Wonderful weekendness

For the past couple of months I've had a date on my calendar that has justified a personal countdown of a similar magnitude that I might give to birthdays and Christmas! As the date got closer I'd even drafted in grandparents to babysit on the Friday afternoon so that another couple of hours could be shoe-horned into the occasion! For me, more exciting than praline seashells or even the arrival of Heather Bailey fabrics, is the prospect of a weekend spent with my sister, Laura, at her flat in London.

On Friday afternoon I went to pick her up from her office - she works for a small publishing company and there are always lots of interesting books to look at, beautiful illustrations on the walls that she's commissioned to go inside, as well as these swatches and pantone books above, where she gets the delicious task of choosing what colour a new book's hardback cover will be, and what the contrasting colour on the inside will be. Mmmmm, I could spend hours playing around with those (but will have to settle instead for the paint aisle in Homebase). Anyway, after I'd nosed around her office for an indecently long time, we headed back to her flat, popped out for some drinks and then went back to eat Beetroot Soup....I was dubious when she first told me about it, but one mouthful and I was hooked and am now trying to find stockists in my area...I think it could be an addiction. More drinks and lots of late night chatter and suddenly I was waking to the sound of her alarm and the prospect of strawberries drizzled with lime juice waiting in the living room to tempt me into getting up.


Once up, we went straight over to the shop where my sister sources her lovely buttons that she sends to the children. They also do a huge selection of wonderful ribbons...just some of which are shown above.

A few minutes walk and we were at Portobello Road Market so early that we were able to enjoy browsing without the crowds of people that filled it an hour later.

I saw a wonderful professionally-taken photograph of this unusual door which can be found on one of the side streets (taken by someone with far superior photography skills to my own...although I wasn't helped by the fact that it was half-covered by market paraphernalia when I went to photograph it) that I was tempted to buy, but didn't on the grounds the colours were a bit too bright for my house (which is a shrine to cream...sometimes that's a little limiting!).

...thank goodness the old printer's trays weren't painted in zinging lime colours! My sister bought this one as a treat from a lovely little stall that had them in all shapes and sizes. I love it, and put it up the minute I got home. I'm thinking of filling it with reels of cottons in shades of white, cream and beige, interspersed by the odd little print press thing that I've already got. No, there is no logic or relevance to putting the two things together in there...but I think I will enjoy looking at them!

This piece of fruit...or is it a vegetable, whatever, its name has completely escaped me, provoked much hilarity as it looked so rude!...cats' bottoms sprang to mind, but I decided to turn the offending item into a person's mouth instead in an attempt to keep the blog respectable (I shouldn't really have mentioned the bottom at all then, should I?).

Once we'd finished at the market we headed over to Whole Foods Market, which is the enormous organic supermarket that opened in Kensingston High Street to much controversy and disapproval. I've been a couple of times now, and each time I have entered feeling ready to see all that's wrong with it, but despite all the things that it might have been criticised for, I can't help loving it. They have sourced the most wonderful products and have succeeded in making wholesomeness feel luxurious (and they sell the wonderful Beetroot Soup...what's not to like?!)....well, it's not entirely wholesome...but it is always organic....fancy an organic monster cake?...or even the gargantuan organic meringue that Laura sent home with me to give to Zebra-girl and Dinosaur-boy? I've never seen one quite so large and they were only able (and permitted!) to eat about a tenth of it between them!









Such a lovely weekend...

I now have that horrible Sunday-night feeling that it's all over....and the children return to schools & nursery in the morning...