Earth Walk

We're back in London now (I know, whew, things move fast!), but we had a great time and are happy to be home. The plane ride was smooth and beautiful. I always like to look out the window, if I have a window seat and Lois is calm or sleeping for a while. She slept for about 4 hours this flight, so I had a lot of window time. Here's a peek over the earth. 

A good song for your airplane window view: Space Walk. 

In Charleston

We had a fun, quick weekend visit in Charleston. We were there for a wedding, which was as lovely as Charleston itself. If you've never been to Charleston, it's a quintessential charming southern town. You can read a bit about its history here. It's quite touristy, but still worth a visit. Here are a few images from Charleston. 

I love shotgun houses (little, long skinny houses) and spanish moss. Plenty of both in Charleston. 

What We Did

I had a great visit with my sister. She wanted to spend her time doing the things I like to do, rather than a lot of the standard touristy stuff, so we mostly strolled around neighborhoods and parks and markets. We had a great time. Here's a peek into our fun-filled sistah week. Above, she's on the left and I'm on the right.

Tulips at the Columbia Road flower market. One of my favorite markets. 

Outside Vintage Heaven on Columbia Road. We saw lots of street vintage--here, and Brick Lane, Spitalfields, and at the Portobello Road Market. And we went to a lot of pretty shops like the one below. It looked like you were walking into someone's house. We weren't even sure it was a store so we had to ask before we went in. I don't know the name of the place, but it was off of Columbia Road. 

Fish and chips. Had to have them at least once during her visit.

And we just spent a lot of time hanging out together, playing with Lois, drinking coffee, sipping wine, eating, hanging out with the hubbers, planting flowers in our tiny garden, getting my house straight. It was a lot of fun. We both left London yesterday for Atlanta. She's back home now, and we're back for a wedding in Charleston, SC and a short visit with our families in Atlanta. See you soon from Charleston! 

Around Town with my Sister

We have a visitor--my sister, and I'm so happy she's here! Today was our first full day out, and I hired a sitter so we could have some alone time. We did some shopping, went to Liberty, and had tea in Soho's Secret Tea Room (remember, I read about it here on Seeds and Stitches?). It was a great day! And tonight we have dinner reservations--just the two of us. Mommas' day out. (She has 3 little boys, whew). PS. I painted our dining room turquoise (shown above), and I love it! That's what happens when you live in a country that's grey most of the time--you get urges to paint things bright colors.

Having My Tea and Drinking it Too

I recently read about a secret tea room here in London, and I can't wait to check it out. Obviously it's not super-duper secret, but it is inside a pub, tucked away, and available to you once you ask for the tea room. It looks so pretty. You can see more pictures here too. I might go next week when my sister's in town (yay!). Our place isn't quite all together, but I'm ready for a wee tea break after all this unpacking. In the meantime, I'll peek at some tea inspiration and have a cuppa at home. But just for a few minutes. Lots more to unpack! Sources for these images are in my Pinterest. 

NY Times Home and Garden

I always like to take a peek and see what's in the Home and Garden section of the NY Times online. This week has two features I like, a renovation in Buenos Aries (above), and a cozy garden apartment (below). Just thought I'd share in case you might like some of their features too.

Tea is Served

Earlier this week, my friend MN came over for a tea visit. Our place isn't exactly together yet, but presentable enough. I made a pear-almond upside down cake, some tea sandwiches, a little salad, and tea, of course! And I had wee tea ready for our little ones as well. It wasn't exactly easy to eat in peace with the little monkeys dangling from us, but we had a really nice time. Tea is so fun. (The upside down cake recipe is in Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone, in case you're interested. I didn't fan the pears right, but it was sooo delicious.)

Bright Bits of London

The weather here is mostly just grey, so I've had my eye on some bright bits in our new neighborhood (today, though, was quite a nice sunny day). These pictures are from things on or near Portobello Road that I took either last weekend or a few before.

Fox trot on Portobello Road, the iconic colorful houses on Portobello, a record art installation, a bright pink house, a store I like that's covered in bows, a bright door, and some more colorful houses. 

Progress

Hi Lois! There she is in our new place before we crammed in all our stuff. I've been unpacking like mad since we got here because I hate being surrounded by boxes, and I'm excited to be here. Though this flat itself wouldn't be our top pick, we do like a lot of things about it, and we love the neighborhood (northwest London). We have a third bedroom, sort of anyway--it's more of a storeroom and it has its own entrance, but it does have wood floors and heat, so I'm planning to make it into an office / guest bedroom if everything can fit. We have part of the living room together now. That's one wall that's pretty much done, but I have to work on the rest of the room. If we paint the walls, it will be a while before we do that, so I went ahead and hung things. I'm a little tired of some of our stuff and would like to get a pick-up truck and go hunting for new junk, but in the meantime, here's the usual in a new-ish configuration. Hi again Lois! Cookies make her happy :)

And here's the 3rd room. Gotta get working on that mess. 

Roses, Rugs and Such

Well, we've moved! Now we're unpacking. Wow, it's amazing how your stuff seems to expand when it's in boxes--looks that way anyway by the amount of boxes. Yesterday I took lois for a Valentine cupcake at Hummingbird Bakery. She loved it. It was quite tasty. The roses above were for me from the hubbers. I picked them out :) I love the red, pink and coral-ish orange-yellow together. (Both of those pictures are with the iPhone photo app, Instagram, which I'm really liking.) We also strolled over to a shop on Portobello Road to look at rugs. I found this one below (not a great picture, sorry about that). The guy there quoted me one price, which was good, I thought, so I called the hubbers who ok'd it and went back in to buy it. The shop man as concerned that he gave me the wrong price, so he made a phone call and told me double what he said before, ah, drat! I was not a happy camper. He felt very bad, though, and said he'd see what he could do and give me a call. We shall see. I do love the colors and design. I don't think it's Moroccan, but I really like it a lot. So that's what we've been up to. We don't have internet access at our house yet, so I might not be updating here much for the next few days, but our new little place is coming along quickly and I'll post some pictures soon.