Seven Years

Today, I have been married to Mr. Michie for 7 years and I am still loving every minute of it! We started off our anniversary with a bang yesterday and went into central London, to just roam where ever our feet took us.

We ate lunch, spent some time at the National Gallery, wandered through Covent Garden and picked up our tickets for an evening of Vivaldi by Candlelight at St. Martin in the Fields.

It was a wonderful day! We ate dinner at Cha Cha Moon, a new Chinese restaurant we wanted to try off Carnaby Street. It was very authentic, a lot of Chinese people were in there eating and that, to me, is always a good sign. Their dumplings were too die for!

Then we headed over to St. Martins just before they opened their doors. The Church was wonderfully cool and candles were lit everywhere, it was very romantic. The orchestra came out and and played a series of pieces in the first act, one being Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 3. Which is very special to us as we walked down the aisle to this piece after we were married.

My parent's instilled a true love of all kinds of music into my sister and I. We both played with a symphony and even had the opportunity to travel through Europe playing with them as well. My sister is a star violist and I am an oboist. I find that having played an instrument, I am so much more appreciative of what the performers are going through.

The second half of the concert was the entirety of Vivaldi's Four Seasons and as night began to permeate around us the glow of the candlelight became more heightened. We had the great fortune to see the lovely Kerenza Peacock play her first concert since she injured her wrist. It was outstanding. As her bow struck the first note, I was beyond moved.

What a sight to behold. Music that has been played for centuries to Kings and Queens and we had the opportunity to see it played within the hallowed walls of St. Martins in the Fields by an outstanding orchestra. The entire audience was on the edge of their seats, there was a true electricity in the air and I found that more than once I was holding my breath. How lucky we are to have had the opportunity to see and hear this!

We finished off the evening with a few little surprises from Laduree. They have opened a new store in Covent Garden and since I can't go to Paris at the moment, at least one of my favorite things from Paris can come to me!

So, Mr. Michie, here to seven more years on the roller-coaster of marriage and may they be as wonderful as the first seven!

Sunny Sunday Surprises

This weekend the weather was extremely gloomy on Saturday, but extremely SUNNY on Sunday. Mr. Michie had been away on a school trip for Friday night and most of Saturday, so Sunday became our "weekend".

He woke me up early and told me to get ready he was taking me out. Off we went in the golden sunshine to the train station and waited for a train to take us into central London.

We had so much fun, wandering around. I saw the latest goodies in Anthropologie, but I was very good and left without letting anything jump into my hands. I wasn't so good however when I went to Cath Kidston, they were having a clothing sale and I never never look at her clothes, but I did on Sunday and a beautiful skirt, jumped into my hands.

Then, Mr. Michie took me to Topshop to look at their jewelery stands. One of my favourite places to hunt for unique pieces and this little lady jumped into his hands and was purchased for me:

Isn't she sweet, I wore her this week on a Spring green Boden jacket that I have and she was just a piece of happiness on my blazer all day!

Goose Girl & Foxy's London Day Out

We decided to go into London this week and since Goose Girl and Foxy had a bit of cabin fever they begged us to take them with us. So off we all went on a little day adventure.

After lunch, our first stop was the Natural History Museum. We haven't been to the gardens since the Summer and decided to check on the ducks and see what the bees were up to in their tree hideout. Unfortunately, the garden does not open until April. Foxy was especially disappointed about this, as he wanted to run around the meadow.

"Don't worry", we said, "we will bring you back when it opens!" Even though it was closed, they still wanted their picture taken by the fence. After, snapping some photos of them and peering through the gate to see if we saw anything interesting moving about, we headed off to the V&A to see Mat Collishaw's "Magic Lantern". The idea being that of "moths to a flame". With the aide of a zoetrope they appear to be flying around the cupola of the V&A. They will be flittering around for the next month or so from dusk till dawn.

There was a model of it, set up in the gardens, so you can see what it looks like any time of day. After watching it spin a few times we sat by the fountain for a few moments, and decided to head off to the Renaissance galleries. I had the chance to see some fantastic architectural pieces, I had not seen before, the V&A never ceases to amaze me!

We headed up to the Theatre area and had the opportunity to watch conservators working on a hanging tapestry that was going on loan to an exhibition. It was beautiful to watch them work. We stayed till dusk to see the real lantern light up, but it was very hard to see, no matter how far back we were from the museum.  After a day of trooping around, a much needed dinner was in order, so off to one of our favorite haunts we went: Wahaca!

Dinner, as always was divine. Goose Girl & Foxy were very tired from the day and said they didn't even want to come out of my purse for dessert. Although, Foxy said the toasted sunflower seeds on my vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce, smelled delicious (he licked the salt off my fingers later). Goose Girl, was much more interested in Mr. Michie's churros with a chocolate sauce to dip them in, she decided she would sneak out after all, for a little nibble. She was too quick for us to get her picture though!

We all headed home exhausted, but very happy after having spent a wonderful day together!

A Trip to the Tate

I had the great fortune of leaving the cupboard for a little while on Wednesday and I got to accompany an Art trip to the Tate. It was a treat walking around with the students, getting to sketch some things in my sketchbook and taking as many photographs as I could.

I haven't been to the Tate in quite awhile. Mr. Michie went on a school trip before Christmas and he inspired me to want to go again after such a long absence. However, they were hanging so many things that a lot of the rooms were closed, so I didn't get a chance to see as much as I had hoped.

One piece I did see was by the conceptual artist Cerith Wyn Evans. Who had a stunning, ballroom size Venetian chandelier hanging in a room; that lit up very slowly and once warmed up the lights would flash on and off. It was so beautiful and yet surreal to see in white this room, the bold colours of the chandelier's droplets and flowers were all that stood out, against the blinding light when the bulbs reached their highest power.

My minor in College,was Arts Management and one of the courses I took was a gallery class. One area we focused on, was how do people use the space they are in and interact with the space they are in.  I always think back to that class as I watch people in a gallery/museum.

There was no way around this chandelier it was so wide and hung so low it almost touched the floor. You couldn't miss it. Yet, I stood against a wall and watched people breeze past it, give it a wide berth, as if there was nothing of importance to see, or, they would quickly glance at it and move along. Maybe its sheer size unnerved people, they felt it was too big to interact with, it isn't as "simple" as standing in front of a painting on a wall. Who knows? It was just something that fascinated me.

I had a lovely day out and I think the students did as well, a lot of good ideas for their exam theme of "Similarities & Differences". I just thought I would share a few of my favourite images from the day with you:

Theodore Von Holst, The Fairy Lovers, about 1840
Michael Ayrton, The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1942-3
Henry Fuseli, Titania and Bottom, about 1790
William Blake, The Book of Thel pl. 7, probably 1796
John Linnell, The Last Load, 1853
Cerith Wyn Evans, Chandelier

I picked up these two postcards as my treat. I thought they offered an interesting perspective on "Similarities & Differences", so I am just going to pocket them away as an idea for a student in need:
 

{Self Portrait with Fried Eggs, Sarah Lucas, 1996 (left) Honeymoon Nude, John Currin, 1998 (right)}

Gauguin

I went to see the Gauguin exhibit today at the Tate Modern, it was a wonderful day! When we first entered the Tate we headed off to see Ai Weiwei's Sunflower commission. It is composed of millions of porcelain sunflower seeds that are all spread out on the floor, it was unbelievable how real they all looked. I was saddened though, that you can no longer walk on them.

The Gauguin exhibit was interesting, I saw pieces of his work that I was never aware that he created. For instance, a series of wood carved statues that were so intricately designed, their Tahitian influence so apparent in their almost totem pole shape, they were beautiful.

There was a lot of people there, a little too much for my liking, all pushing and shoving, which is something that I have never understood. I felt they were there to simply say they had been, not to actually take it in and enjoy it.

After stopping for a spot of cake and tea, we headed over to St. Martin's crypt to see next year's contenders for the plinth in Trafalgar Square.  You can vote on your favourite, these were my two:

It was a wonderful day out, in the pleasure of good company and an absolute luxury to be in 1/2 term, spending a usual working day, walking around and soaking up the Tate.

The Tate

This week, Mr. Michie visited the Tate Britain with his media students. The museum lover that I am, I have to admit, sacrilege as this is to say, that the Tate just doesn't seem to really do it for me, and maybe that is because I always seemed to end up in the Turner room with my classmates studying his pieces and I slowly came to hate going there, being stuck in that room.

And maybe, because the John Singer Sargent that I love and used to visit often, "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose", suddenly, never seemed to be up when I went, it started to become this elusive painting, I was always hunting for.

I do love going to the Tate Modern however. I love that an old power station instead of being torn down was used to create a space in which people can walk around, interact with art, or sit in a chair, look at an art book and watch the Thames float by.

But, after Mr. Michie's adventure out on Thursday, I am starting to slowly love the Tate again, if only for this:

I will be going to visit the Gauguin exhibition at the Tate Modern in a few weeks and I am going to try to squeeze in the going to the Tate as well and I will be looking around it again with fresh eyes, as Humphrey Bogart once said, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

(Image taken by Mr. Michie, Artwork by Bob & Roberta Smith, I was Hansel in the School Play, 2008)

Paper Delights

I am always amazed by the power of paper. Something so thin it can be crumpled and tossed away, yet so sharp it can easily cut you like a knife. Something that words can be written on, inked into a page to declare love or war, joy or sadness. Something that can be folded into an intricate design of origami styled folds, yet easily shredded to bits.

On a walk down Carnaby Street yesterday we wandered into one of my favorite stores, Liberty's. Downstairs in the Carnaby room there was a Roger La Borde display with pieces by Rob Ryan and 3 other artist.

All artist who use paper as their means of artistic interpretation. One of the artist was Su Blackwell. I could not stop staring at her pieces, the intricacies and delicate nature of her work was beautiful. One piece on display was a flurry of butterflies coming out of a book, the beautiful colors of some of them against the written words were like little beams of light shooting through a black night.

Another piece of hers existed with trees popping out of an open book, I wanted to jump into those pages, there was a fairytale magic to it. Other artists included Elise Hurst who created two "Mondoodles" for the show and Nelly Dimitranova who doodled all over paint chip leaflets. Rob Ryan had two huge images there, one of a lovely little house with angels on the roof and the words spoke of them watching over the house and everything around it, I really liked that.

All the pieces were made of paper. It is something that is so simple, just paper. But, it wasn't "just paper", no, it held in its fibres so much more.

(Alas, I forgot my lovely camera in the rush to catch a train and our phones decided not to help us take lovely pictures, so these images were taken from Roger la Borde's & Rob Ryan's site.)

I Love to Snog!

Armed with my new camera, a trip into central London this week, meant an excuse to go into Snog and grab a tasty frozen treat! I'll be honest, at first, I was not sure about their frozen yogurt, but now I think I have been won over. I really enjoyed their chocolate flavour with white chocolate stars, and they were far from skimpy on my toppings!

The walls had wonderful colorful art, like a page out of a storybook. My first Snog treat was on my Birthday day out and I was not expecting the Greek slightly soured tartness to it, I expected it to be more like frozen yogurt from the States, which is sweeter, but little by little, it is growing on me, even if only for the chocolate stars!

* A note, for my non British readers, "snog" is slang for kissing in jolly ol' England & I like the fact that they have played on that word, because who doesn't "fancy a snog"?

A Birthday Trip Out

Well, I am ashamed to say that my Birthday Post has taken me so long to write. I did give you a hint of what was to come and that I did get the lovely turqouise shoes I wanted! But, I have yet to write any more and there is so much to say.

I have lived in London for a number years and I know some of its secrets, but not all. I love when I have gone somewhere that I have been a thousand times, but yet I discover a secret I did not know it held. Our secret discovery came in the form of a secret garden.

We went to the Natural History Museum in search of Phoolan, alas she was no longer there. In our hunt for her we wandered onto a side of the Museum that I have never wandered to. It is there that a wildlife garden exists behind an iron gate. Next to the entrance of the gate stood a majestic bronze fountain.

Inside those gates held a wild meadow, a little stream, an impressive bee hive in the hollow of a tree. It was a little oasis in the middle of London. You completely forget where you were, watching the little ducklings following there Mama, with reeds and lilies surrounding you.

From there we walked across the street to I think my most favorite Museum, The V&A. The Grace Kelly Exhibition was sold out for the day, so that will be a Birthday treat yet to come, but we did manage to get into the Quilt Exhibition.

The Quilt Exhibition was amazing. The quality and workmanship in the quilts was awe-inspiring. It was very interesting, to me, to walk through the gallery and see these pieces objectified and paid homage too. It is a fine line we walk with Art. I have two quilts in my possession, both from the 1800's American Mid-West and I use them, they are lovingly looked after, but they are used. I stared at some of the quilts on "bed-frames" or hung on the wall, being revered, dated to around the same period of my own, never to be used again, which is against the reason they were created for in the first place. A little dichotomy that I find intriguing.

There is such a hidden story to tell with quilts: How many hands touched it? Who made it and who was it made for? How long did it take to create, to save the fabric scraps? This was a wonderfully put together show as far as the pices went, there were a few I would have loved to have seen in more detail, but the bed frames they lay upon made it impossible. There are a few quilts I would have gladly liked to have called my own as well, like this one:

The scalloped edges and the detail in her work was so intricately beauitul.  It was enough for me to have just seen seen the exhibition but a few surprises were put into my hands, and one of them was this:

Created by the artist who designed the quilt featured on the exhibition poster. We were able to see the real quilt piece this was made from and I think it is such a cool way to tie everything in. I love when you see thought has gone into something in the exhibition store. That a fabric "poster" was available to tie-in with the fabric in the show.

I was disappointed to not get to see Grace Kelly as well, but in retrospect, I think we were being very ambitious, we were in the Quilt Exhibition for over 3 hours and after that, we needed a visual break, I would have hated to go through Grace Kelly and not have enjoyed it because I wasn't taking in and absorbing everything that I possibly could have.

After the V&A we wandered down to do a little shopping and thus a new pair of Birthday shoes jumped into my hands. For dinner we went to one of my favorite places. It is my own Luke's Diner (if you watch the Gilmore Girls, you will know what I am talking about). It is not as bright and cozy as Luke's, but is is a happening little dive.

After dinner, we strolled to Liberty's and Snog had set up a mini store inside. I walked out with a delicious frozen yoghurt covered in chocolate and fresh summer berries. It was a perfect end to a perfect day.

(Quilt Exhibition Fabric Banner created by: Natasha Kerr, Quilt images copyright the V&A)

New Shoes

"Hey, I put my new shoes on today and suddenly every-things right!"

That is the song that played in my head this morning as I put my new shoes on! My crystal ball was correct, they did jump onto my feet yesterday afternoon after a glorious day wandering around the Quilt exhibition!

I have so much to share, but for now, I am off to bed, the rain outside is lulling me to sleep on this lazy-dazy Sunday evening!

Let the Weekend Begin

We are kicking off the weekend with a bang tomorrow and I can't wait! Next week is my Birthday and we are starting the celebrations this Saturday. In our house Birthday celebrations are not limited to just the actual day, they are an ongoing feast of little surprises. So, tomorrow I am being whisked away to one of my favorite museums, the V&A to see the Grace Kelly:Style Icon exhibition and the Quilt Exhibition.

Then off somewhere fun for lunch and a bit of shopping in the afternoon. I am looking at my crystal ball and I see a trip to Anthropologie in my future! I am gazing harder into my ball now and if I am lucky I see these jumping onto my feet:

My pink pair are sorely in need of a break and I love the bright happy color of these. So, the house has been cleaned this morning and made ready for the weekend, the only thing to do now is sit back and enjoy the ride....Hope all of you have a wonderful happy filled weekend too!

Elephants on Parade

We headed into central London yesterday and to our surprise were met with an elephant dressed as Sherlock Holmes on Baker Street.

He was the first of many that we came across on our walk about town. These elephants were all created by artists and celebrities to support the efforts to conserve the dwindling Asian elephant population which is in dire need of help.

My favorite of the day was this one, "Cholai" in Leicester Square:

When we got home we looked up the Elephant Route Map and read about the project and we plan to go back in to see more, like this one by Jack Vettriano, "The Singing Butler Rides Again":

I want to see the next one especially, outside one of my favorite places, The Natural History Museum. Her name is Phoolan, created by the artist Carrie Reichardt.  She is representative of the beauty of elephants to the eye of an audience, dressed for a parade but the other side of the coin is their destruction by man's abuse of the land and of them. I love her pink and raspberry red skull head-piece and ankle bracelet, very Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-ish.

Click below to watch a video on how Phoolan was put together, a lot of man hours and tile went into this little lady:




To find out more about the elephants on show and to download a map if you want to see them yourself click on the links below:

(All images copyright The London Elephant Parade 2010, except the image of Phoolan close-up, it is a press release photo from the Blog of Carrie Reichardt)

Candy Cakes

Well, Saturday took a different turn than expected. We headed out of our London burb and into the city center. Which meant a trip to Carnaby Street!

One of my favorite streets in all of London and a quick back entrace into Liberty's where I got to see a good portion of the Target range that is being offered Stateside, oh, how tempting it all was!

On our way there we took a short cut/ detour down a side street and went past this building: "Oh, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden (in this case auburn) hair!" When you went up closer and peeked through the window the hair continued inside in this shell of a room, now completely filled with a cobweb of tangled locks. It was pretty interesting to see.

We also went past these cute painted drums, their faces made me smile! And then we headed onto Carnaby Street. I could hear the choir sing in my heart as we headed into Kingly Court, I thought this dress was Spring time pretty, standing in a shop window as advertisement for the vintage store upstairs. But, we  kept right on moving so we could get one of the best cupcakes going, from Candy Cakes.

I got blueberry with a blueberry yoghurt topping it was heaven as always! I had a little rainbow colored marshmallow twist on top of my cake, which of course I shared!


My sweet red head was in the mood for cake and got the most wonderful piece of carrot & walnut cake, I could have just eaten a bowl full of the icing on that cake and have been happy for the rest of the day.

So, an unexpected errand brought me the cupcakes I truly desired and I couldn't have been in more of a state of cupcake bliss than I already was. Hope you had a happy weekend?

(Click here to go to the Candy Cakes site)