Exciting new things

Alan and I went to London on Saturday, to do some serious shopping. Alan had made an itinerary, so that we wouldn't be wasting any time thinking about what to do next. Our first stop was Portobello Market, in Notting Hill, an antiques market in a lovely neighbourhood with dinky brightly painted houses. We spent quite a while here in the Saturday crush, until the stalls of silver cutlery started looking a bit repetitive. Alan picked up a silver coffeepot which turned out to be not silver. There were some cool stalls, like the one selling vintage fabrics, but most things were too expensive for us.

I wanted to show Alan what Whole Foods was like, so we made a stop there. I bought a bar of cinnamon white chocolate and a bag of Dutch paprika crisps, my favourites, yay! I don't understand why salt and vinegar is such a popular flavour here, it's paprika all the way for me! We were flagging a bit by this point, so we decided to have some delicious pizza slices in their rather spiffy café.

Alan was looking for a new coat at a low price, so we went to vintage men's clothing shop Old Hat on Fulham High Street. Despite its being recommended by the Chap magazine, there wasn't anything there to catch his fancy, unfortunately.

Although it was now a bit late in the day for food markets, we went to the wonderful Borough Market, a haven for organic foodies, where we picked up ingredients for a risotto on Sunday. I love the Borough Market, the variety is huge, it just makes me wish that we had something like that closer to home (and also that we had more money).

After a much-needed tea stop, we continued onto more generic shopping on Regent and Oxford Street. We got some VERY expensive hot chocolate at Fortnum and Mason's, and, after a rather unsuccessful day of clothes shopping, I unexpectedly found a lovely woollen jacket at Benetton, a company I've ignored for many years now, perhaps undeservedly!



We were utterly exhausted at the end of the day. But I was not entirely satisfied, because I was in need of new shoes. The very next day, then, I acquired two pairs of black jodhpurs:



Yes, they are pretty similar, but the ones on the left have Goretex in them, and are lined with fleece, which I thought would come in pretty handy once the icy rain starts coming down and I still have to look presentable for work! The other pair were just really too comfortable to leave behind.

Finally, after a year and a half of barrenness, my never-neglected orchid has decided it's time to cheer up our flat. This is exciting:




And there is another bud about to open up!

A busy weekend

Considering that teaching is supposed to be one of the most stressful jobs, I don't think things are going too badly for me. I am enjoying it, I like my pupils, the school and my colleagues, I haven't lost my voice yet, and I don't even have to do all that much preparation. I even managed to have a completely work-free weekend!

On Saturday, I went to London with some friends to see the National Theatre of Scotland's excellent production of the Bacchae, at the Lyric Hammersmith. It was funny and very very upsetting towards the end, well worth the effort! After that, I decided that, since I had come all the way into London, I would explore the new Whole Foods on Kensington High Street, the first to open in the UK. I almost wished I hadn't. I felt like Stendhal on his first visit to Florence: too much, too much! They had an entire wall of chocolate products! The cakes! The vegetables! The different varieties of milk, eggs, tomatoes, an aisle full of olive oil, hundreds of cheeses, a huge variety of fresh food, a restaurant.... It happened to be close to dinner-time, and I just felt weak at the knees. I didn't even buy anything; it was too overwhelming. I left for the long journey home, thoroughly depressed at the thought of the average British supermarket.

On Sunday morning I went to the local organic food market, a nice cycling ride away. It's only a small market, but I enjoy going there, because the atmosphere is so much friendlier than in that above-mentioned average supermarket. A friend of mine suggested going punting, which we did, using the last day of summer-like weather of this year, it seems. At night, we decided to splash out and have dinner at a fantastic Lebanese restaurant.

I also put the finishing touches to the chest of drawers, which is now gracing our bedroom.




Say it with me: Din-ky.....
I'm now wanting to get back to work on my quilt, but I'm also trying to read Atonement, so that I can go and see the film before it leaves the cinemas! I suppose I'd better get back to it, then....

New sofa and shopping spree

My life is just full of new things. There's the new job, of course, which I'm enjoying very much and which is really turning out just as I would have wished it to be, even if the first week stress gave me a nasty headache on Friday. It's a challenge and I'm sure there will be times that I won't be loving it, but so far it all seems very manageable and I'm looking forward to a very good time at this school.


On Friday, our much-anticipated sofabed arrived, and Alan spent the morning putting it together, so that I could take a nap on it when I got home. It's so nice to have a sofa at last; it makes the flat seem so much more comfortable and homely. That's me relaxing on it in the picture at the top of this post, wearing my new, very cheap trousers which I picked up in a little shopping spree on Saturday. Other purchases included the novel Atonement, which I want to read before seeing the new film (but as it's almost 400 pages long, it may take a while!), some smart black trousers and a few bargains. The fair trade shop, one of my favourite haunts, had a sale on. I picked up this skirt for a mere five pounds:


Very nice, isn't it? I was also very taken with this shirt, which I had my eye on back when it was full price:


It'll be good for work, and the material is lovely:



And it's all fair trade, yay! Two lovely items for only ten pounds. I was quite chuffed. On our way home, we swung by a cool second-hand clothing shop, where I encountered this crazy jacket, which Alan persuaded me to buy:


It's pretty cool, I think! It's got a funny beady pocket as well:


Now I need a long purple skirt to go with this, and ideally some of those high-collared Victorian blouses I've spotted in the new People Tree collection, another firm favourite of mine. At least I've got some spiffy clothes to keep me going for a little while.

I'm still working hard on the chest of drawers, which is now almost ready for assemblage. The quilt is gathering dust at the moment, because I need a lot of time for preparation! I will get back to it when life is a bit more organised. Slowly but surely, the flat is coming together.


I just want to point out that the wall-hanging wasn't my idea! I don't mind it, but I wish it was a little less brown (although Alan claims it's orange). Oh well, at least I am in charge of making a tablecloth for our cluttered little coffee table.

A proper schoolmistress now

Today was an important day; I taught my first lessons! I had to wait until the afternoon to do so, which was both good and bad, as it gave me more time to prepare, but also more time to become nervous! However, it all went well, even if I was a little flustered at times and not quite sure where the key to the paper cupboard was, and my pupils were very friendly, well-behaved, intelligent and hardworking. Maybe I'll change my mind at some point, but for now I feel relieved and I'm looking forward to getting into the swing of things!

The drawer fronts have now all been decorated:

I think they're so dinky. I'm going to paint yellow flowers onto the blue knobs as well. I can't wait to start using my customised chest of drawers! We can then reorganise the bedroom, which is looking a bit gloomy at the moment, especially after we purchased a black canvas wardrobe, dubbed 'the coffin'. I did my best to brighten it up with this Indian fabric I bought in a shop in Edinburgh:


It's better, but you can still see the coffin-ness underneath. Ah well, it is very handy.

I've been filling up a spare corner between the kitchen and the living room with this clever little photo-organising system I got from my friend Kathryn. I never really know what to do with postcards: save them or throw them out? Now they have a function:


We need more postcards, obviously, but I think it looks very nice so far. I've also been good (I feel) about organising our accessories:


We had no need for these handy fold-out shelves in our wardrobes, so I put them to good use elsewhere! Good for those things that need to be tidied away, but still visible enough so you don't forget you have them! (In fact, I just realised that that's where I left my blue bag!)


More pictures of our lovely home to follow!

A week of new things

This week has been the start of a new life for me. On Monday, I started work as a teacher for the first time. So far, everything has been going well, although admittedly I haven't had any interaction with any actual students yet! The school is lovely and everyone is extremely friendly and helpful, so I have a good feeling about all this. Let's hope it stays that way after tomorrow, when I teach my very first lessons!

Despite this excitement, I've been keeping busy with my creative projects. The IKEA coloured chest of drawers has now been painted several times, and I've started decorating it. This is what the drawers will look like (the yellow doesn't look that bright because the flash is off):


That's me in the process of decorating it, which has been slightly nerve-racking as I keep accidentally smudging the freshly painted blue decorations! It took me a while to do it, but I'm very pleased with the results so far. Hopefully Alan will be able to put the drawers together this weekend, when we'll also be rejoicing in the arrival of our new sofabed, which is coming on Friday! And maybe we'll go shopping for some teacher-clothes for me; I badly need some nice new clothes!

I also manfully got to work on my inaugural quilt, despite not really possessing the necessary equipment, such as a quilt ruler and fabric cutter, or basic math skills. After I had cut my second layer of fabric, I realised I had made a few major errors in measuring:


I had completely miscalculated the angles somehow, so it turned out a bit wonky and less wide than I intended! Oh well, it was not a total disaster, considering I'm doing everything by hand. I tried to avoid making the same mistake with the next layer, but then I mismeasured that so it's much too narrow! Oh dear; well, I suppose it's only a first effort!


Hmm... I'm not giving up though - I secretly feel I'm not doing too badly here! Well, Alan is retiring to read his new biography of Clarissa Dickson Wright. I'll end with a gratuitous picture of our olive plant (go olive plant, soak up those rays of early autumn sun!).

September projects!

Hello!

Well, I've got my camera back (my friend wasn't allowed to take any pictures in the Bodleian, predictably), so I can now get down to business in the world of blog!

My boyfriend and I recently moved in together, and although it took a while, I'm really loving our new flat now. We're still adding touches to it, but this is what it looked like when we first moved in:



We had an unbelievable amount of stuff, and because the college had been less than helpful in allowing us to move in on time, poor Alan had had to move all his stuff, plus 70% of mine which I had already taken to his room, into two lockers, from which we then had to carry everything back to our flat again. It was a very tiresome process....







We've come a long way! Moving in was such a nightmare, but it really is beginning to feel like home now. We've been ordering lots of things from Argos, among which, that lovely pinewood chest of drawers which I'm currently painting! It's going to be my bedside table, and as our bedroom is a bit dark and grotty-looking (and smells of stale smoke - thanks, previous inhabitants :( ), I wanted it to be really bright and cheerful. So I went to Homebase and spent about an hour in there, comparing different shades of paint and trying out crazy colour schemes; luckily Alan didn't come with me, so I could make this important decision in my own good time! I finally settled on a shade of yellow dubbed 'Tibetan gold' or something similarly poetic, and had a lovely bright shade of blue made up especially for me. Not till I got home did I realise I had opted for the exact colour scheme of a certain Swedish furniture giant:

Hmmm... well, at least it is bright and cheerful! At perhaps it will be less IKEA-like once I've decorated it with Greek pottery motifs.... and then Alan will be able to put it together with the exciting new tool set that arrived this morning:

They certainly are pretty and useful, and we just used the handy six-part screwdriver to put up our shower curtain (the flat came without a shower, silly people). Amazingly enough, although I love our 'Rebecca' set, it was Alan who was really keen to buy it!

The other exciting project is my plan to make my very first ever quilt. I visited Oxford's only fabric shop yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised by its size and stock! I came home with some lovely fabrics and a great deal of enthusiasm; let's hope it won't end in disaster!


Yay, so pretty. But first, after lunch, I'm going to be putting a second coat on my chest of drawers!