Over the weekend I went to a few new places with friends that I thought you might like to know about:

1. Le Pain Quotidien in de pijp. This is a Belgian bakery/café/patisserie that is all over the world, and now Amsterdam. I used to go to the Saint Honoré one all the time when I was living in Paris, especially for Sunday brunch. It’s awesome. The ingredients are always fresh and organic wherever possible, and the bread is delicious. Although I’d already been to this new one in de Pijp the other week, I took French boy there on Saturday. He had a tartine, I had an omlette. We bought a baguette and were pleasantly surprised that it was just like a real French baguette. This one in Amsterdam is at Cornelis Troostplein 4, click the link to be taken to a map of the location.

2. Chet’s. This is an Italian-style wine bar on the Hazenstraat, in the Jordaan. We met some friends there on Saturday night not expecting there would be live music (since we heard it was only on Friday nights) but we were delighted to find out there was a bossa jazz band booked for the night. It’s a wonderful little oasis as these type of places are hard to find in Amsterdam.

3. the lovefood pop up sunday brunch. Brilliant idea founded by englishman-amsterdammer Jason Hartley. A lovely friend introduced me to it yesterday (thank you Leslie!). Basically it’s a pop up brunch, hosted in various restaurants or cafes in the city. Their new location is in the Cafe Bax on the Ten Katestraat. Yesterday was the last one for the year unfortunately, but the next one starts on January 10. The brunch is great – a full breakfast menu that all us expats miss so so much  – e.g.  The Full Mikey which is the American classic breakfast with bacon,  homemade  sausage, hash browns, scrambled eggs;  eggs florentine, benedict etc – every which way you like’em;  a full veggie breakfast;  pancakes, even a mexican style choice – tortillas filled with scrambled organic eggs, spinach, fried potatoes and chorizo sausage topped with grated chedder cheese and baked. Click here to read more about it.

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It’s Monday morning! can you believe I’ve blogged before midday? Well that’s just the start of it. Hold on to your hats, because this week is going to be full steam ahead! I have lots to share this week. Lots. Next up will be the enhance the everyday holiday decorating & gift guide. wehoooooooooo!

Every now and then I stumble upon something magical that makes my heart soar – high up in the sky, diving and weaving through the clouds. This morning I came across the work of the stories from the ground shadow puppetry, and I am enraptured, take a look…

Here is a behind the scenes documentary of how they made the film. I love that they show how they made Lior’s character – from bits of cardboard, steel wool for his hair, tape, and bicycle spokes…

Incredibly inspiring, non? It got me thinking about this upcoming holiday season (and yes, I will be posting my holiday gift guide and decorating ideas first thing on monday so be ready) As a kid, one of my all-time favourite things about Christmas day was our ‘performance’  – my cousin Simone and I would spend months in advance planning our Christmas day show. It included piano solos and duets, lip syncing stage shows, spectacular freak shows (which usually involved my brother and Simone’s brother, trying to do some circus act to shock our audience – being our grandparents and parents – but instead would have them laughing uncontrollably ), and detailed choreographed dances by Simone and I, to such songs as “locomotive” by Kylie Minogue. Simone and I would turn the living room into a lively theater, ushering our audience into their designated seats and handing out hand drawn programs.   They were fun fun times.

What does this have to do with the above wonders? Well, I’m thinking, for the children (and the children at heart, that being us) how wonderful it would be to create a puppet show for your family day this year! You can use things from around the house – like steel wool for hair, and cardboard, and old bicycle spokes – to make a wonderful puppet show. To get that lovely paper drop-look the stories from the ground have used, what about baking paper? I have a baking paper that I buy from my organic/fair trade supermarket and because it’s made from recycled paper,  it has that lovely tea-dyed look to it, it would be perfect. Your children could choose one of their favourite songs to be the musical backdrop. What do you think? I think it would be a living-room-box-office hit!

xx

Jasmine from show + tell recently honeymooned in this incredible abode known as treehouse point, in Issaquah, Washington  and took the most amazing shots. Aren’t these photos magical?

Look at that treehouse, tucked high up in the branches. How utterly dreamy. Click here to see more of Jasmine’s gorgeous photos, she has a fabulous photostream. Now, I am off to dream (again!!) of treehouses, and I think I may just have to book myself a trip to treehouse point next year. What a treat it would be!!

UK-based illustrator Rowena Dugdale has been experimenting with polaroid and pinhole cameras lately, creating stunning images.  “Like the delicious static on a vinyl record, any dust specks, light leaks, torn edges or quirks are an integral and honest part of the process and character of this body of work and have been deliberately left in rather than airbrushed out.”

She uses objects around her – marbles, feathers, fern fronds, moss and buttons – to create ethereal, light filled photographs. The results are incredibly beautiful…

Rowena’s images have taken me back to my days at university, when I spent hours in the darkroom, lifting paper out of the smelly chemicals and hanging them to dry, wanting to burst out of the darkness to view my latest creations. One of my absolute favourite processes was making photograms, where I’d bring in things from my home, compose a vignette and play with exposure times. When I am back in Australia I will try to find some for you to show here on the blog.

Click here to read and view more of Rowena’s work, and here to purchase her creations  –  a wonderful gift idea for someone who loves photography.

Last night was the final episode of Ray Mear’s Northern Wilderness. It was set on the west coast, around vancouver island and on the mainland. The scenery, as always, was breathtaking. Among other things Ray went berry picking, hand carved a lid for a cedar box, was taken to a sacred island to view an ancient totem pole, made a beautiful basket from the bark of a cedar tree,  stood underneath a cedar estimated to be around 2000 years old, and cooked halibut in little leaf parcels, in the sand, on the beach.

A medley of photos from my times spent on the west coast of Canada. And yes, that’s me in the kayak, with short hair,  about 4 years ago. The sunset is on Chesterman’s beach, Tofino, and the sea lions and bald eagles (two bottom shots) are around nanoose bay.

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In honor of Ray’s awesome series, I thought it would be nice to show some photos from my personal album from various trips to Canada. Although I lived on the east coast for a few years when I was younger, these shots above and below are from my west coast travels in more recent years.

a peek through the mountain tops of whistler, on my way ziptrekking – an amazing experience.

There were no black bears on Ray’s series, but here is one I ‘met’ in the wild a few years back. He was on the search for salmon, and I was in a canoe, very calmly paddling first in his direction, until we spotted him, then casually out of the bay. We ended up about 10 meters from him, in water. And then later we crossed his path again on land, only 10 meters too. The land sighting was a little worrying, but he seemed quite nonchalant about the whole thing.

This is one of my favourite photos  – and favourite moments – ever. The water, as you can see was glistening, reflecting the light and creating a spectacular mirage-like effect over the ocean. We were out in a little dinghy when we came across this special place, aptly named “mistaken island”. I wanted to stay there forever.

And above is a little view while coming down from whistler and back into vancouver. It’s a magical place, don’t you think? If you haven’t been, I highly recommend you go sometime, and if you haven’t seen Ray’s show, you can watch the full series here if you live in the UK, or you can buy it here.

Thanks Ray! Can’t wait to see where you go, what you create, and what you cook up next.