Shiny Things.

Hepburn. Whip smart. Funny and always embracing the slacks.
(I bet she'd have loved a bauble though.)
Gad, ya looked good kid!

  I have always been of the less is more persuasion, make-up, hair 'dos', styling and jewels. It isn't that I'm averse to glamming things up but there are few people who benefit from it as the day or for some, night, wears on. My minimalist approach has certainly had its benefits over the years. There is no way that this old hound would want to learn any new tricks as far as grooming goes in the morning. Kids or no kids, I ain't blow-drying hair or applying foundation before I go out the door. Any extra time I might gain as the years pass, with children doing more for themselves in my quest for an acceptable presentation on  their exiting our front door, and you'll find me buried just a bit deeper for a bit longer under my duvet. However, despite my love of all things natural I recognise that nature doesn't always look kindly on the do-and-dash kind of approach with which I like to run my life. We don't all tumble from our linen jumbled beds, shake out our Rapunzel like locks and skip out of the door in a perfectly measured Parisian girl type of way. In actual fact, as the years roll on by, my low maintenance look could become a great BIG maintenance pain in the rump. So maybe I will eventually cut my bird's nest of a hairstyle into something more manageable. Swop the manky old Converse for an elegant flat. Buy a proper bag to carry all my bag lady effects and dump the sweatshirts in favour of a neat and tidy John Smedley. Or more likely I'll just start to hanker over a few bits of delicate bling, an Alexis Carrington for  the new age. I like that.

Yes please, to  Halleh' 18 ct gold heart bracelet.

  

Thankyou, for Linn Lomo' spike and balls earrings. 

That parisian lady - this one being Gaia Repossi and her lovely cuffs!

a BIG bit of beautiful Repossi bling.
Thankyou, please.

Diane Kordas' blackened gold diamonds -
Ooooh, Alexis didn't have nothing on that!

Moo man takes it upon himself
to rid the family of my plastic heirlooms.
An easy lunch.  

Amsterdam. We Likey.

My traveling companion.

 I've just returned from a two night sojourn in Amsterdam, where my sister and her young family are now living. Before leaving I was a little too preoccupied with the general goings on in our household to get excited or curious about what lay ahead but if expectations aren't addressed my senses are somehow a little more instinctive when met with a glut of great design aesthetics pretty much everywhere I looked. Caspar, our three year old came too and I know he 'digged' it just as much as me, although maybe it was the  fantasy superhero play that involved finger shooting most passers by from our bike as I gazed longingly into every other interior passed, which really got him going.
 I'd visited the city before, over a decade ago but on this trip I spent my whole time being struck by the delights of their architecture and the practical ways which the Dutch make it work for them. Is it that I'm older and therefore I get a buzz out of less risky pursuits? There was no trace of any pull towards smoking cafes or the need to spend my money like Johnny Foreigner. I had a bike, a boy, - my boy that is, 3 years old! - and a whole lot of time and we cycled and cycled and cycled. In theory I should have been arrested for my cycling style which was dictated by my inner belief that even though I didn't know where the next tram was going to lurch from, in what direction the steady flow of traffic was going or just how many bikes were confidently hurtling towards me, we would remain intact because we were on holiday and realities of life pause for a while. A concerning delusion.

 Now, back on home turf, I have become a little more reignited in my quest for the practical to catch up with my fantastical. I can't rebuild the structure of our house but I'm prepared to invest a bit more time in the execution of an idea. Good design should work for all. Husband and kids included. So when certain members of my family catch me picking up a paint pot at an unreasonable hour, moments after being caught in a 'great idea' thought, don't try and point out my single-minded 'crazy must do now' behaviour. Buy me a ticket to Amsterdam, bike and boy included and await the change. It's good. (If slightly unrealistic!) 

Windows. Windows. Windows.

Want light. Get light.

Big, bold doors.

Beautiful black.

Riding with the Rach.

A modern build' door.

Handwritten nos. - and everywhere!

Hitching a ride ...

Big, yellow and ...French but in Amsterdam.