City and country birthday-s

One of my favourite places in the whole world is the V & A museum, and with the opportunity of doing "Something-nice-for-your-birthday" I decided ... hang the expense, I'm going on a London day out and that's that.

My buddy Cath and I decided we would go to see the Ballgown exhibition that's opened there recently.

We had a picnic in the central courtyard.

The exhibition was amazing. This was my favourite dress by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, completely covered in feathers.

Can you imagine how long this took to put together?
The display was pretty spectacular too. These photos are from this website.
And a brilliant blog here about the exhibition from a nine year old's point of view.

This complete marvel wasn't in the show but is one of my all time favourite works of art by Alexander McQeen, which I've been researching for this post

and this complete folly from his Savage beauty collection.

The show is spectacular but the regular exhibition that's on in the fashion section is just as good if not better. After soaking up satin and sparkle, it was out and about in London, the biggest smoke.

There were Union Jacks' everywhere for the forthcoming Jubilee.

A wonderful dinner at a very authentic mexican restaurant.

with a whole wall of chillie sauce bottles.

Then it was back home. Happily to a countryside that is bursting with spring. It's as if someone has poured cream over all the hedges

........ and sprinkled it over the fields
The weather has been spectacular lately and every lane and field is thrilling with flowers and birdsong.
My wonderful friends Kate & David have been having me over for dinner regularly on a Wednesday night ever since Ricardo died and I so look forward to it. Kate is a great cook and has usually whipped up some amazing feast with a miraculous icecream as well. One night it was pink grapefruit & 25 year old sherry. SENSATIONAL. I absolutely love the drive over to their house at twilight. It goes through the magical village and fields of Quidenham where there is a local tradition that Queen Boudica is buried. Past the round towered Church and on past this beautiful field. One evening in twilight I saw a girl riding a white horse bareback through this field and have wondered ever since if I dreamt it.

Here they are taking me on a guided tour of flowers in their garden. Complete with pink champagne.

Humphrey got in on the act too and was a delight as he showed me the smaller more unobtrusive flowers that some might call weeds.

Finally as a curtain closer here is a photo of the bouquet that came, perfectly timed for my birthday from my big sister. The smell of those peonies is incredible.

Thank you one and all for a most excellent birthday week.

A Spring bunch

Here's a spring bouquet for you. Primroses from our tiny garden.
Ricardo swears primroses have a scent but I don't seem to be able to smell anything from them. What say you fellow blog readers?

I've had a great week this past week with my second corset class on Monday (I promise I'll put up some photos really soon) then an exciting whirlwind trip to London to meet up with Ms Earwig sandwich herself Lulu Labonne.(Sorry about the blurr factor)
Here's Lulu's great shot that she took in the mirror at the V&A.
If you've never read her exciting exploits, get thee hence but get a cup of tea and a bikkie first, you'll be transfixed by her adventures. We met at the V & A and even though it's one of my most favourite places in the world, I was reluctant to explore as Lulu and I had a lifetimes worth of catching up to do. We did manage to see the Great Bed of Ware though.I also had a cushion sale at a private house in Norwich which went rather well and has inspired me to hop to it and MAKE MORE CUSHIONS. This fabulous Obi came last week and has been calling to me to make it up into new treasure.

London fun

I went to London with my friend Heather on Wednesday and had such a great time. When you're not from the UK you see it much more as a tourist and it's such a beautiful city. Arriving at Liverpool St Station always gives me a buzz for a start as it's so huge and airy.
Heather says people are much nicer in London these days too. A few people stopped and asked if we needed help while we were spinning the map hopelessly around. The tube was really clean with new moving image advertising (that you can't actually see moving here but I'm sure you get the general idea) that reminded me of Blade runner as the ones on the actual stations are HUGE.
It's always amazing popping out at Piccadilly Circus and seeing Eros. Small but perfectly formed.
Our main reason for going was to see an exhibition at the Royal Academy. Sculptures by three English Artists who were around just before the 1st world war. It was called 'Wild thing' from a quote by Ezra Pound who, upon meeting one of the sculptors, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska for the first time called him "a well-made young wolf or some soft-moving, bright-eyed wild thing". The exhibition was good but lacking somehow. I thought there would be more drawings of the reliefs Epstein did for the controversial British medical association . Much was made of his work called 'The rock drill'. A huge macabre figure which must have inspired Ridley Scott for his Alien with it's foetus inside the monster's chest.
Most of his work was rounded and sensual and I really wanted to touch it. It's given me a taste for Epstein's work and I want to see more.
Another reason for going to London was to do some 'Market Research' on the elusive,fashionable and fragile Macaron. There is a rash of them in London. Here they are mounted up like a marvelous summer umbrella in Laduree in the Burlington arcade. The gold stalactite drip castle effect on the walls of the shop left something to be desired though. I was too self conscious to go in though and kicked myself for the rest of the afternoon.
Here are some more in a very groovy Japanese patisserie just down from Laduree in Piccadilly.
I did however summon up the courage to go into Fortnum and Mason across the road. It really is spectacular in there.
This gorgeous purple was every where inside.
Purple and turquoise with swans and feathers. Wow, check out the feather chandelier.
and this towering display of boxes of truffles.
There were more macarons but I didn't take any photos (this one is from a blog called 'The girl who ate everything')
This is is the stunning sculpture outside the Royal Academy my Anish Kapoor. If you click on it and blow it up really big you might see Heather and I waving at you.
This is a detail of the gates at the R A.
After the exhibition we wandered down Carnaby St where they had these funky blow up Christmas decorations, I need to get some.
Another reason we went to London was to look at the fabric shops in Berwick Street in Soho and I was not disappointed. Every colour of Thai silk you can imagine.
Some incredible fabrics including this one with strange beaded blisters. There was one with peacock feathers sewn all over it, reminding me of a dress I made at Art school that was covered with overlapping peacock feathers (a complete nightmare when you wanted to sit down).
Look at this for fabric heaven.....
The best of the lot was the Cloth house at number 98. I managed to find the exact shade of Heather coloured purple silk satin that Fortnum and Mason had used in their window display as well as some purple ribbed silk and a beautiful citrus yellow flower trim , all of which I've already made into a couple of cushions. Will take some photokoes tomorrow.
We had to have a lie down and a cup of tea after all that so we headed off to Liberty for some Earl Grey (well we managed the cuppa) and yep you guessed it a trio of Macarons!! Then an inspiring wander around the shop. We still had some time up our sleeves so we headed over to Harrods to check out the Laduree shop there and this time at great expense to the management, I pushed the boat out and bought 6 macarons for Ricardo the Magnificent. The best I've ever tasted, especially the Bergamot flavour...how DO they do it.
Phew that's it for now. Enjoy the visuals and go forth & make yourself some of those most fashionable of treats this weekend....