The view from here

Friday was Watteau @ RA which is truly an excellent show, small but perfectly formed it focuses on his drawings which are exquisite in detail, much has been gathered from galleries from around the world and it was brilliantly displayed. I came away heartened and enlightened just like a good exhibition should..
Dinner at Les Deaux Salons was good this time, we cracked the meat conundrum by having a starter then a salad. They are not the best organised place though, running out of bread for a while and the look of horror when my sister asked for some white bread... Quelle Horreur after an interminable wait one teeny tiny piece arrived. And another thing, they still do not give you anything green with the cheese board. We mentioned it to the waitress who promised to highlight it later. Even the salad had a paucity of leaves, how I ached to run across the road to buy a little gem lettuce instead of the pathetic designer leaves draped some what sadly across my duck.
So onwards to the much anticipated Yohji Yamamoto exhibition, which is dreadful, truly a waste of seven of my finest pounds, I will discuss why tomorrow but lets look at the good, oh there I am. Spring is here and so my leather jacket is back on..

After the V&A I wandered around the corner to Few & Far and spied this jumper Sarah Lund style.
There is an interview with her in this weeks Observer and the good news is there are more to come...Series with Chief Superintendent Lund that is , not interviews! Yeah

I would love to shop this wardrobe, such beautiful clothes all at Few & Far

Spring at the Conran Shop, I love the colour of this sofa, if I ever won the lottery I would buy so much from here.

Blossom is all around London at the moment, it is the beginning of my favourite time of year, the light, the blossom, the green of the leaves...

As I am lumbered with the most ugliest, most annoyingly destructive dog IN THE WORLD , I sometimes wistfully covet something more elegant and better behaved. Are these not adorable?

Finally sartorial style from Hans Place, this photograph does not do her justice, she looked so creamy

Finally why do I blog?

This post is brilliant because

a) even more readers will discover the excellent Belgian Waffle and

b) it really does make sense of why indeed it is such a popular sport. Yes, sport, because I don't know about you slouches but I have to walk bloody miles to bring you this Pandora's box of delights.

I started blogging because like a lot of things I see on the Internet I think, Hell! I can do that, how easy is that? Just pop a few piccy's up, raise a few points, and ramble on self indulgently about my ridiculously shambolic life, easy peasey.

My inspiration at the time was the amazing Dear Ada who hubbed and spoked amazing art like no other blogger could. I could never have kept up with that level of commitment, she sometimes posted 3 different artists a day! Two other blog genii were Susie Bubble and the Queens @ Kingdom of Style, the latter's refusal to bow to commercialism I hold very dear to my heart, because for me there is the rub, so many blogs cow tow to he flashing box in their margin, hard to criticise a company when you are raking it in from them. I can see why so many fall, but sometimes I think if I see one more American Apparel icon flashing at me in my peripheral vision I will scream. So I raise a toast to the Queens for staying true to their roots.

My blog has evolved from something quite superficially decorative into a bit of an unwieldy octopus. It has saved my relationship with Emin because being able to write down how I feel makes me put him into perspective, it is a wholly cathartic experience, a problem shared truly is.... The blog is not wholly anonymous although I wish it were so, I write about what I can cope with being read by most, including Emin, but in my mind it is still me, a keyboard and a couple of bloguettes commenting, it is the intimacy I like, that, and the fact it has forced me to look long and hard at what I have and what I have achieved plus it's made me pathetically grateful in many ways, including facing up to my grammar demons, though THANK GOD for spell check! Please, please don't laugh but even I am seriously thinking I could write a book in retirement, I said write, not publish you understand.

Plus, best of all I even get to meet some of you!

Tziporah Salamon

If I can look half as glamorous as this when I retire I will be happy

I would love to lounge around in richly embroidered textiles, she reminds me of Nancy Cunard.

You can see more here

Jet Korine

This is one of those site that I trip up over whilst having a leisurely read of my blog roll. Kingdom of Style is a fabulous hub & spoke system for upcoming designers, this one in particular would tick all my needs for wearing inside my draughty Edwardian house.

You can see more here

Monochrome Miffy and other stories

I feel for the first time that I may have cracked this sartorial conundrum. it's been all good this week and it's looking good for a few weeks to come too, despite the casualties of war.
I normally dress down on Friday but I have dinner at Les Deux Salons tonight plus a private view of Watteau so I felt a little elegance was in order..non?
Tomorrow Yohji Yamamoto @ V&A

I was in such a rush to leave the country I failed to report back on the joy of Twelfth Night, any concerns I had taking The Leyla Monster were quickly dispelled after the opening scene. The only draw back was the miserable fucker gentleman sat next to us who moaned when Leyla lent forward, he failed on every level to understand the bar in front was ridiculously large and seriously impeded the view of a 9 year old who was frequently swept along with the plot. Whilst nothing will EVER come close to replicating the amazing Michael Grandage production this one was good, marred for me by two actors. Not as I expected Malvolio who was very good, but Viola. Rebecca Hall is such a limp, fey actor, she really does not breathe much life into anything, she plays the same character in the same way in everything and what was worse the production was set in the restoration period simply it seemed to accommodate her long hair. So bad at conveying her disguise as her brother, hers was the only character I had to explain to Leyla. The other poor performance was the maid whose shrill voice grated and very nearly spoilt every scene she was in. The star for me was Marton Csokas, I didn't recognise him but he played a bad boy in Kingdom of Heaven. He was brilliant and stole every scene he was in. I have come to the conclusion that a troll could play Orsino and I would lust after him!
Leyla loved it she laughed so much when the letter gets 'dropped' and her face as the brother and sister arrive on stage together was a picture, she actually sat on the edge of her seat and squealed with delight, something that miserable idiot next to me had clearly not done for a while.
In my haste to get to the airport on time I managed to forget my toiletries bag, the belt to hold up all my jeans and books to read. I bought Kate Atkinson's Started Early Took My Dog which I loved, not least because much of it is set in the Leeds's of my childhood.

It was Maggie O'Farrell's The Hand That Held Mine which blew me away though, it is so exquisitely written every sentence was just so beautifully poetic, I loved it and did not ever want it to end.

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.