Window Candy

One of the things I like most about Paris is the window shopping, especially in old, quircky shops. This time, we explored the old shopping arcades around Palais Royal. I had avoided them before, thinking they would be touristy or glitzy, but they were beautiful and chicly shabby. Palais Royal is an arcaded square around a lovely garden, it abounds with unusual designer shops, vintage designer and things like pipe shops, glove shops and antiques places. Galerie Vivienne and Galerie Vero Dodat were both built in the 1820s and house more posh yet elegant shops. The pleasingly taxidermy like 'Puck Boot' was in Christian Louboutin in Galerie Vero Dodat. The shoes were works of art (and priced accordingly) and displayed accordingly too, under a Victorian glass dome.

Arrrrrrrrrrrr!

A slight cheat here, as this is an old pic I found the other day. It's a pirate from the 7th Sea roleplaying game of many years ago. I love all things piratical from films (Pirates of the Caribbean, The Crimson Pirate, The Pirate (a musical, bizzarely)) to pirate style New Romantic fashion. I've also just finished re-reading Treasure Island, which to my surprise was still really exciting. I'd love any more recommendations of books or films of a swashbuckling nature....

Secret Salad

I wandered the gardens of Leith Hall the other day (do visit, they are gorgeous) looking for gardeners. I found them in the walled veg garden where they offered me Green Windsor broad beans (wonderfully Edwardian name) and lettuces straight from the ground. One was Lollo Rosso, which you often see in supermarkets, but I don't know what this tasty one was. It's about a foot long with crunchy stems. Today an appeal to lettuce experts....

In the Evening

I need some expert bag enthusaist help here..... This is a wonderfully elegant evening bag I found in a charity shop on Rosemount Place Aberdeen. (A lovely area full of quirky shops which I was exploring with two friends today. And you hardly ever find good vintage in charity shops any more. This bag was obviously a refugee from a vintage shop, bearing a tag 'Vintage £30'. But not for £30, but £6 so I snapped it up. Anyway, I think it might be 1930s, but I'm not sure. It is lined in silver watered fabric and has a small mirror in a pocket. Please help me out, bag experts!

Magnetic Personality

I like interesting fridge magnets. Featured here (spot them) Napoleon at the Ashmolean, Miffi, a 50s bad girl, a lady of the Court of Versailles, The World's Largest Woman and Shakespeare. Also The Solar System (possibly in the wrong order?) An L Plate from our HenStag Do, In Praise of Gin and Tonic and Archives from the British Library.

Doors Open Day

This is a rather gloomily Dickensian pend or alley just off Peacock Close in Aberdeen. I like the word pend also. Our whole day was rather Gothic actually, with a visit to St Nicholas Church, half of which is a huge pit of Piranesian ladders and trenches inside the church, from which came over 600 skeletons dating back over 900 years. The church also offers a scary ascent into a crumbling tower where a lady sat playing the bells from a Quasimodo-esque wooden instrument and a maze of box pews, amidst which I found a pair of abandoned shoes. Creepy. To lift the mood (!) we went on to the Masonic Temple which featured a Hammer horror style circular occult dungeon with altar and an amazing hall floor patterned with signs of the zodiac. The morning was a little jollier with visits to some lovely churches staffed by nutty elderly ladies armed with tea and biscuits and a printing demonstration at Peacock Visual Arts. Which is just off this doomful courtyard.

Bread for Autumn

I love autumn. I like hearty food, woolly jumpers, cosy boots and colourful leaves. The baking urge came over me today and luckily coincided with a lot of things near their sell-bys needing to be used up. Hence the sun dried tomato and thyme fougasse from Baking Made Easy (a lovely baking book, recommended). Just for interest dead items from the fridge I also sorted included stones in olives, mint sauce and pickled walnuts (?) What CAN you do with pickled walnuts???