the butcher the baker the candlestick maker

A birthday simply isn't a birthday without a birthday cake and mummy's turning into her 63rd year meant I set about baking what was not so average a recipe but a melange of fig and walnut goodness. And to get in her extra-good books I bought her flowers (what a romantic ) and cooked dinner, roasting the most enormous squash I've ever seen in a supermarket.

Greens, beans and five a day.

What better way to spend a day than baking a cake and hosting a tea party? Carrot cake has always been among my top favourites until today when it was rather unceremoniously shoved off its pedestal and replaced by the newfound Courgette Cake. Yum yum yum. I got the recipe from the Edinburgh Eats blog: here who transcribed it from the cookbook of the Hummingbird Bakery. The recipe was nothing overtly special, but the end product was simply spectacular.

In the morning of the same day I received a snail mail letter sent all the way from South Korea. I was appropriately surprised by the contents within, but it's not as creepy as it looks. Honestly! Look past the naked baby part and it's a TOMATO! Tattoo-ed with a message across his back "to my vegetable loving friend" Aawww, she knows me so well! Love love x

the doorways of a dreary day

Kinvara visited : part one.

keeping them warm and cosy

The fourth pair of mittens I've knitted this winter! Perhaps I should list "industrious" as a characteristic on my C.V. maybe then somebody would hire me. (are you looking for new staff? I'm very employable...) These ones were for Catherine, who likes scarves from charity shops, playing chess and drinking tea.

This week I also knitted a present for my mother, who likes drinking coffee.

London calling

When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk

How time flies with the wings of an eagle. Little does it feel like almost one year since I was in Paris hanging around outside fashion shows, amidst swarms of bloggers and the like. If you like, you can read my blog post from the time of PFW 2011 here.

. . . . .

I'm still digesting what's happening in London this week, but paraphrasing Vivenne Westwood it would appear that fashion is on the down and we're on a one-way ticket to Craptown where we all live as boring conformist ill-clothed clones of our neighbours. She believes people have never been so badly dressed due largely to the way in which fashion has become so disposable. It's throw-away nature has lead everybody to dressing in the same way, and she even goes as far as to admitting to not really liking some of the items in her own collection.

For now the few photos that interested me from street-style photographer Tommy Ton in NY last week (thanks to Style.com) You can peruse them all here if you so wish

birds of a feather

Sometimes I wonder how they haven't got bored of each other after 25 years together.

♥ ♥ ♥

With all the recent talk of lovebirds I was inspired to make a few of my own. I sewed a few brooches and have since been sewing many as I'm thinking of starting up a shop on Esty. What do you think of the idea?

the lady and the tramp

I was taken out for dinner last night by my sister. Awwww. She's working a real job now and earning real money and when she was hired she made a promise to buy me dinner one day. That day finally arrived and we went down the road to The Oslo for it was Monday night and they have a 2 for 1 special (still thinking like a student).