Far too excited

D- 3 days before two weeks off for Christmas and NY, and Kate and Dave buy their snowboarding gear.


... get so excited they try it all on at once...

... and wear their snowboots as slippers all evening.

Christmassy finds

After an evening of mulled wine and present-wrapping, a few Etsy Christmas finds... starting off with something of our own. Perfect for party dresses, Miss Lemon's dress clips:


Another party piece is the beautiful Audrey necklace by luxedeluxe, one of our favourites, who happily, is having a pre-Christmas sale. Lean prices for lean times, this is just $28.

Wrap up warm for your Christmas party in this vintage Princess coat. With the Audrey necklace, red and black have never looked better.

In the last-minute gifts department, newcomer Masquerades and Silhouettes by Joe Thomson has a range of retro canvases, featuring the urban and stylish Nightbus, great for a city loft:


Or jump on the owl trend with a vintage bowl, from Vintageworks. We love his cheeky wink:


Finally, treat someone to a cosy cuddle with a sock monkey from William & Hector, in luxe grey angora.

Cold outside...

When the Eiffel Tower has its head in the clouds and the trees are dripping fog, the only thing for it is a Christmas market. Followed by an afternoon on the Maxim's boat the next day, tasting wine and foie gras for Christmas. Sus à la récession!

Potentially of little interest...

...to anyone but Helen and other advent calendar design enthusiasts, but I am thrilled to have an Hotel Chocolat advent calendar in my house. In its own special sleeve like a precious book.

It is nicely designed and very grown-up, if a little on the traditional side regarding colour choices... silver, red and grey perhaps somewhat overdone this time of year, what about a lovely icy blue to match my ironing board cover?

Tastefully swirly Christmas tree on a glossy black flock print, masking chocolately delights. And very delicious indeed they are too (see below), none of your cheap pretend chocolate in sight.

Yes, number 24 has already been enjoyed, but we won't be here past the 19th, so why ever not?!

Jeff Koons Versailles

Jeff Koons Versailles will be on until January 4th. Go if you are here, it is magnificent.

Balloon Flower (Yellow) is the first piece on the art walk, which leads you past the royal chapel, through the royal appartments, down to the Orangerie. One of the world's highest-valued pieces of contemporary art.


Balloon Dog (Magenta) with my sister, coordinating nicely.

The Lobster, suspended next to a chandelier in the Salon de Mars.


The provocatively-curated exhibition saw Koons choose the setting for each piece. His Self Portrait was shown in the Sun King's throne room.


The kitsch Bouquet blended into the opulence of Marie-Antionette's bedroom, opposite the secret door from which she fled the braying hordes shortly before her death.

The Moon echoed the Hall of Mirrors, with age-old grafitti.

The Split Rocker in the Orangerie.

The exhibition caused controversy when it opened in September, with French establishment opinion divided between outrage at the perceived sullying of Versailles and the memory of the French monarchy with the work of a vulgar 21st-century pop artist, known for his self-portraits with his porn-star wife; and the desire to breath fresh artistic life into the home of Louis 14th, known for his own excesses and patronage of the arts. In the end, newness and life triumphed over history and the dead, and in a daring move which trounced letters to the president and demonstrations at the gates of Versailles, the show went on and history remained intact.

The smoothly-designed website gives a great impression with its mix and match sculptures and backgrounds, but the boldness of the art in the splendour of the surroundings are a must-see.

Go!

Phew.

Well done America for being brave and making a change.

Little victories

After weeks of horrible this:


plenty of this sort of thing:


and this:



Home is now living up a little more to its name. Today's little victory was pictures on the bedroom wall (notice the skirting boards still stacked against the wall!).


And we now have a cosy little corner to work. Still plenty to do, but a little less hell-for-leather now.


Objects of desire for the lounge include this fifties tripod lamp, from Habitat. We almost bought an original early 70s curved bowl lamp on a marble base, from a Dutch dealer at the Puces de Design, but the proportions were a little too big for the room. Unfortunately we also missed out on the reclaimed picnic design sets for 1E, too.

As the economies of the world tumble down around our ears...

Let's be glad we're not traders.

After two weeks with a chest infection, a whole week off to do nothing but please myself next week, and the intention to list some new vintage bits for pink milk, as we are both now reasonably settled in our new homes...

Queen Vivienne on what fashion means to the credit crunch

Re-use in style with tablecoths and curtains, ladies! Brit Queen of Fashion Vivienne Westwood endorses extreme style measure, in these mean times.

A Sunday like we used to have

What feels like months of painfully hard work are becoming manageable, if not coming to an end. We moved mid-August, into a flat with no floor in the main room, full to the newly smooth ceiling with boxes and furniture and little by little are touching up, arranging and unpacking. On Sunday we had our first lazy day in three months, wandering round the quartier from café, to bar, to steps of the Sacré Coeur. Edging back to normality, happy faces!

Sarah is also in DIY heaven at the moment, the last I head they were priming walls and sawing bit off kitchen units. pink milk will be a little more lively soon, once I have located the pink milk box and created some sort of area. I found a vintage scarf I'd sold to a girl in the States on Portobello Market when stranded in London because of the Eurostar fire, the other week. I also bought an ealry 70s hairclip still in its packaging whch will be photographed and listed soon.

Stop, start, stop...

We've been working really hard this week - especially D - and treated ourselves to a nice lunch in a sunny garden mid-week featuring the café gourmand above, yum yum.


Unfortunately, the electrician hasn't been doing the same and at the half-way point of his job, we still have huge slashes in the walls, all ready for electrical cables, yet no actual wiring.


We've started to paint where he won't need to touch and the kitchen is already transformed form the yellowing, poky space it was before. Units won't be staying like that by the way, but not really a priority when we still have no floors and minimal walls painted so close to our move date... which we're having to extend by a week, but the electrician doesn't need to know that, does he?

The quest for a level floor

Think my cold is coming to an end and I may venture to the appartment today. D doing a great job single-handedly removing all wallpaper to reveal old, weak plaster unfortuantely so we will need to put up lining paper before painting. Today's task is to scrape off the glue from the carpet and have another go at re-levelling the floor with levelling agent and the help of our expert friend. If not, we have professionals on stand-by to lay a skin across half of the floor on which the flooring people can lay our floor.

I like the levelling compound, close-up it looks like lava.

Ps: Look! Two doors! In the same room!

The wall comes down...

We had the keys on Friday and our friends helped us to knock down the wall on Saturday, for which I love them all dearly as it was highly nerve-wracking!




More dust than I have ever seen...

Four days in Paris

Sarah and the Iron Lady.

Ostensibly here to watch Lenny 'the gorgeous' Kravitz play the Zenith on Wednesday night (Sarah, see pics for 07/02 and weep) pink milk Sarah and her husband Jools spent four happy (and two rather damp) days pottering around Paris while we were at work.

Lunch in the Marais, note the Hello Berlin necklace.

I joined them on Friday for lunch in the Marais and a quicker-than-expected whiz round the Richard Avedon expo at the Jeu de Paume, a solid retrospective of his portraiture and in particular, work produced in the early eighties on the American West, then a walk through the Tuileries. I enjoyed it so much I think I shall go again and think you should too if you are in Paris this summer.


Evening activities included drinks in the Fourmis, poker and plenty of good food and wine.


A short Saturday - due to over-indulgence the night before, as I celebrated my winning poker hand above - was spent pottering around Abbesses having coffee and doing some uncharacteristically restrained shopping with a poke around La Cave à fripes for vintage and Bel Air for new.

Thank you Sarah for my littleanorkagirl birthday necklace!

We topped the week off with dinner at Hôtel du Nord on the Canal St Martin, my favourite Parisian dining establishment, with an apéro ou digestif (pourquoi pas les deux?) at Chez Prune over the humpbacked bridge on the other side of the water.

As always, we had a delightful meal, to round off a delightful few days. And after three short hours of sleep, they left for the aiport early the next morning.

Thank you for coming, let's not leave it so long next time!