Septimana Horribilis

Photos: V&A courtyard; Netherlandish Painted Glass 1500-1530AD; St. Matthias, Fairford Church 1500-1515AD; Necklace, Wally Gilbert; Element from a necklace, Max Frohlich; Coral tiara, Phillips Brothers

Hello, dear readers. Sorry that there was no post last week, I kept meaning to write one but the week got away from me. It was a pretty dreadful week anyway; I’ve called it septimana horribilis in cod latin. Inflicting my sorrows on your good graces would have been awful. It started with a bereavement – a very dear friend passed away, and even worse, I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye and thank you. She was one of the kindest people I’ve ever had the privilege to know and if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know how highly I prize that particular virtue, rare as it is. She and her husband really helped me out during one of my years-from-hell and I can’t tell you how much I appreciated it. So, here’s to you Maggie May, hope you’re living it up in heaven, hanging with the angels and doing some serious designing. She made the best handmade greeting cards.

Quite frankly, compared to that, the other problems of the week paled into insignificance but it was all topped by my card getting cloned and used on Friday. Read more

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Rus In Urbe

My staycation in London was excellent, apart from finding that pretty much everyone I know is moving to one part of Somerset or the other. What’s that about? It’s completely bizarre. OK, not quite everyone but more than you’d expect. The West Country is ridiculously beautiful; I was lucky enough to drive from there to London via the A303, passing through Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire etc. Seriously, even on an overcast day, it was one gorgeous vista after another. Fields of poppies, fields of lavender, rolling hillocks, cows, sheep, it was absurdly picturesque. We also had the obligatory hold-up at Stonehenge when all the cars slow right down and we gawp at the site. If you are not in a hurry, nix the M4/M5 corridor and go M3/A303. You can thank me later. I had one of my fey turns as I was approaching Stonehenge; I must have been crossing a leyline or summat. Or maybe I ate a dodgy prawn, for the more prosaic among you 🙂 Read more

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Holiday 😃 😃 😃

Zhongshuge bookshop, Guiyang, China. Be still my beating heart. I’ll just put a little camp bed in one aisle and I’m all set. What a beautiful space; Li Xiang, architectural genius, I salute you.

Le Mistral gift shop, Tokyo. If I could have my own store……….

Hello, pop pickers. Now, there’s a retro greeting for y’all. Sorry I haven’t posted in a while – it has been an absolutely mental couple of weeks but things have finally settled down. I’m a woman of leisure at the moment, apart from finishing the blasted photo images for this site. Tablets, perfect. Smartphones, perfect. Laptops, not so much. I had to stop because I lost the will to live. If any of you are expert at getting Woocommerce product images to stop being blurry, for the love of God, please get in touch. I have the week off and I was considering going away but 1) I’m too cheap to pay the £400 for a couple of days and 2) I can’t face the airport hullaballo. I don’t know why the eco-warriors bother with demos; just get the government (whoever they may be this week…) to make travelling even more unpleasant and we’ll all stay at home. I’ll mostly be staycationing in London. I may even get on one of those tourist buses and pretend I’m a tourist. Read more

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