inextricably linked to them. Well, we usually buy sugar-free squash, but last time the Asda delivery came, they'd done a substitution and they delivered proper old Lemon Barley Water and instead of refusing it I though, why not? You see, the Lemon Barley flavour doesn't come in a sugar-free version. The strange thing is, although every bottle of squash is now plastic, I was somehow expecting this "old fashioned" drink to be in a glass bottle, like it was last time I bought it. I got quite a pang actually and thought what a shame. Surely glass is more eco-friendly as it can be re-used over and over again, or recycled? Never mind - I do recycle all my plastic too, but it just seemed like the end of an era all of a sudden.
Oh and I nearly forgot to show you my moo cards. I think they've come out ok. I chose a pink backing and just put my name, phone numbers and photoblog website on the back.
I gave one to Beth last night, because she's pregnant and we are looking forward to doing a photoshoot after her hols - she chose the B&W one of Louis's feet :) And I bumped into my old hairdresser at the hospital the other day, and she was carrying her 4 month old daughter so I gave her one too. This is the beginning of something big!!
I really must get myself to the library - shame it's so far off the beaten track! I have completely run out of stuff to read and I really can't afford to buy any more books. I've finished reading all the ones I had outstanding, and have passed them on to my family to read. I am craving some chick lit or some wartime romance novels, which are my weakness. I'm trying to read a "classic" that I got ages ago but I'm finding it heavy going although I would like to know what happens so I'm sticking to it. Unfortunately, the print is also rather tiny and that adds to my pain. Sigh. Reading should be fun, right?
![The Red Queen [Book]](http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/public/X4Il8W9Zoapap--iSErRzq5lLc95QnPcSa1nDRDaVaxaQMcgGJibMKFjkh9TVKGH4Bj8i2BZupA164rXfU6Uybthn8un5Ez15k-iIVuCespTWZRw5BxL_b6mEXGNBK98ts-Uqp5ynfgmHFg2EP2mhlHW0hkKbvddjLvO5Uo7IoZ8K08EyBY8MwwFsO1EDA)
