Sun Glorious Sun.... a day in Rochester

Just a few pictures from glorious town of Rochester in Kent.  An ice cream or two definitely helped to cool down in this heat :-)

Albury village summer fete

It was a gorgeous Saturday morning and the fun starts soon afternoon lunch where I met up with the family at Albury Village Fete, just a few miles from Guildford.

We had so much fun there - we arrived as the Morris dancers were showing off their dancing skills follow by brass band playing their wonderful instruments.

lots of activities for kids - Punch and Judy, produced competitions, bouncy castle, candy floss

BBQ and beer tent for the boys and not to mention shopping and cake stalls for the girls!!!!

sun... sandals... skirt.. and swans

Earlier this week all I heard from the weather forecast people was:

"There will be more rain until the end of the week.  The weekend should be dry with lots of sunshine."

All I said to my friends and family was "I'll believe when I see it".  And today I did!  It brought huge grin on my face this morning when I was deciding on what to wear.

I was so glad to get my sandals and summer skirt out.  The sun is finally here and I'm just hoping it'll stay with us for a lot longer.

I did my summer nails last night - both my hands and my toes.  I'm going to a wedding tomorrow so I thought I'd be prepared.  This came in pretty handy wearing my sparkly gold sandals with my polka dot skirt.  I felt so summery.

Then I decided to get a loaf of bread and went for a walk in a park by a canal.  Guess what I saw?  Swan family.  I haven't seen them since the babies were born, I'm sure there were 4 babies then.  Now there's only 2.  But they just kept eating my bread.  They are super cute!



The Ingredients of Love

I saw this on the back of cookies mix - I think it needs to be shared.

Ingredients
4 cups of understanding
1/2 cup of forgiveness
1/4 cup of care
1 heap of sweet talks
2 armful of hugs
2 teaspoons of kisses
Lots of Love

Cooking method
Gently stir the above ingredients together then bake until pink with nice aroma.  Eat instantly.  Don't forget to serve in a beautifully decorated dish.

Let me know how you manage to cook yours - here is mine......

copyright: Thomas Gentle

Hidden details from our Thai Engagement

These are some of the hidden details we missed on our elegant Thai Engagement morning.

 

Thank you Bridesmaid - here are some gifts for you

Cute Bridesmaid Keepsake Box - perfect as thank you gift, £12.25 from Bridal Tales.  Also available with matching Bridesmaid Thank You card, only £2.95.

Have you seen this?

Sushi - but not ordinary sushi

They are .......Glow in the Dark Sushi........

These are big hits across the Big Pond at the moment - in case you haven't heard, Glofish is a brand of genetically modified fish designed to glow in the dark.  These fluorescent fish are available for purchase in pet shops.  But I suppose peoplen have a different idea to just watch them swim about, so they decided to try them out in recipes.  And that’s how glow in the dark sushi was invented.

I bet it won't be long until these will be available in the UK!  If you've had a try then let me know if it tastes any different to normal sushi :-)

The GM glofish were originally invented not for home décor purposes, but for environmental reasons.  The fish were meant to glow when rivers become contaminated, thus acting as an indicator for pollutants.  But when the first fish that glowed constantly was perfected, it became the rage and was made accessible to the public.  Glofish are now available in five interesting colors – Electric Green, Starfire Red, Cosmic Blue, Sunburst Orange and Galactic Purple.

Aren't they the cutest?

I was thinking of baking something this weekend for the Mother's Day and needed some inspirations.  I came across these from Cutestfood site and can't wait to get in the kitchen.

 Alpaca donuts

ice cream cookies 

ice cream cookie pops

 

ice cream cone cupcakes

So the hardest task now is to choose which of of these gorgeous cakes to make.  How about you, what will you be making?!?!?!

Have you seen these?

I saw them recently and thought I must share....

Julian Hakes is an award winning architect turns shoes designer who recently launched his collection at London Fashion Week.

Aren't the weired and wonderful?  What do you think?  The only problem now is to choose which colour to pick!

 
Here’s Julian's journey to these stunning Mojito shoes:

––

One late summer night in the studio I was thinking about the design of shoes in general.

I wondered why there was the need for a foot plate in shoes such as high heels.

When I look at a foot print on sand it is very clear to see that the main force goes to the heel and ball.

With a high heel providing the heel is supported, even by standing on a wooden block the foot naturally ‘spans’ the gap naturally, with bones and tendons.

The foot has its own inbuilt strength and support so why duplicate this. You would not have a jumper with rigid arms between elbow and wrist.

So this raised the question, if the design of a shoe was an evolution of the early sandal and how can new materials and design techniques provide new solution?

So I set to exploring this question in a similar way to how I would design a bridge, examining the forces and looking at the most simple, elegant yet poetic expression of the forces at play within the materials used.

With this approach I then set about wrapping my foot in tracing paper, then binding it up in masking tape and then drawings various geometries onto and over the form of my foot.

The next stage was rather dangerous as I had to cut the shape off my foot with a scalpel and not damage the pattern or my foot.

The design this produced is a single wrapped geometry which starts under the ball of the foot and then over the bridge, then sweeping down below the heel before then twisting back on itself to provide the support for the heel and ankle.

This form felt light and airy on the foot. So we called it the ‘Mojito’ as it was rather like a twist of lime skin.

The material choice is simple: The shoe is a laminate with Carbon fibre for the core which gives the shoe its spring and strength, leather on the foot side and rubber on the walking wearing side. 3 materials, each doing a specific job.

––

pancake day and what shall I give up

It's pancake day today - officially it's Shrove Tuesday - 40 days before Easter.  Tradionally people would give up sugar, flour, eggs and fat so they mixed them together and have pancakes. 

Thanks to all these traditional reason, I have an excuse to eat lots and lots of pancakes once a year.  My husband doesn't like pancakes so we barely make them at home.  But tonight....... he's got no excuse of not having them!  And I'd definitely start mine with Nutella + banana.

Fast forward a few hundred years to present days, what do people give up for lent now?  I hear a lot of people giving up chocolate, buying new clothes, alcohol and even fast food.  For me I was thinking of not eating meat and turn vegetarian for 40 days - another word I'm planning to do a bit of detox during lent!  What will you give up?

my first blog

ummmm before today I thought I had a lot of stories I'd like to share but as soon as I signed up and start thinking of what to write nothing seems to spring into my mind.  I bet this has happened to you before.

Last weekend I visited Windsor - it's one of my favourite spots in England, if you've never been there before perhaps you should read on and find out why.  And if you've been there before you can let me know if you agree with me.  There's so much to see and to do in Windsor, rain or shine!  I adore the shops and restaurants and my husband loves the castle and pubs.

Do you know why I think this is a great town?  Well, here are my top 3 reasons.....

1) It's one of The Queen's official residences

You would have heard Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world, blah blah blah.  I won't repeat all that I promise.

Let's start from my drive into Windsor, even before you reach the town you can see the Castle miles beforehand thanks to its situation on a hill with lots of greenery of Windsor Great Park around it.  You can't appreciate how big the Castle is at all until you're there.  It covers the area of 13 acres - so yes it is rather big.  We've visited the Castle many times and often see The Royal Standard flying - it feels very strange to know that The Queen is so near but yet so far.  I hear that she goes there most weekends to escape from her buzzing Buckingham Palace.

Well, if it's good enough for The Queen, it's good enough for me.

2) Windsor Great Park

The 2.65 miles Long Walk from Iron Horse to The Castle is one of the most famous walk in the UK.  It's a long stright line and I love walking through the trees, seeing deers along the way and even stopping for a picnic on aummer day.

Every now and then I sat there and watched the world goes by, all of a sudden a Horse Carraige just appears in the middle of nowhere and took my breath away - it's so elegant and just turns back 100 years!

3) Great High Street shops and restaurants

What more can I say?  I'm a girl - and I LOVE shoes, clothes, handbags, jewellery, arts, toy shops, old fashioned sweet shops, tourist gifts, shabby chic furnitures/ decorations...... well, more or less anything you can think of!  Once my legs couldn't take on the walking any longer then pop into some fancy hotels for afternoon tea.  Harte and Garter is my favourite!  Get my energy back for more shopping and dine at MacDonald Hotel Windsor in the evening and head back home.  Happy day!