Cross Country

The delights of London. Have a cross country race just 30 min. from the city (without the traffic jam). Makes me smile!

Richmond Park

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Things to do at Easter

The Easter Holidays will start for a few schools today already!! And whilst some are slightly worried that they will have to hunt for snow on the continent during their skiing vacation, others are hoping for a warm and sunny Easter here in London.

Spring definitely has arrived for my husband with the annual boat race between Oxford and Cambridge, this year on the 7th April 2012. Blink and you miss them, but the atmosphere along the Thames is cheerful and you can check out this page for good viewing points and pubs, of course.

For a nice egg hunt try Kew Garden and their Mayan Adventure  or our favourite haunt for a hunt, Ham House.

But I take cookie dough, ready and handy from the freezer over a chocolate egg any day, I'm afraid. Be inspired by this recipe with a twist from Canelle and Vanille (it's a gluten free recipe).

And if you insist that not everybody can live on chocolate alone, try out Nigel Slater's Easter recipes (he is our favourite chef!) for your Easter lunch (+ pudding).

And make your own Easter Eggs, like these maybe

found here

Have a lovely weekend! 

London Street Art

I keep discovering some really interesting London Apps recently. After Dickens and Hackney I came across this new Street Art App which helps you find some amazing art out there and gives you an insight about the people behind it all.

I am very impressed by ROA

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or Swoon

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and there is so much more ...

Something for the kids

draw a stickman

check it out here

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Easter Ideas

Check out Sweet Paul's very inciting looking Spring recipes (love the styling, too) in his new Spring Magazine.

Put a few of those on the wall

found here via

Go Egg Hunting in London: 209 eggs are hidden across London 

found here

Sanctuary

Sanctuary - this book, as the title suggests, is about places, most of us won't be able to visit - the studios of 120 British Artists.
Looking at the photos of the different studios is a bit like watching a conductor rehears with his orchestra: approach and technique of an artist in his surroundings might just give you a rare glimpse into their artistic process. Inspiring!

found here via

Hackney Hear

Hackney Hear is an i phone App which - through GPS -  plays location specific stories, music and poetry. So, you still have to get out there and explore, but whilst you potter around East London's Hackney, the app will help you to uncover and discover. Nice idea!
Check it out here and here

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Healthy Spring

Nice idea for improving on your spring salad and a bland window sill

found here

Couldn't resist

found here

It's a date

Last week I was raving (in a very reserved, German kind of way) about the Soprano Anna Prohaska. If you like a chance to see and hear her soon, she will be performing again at the Wigmore Hall with the Academy of Ancient Music on the 26. April 2012

Portrait of  C.F. Abel, posing with his Viola da Gamba, 

by T. Gainsborough

found here

The Lost Lectures

found here

After secret supper clubs and secret cinemas I recently stumbled across the Lost Lectures "Enchanting Talks from Secret Locations". The idea is to get the lecture out of stuffy establishments and onto new sites in front of new audiences. 6 speakers per evening, from the world of science, art, music, design, business etc have 12 minutes to present an idea, a story, experiment or experience - for those who can find them!

The next lecture will be on Wedneday 21st March 2012. Check it out here.

Kyoto Garden - Holland Park

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Recently, at the Wigmore Hall

Des Fischer's Liebesglueck

Franz Schubert

Heard Soprano Anna Prohaska at the Wigmore Hall recently. Although indisposed, she gave a beautiful debut recital with a very ambitious and superbly devised programme called 'Sirenes', songs of fairy tales and seduction, by Debussy, Faure, Schumann, Schubert, Dowland and others.
Listen to the music (but do ignore the video)

Visual Note - Modern Still Life

by Michael Graydon

found here

Makes me want to pick up a brush

    

by Michael Graydon

found here

Link with Love

Recently, the discussion about copyright on the web has intensified dramatically. Sites like Pinterest have divided the community. I myself have tried very hard to link properly, find the original source or get permission from the author or artist. Since starting this blog I have learned more and more how to do it and got better at it.
I do feel however, that stopping 'linking' altogether will seriously diminish the very creative and hospitable world of blogging in particular. I am very much in awe and love the generous spirit of the creative blogging world where I do spend some time. We share, contribute and recognise each others talent very much - and I hope that this will continue!

Link with Love puts it as follows:

 

found here

The Good Gym

Just came across a very nice idea via the Guardian website. The Good Gym, an initiative from East London, enables people to combine exercises with community work.

The idea of the Good Gym is to use the energy people spend in a Gym or jogging and channel it towards helping their communities, contributing to improve quality of life for older and lonely people.

found here

The Good Gym pairs runners with isolated older people nearby. You will jog to their home, deliver a paper,  something nice like a fruit and a chat and run back. You will have a very good reason apart from wanting to get or stay fit to leave the house and your 'partner' will look forward to some friendly human contact. 

A great idea and something the organisers hope to introduce to other parts of London, the country (and the world).

A spot of gardening

If you could see our back garden you would not believe that I am even considering this title for a post. However, although we have covered all our space with an enormous trampoline, living in England you cannot really avoid catching the gardening bug on some level.

found here 
via

Apart from all the fantastic London Parks you can get inspiration at the Chelsea Physics Garden. They are at the moment creating a new part, the Garden of Edible and Useful Plants, which will open on 23 May 2012.

And since this is a big jungle of a city, you could even join the garden guerrillas at night, or - and this is something for the coming weekend - go all tropical at Kew Garden (till 4.3.12)

But if you want to take it one step further, check out the Garden Museum on the South Bank. I recently stumbled across it and need to check it out as soon as it gets a bit warmer. In the meantime I will stick to the warm Green House at Kew.

Have a lovely Weekend!

A different kind of Bookshop

Here is a different kind of independent bookshop - housed in a glasshouse, the Wapping Project Bookshop specialises in art, photography and new fiction. On Thursday evenings the tiny place hosts poetry readings, book presentations etc. It is part of the Wapping Project (check it out here), which apart from art exhibitions etc also has a nice restaurant, so you can make it a real outing should you live quite far away.

found here

If Wapping is too far out of your way however they have relocated from today to fashion shop COS on Regent Street for 2 weeks. Less charming, though, but probably warmer to take your time and browse a bit.

Be safe

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I am all for gadgets that will help us to be more safe on London roads. Find this bag here, but don't just yet leave the helmet at home, please!

It's Friday

Ceramic Art London starts today till Sunday at the Royal College of Art. On show and for sale is contemporary ceramic from national and international potters. 

Ashraf Hanna

found here

Valeria Nascimento

found here

Sasha Wardell

found here

And keeping with the subject, Edmund De Waal, a leading British ceramics artist has recently wrote a fascinating book about his family, following 264 Japanese netsuke (small wood and ivory carvings of people, animals and plants) which are owned by his ancestors, through time and countries. The Hare with the Amber Eyes is a memoir, a biography in a way, a travel and history book about a Jewish family in exile and a thing book, as the Guardian puts it. De Waal brings to life the things around us. One can nearly feel and seem to touch the objects he describes - the art of pottery, put in writing! 

After a few more and more elaborate editions of this book including a luxurious illustrated version there now also exists an 'enhanced digital edition' (on ibook). Does it add a new layer? I am not sure since the original was not meant as an ebook to start with. I think digital storytelling might be considered a new literary genre altogether, simple adaptations might add a few more interactive layers, but not all books can or should profit from such enhancement. Reading De Waal's comment about the illustrated edition

It feels, I hope, like a book that you want to pick up, an object to be held. I hope there is an intimacy about it, a lack of grand-standing. 

I do have difficulties warming to the slick and glossy iPad edition. 

Crumpled

Last year I found these fantastic city maps, and today I stumbled over the superb kid's version on Chocoralie's blog. An absolute essential in my eyes for a successful city tour with kids. You might even be able to leave your GPS mobile in your pocket and let the kids be the guides. Get ready for London, Paris, New York, Berlin and Amsterdam!

found here

I need a drink!

It's only 10.00 and I am thinking of a drink already - that can't be right. Well, actually, I am thinking of an amazing elaborate cocktail concoction, something like this maybe

found here

or this

found here

I don't know about you, but this m&c (milk and cookie) cocktail  however

found here via

seems to be as far as we can stretch these days .... Valuable babysitter time is mostly spend going out for dinner or see a play, hardly frivolous. 

Being therefore quite out of touch when it comes to the London Cocktail Scene, I thought Peter Berthoud's idea of an evening tour of four of London's most distinctive, distinguished and stylish cocktail bars quite the ticket. He will be running his first one tonight and I will try to join when he hopefully repeats this experiment (maybe with a slightly later start?)

View

Have not quite arrived in London yet - this view we enjoyed from the cottage really makes you start daydreaming about your own little space in the country ...

hans chu 

... and the freedom the kids would have ... till you think it through and realise that we would spent most of our time in the car getting from A to B ... oh, and Internet its really slow or not available at all, mobile connection not everywhere ... we will find more sticky points if we think long and hard, and probably stay put ?!

Dinner is sorted

Having visited Farmer's Markets and cooked an awful lot last week in the state -of-the-art kitchen at the little cottage we rented in West Sussex, I feel like not cooking for a while but still keep the spirit of the holidays going. So how about this

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Just have to convince the kids .....

Happy Valentine

katya chu

Half term

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It's Friday

and Half Term Holidays are upon us. We will be wrapping up warm and planning to go for long walks in the countryside - probably always in search of the roaring fire in a nice pub! If you are staying in the capital  here you will find a list of Pubs and Bars with real fire to keep warm!

 

found here

If all else fails

or the fridge is nearly empty, and it is just too cold outside, or we need something really fast, right now, than it has to be Cheese on Toast

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Venice in London

There is quite a haunting exhibition on at the Hamiltons Gallery (till 25. 2. 2012) in London. 'Venice in Solitude' by Christopher Thomas shows the city devoid of people - beautifully shot in black and white, the photographs remind one of another area, another time.

I do think a city does take on a totally different kind of persona once the people have gone and is more than just a collection of buildings.
One can contemplate whether any city is there for its people, representation, inspiration or better be left alone but this could take us quickly enough into the realm of modern architecture and city planning and away from the magic of Venice.

If you cannot make it to the exhibition, Prestel Publishers is releasing the accompanying book with 75 photos and text by the German poet Albert Ostermaier.

found here

Accession Day - the Queen's Diamond Jubilee

Today marks 60 years since Elisabeth II ascended the throne. The main celebrations will happen in June but do listen out today for - 41 Royal Gun Salutes in Hyde Park at noon and 62 at the Tower of London at 13.00.

by Lucien Freud

found here

A major exhibition of Lucien Freud's work focusing on his portraits will open at the National Portrait Gallery this coming Thursday (till 27. May 2012)