As promised, a few behind the scenes shots from the Maria magazine shoot! with many thanks to the lovely Sophie who was one of our dinner guests and is also a part of Yvette’s excellent restaurant team (Sophie is pictured in the previous post, offering wine to her fellow diners), and also with many thanks to photographer Jeroen who captured heaps of beautiful shots for both the story and behind the scenes. Above you can see Yvette and Roeland Fernhout preparing the meal and having an absolute ball doing so! They are very good friends and it was so much fun capturing their friendship on camera – always making each other laugh. Being an actor, Roeland made my job too easy as I didn’t need to art direct him or his guests at all. He knew just when to pick up the bread knife and pretend to cut the bread, when to pretend to offer his guests wine and pass empty plates around the table. He even bought all of us little gifts and put on some christmas music to get everyone in the mood! If only I could have him for all my lifestyle shoots…

(Click here to read more…)

(Click here to read more…)

Does anyone out there speak Dutch? If you do, perhaps you can help me translate this… i think it says something about me having a Dutch surname but not speaking Dutch. oh the irony. This is in the front section of the latest Maria magazine that just came out onto the newstands today. It is an honour to be on the contributors page, thank you for including me Maria!

So what’s this all about? Well, how about we turn to page 86 of the magazine and take a look…

…………………………………………..

PS I look a little serious here don’t i, i must make a point of working on my smiley face. 🙂

the wind got to the golden leaves here in amsterdam before i did unfortunately. but still pretty, non?

I didn’t mean to, it just happened! I surprised myself. How does one surprise themselves you ask? Well, this is what you do…

You look at yourself in the mirror but this time you look at yourself CLOSELY. Not the usual ol’ two second check over to ensure you have nothing hanging off your face, but rather a magnified look. And then you are aghast! at the condition of your skin. And then you think, how long has it been since you last had a facial? And then you realise it’s been more than 2 years, in fact you can’t even remember when the last time was, so it’s more like 3 or even 4 years past. Then you think, I need a facial! So you get on the internet and you look for a beauty treatment boutique that uses natural products only. You find one! And you make an appointment mid-week…

That’s how it happened for me yesterday. Which is how I discovered Aromatique Amsterdam, on the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat which is the street with all the antique shops I was telling you about the other day. What a treat! I’m going to tell you more about this wonderful discovery soon as there is much to tell. But for now, all I will say is my skin today feels sooooo good.

I doubled my surprise treat dosage by mistakenly finding a fabulous restaurant on the same road to stop for some lunch. I intended to just grab a quick bagel but the bagel shop was packed so I scouted for another place and I found Spelt – a little oasis with a yummy menu. So there I was, mid-week, without my laptop, pen or paper or book or any of my usual distractions, looking out over their beautiful garden, having no choice but to be content with my own company. I had the mushroom soup, followed by the apple tart which was so delicious, I want to go back for it again. Perhaps another mid-week treat is on the cards next week? How ridiculously indulgent of me that would be!