Thursday, 24 March 2016

Spreading colour and sharing love

Holi is a spring festival in Nepal and India, also known as the festival of colours or the festival of sharing love. This year it's being celebrated today, but the date changes from year to year.

It looks like great fun!

















Tuesday, 22 March 2016

Dining in style

Unusual pairs of plates designed by London-based artist Yvonne Ellen:









Monday, 21 March 2016

Body, canvas, screen?

Dani Oliver creates his effects at the time of the shoots, by projecting complex images and intricate patterns on his models. The results are very impressive!







Saturday, 19 March 2016

Serendipity

Serendipity is among the 100 favourite words in the English language, and mine too!

The word was invented by the writer and politician Horace Walpole in 1754 as an allusion to Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka. Walpole was a prolific letter writer, and he explained to one of his main correspondents that he had based the word on the title of a fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip, the heroes of which ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of ’.




While looking for photos to illustrate the post, I found out that Walpole lived in Twickenham, our old stomping grounds for over twenty years back in the UK. I had not made the connection between Strawberry Hill House and Walpole until then. That's serendipity!

Here's a map showing Walpole's house, followed by photos of his and our houses (circled, then 1, 2 and 3).




Our first house wasn't painted white, it was natural brick colour:

 

This was a very nice, big house. We planted the magnolia, which is truly spectacular in the spring:



Finally, we moved to this smaller house, then to la belle France! We planted the mock orange, seen here in all its white splendour.




Friday, 18 March 2016

A colourful birthday party for a bird lover

Happy birthday, View. I know you love all creatures, but birds make for a very pretty post! All the best to you and your friends, furry or feathered. Let's start with the inevitable pun, shall we?















Patrick from Politicalgates is also celebrating his birthday and I'm remembering my dad, who would have been 93 today...