Happy days are here again

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It’s that time of year again, when all sensible people are overloading on carbs and wearing fashion-defying beanie hats, and the design world is gearing up for the celebration of frivolity and sheer ludicrousness that is the design season. It started this week with Maison & Objet  in Paris and will continue until Salone di Mobile in Milan in the spring. There will be a brief pause before the madness of the fashion weeks and interior design weeks from summer to autumn.

Obviously you all base your yearly calendars around these events, and life would have no meaning if they were cancelled. Yes, you’re right; I only sneer as a defence mechanism. I love all the shiny new stuff that arrives with the shows. As entrepreneurs from the CEO of IKEA to Orla Kiely have been busily telling us off for buying new stuff, apparently on some suicide mission to destroy their businesses (Ratners, anyone?), could we at AlaraApothecary please strongly reiterate that we wish you to buy as much of our products as you can afford without having to file for bankruptcy. Until 7 billion people have worked out a way to barter hemp bags for eggs etc, we are going to stick with the system we have if that’s OK.

So, gorgeous shiny new things for you to stare at before you go and do something useful like re-grouting the bathroom. In case you didn’t know, the final picture shows the Pantone colours which have been chosen for 2016. They rejoice under the names of Rose Quartz and Serenity. I love the design world, I really do. And the Bugatti Type 51 Dubos Coupé? That’s just eye candy that I couldn’t resist because, oh my, what a beautiful car. I could almost believe that if I had that car, I would be a better person….almost. I wouldn’t actually drive it, you understand. I would just stroke it and sing to it and occasionally sleep in it. Idolatry, you say? Pah! I knew there was something wrong with that scenario 🙂 Have a lovely week.

(Pin and lace sculpture by Aurelie Wozniak; Glassware by Sophie Villepigue)

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January Oranges

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According to ‘experts’, i.e some pseudo-psychologist who has made it all up, unbacked by any scientific data or research whatsoever, the second week in January is the most depressing week of the year. We at AlaraApothecary say ‘Yah boo sucks!’ to the second week in January. As far as we are concerned, it’s the second week in January and the British mind turns to summer holidays; hence the lovely images in today’s post.We laugh in the face of sub-zero temperatures and gale force winds, muttering the well-rehearsed names under our breath’ Maldives, Mauritius, Tanzania, Nairobi, Miami, Lagos, Galle……’

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I know that you lovely people out there will not forget those who cannot afford summer holidays and are really just hoping their next meal will come along. The ineptitude and downright wickedness which has resulted in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq is staggering. Never mind the second week in January, every week is a nightmare in some places. We are not depressed because we are warm and well-fed and comfortably housed. I am firm in my belief that everyone who reads this will try to help in whatever little way they can, because that’s how we roll at AlaraApothecary, and God bless you all for it. Rather than the January Blues, I wish you the January Oranges because as any fule kno, orange is the colour of joy. Pip pip.

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Happy New Year

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Well, 2015 was a humdinger of a year, wasn’t it? You know how at the end of a year your main thought is, ‘Thank God I don’t have to live through that again…..’ The year was an eye-opener to so many things I would never have believed to be possible, but then again, a lot of really excellent stuff like AlaraApothecary happened so I’m really grateful for them. Swings and roundabouts. It is much better so see things as they really are, no matter how disconcerting the picture is. 2015- year of emancipation. 2016- year of pure awesomeness. Courage is not the absence of fear; it’s feeling the fear but doing what needs to be done anyway.

In the spirit of celebration, I’m showing pictures of some of the lovely things that reinforced why I think a creative career is so worth pursuing. Just seeing this stuff cheers me up; knowing there are minds out there thinking up this gorgeousness. Not as useful as a cure for cancer or malaria I know, but then few things are. Hope they make your day a bit brighter too. So that this isn’t entirely given over to frivolity, I leave you with words of wisdom from the late, great, Nelson Mandela:

‘Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies‘

‘It always seems impossible until it’s done’

Wishing you all a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

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Eye Candy

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Looking around over the past few days, I’ve noticed that the Post-Christmas hiatus has set in. It’s that weird period between Christmas and the New Year when most people have a lot of time on their hands. We look back on the past year and re-appraise everything we’ve done – usually, with non-hilarious consequences.

AlaraApothecary to the rescue….. Firstly, don’t take it to heart. While there is life, there is hope; we will all do better next year by God’s grace. Secondly, the whole changing of one year to another is not significant in itself. Any changes we wish to make can be made today. Besides as I was saying to my nephew the other day, time itself is an artificial construct (cue long, heated argument 🙂 )  2 3

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In a bid to brighten your day, we are posting lots of images of beautiful, frivolous and amazing things which make us wonder and smile. Hope you enjoy looking at them as much as we enjoyed selecting them. Have a good one.

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Search for Enlightenment by Simon Gudgeon. Bronze, limited edition of 5. 2.2 metres high

( Photos: Ond table, Alberto Pinto; Mattia Bonetti table; Phillipe Malouin for Roll & Hill chandelier; Nigerian Parables chair by Yinka Ilori; Margo Selby fabrics; Tojukin Yoshioka Flower chair; Rupert Till sculpture; Home-made Insalata Caprese con Bresaola; Tortoise bowl – Ted Muehling for Steuben; Herve van der Straeten chandelier; beauteous Chrysler building; Roseline Assouline dress; Kumulus chandelier by Peter Nilsson; Coral shell; Darcy Miro bracelets; Peruvian costume; Mosaic wall by Sicis; Installation by Orly Genger; Abalone shell; Search for Enlightenment by Simon Gudgeon)

 

 

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The perils of knowledge

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Having spent most of the week struggling with using my old-skool Photoshop Elements software to insert bleed guidelines and crop marks in artwork for the printers, Sunday came as a much-welcomed day of rest. I was taking part in my first carol service since I was 8 years old. (I played a stroppy proto-feminist version of Mary who couldn’t see why Joseph had to be waited on hand and foot. He wasn’t heavily pregnant and having to ride a wretched donkey, so why couldn’t he do some housework? Plus ça change – but I can still recite the Magnificat. Still, my poor mother 🙂

This time, I was given one of the readings. Easy-peasy, Japaneasy. Apart from the fact that I suddenly became a nervous wreck which is amazing considering how lippy I am ordinarily. No problemo, I’ll just practise it over and over again. My first mistake– I usually read the King James’ version of the Bible. A couple of days later, I remembered we use the NIV at church. After a lifetime of hearing the same words in different versions, I knew the text enough to jumble all the versions up, resulting in an epic fail. Panic, panic. I must have read the NIV verses a hundred times in the last few days which unfortunately made my insane brain connect it to another work. Every time I started to read ‘In those days, Caesar Augustus decreed that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world‘, a crazy voice at the back of my mind echoed ‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure dome decree‘. I was terrified that I would step in the pulpit and those words would come out of my mouth. Admittedly- excellent poem by opium-addled maniac poet vs revelation of the birth of the Messiah. Mixing them up, absolute nightmare.

Come Sunday, it was pretty much under control. Turned up at church to be met by one of the organisers, Lydia. ‘Glad to have caught you before the service. Just a couple of things, remember to pull the microphone down to mouth level’. Okey-dokey. ‘And project your voice’. Whaaat??? Project? What’s the microphone for? KLC design school, yes. RADA, no!!! ‘Don’t worry’ she said, ‘The microphone is on maximum anyway. It’s easier for us to turn your voice down than to turn it up’ (!!!!!) This did not help as I now had a vision of speaking thus, ‘ IN THOSE DAYS, CAESAR AUGUSTUS issued a decree…’ It would certainly wake the congregation up, but wasn’t really what I was going for. Full-on panic. Then Jill the church administrator told me we’d run out of room (lol) due to the size of the crowd,  and extra seats had to be put in. So, all of West London would witness my disaster. Quelle horreur. It was hilarious, not; my heart was pounding like a drum and I kept repeating ‘It’s for the glory of God, It’s for the glory of God’ to myself.

Of course, my tiny little part of the proceedings was hardly noticeable, and the participants as a whole played an absolute blinder. I managed to refrain from swearing, falling over the lectern or deputising as a booming voice from heaven. The service was wonderful, and the choir and solo singers were amazing. A couple of glasses of mulled wine post-service, and I didn’t care about Caesar Augustus or Kublai Khan. Thanks a lot for your blasted ear-worm of a poem, Samuel.T.Coleridge. So, make sure you attend at least one carol service this Christmas and have mercy on participants if they fluff their lines. It’s all to the glory of God. I leave you with some of my favourite paintings and if I don’t post again before Christmas, I wish you all a very merry and happy Christmas.

(Paintings: Holman Hunt’s Light of the World; Leonardo Da Vinci’s Virgin & Child with St Anne & John the Baptist cartoon; Sassoferrato’s Madonna)

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