So lucky!

Not only have I had the best colleagues to work with for two years, but they have also made sure I would remember them in a very special way now that I won't be working with them anymore. Look at what they got me for my goodbye present! Aren't they just the best?

Impressive ceilings

(1) Met Museum, New York
(2) Guggenheim Museum, New York
(3) Gare des Guillemins, Liege
(4) Magna Plaza shopping center, Amsterdam
(5) Shopping center in San Francisco
(6) Met Museum, New York
(7) Royal Greenhouses, Laaken

Is your neck hurting from looking up?
Have a look at famapa's wonderful collection of 'looking down' photos...

10 things about me today

1. I have been attacked by a pretty voracious mosquito the other night: I have three very itchy bites.
2. I met Mel yesterday. She was the very first person I met through blogging.
3. I don't like coffee. (But I like coffee-flavoured things.)
4. I can't wait to go to Denmark for the very first time.
5. I'm going to be sad not to be able to chat with Joanna at work anymore.
6. But I'm glad we won't be far away and we will see each other at other times.
7. I feel too lazy to do the dishes tonight. But did them anyway.
8. I want to invent a teleporting machine that takes you to see the people you love and miss.
9. I also want to invent a machine that holds heat in during the summer and then gives it back when it's too cold, in winter. And it would also be able to do the opposite: take a bit of the cold during winter and give it back when it's boiling hot.
10. I love sweets. These are the ones I'm eating now.

Deliciously blue

I'm so lucky! I have a boyfriend who, when it's the right season, goes to the market (sometimes twice a week!) and buys us delicious blueberries... Yum!


Last week he also came home with wonderful apricots, beautiful aubergines, and amazing courgettes... isn't that just perfect?




P.S. the photo is from last year, when we had also had lovely raspberries.

New bed

New bed sheets to go with the new bed. Looks really pretty with my pillow cases.

Do you speak Ikea?

We had a busy day today: we cleaned up, took down ANEBODA, cleaned up some more and then spent two hours building up MANDAL. We still have to put together PAX, but that will have to wait a little. Maybe until we have some helping hands coming along. I wish we also had MASKROS, and maybe KOLDBY, in a nice caramel tone...

Photo from here.

By the way, while we are speaking the Ikea language, do you know your name in 'Ikea'?

Counting to the stars

Mart tells me this game is called 'hopscotch' in English... sounds a bit weird to me though, so I'll just call it by its French name: Marelle.

Well, this afternoon we saw kids playing marelle on the street. I guess they started with a very traditional one. And then one little boy noticed that the paving was perfect: he didn't need to draw the boxes anymore, and could just write the numbers in the right places... Well, he made a very thorough use of his discovery. As you can see in picture 3, his marelle wasn't finished yet, and at the time we cycled past, he was up to 187 (!).

Now I don't know if that's the case for every marelle game in the world, but in French the last box (which usually has a semi-circle shape) is usually called 'ciel' (sky). That's where you land once you've hopped your way all the way up the numbers. I think the little boy will not only make it to the 'ciel' - he's well on his way to the stars!

Little family on our balcony

No need to wait until I have my own children to try out some of lilla a's wonderful ideas!
Here is the pattern.

lilla a

I hope I'll be as creative as lilla a when I will have kids... I just love everything she does!

Photo credits:
(1) Golden animals
(2) Paper butterflies

Stripes!

Bridget Riley
'The Weirdo" tote bag
Black and white socks
Joseph Joseph cutting board
Smeg fridge
Wood sculpture art
Paul Smith swimsuit
Nautical v-neck t-shirt

Chutes du Rhin

Ok, one more post about our short holiday in Switzerland.

I took Mart (who is a fervent fan of fast flowing water) to see the Rhine Falls, close to Schaffhausen. It was a wonderfully sunny day, and there was LOTS of water gushing past (about 726 cubic meters per second, actually) - we had a great time!
We took several little boats across the river and to the rock that valiantly stands right in the middle of the falls... Now; we've figured, in the course of our different Swiss outdoors activities, that Mart isn't a huge fan of heights... well... it's become clear that I'm not great friends with tons of water coming in my direction while sitting in a little boat...! I could so see it tipping over and us having to swim for our life whilst trying to keep the camera out of the water... hahaha! :-)

Sorry, I know the video is of pretty poor quality... it's just so that you can appreciate the hugeness of it all!
And can you sense how scared I was to drop my iPhone...? ;-)

From Switzerland

A few shots taken during our short holiday in Switzerland.

Garden update

The seeds that Claire had sent me for my birthday have been growing beautifully - in fact we are about to eat our first beans of the season tonight!
The tomatoes shouldn't take too much longer until they are ready too. We have two sorts; some cherry tomatoes, and some roma-type ones.
And Joab now has leaves! He's doing so well. I guess the temperatures we've been having lately are fairly similar to what he would have had, would he have stayed in Senegal...

Succulents

Colour IQ

I just gave the colour IQ test another go (I had tried months ago) and just got... a perfect score! Yeepee! Mum, I think I might have inherited your wonderful colour genes! Or is colour intelligence rooted more in your nurture than in your nature? In that case I might have had the perfect environment when growing up too...

This is the point where I'd love to place a link of what Mum does - she is the BEST at colours! - but her website is under construction... I promise I'll show you as soon as it's ready!



Ok, I'm bragging, but... look at my score!


The trick is to put the colours in order so that you don't see a difference between two that are right next to each other...

Wanna try it yourself? Do it here and let me know how you did - I promise I won't be condescending nor brag anymore about how amazing my score was.

Pffhehehe... silly me.