Monochrome Miffy takes a bow

I have some ideas for a new monikor to try out next week when there are less distractions around me, meanwhile here are the last outfits of this half term which has flown by, even now I can't quite take on board that I will be alone next week, although I am working for half of it, so I am down to only a couple of days to get through a litany of spring cleaning as well as trying to shed a few pounds that have surreptitiously crept on over the last few weeks, this will be achieved by walking the dog and attempting to ratchet up my gym work out which has become almost sedentary! On the far right my new 'boyfriend' jeans which may not be wholly flattering but sometimes it's nice to wear something a little less fitted. I am somehow trying to get to Cambridge on Sunday, yes I know I keep going, and yes I could go somewhere new, but I need my Kettles Yard fix and soon. To make it a challenge I am going to take my macro lens and if as predicted the sun is shining there is now better place to capture moving shadows than Kettle's Yard so fingers crossed. Saturday is same old same old, you know, but again the sun is out so maybe I could forgo the galleries and focus on some London style, we shall see.

Nicole Farhi

Now this is a room of ones own

I have scanned this beautiful photograph from last Sunday's Style magazine, it is of Nicole Farhi in her studio, which is almost identical to Barbara Hepworth's, what a wonderful place to play, and she looks stunning too.

I never feel she gets the attention she deserves in blogdom, whilst Margaret Howell is the doyenne of the English style Farhi rarely gets a look in, yet I promise you her shops are wonderful and had I the money I would shop in them, and yes, she does go up to chunky monkey size.

I guess I should come clean, that whole room of my own thing? Complete waste of bloody time, seriously I don't know what possesed me to think I could focus in that house when washing needs putting on, dishwashers need stacking, food needs cooking, the whole house needs tidying ,the garden needs attention, Kitty needs help with coursework and Leyla? Leyla is a full time job full stop.

So the room has sat and looked pretty and then? Nothing, nothing at all, I tried but you can take a horse to water but nothing of any value what so ever was produced. I have come to the conclusion that I can only work away from the house, that way I have no distractions and in fact working at work is easier in a windowless broom cupboard.

A Peace Treaty

No, not with Daisy but scarves! I have had a notion to top up my scarf collection for a while now, I found a wonderful dip dye wool & silk one in COS but I have hankered after a maroon silk spotted one for years. Can I find one? No, I decided that I may have greater success if I just look for the fabric, silly me, again wrong, no chance, and yes I did go in e-v-e-r-y single shop on Broadwick street, ALL of them, I tried to think out of the box, one shop had a lovely navy blue spotty fabric but since I wear a lot of blue I decided it was too much. There is a hidden gem of a fabric shop on Broadwick street called The Cloth Shop, it sells delicious linen's and calico's with the accent on vintage & ethnic fabrics. It has picked up the baton Liberty's dropped when they marginalised their trimming's section and I promise it is easy to loose an hour fingering the various pieces from the far east. Not for the first time do I regret not focusing my time at college printing scarves, because I could print exactly what I desire so easily with the right facilities. I have decided to cast my net wider and after Easter I am going to try some of the sari centers in Brick lane, after which I will make a choice. If money were no object this company make the most heavenly selection. A Peace Treaty

Of course my favourite shop Totokaelo stocks them too.

Events anticipated rarely meet expectation

Nothing ever really prepares you for motherhood, right from the very first day I have felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants. I failed to attend a single antenatal class, and when Daisy arrived 2 weeks early I had nothing, apart form some gifted babygrows and a carseat given as a maternity leave present from work. I was given no help the 3 days I endured in hospital, no guiding hand from either grandmother, just a partner who fed me chocolate in a bid assuage the impending nightmare of parenthood. For two years she did not stop crying, never satisfied, never happy. I thought that maybe it was just the whole baby thing that was hard, then the whole toddler thing, then the 'tweenager' thing, then full blown adolescence, then the whole flying the nest thing, and that surly I thought must be that. Now I was finally going to reap the rewards, job done, sit back and enjoy the ride.

No, there seems to be a whole set of new ground rules and once again I am caught playing piggy in the middle with my children. It's a no brainer that it will always be the case with Leyla and Kitty, such is the volatile minefield that comes with half siblings, but Daisy and Kitty? Easy or so I thought, Kitty misses Daisy, not a lot, but enough to ask to visit her in York next week, tickets booked Daisy is currently paying us a brief visit, and it is always difficult the weight of expectation that lays upon the rarely seen visitor, we had little time to chat before going to the O2 to see Peter Kaye, (mediocre/amusing) I had an inkling that Daisy's 'attitude' had ramped up a few notches since leaving home, stories of conflict with others including my mother were retold and I was reminded of the youthful Daisy of old who could be breathtakingly arrogant and insensitive beyond her years. I had been told her eczema had cleared as she had finally resorted to steroid cream, but seeing her confirmed this was not the case and in fact it was not good at all. The thorn in her and Kitty's relationship was always Daisy's insistence that her affliction gave her the right to not see it from anyone else's point of view, that is to spread dry skin in her wake with little thought to others squeamishness. Kitty is OCD and can't abide the way Daisy sheds her skin with such abandon, and so when she brushed dead skin over Kitty whilst sat down in the arena Kitty's automatic reaction was to recoil in horror. Daisy over sensitive as always 'lost it' and demanded like some childish princess in a Grimm fairy tale that Kitty be removed from her side. And with this one malicious gesture a shed load of anticipation came crumbling down, I can't take sides, how can I? But my heart went out to Kitty, I know what she's like and to be honest who would want to be showered by dead skin? Now I have train tickets for a daughter who really now would rather not go to York and instead would rather go to revision classes, and once again I have to stick back on my crampon's to climb the endless mountain of motherhood just when I thought I could sit back and watch.

Post Script They finally kissed and made up last night then it was my turn for recriminations, I had summarily failed to hang out the bunting and tie a yellow ribbon, for her arrival my crime was to behave as if she had never left, her expectaions of this state visit were way too high. As it was a work day I came home and carried on as usual instead of spending more time with her, making her feel special again. Yes Daisy, the clue was in arriving two minutes before we left on Sunday and me not getting time off work on the Monday. Special treatment requires arriving on the SATURDAY when time is my own and had you wanted more of me perhaps if you had tidied the kitchen and cooked before I came home it would have freed me up a little to sit and chat. Still, we talked late into the night and I guess we will just have to agree that I will never, ever quite live up to the idealised version she has of me, never have, never will.

She rightly pointed out that I am a closed shop, I did point out back that had she lived with Mother she too would have learnt to place all visible emotion in a box and store it all away, like I say motherhood only seems to get harder the older they are and now Leyla's goodnight kiss seems a remarkably uncomplicated affair.


P.P.S Oh, all this and it was my birthday!!! there is something very dispiriting about working on your birthday.

The view from here

After dropping Leyla off at her Saturday School I have discovered a short cut through this very small park next to an estate of flats. They are I think Council houses called optimistically Spa House, they sit opposite Saddlers Wells so the clue to the areas origins is in the name I guess. The flats are without a doubt some of my favourites in London, they grew on me very slowly but familiarity has payed dividends because I now see the beauty in their simplicity. Built in the 1930's they have wonderful proportions and huge windows which must flood them with light. When you contrast these flats with the meanness of proportion of those built in the seventies they make the latter look shameful and shoddy and it's no wonder these continue to stand whilst younger ones have been demolished. They look particularly lovely framed by blossom in a local park and that seasonal song "It's the most wonderful time of the year" suddenly seems more appropriate for now.

I then went by the wonderfully scenic 19 bus to Sloane Square to visit some galleries, one shop I love is Agnes B but sadly I am too chunky monkey for them, I am often puzzled why all those young blogger's are so obsessed by Isabel Marrant when to me these clothes are so much nicer.

Still if you can't have the clothes you can have this lovely necklace.

Perfect with stripes non?

Talking of perfection, I was tripping over gorgeous sartorial style of a certain age, my only problem was keeping up with them!

Difficult to tell but her scarf matched the circles of her coat, it was lovely and that hair is pretty lovely too.

Love the whole matchy matchy thing with the red scarves

This woman was so quick, so I failed to capture the whole picture properly but I loved the way this scarf was tied complemented by dangly earrings.

After Mater had regaled us with images of Parisians, all very chic in their neat jackets, ballet flats and pipe cleaner trousers I commented that when in Paris I miss the WTF moments that London has in abundance, and just to illustrate my point I give to you...

OK, so she has the ballet flats but if we are playing sartorial top trumps I win!

Monochrome Miffy's penultimate week

Last night I had a quick sandwich + coffee @ Pret, The one on the corner next to St Martin-in-the-Fields, if you sit facing outside you get to watch the world go by. Last night it felt unseasonably warm, confused overheated bodies still wrapped in pea coats and winter boots sweated whilst younger more reckless fashionista's anticipating the change were already wearing their summer floral's or stripes...stripes are everywhere this year. Mixed into the mele are novice cyclist's unsteadily weaving nervously through the rush hour traffic on their Boris Bikes watched by a man in his brand new orange Lamborghini which purr's past my window.

So now that Spring has nearly sprung and I am thinking about moving back to taking self portraits using natural light, plus summer clothes tend to have more colour, so I am scouting for locations. I am also thinking abut a new moniker as I feel Miffy needs to move on, maybe I will switch to a Moomin! Kitty expressed a love of Moomin pottery last week, ever one to please I went to buy her a mug only to discover it cost £17!!!! HOW is that possible for a piece of factory farmed bog standard pottery with a mass produced transfer print?For £17 I want Ming porcelain painted by the offspring of vestal virgins. So, no she did not get a Moomin mug.


Sartorial style this week was surprisingly OK, temperatures were rising and so the day I ventured out in sockless feet they of course plummeted and it rained.. still hard to moan in stripes.

Last night I went to a flash photography workshop, I met an interesting photographer Marysa Dowling who gently tried to guide us through the mechanics with a somewhat whirlwind tutorial pegged on the back of seeing Ida Kar & Hoppe @ NPG both as Mater reported are superb exhibitions and if you knew my love of St Ives artists you would know I was in heaven looking at some of Kar's photographs. I wanted the catalogue but bought a bracelet!! seriously if you saw the bracelet you would understand why.


My itinerary tomorrow is undecided if the weather is nice probably the Nancy Spero @ Serpentine if not maybe Yohji photographs @ Purdy Hicks, the choice is continuously endless. I am conscious my photographic output has plummeted, I will if possible resume tomorrow but sometimes I just have nothing left to give, this is primarily because I have worked so hard on helping Kitty with her coursework I am mentally exhausted, I will be so glad when it's over.

What I am most looking forward to is Daisy, who is arriving on Sunday to come and see Peter Kaye @ O2, hard to believe these tickets were booked 18 months ago and now the moment is here, he better make me laugh or else!

Marina Rust style icon

This page above has been in my scrap book for a while now, I thought for years that the woman in the picture holding a book was Marina Rust, then on closer inspection I realised in fact it is not, so I googled her, and lo what an embarrassment of sartorial riches I unearthed, all the images come from here I love her style, and from the page above, apart from the ubiquitous Breton T, I particularly love the pearl necklace.

This outfit is so me, I love it, and could probably shop it from my wardrobe.

I also love the way she wears big necklaces with quite pared down silhouette.