surviving the chill

Ok, last bunch from Amsterdam. I look a bit chilled and miserable here (it was the day we arrived, I'd been up since 5 and it was raining lightly but consistently) but the colors are so good with the purplish bricks and green moss that I thought I'd post them anyway. These were taken in Jordaan, a lovely neighbourhood in Amsterdam where everyone obligingly leaves their blinds open so you can peer into their houses and live there vicariously a while if you like. Conclusions: Protestants have less to hide than catholics? And all Dutch people seem to own real paintings.

tulips!

While I was in Amsterdam it was National Tulip Day. This sounded almost too coincidentally perfect, but we discovered there are in fact three national tulip days per year. In any case, it was definitely an unexpected and charming celebration. The Dam was filled with thousands of tulips, attached to their bulbs, making a picture on the ground, we joined a fairly civilized line, were given a plastic bag and were told we could take as many as 20 tulips away with us. Inside it was a bit of a free-for-all, with children (and bloggers, clearly) posing for photos and people trampling each other in search of the elusive orange blooms, but I left with a big bag stuffed with mostly-closed bulbs. They somehow all survived being carted around for the rest of the day, the trip to the airport at 6am, and the trip back to Barcelona, and filled our apartment with pop-art colourful blooms for the next two weeks!

a few thoughts from valentine's day

Yes, me, showing my face around here again. Still with a backed up queue of posts I never can post. Still alive, still without internet, still job hunting, etc.

Today I visited another blog for the first time in about two weeks and saw this questionnaire of a post so I thought I'd steal it and do likewise, since I haven't said much about anything for a while

What did you look like one year ago today?

I had long brown hair. I was wearing this dress and it was Valentine's Day and I was having breakfast with Víctor. We weren't together yet and couldn't be, but we went for breakfast and spent the whole time wishing to ourselves that we were.

when did you wake up this morning?

Started drifting in and out of consciousness at 7, but didn't get up until 8, after orange juice in bed and the cat scratching the door.

what was the first thing you thought when you woke up?
Wishing death on the cat, probably

So cute. So evil.

have you called someone today? Who and what did you say?

I Skyped my mom, to commiserate about some disappointing professional news (don't ask) and catch up in general.

what mood are you in?

I was super happy this morning, as I took a morning off from my crazy freelance schedule. Am consequently a bit frantic at the moment but as it's already too late to hand anything in before Monday, I think I may just chill out now...

Got this lovely Valentine's Day card from my dad, though!

Do you hurt anywhere?

Erm, my shoulder is torture as always from too much computer.

If you could choose anything to eat right now, what would you want?

The Moroccan food my sister is making whenever I manage to get over there with the dish!

What did you buy last?

Breakfast of fried eggs and black pudding, with a glass of wine (yes, wine for breakfast, it was a special occasion and pretty much essential for the delightfully-greasy peasant food)! Tastes so much better than it looks, incidentally.

Which was the first website you visited on the internet today?

My friend Kallie's blog, which is where I got this questionnaire from!

what are you doing tonight?

The above-mentioned Moroccan dinner with my sister.

which is the first song you put on today?
I continue to have no soul and never listen to music, but the café where I'm sitting has Ella Fitzgerald on, if that counts.

What were you doing exactly a week ago, this time?
Reading a very long article about whether women find it sexy when men cook and clean. Apparently not, according to the article. I think the article is crazy!

What are you wearing today?

The same thing as exactly one year ago. I'm not a Valentine's Day type, but it inadvertently became an important day last year, so this year was all about doing exactly the same thing, wearing the same clothes. Yes, yes, I know. You can all roll your eyes and write me off forever now.

The weekend then, what about it?
A calçotada (Catalan barbecue with onions) with my writer friends on Saturday, and Victor's birthday party on Sunday) Oh god, have so much to do now....

Calçots, mmmmm

amsterdam break

Leaving springlike Barcelona for shivery Amsterdam in January might seem to be backwards way to take a holiday, but that's just what Victor and I did last weekend. We stayed with friends and bundled up, then spent our days moving between cafés and museums and anywhere that had Glühwein.

This was my fourth visit to Amsterdam but the first one in winter. I found it a bit hard going (if I ever go back to Canada I'm going to die I think) but that the rewards made up for it: fewer people, less chaos, an equal number of murderous cyclists, and endless excuses to eat cheese and apple pancakes (ever since my first trip, ten years ago, when a Dutch family introduced me to this flavour combination, it's been the only one I order).








I had the most delectable cherry-infused gin

bridging

My lack of an internet connection is getting on my nerves a bit, when I desperately have to send something into work or when I realize that I have at least five blog posts lined up but no chance to post them. I realize that no one is bothered about this except me, but I hate lack of continuity... The increased reading, cooking and talking time at home is all good though.

Anyway, first off, these pictures from a gorgeous Romanic bridge near Girona from oh... months ago. November, possibly. In any case, consider them a bridge to a (hopeful) onslaught of catching up!







Pictures 2 and 4 by Amandine, #5 by Víctor.

january simplicity

I think every January I come trotting out on the blog in a super-basic outfit going on about how, after sneaking Christmas cookies out of the freezer for a month and drinking liters of wine, plus wearing velvet, sequins and so on, I'm all about a bit of simplicity. This year is no exception, and this is one of my favourite outfits, which I've been wearing in one form or another since November. These days, except to go to work, I barely stir off my sofa or out of my fluffy red dressing gown, so it was nice to get dressed, go for a mid-week lunch and take some pictures for a change.

Happy 2014 all!





Photos by Víctor

on the feast of stephen

I'm so out of the habit of doing outfit posts that I felt positively shy posing for these, although it was Boxing Day and windy and cold and the bars were closed and the streets deserted. The perfect day for donning this dress, which I love but which really can only be worn in the dead of winter, and the Hudson Bay Company toque my mom gave me (and each of my sisters too, making family outings potentially embarrassing). Apart from its extreme wintery-ness, the other thing that has kept me from wearing this dress more since I got it over two years ago is that it's longer than the average coat, which tends to look a bit weird on the street. However, my snuggly cashmere coat has happily solved this problem, allowing me to go out feeling like I'm still wearing my pyjama and housecoat combination that I live in in the flat.

This year Boxing Day wasn't the usual snoozefest, but was a proper Feast of Saint Stephen kind of affair. After two days of gorging with Víctor's family, my sister and her visiting friend came over and we spent five hours cooking, eating and drinking red wine. Followed by a good bout of reading and snoozing in front of the space heater, and drinking water in a desperate attempt to avoid the dehydrated skullface look that tends to come down on me post-festive-season.






Dress and coat by Family Affairs (I think I might be developing a problem with this brand)
Photos by Víctor

shitty christmas

That would be shitty in the Catalan sense of course. I've gone on at length in past years about the Catalan "Caga Tió" tradition of feeding a log, and then hitting it so it shits presents, but this year Víctor and I organized a Caga Tió party to initiate our foreign friends (and some gate-crashing Catalans) into the tradition.

Otherwise, it's been a home-made sort of Christmas, which suits me perfectly. I bought a little Christmas tree at the cathedral market and staggered home with it, and we made paper ornaments, and also a paper Happy New Year sign for the front hall. My sister and I had TWO all-day baking Sundays to stock my freezer with a dizzying amount of traditional family goodies (sugar cookies, rum logs, truffles, magic squares, shortbread, gingerbread, birdsnests)and Víctor drew a delightful Christmas window for us.









Anyway, I have been failing on blogging lately, which hasn't been due to lack of interest, but lack of internet (we made an executive decision that we get more done and have more fun without its evil influence at home) but I REALLY intend to be back before the new year with a Year in Review, and perhaps even and outfit (I KNOW!)

Happy Post-binge detox day, meanwhile!

winter!

Reading my blog, you'd think we were in permanent summer in Barcelona... and we were for ages and ages, but the winter finally arrived with the snappiest of cold snaps (my sister could see her breath in her room, and I started sleeping with TWO hot water bottles). Still, during the day it meant glorious sunshine and cold breezes, the perfect weather for enormous scarves and autumn colours.

I went with a group of friends on a day trip to see bridges and lakes (one of those trips that starts out as a few people in a car and morphs before long into three cars). The bridges were probably the best, but for now you get me all bundled up, and sunset over Lake Banyoles.