Phill Miller

Just when you think you can't be surprised any more a photographer comes along and produces images of what are for me, exceptional quality. Literally jaw dropping, I love everything about these montages, the colours the composition. Brilliant.

Phill Miller's website is here

Paul Smith

Well the shows are nearly over and I have had a quick look most days but on the whole those I hold very dear to my fashion heart left me cold this year. I saw little at Marni or Dries van Noten that I could emulate, and this strange big shoulder look creeping in will not help my silhouette at all.
I have seen some wonderful unstructured coats, but this years favourite show by a country mile is.....

Paul Smith

I guess it is because I can relate to the way he puts his clothes together, the colours the layers and I have always been a sucker for the whole Annie Hall thing. For me he is consistently good and if there is one trend here and permeating other shows too, it is the flat shoe. Thank You.

What is not to love about a touch of the orient? I adore both of these.

I am praying that this new trend for flats filters down onto the high street so maybe I will finally get my patent leather brogues!

Village Living

The initial revelation that we have a house in Cyprus is generally greeted by ill disguised envy...but below is the cold hard truth, it IS a house, but not one you can float around wearing Haviana's sipping cocktails on the veranda. No, it's a Gulag, barely watertight and in need of a huge cash injection to make it livable.
He has 8 years, and you may not know it, but you are looking at well over £1000 of renovation already...Look very hard and you will see a new water tank, new hot water cells and two previous water tanks now rehoused.
Behind you out of vision is another £2000 pounds worth of water renovation, including a restored well and THE BIGGEST water depot for miles. The water from it is used to irrigate the garden, what you see here is to collect the (if we are lucky) daily delivery of water. There is no mains water in the village, the water it is controlled by a man in a village who opens a valve allowing it to be trickled into the tanks. Most tanks are stored on the roof but as Emin was an infrequent visitor he failed to see his had rusted and so the tank exploded depositing hundreds of gallons of rusty water into the house, the roof too leaks and so the next time you see a photograph it will have a pitched roof costing...£8000.

That is the price of Island living!

After the roof will come windows, we are angle grinding the walls to create more French windows, then a re-render of the external walls and a paint job before finally renovating the inside.
All the while this goes on Emin is fixing up the garden.

He is currently digging a trench to create a dry area around the house which should reduce the dust blown in and create a gravel garden.


No, I am not helping, I decided to have a rest.

As did he ....seen here chatting to his neighbour.

The original Venetian houses in the village looked like this, they have been allowed to decay and are often turned into hay storage, this beautiful structure is just before his aunts house, she owns this bread oven.

which bakes THE best bread on the island, she looks after her grand children during the week and returns to her house at the weekend. Every house has one of these ovens and I guess at some point I may have to learn to use one!!

Hi Jinks with the Leyla monster.

This is how most of the villagers shop, everything comes via a van although there is a shop in the next village many of the older villagers only have a tractor and are now too old to drive them.

Supplies

We can't leave any food in the house after a visit because of that heady mix of cockroach and ants. This means we buy and use what we need giving us very limited options, toast and honey with salad and olives for breakfast.

For dinner I developed a tuna pasta dish by frying two onions until very soft, adding tuns and sweetcorn and heating through with the onion. I would boil a pan of spaghetti before stirring the mixture in. Then grate an entire Helim cheese and mix together with three heaped tablespoons of dried mint, serve up the pasta with two heaped table spoons of yogurt and then sprinkle the mint and cheese mixture on top. It was surprisingly delicious, and ticked Leyla's many fussy boxes.

Next time I visit I am taking a box of stock cubes though!

Every where you go there are fruit trees, I was surprised at just how many pomegranates had been left to rot. But the joy of picking lemons will never cease for me.

The almond blossom was just coming out, you could hear a tree before you saw it as it would be alive with honey bees,

Just a few wild flowers the narcissus were at an end and it was too early for the tulips but after the rain the fields were full of this yellow flower.

Sliding Doors

Junya Watanabe

A gorgeous mix of biker leather and grey knitwear, what's not to love?

Limi Feu

I LOVE this coat above

I have finally got back some of my life having finally caught up with back episodes of The Killing, it does not help that they are screened in pairs on BBC4, so having missed 2 Saturdays I was over 4 episodes behind last week, but I did it, I caught up and I believe it is one of the best things to watch on Television at the moment, the only drawback is it is subtitled, which requires my undivided attention so no wandering! What I have found particularly compelling is the cinematography which is beautifully framed and shot. It makes such a change to for a programme not to skim over the complexities of a murder case to to get a quick solution for entertainments sake. If you can watch it and see.
I have found this trailer which makes me think it has been remade American stylie.

Sliding doors?

Well it was business as usual on Saturday with Leyla and I having caught an earlier train to London Bridge, we meandered down to catch the tube, as the train was already in I was ready to wait but Leyla went to get on so I followed only.... for reasons I will never truly comprehend as the pips sounded my reaction was to walk onto the train, Leyla's was to retreat. And so the doors closed separating us and despite the protestations of everyone around the train stood immobile before eventually moving out of the station. I mouthed at Leyla through the glass to get on the next train intending to meet her and progress with our journey so I jumped off at the next stop heart pounding... 10 effing minutes I waited and I'm talking tfl minutes here, it was the l-o-n-g-e-s-t 10 minutes of my life. The train arrived...No Leyla, next train arrived ...no Leyla, I then realised she must be waiting back at London Bridge, so I wait for the next train back..and lo there she was wide eyed and panic stricken accompanied by a nice tfl lady. I had by now resigned myself to phoning Emin to help me search for her but apparently some nice Greek teachers pressed a buzzer for help.

Just another day in the life.

After dropping her off I walked to the Wellcome Collection to meet Joanna Walsh whilst she was painting her amazing mural, after a long chat + coffee + cake (for me) I walked down to COS on Regent Street and then onto Covent Garden (they always have different pieces in) I tried on just about everything and might have bought a couple of rebound cardies...we shall see.
I also picked up a copy of their excellent magazine, you can read a lot of it online including an interview with the amazing Sarah Moon.
The photographs of the models wearing the clothes made me realise that a good deal is cut for shorter people than me, I am nearly 5'8 which does not seem that tall to me since my sisters are both taller but when I tried on a dress featured in the catalogue, (which sat on the models knee) I found it was way above the knee on me, so these models must be bred considerably smaller than the catwalk ones!
talking of catwalk some of my favourites are above from style.com.

I am now looking forward to Saturday having booked my Yohji Yamamto ticket for the shows opening weekend at the V&A

Monochrome Miffy

I could not really let it go so I decided to keep taking the photographs but play around with them more. No need to label either, you know where it all comes form now. If I do ever push the envelope I will let you know.
By switching to B&W I can focus more on shape and looking at these I need to stop that stupid 'twist and strike a pose' stance, as I like the full frontal images the best.
The weather is freezing and with the loss of said cardies I am layering like an onion to keep warm, the warm Mediterranean climes seem a distant memory now.



I am still wading through my photographs I seem to have had a problem with verticals as too many images are listing like a drunken sailor and so a lot have been discarded. I have decided that I am enjoying the Cyprus project so much that I will conclude it at a later date, primarily so I can learn how to use my camera which has done some strange light meter readings this time.

I am looking forward to a jaunt up to the big smoke tomorrow, I'm planning on trying to get to The Whitechapel Gallery but will probably end up schlepping around Cork Street catching up with some smaller shows.

Loved and Lost

I have over the years lost many items of special value, it started at a very early age with a red bag this very cavalier attitude to material things. In my teens it was jewellery, a gold signet ring my mother had inherited from a cousin who died of TB at the age of 18. I took, it wore it to school, removed it for a DT lesson and forgot to put it back on. A charm bracelet met a similar fate soon after, taken off for a yoga class.
Once standing by a deep quarry pool an earring plopped into the water never to be seen again, the amount of single earrings I had by the end of my twenties so many single earrings you wouldn't believe.
My purse too, I have lost at least twice, which on top of having it stolen more times than I can count has caused untold stress and misery. I have on occasion had it returned but not my scarves.
Recently I have noticed that scarves have become an issue, a BIG issue, it does not seem that I leave with a scarf and return without one, more that I take it off whilst walking and it falls out of my bag, Emin even picked one up from the pavement long after I had returned home one night. What appears to be Sod's law is that it is always my most favourite ones that go, the ones I love, the soft cashmere, the one who's colour I will never replicate, the hand woven. Yet I never seem to quite learn from my carelessness. The loss of one scarf in particular still hurts. A gift, long very soft grey cashmere. I last remember folding it with a buff coloured one and placing it into winter storage, I never saw it again.
Last Sunday I managed to up the ante, I lost not one, but two cardies, my two favourite ones from COS, one black, one grey. I had worn them to Cyprus instead of a coat and intended to put them on once I had landed in the UK. It was so hot on the plane and in the airport I slung them over my bag too lazy to fold them and put them inside the way I did on the way there. In less than 5 min's I knew they were gone. I retraced my steps close to tears, but no sign. I phoned lost property yesterday, no sign. My heart is broken, their hanger is empty and I have lost a layer of warmth that cannot be replaced. Shetland wool in March...No chance.

I am back but..

So thank you all for the lovely comments you left last week, yes, I did not only get there but also managed a surprisingly relaxed and enjoyable holiday. After a leisurely wake up I would wave Leyla goodbye as she boarded theschool bus before mooching around taking photographs, drawing or going for a walk or all three even. I would then prepare food before greeting Leyla off the bus and helping her with her extra studies she is doing to pass the 11+ So pretty relaxing non?

Emin is a very different beast when he is at his house in Cyprus, so relaxed and cheerful I have decided that maybe we can make this work and so have promised to go with him to live in 8 years time for a couple of years whilst we save enough money to travel. The climate is lovely most of the time and it will be easy to access the Internet, I could have this time but chose to have a break, but will do so next Christmas when I return, the only down side is no BBC iPlayer.

So he has 8 years to make the place habitable ands more importantly comfortable.

I took hundreds of photographs despite some poor light due to rain and even a storm one night, luckily the rain arrived after lunch most days so by getting up and out early I managed to get quite a lot done.

It is taking me forever to sort through the photographs, I keep getting sidetracked by fashion week number 3 Milano, as well as catching up with number 2 London. Can you believe it though that the very very first time I am on half term week for London fashion week I am away? So gutted, the photographs I could have taken, instead I have consoled, myself by buying my Chelsae Flower Show ticket..an all day one, which will give me something to look forward too.

I am now wading through copious amounts of washing as well as clearing the Manya fug from my brain. I will catch up with you all tomorrow as for some reason teaching has been getting in the way!

P.S a big thank you also to some new 'followers' I would love to know who you are but the school firewall prevents me from seeingas well as joining, but I am with you in spirit!