hello river cottage!

i’ve been talking (alot) about buying some land in NZ– no money yet but one can dream. and recently i think my parents have been starting to panic abit about me actually doing it rather than just talking about it. they, of all people, have been quite used to hearing these fluff-brained dreams of mine and my extensive, somewhat imaginary planning.

anyway, i’ve been watching this old channel 4 series called River Cottage. or rather the first series of the lot is called Escape to River Cottage, which documents  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s effort to  take over a Dorset cottage and sets out to achieve a form of rural self-sufficiency.

He is a celebrity chef, in his own right, and i found out about him because Gordan Ramsey has asked him a couple of times for advice regarding growing their own meat.

Anyway. i am wayyy past the Escape to river cottage series, and am now watching series 6 or 7 which is River Cottage spring. nonetheless, i think its a good educational watch, and you can learn a thing or two about the wild plants etc.

its actually really entertaining. he enters all these competitions — honey, vegetable, pig shows.. and when his garden doesnt yield lunch, he takes a shotgun and goes hunting for birds. for extra money, he sells crazy dishes at farmer’s market like bunny burgers (rabbits are pests to the garden crop, so he shot his pests, cooked them and sold them!), pigeon pita pockets etc. and since he likes fishing, he goes fishing for extra protein (free!). he rears his livestock, and believes in the nose to tail eating, which is what it is. every part of the animal is used — blood too! this guy built his own smoker out of his own chimney, lambed his ewes, ate the testicles (cooked) immediately after the vet castrated his baby bull. after the ick factor, seriously good tv.

here’s the first of the first episode:

Hello, I am famously taking rain checks

I’m famously taking rain checks; thank God I have patient friends. Mostly people who grew up with me so they know how fretful I get with deadlines looming over my head. I have been mulling over this for a while.

How come other people who run busier, more successful outfits than me have the sheer energy to meet up, chit chat, chill out, fine dine, club, date night, midnight movie– when most days I crash out after work? Not sleep but brain drained.

How do people wake up cheerful and come home cheerful? Case in point, my forev-boyfriend You know, most mornings I wake up with a sore head, full of grump. I watch my nephews wake up from their naps or sleep, crying like little kids do. I feel the same except I’ve out grown the tears. But the same crappy down in the gut feeling. Even on days that I have something exciting to do.

I am exceedingly fretful when I have looming deadlines; it’s like it’s snared there at the back of my brain; and I am thinking about it the whole dinner then come back and work till late cos of the guilt or the workload.

Maybe it’s the whole work-never-ends part of running your own business. But you have 30 people counting on you for their rice bowl; the weight of that responsibility. I remember the number of work calls during my honeymoon; and how I panicked when we didn’t have access to the Internet when in some places in NZ. I had to check my mail.

It’s not that I want to take social rain checks; there is this meeting, that client, these million things to file or get done. My friends cut me slack; and I try to give a hundred percent when I next see them; but I fail to be there when it matters: break ups, triumphs at jobs; breakthroughs with family. And that makes me feel even more shitty.

How do people do it! Tell me the secret!

hello eco lodge

so denn and i have been talking about this trip to costa rica; to attend a friend’s wedding. and while it initially seemed out-of-reach because of the job jump and leave matters, it now seems back on the radar. so i’ve been doing research.

the ever pressing question: to visit more states staying less time in each state, or concentrate on exploring the whole state.

mind you, we have 5 days there i think, given that we’ll be flying almost 24 hrs there and 24 hrs back. but its okay, denn loves flying and i sleep through most of it. unabashed wanton sleep because you’re incommunicado and come on, there’s nothing much else to do.

so of course, as all research goes, i find this beautiful eco-lodge, topping the Condé Nast Gold List in 2008, Lapa Rios eco-lodge. as my taste would have it (le sigh), i picked this eco-lodge out of the many many eco-lodges Costa Rica has to offer. a unnamed accomodation website suggests US $858 per night.  lets just dream huh.

 

there are others, thankfully, which i am quite keen; but clearly needs more research. eco-lodge is a must, however.

will update later on.

 

Hello pic a pix obsession

So recently I’ve been really hooked on this game, like the obsessed. I think I’ve finished about 150 puzzles on the iPhone, and my indulgent forever boyfriend buys me an iPad pack. Gone. I thought the iPhone was easy.. This iPad one is the mamabull, to use an old expression.

So it starts something like this. This is the coloured type. There is the black and white type too. It’s tough, as it gets larger. I usually take about 15 mins on the iPhone size game. This particular one took me an hour.

See final picture.

It all started because of this “escape the room” game, which was live. Like we (my sister and brother in law amongst other friends included) got “locked” up in a room and we had to escape it using clues. Anyway, Puden and I got assigned this puzzle. And while we didn’t complete it (ahem!), the compulsive obsessive in me just had to figure it out. So I found this app.

Pic-a-pix by conceptis.

My idea of fun.

Another achievement:

hello beautiful string of words

art by: mirop

Picture a summer stolen whole from some coming-of-age film set in small-town 1950s. T his is none of Ireland’s subtle seasons mixed for a connoisseur’s palate, watercolor nuances within a pinch-sized range of cloud and soft rain; this is summer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silkscreen blue. This summer explodes on your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat, Marie biscuits with butter squirting through the holes and shaken bottles of red lemonade picnicked in tree houses. It tingles on your skin with BMX wind in your face, ladybug feet up your arm; it packs every breath full of mown grass and billowing wash lines; it chimes and fountains with birdcalls, bees, leaves and football-bounces and skipping-chants, One! Two! Three! This summer will never end. it starts every day with a shower of Mr. Whippy notes and your best friend’s knock at the door, finishes it with long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways calling you to come in, through the bats shrilling among the black lace trees. This is Everysummer decked in all its best glory.

— Prologue, In the woods, by  Tana French

hello yellow room

so as the sunlight streams through the blinds of the office; i sit here feeling rather mellow. which made me think of yellow, and now i am, once again, redesigning my dream house. which is still a dream house, really, because let’s face it. its so much more fun day-dreaming. at the rate i redesign my dream house, this is wayy more economical.

fancycribs did a feature on 30 gorgeous yellow rooms, i didn’t like all of them,but some were just stunning.

so, here are some gorgeous yellow room ideas to tide us through this mellow thursday.

source: furniture trendzona

i love this black/white on yellow. i love the cherry blossom details. i don’t like that white snake/circle pile thing on the black wall details but i pretend not to see it. perfectly non-fussy yet not too masculine.

source: fancycribs

oh, look at that: i’m a sucker for revived furniture. that’s a little chinese cabinate redressed to be a sink! i love it! i dont like the photo framey thing much, but i love the boldness of this piece.

source: style estate

oh look at the art on the wall, so perfect right. i’ll call this room sunshine and graphite. (like in pencil led); so sunny! i don’t like the yellow side table though, and i can imagine this room would look lovely at night with the white lamps all on. easy way to blend in metal/steel elements.  more sunshine/graphite rooms coming up! very cedarian, ya?

source: fancycribs

i want that yellow lamp. and i want those pictures of magnolias. the pillows are just plump enough.

source: authentic home blog

aren’t those little odd shaped pigeon holes the prettiest thing ever? i can just imagine building them with my father in law. oh, he would love that project so. i heart the table bookshelf. would only work if you had 8 books though. will not suffice in my house. and i like that amber coloured vase.

source: fancycribs

this is certainly doable right? the dark wood and yellow. i like the photo frames, although i will most certainly love to have this photoframe ledge in the living room, i am sure it won’t be in the bedroom. i am paranoid about things falling on my head in my sleep. so nothing, and i mean nothing can hang over my bed.

Mum says too much yellow will give you a headache. i’m sure my friend Elaine, doth protests. there are certainly some soothing yellow rooms i found.  yawn, makes me feel sleepy already!

source: fancycribs

fresh green and yellow and white. couldn’t possibly go wrong.