Never try this at home

NEVER Have a shower and use a freebie from the draw without your glasses on, do not go slapping copious amounts onto freshly shaved legs, all I could see was 'Body Excellence' THE PAIN it really, really stings. I put my glasses on to read it was a serum, who the bloody hell puts serum on there body?

NEVER expect to sit down during half term, I ended up using up 3 days marking then schlepping round a hot and dusty capital with two low level irritants plus mother, who I exhausted!

NEVER agree to having a dog, it is always you that walks the bloody thing three times a day, I had such a headache yesterday, I pleaded with Emin to take him, No, not unless I come! WTF no matter how crap you feel no matter how crap the weather walk, walk, walk. Couple this with three little words that strike fear into any sane individual "can I come" Leyla and that dog on a retractable lead do not make for a calm end to your evening, or beginning to your day for that matter, yesterday she took out not one but two commuters hurrying to the station. Emin's idea of walking the dog is to open the back door, come back Kitty all is forgiven.

NEVER live with someone who works from home, EVERY single time I log on he comes and stands over my shoulder looking, I HATE people watching me when I write, I will be bloody grateful to be back at work.

NEVER buy a slice of homemade cake and look forward to eating it all day, you will be seriously disappointed, SERIOUSLY.

Never sit down to watch a DVD with a small child without checking the rating, Adrift in Manhattan has some REALLY explicit sex scenes. Great film though stunning cinematography.

A day in May in London

I have become increasingly enthralled by the work of Sandra Blow. There is currently a wonderful exhibition on at Beaux Arts London

On to the ubiquitous Berkley square for lunch

The squares in London are wonderful cleansing lungs. They are everywhere, many are public spaces but some are private but they make London the beautiful green space that it is. In a couple of weeks all squares will open there gates to the public. More details here

I saw this divine jewellery in a shop on South Molton Street. It is by Romy Derman

If you are ever in need of a calm space to powder your nose Fenwicks give you this heavenly slice of luxury. Seriously cross your legs and go up the escalator to the 4th floor. Perfect

Selfridges windows never fail to delight. Celebrating 100 years all the windows are yellow, Selfridges yellow.

When I was young I had the most fantastic apron covered in Batman slogans so these windows took me back to when times were a little more fun.

Launceston place, and the surrounding area maybe know as petite France but the buildings are so beautiful

unlike Paris the bikes in London are a little less loved!

An original window with such beautiful glass.

A place so posh they have rocking Zebras

I took these last week before the hell that is marking and moderating caught up with me. I had to endure Leyla whilst I moderated 39 folders of coursework, as it is half term she had nothing but homework for company. Not easy, I lost it by 2pm, not pretty.

Tomorrow I will finish the last of the paper work and I would like to say it will all be over but that will not happen until 16th of June. But I have a couple of away days planned to ease the pain including meeting mother. Sadly the girls went without me as I was too busy to go to Oxford. So mother and I will meet on Friday at the British Museum for a jaunt around the garden.

Chelsea flower show

Chelsea flower show
Originally uploaded by theviewfromhere indigo16

Not a vintage year, but great fun nevertheless. Far fewer gardens coupled with a paucity of nursery's showing in the marquee meant it was slim pickings on the image front.
I think it is time to rethink and encourage more colleges and amateurs t have a go as the corporate gardens have sucked the life out of what used to be an inspirational event.

P.S I edited all 333 images on Daisy's glorious laptop. I was using guest user so when she switched user the whole lot vanished. Luckily I still had not cleared the cameras memory card.

Chelsea flower show

Chelsea flower show
Originally uploaded by theviewfromhere indigo16

The Chelsea flower show pictures are on line all 46 of them!

Not a vintage year horticulturally wise but just as many fabulous flowery attired women.

Still marking

Well I put it off for too long and now it;s risen to bite my arse. Yes it's that marking time of year. Today I did not stop, 45 GCSE exams, 10 AS Level coursework folders and exams I still have 5 lots of 6 units from my A2 students and 45 coursework folders. Bang goes half term.
Add to the mix two fractious teenagers one of whom refused point blank to go to school today because it meant dressing up as a toy! The other is revising.
Add to this one bored senseless moron who appears to be paid for doing nothing at home, so of course he decided to dig up the paving from our drive. This is a man who starts, but NEVER knowingly finishes anything.
Add to this 333 photographs that need editing, an unwritten post about last weeks theatre visit and 5 necklaces that need threading. Oh and I want to go to the British Museum
Watch this space...

So much to do and see

Two new books now on my wish list, Dan Winters has an extensive web site which is HEAVILY copy righted but have a look they are quite unsettling





Two purchases I finally decided to get as the Margaret Mellis book only had one copy left on Amazon, Mad Men was a given!


Wonderful beads from here
I bought them today, I will thread them with some purple glass beads to make a long necklace.


I rather fancied this necklace from Erickson Beaumon
But I then found this amazing web site








and bought this necklace instead,. I have always coveted a piece of Pippa Small's jewellery and now I have a piece, the ethics of the company makes me feel doubly smug!



Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur
28 May – 23 August 2009  /  Room 35  /  £8, Members free
A rare chance to see paintings in the royal collection of the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Jodhpur
The exhibition will feature a loan of 56 paintings from India, none of which have been displayed before in Europe. It is a fantastic opportunity to experience the unique art tradition that flourished in the royal courts between the 17th and 19th centuries








Finally I am really looking forward to seeing this exhibition at The British Museum as well as the garden, what an inspired idea.

MAURIZIO ANZERI

When I first saw this photograph I laughed so hard I had tears streaming down my face. I thought they looked like the Adams Family; there was something almost gothic, about the picture.
It transpired that the couple getting married were my father’s parents. My granddad and grandma, she was a particularly vile and unpleasant woman who always stood arms folded like a woman from an Andy Capp cartoon, issuing forth a stream of unpleasant invariable mean spirited bile.
From my earliest memory she always looks very old, she had paper thin skin that had folded itself like filo pastry, this she powdered heavily, and wore with a slash of lipstick. She smelt of decay.
In stark contrast my granddad was the loveliest kindest man you could ever hope to meet, he was without an ounce of malice but was so utterly hen pecked, he rarely spoke.
I did not often visit so saw little of him as I grew up, but my most vivid memory of him was once walking with him to where he worked as a porter in one of Nottingham University’s halls of residence. We chatted and laughed, he was like a different person when she was not around.
They lived in a classic two up two down on a cobbled street full of chimneys and alleyways. I remember the terror of the outside loo but most of all I remember the door opened straight into their front room which was a frozen slice of perfection preserved in sub zero temperatures. Through a curtain you then walked into a thick fug of cigarette smoke that mingled with the searing hot blast of their coal fire.
They both smoked untipped Capstan full strength. My grandma died of lung cancer whilst my granddad lived into his late 80’s defying cancer, heart problems and a stroke. Good karma will always out. That my father clawed his way out of this negative mire to get a PhD from Cambridge is astonishing,
The large man in the photograph was my grandma’s father a brutal man and to his left those two ditzy women were sisters who lived with him! Guess what they were called? Daisy and Kitty, seriously, I had no idea. I have a feeling many an eyebrow was raised at that arrangement.
I have the photograph tucked away, but when I saw this I realised that beauty can be spun from the eye wateringly ugly!










All this and more can be seen at the Riflemaker

Boris Savelev- 31 years

At first, Boris’s images seem to have a melancholy that can be seen as a reflection of a specifically Russian sensibility. On deeper reflection it is their humour and playfulness, their delight in moments that occur momentarily that characterise his images; odd details of human life in its urban setting are presented in a highly deliberate but off hand way. His use of colour and light is masterful: each photograph functions as a powerful abstract statement as well as a fragment of reality

more from The Michael Hoppen Gallery my other favourite photography gallery. Again the focus here is the process used to print these images which sounds fantastic.

The pigment transfer prints were made at Factum Arte in Madrid and are part of an ongoing collaboration with Adam Lowe to perfect the process. The multi-layered digital printing on Factum Arte’s flatbed printer provides a new level of control over surface and depth of tone. Each print has many layers which sit on a coating of gesso which is in turn on aluminium and then the image is waxed to complete this unique process. The resultant subtlties of tone make first hand viewing of these extraordinary prints essential