Saturday at Shipp's..

Keep meaning to post these photos from Shipp's Tea room on the edge of Borough Market, where we met for a pre-mother's day get-together. Above are sister Jo and partner Stu enjoying some tea, think we'd consumed the sarnies, scones and cakes by this time!

I'd read about the shop on another blog and mum thought it sounded like a place we MUST check out! We probably reached it by the most convoluted route and not expecting it to be practically in the market, luckily, Jo and Stu had already found a table and we were able to park ourselves just before it started to get really busy. There was a cosy ambience, lots of vintage teacups hanging from the ceiling, chanderliers, big mirrors, embroidered tablecloths and old teapots and the cakes, scones, sarnies and tea were all very tasty. I tried the green jasmine tea (always partial to a bit of Jasmine) and a vanilla cupcake.

We then had a wander through Portobello Market and through to the Regent's canal starting off near the Trellick Tower. Stu had picked a walk for us from a London walks book and the plan was to walk to Primrose Hill via the canal, unfortunately, we left it a bit too late in the day and made it as far as St Johns Wood all a tad tired, but it was a nice walk and we saw some London we hadn't seen before.

Started volunteering at our local Oxfam shop yesterday which was really enjoyable. Despite the pretty horrendous weather a few customers ventured in, more than I'd expected. It was a high to start the week and have rapidly hit a low...

Luckily have a new project on the go, or several. Started a dusky pink beret from the Sarah Dallas book. This just uses one ball of Rowan 4-ply soft, a 100% merino wool. It's really nice to use and although I'm not much of a one for hats, believing I look like a fool in any hat atire, I'm secretly hoping that this might look half decent! If not, it'll be another present.

My other project is the wall hanging with pockets for Liv, to go in Myles' bedroom. Last week, I started the embroidering of the days of the week on each pocket..and have been putting off the more difficult prospect of sewing or felting animals on, can't quite work out the best way to do this. Mum seemed to like the needle wrap, I'm pleased to have managed something mediumish on the sewing machine..it's been a personal challenge fulfilled..

made some scones this morning...the weather keeps changing, but at least the wind has died down.. take care ...

What's new pussycats?

Hello again, it's been a while...I keep meaning to take photos of finished projects (Parisienne shawl..yes,finally finished!) and the tulips for Mother's Day but in the words of Austin Power's, have lost my 'mojo' somewhere! Anyway, this may be a somewhat rambling, disjointed post.

Don't you love this guy's pink hair? It reminds me of one of my favourite books 'Fruits', a book of photos taken in the Harajuku area of Tokyo, where young people break out of the conservatism of Japan and go totally creative and crazy with fashion and individuality. Ironically, Britain is far more conservative in the way we dress and conduct ourselves. There is something truly refreshing about the individual way people dress over there..and I often miss the sense of freedom I felt to be myself and not constrained by what is and isn't appropriate to wear etc in England , solely due, I guess to the limitations I give myself and which society does also. I guess I'm just not that brave...

Speaking of Japan, Monty Don was there for his last programme in his '80 great gardens of the world' series. We have been glued to this, not only for the beautiful and innovative gardens and use of space but for Monty himself, who appears really enthusiastic, visiting countries for the first time. Saw the book of the series this morning and it's gorgeous..something to go on my eternal wishlist for a while!

We took part in filling a few shoeboxes for a Romanian charity 'Link Romania' based in Worthing, this Christmas, a friend who lives nearby organises the distribution of leaflets and is our drop off point for boxes. These are then sent to the depot in Sussex and a trip was made to distribute them in December. Some photos of the trip have just reached us via our friend and were extremely sobering stuff to say the least. The main area they concentrate on is a place called Iasi. There is a large shanty town there with a majority of Roma residents and the living conditions for these people are truly terrible..but somehow they get on with their lives and try to make the best of it as they can. There was also photos of the local soup kitchen where children have two sittings followed by adults. Another showed the homeless young men who live under the broken pavements in the city, but on a brighter note also at the farm which the charity has helped to fund where young adults learn farming skills in a supportive and caring environment. You can really appreciate the significance for them to receive these boxes from England. These were 3 purses I made for the boxes..maybe they helped a tiny bit to brighten up someone's day. It's a great charity.