ANEMONES

This week’s fresh flowers at home from Columbia Road Flower Market: anemones.

DAUNT BOOKS

Our first and favorite bookshop in London. When we were living in Marylebone, we were visiting more often this neighboor shop and almost every day stopping in front of the shop’s window.

Daunt Books is one of the most beautiful bookshops we saw around the world. You can find here every kind of book but they are specialised on travel books and they have a huge collection of travel books where you can spend hours. If you are around London, don’t miss to visit Daunt Books, you gonna love it!

PRINTERS & STATIONERS

Today (like yesterday) was another sunny day in our little kingdom and we walked to Columbia Road Flower Market for a late breakfast and to buy fresh flowers for our home.

In the market we have our breakfast always in our favorite place at Printers&Stationers in Ezra Street . The sandwiches are tasty and even the market is packed, this little cozy place is quite. Before the owners were serving our smoked salmon sandwiches and red wine while they were preparing to their selfs a morning drink, we were having a chat with their dog.

We didn’t go there for a while and today after buying some anemones for home, we popped for a glass of wine and sandwiches. The sandwiches were delicious again and we tried also the new pork and chutney sandwich. But we noticed some little changes in decoration and service. It looks like they are making a step forward with more staff, putting printed menu on the tables, more choice of sandwich, salad addition to sandwich plates, etc. We hope this step don’t turn our favorite place in the market to a less cozy place.  

WARSAW COVERED BY SNOW

This week, we made a short trip to Warsaw and we enjoyed this beautiful city for four days. During four days it’s snowed and the temperature was –7°C but the feeling was –15°C during the day. It was cold but after our visit we decided that Warsaw is one of the best cities to visit during the snow. The christmas lights in the streets were still on and it was beautiful.

We stayed in Mercure Hotel in the heart of the city and we walked to almost everywhere. We visited the National Museum, the old city walls, the Praga district. We made several walks in Nowy Swiat which is most colorful street of Warsaw where are located lots of good shops, restaurants, cafés and patisseries. During four days we tried to taste every polish food we find in different places and each time we ended happy with the choice. We made more then one visit to A. Blikle Patisserie founded in 1869 for drinking white wine and eating paczki  -which is polish donut-. We tasted different types of pierogis -which are polish dumplings- in Zapiecek. We ate the best dishes in a polish restaurant named Przy Trakcie. Tuesday night was jazz night at the hotel’s bar and was another occasion for another bottle of wine.

We walked in beautiful Lazienki Park covered by snow and visited there the Palace on the Isle, Myslewicki Palace and Old Orangerie where is the Royal Theatre and Royal Collection of Sculpture.

For keeping the body warm and the mind healthy we drank lots of these: tea made by homemade raspberry juice, herbs, cloves, orange, lemon and vodka.

We brought home some delicious smoked polish cheeses.

We brought home also some Polish pottery. We love Polish pottery!

You know where is the best Irlandzki Pub east of Dublin?

THE CATS OF LONDON ART FAIR 2013

Where is art, there is cat. Here are some of this year’s London Art Fair cats:

Fred in a Box by Elizabeth Blackadder, etching in an edition of 80, £1600.

Fred on Top of the Cupboard by Elizabeth Blackadder, etching in an edition of 80, £1600.

A Cat named Sam by Andy Warhol, lithograph with extensive watercolour applied by hand, 1954, £5500 (each).

Still life with Cat I by Debbie Urquhart, 2012, oil on board, £1200.

Sourice et Griffeminette by Charlotte Champion, 2012, bronze, limited edition of 8, £4500.

Siamese Cat Asleep by Christopher Wood, 1925, oil on board. This same piece was in exhibition last year also in London Art Fair. Actually, this is not the only piece of art we saw repeted in London Art Fair 2013 and we couldn’t understand the gallery owner’s mentality for exhibiting same piece two years in a raw in a such limited -few feet squares- exhibition space.

WINTER SUN IN LONDON

The snow is almost melted, only in big parks and some streets there is trace of snow. Today we went to the touristic centre of London for a walk and maybe take some snow photos but what we photographed at the end of the day is a sunny London.

It’s still cold and tv channels are talking constantly about the “Big Freeze” but what we don’t understand in this cold country as two mediterranean people, which part of -4°C and two-three days of snow is “Big Freeze”. This is just winter.

EARLY DAFFODILS AND TULIPS

London’s streets are covered by snow but an early spring came to our house thanks to early daffodils and tulips this week.

Margaret also looks happy of the early spring, isn’t she?

TIGERS PLAYING WITH SNOWMAN

There is snow in London and here is a fabulous video of snow. Tigers playing with snowman at Longleat Safari Park in UK by BBC News.

LONDON ART FAIR 2013

Today we visited London Art Fair which takes place between 16-20 January 2013 in our neighborhood, at Business Design Centre. London Art Fair celebrates largest-ever fair in 25th year. There are  total of 100 UK and international galleries in the main fair and 30 young galleries exhibiting new work in the Art Projects section. Among them there are art works of major artists like Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Henry Moore, David Hockney, etc. and also lots of young artists. You can own your own Picasso drawing for £57000, Hockney drawing for £28000 and Warhol lithograph for only £5500.

We really enjoyed the fair again but for us there was a proud part of the fair this time. We knew that one gallery from London bought one of the photos of Kerim for one of their artists for using in two of her art works: one collage and one sculpture but we didn’t see the pieces until today. And there was it! It was a big pleasure to see the works where they used the photo and for us it is the most important part of  this year’s fair.

Same as last year, this year also the galleries made a selection for all tastes. So we make a mixed art taste selection also for this post and in the next posts we can share our favorits. Here are some of them:

Peacemaker by Nancy Fouts, 2012, metal, wood and painted rose thorns, £6000.

Snack Barbie by Francesco De Molfetta, 2009, hand painted and glazed terracotta, £6000.

Butterfly Owl by Nancy Fouts, 2012, taxidermy owl & butterfly with wooden perch, £4800.

Spencer by Robert Bradford, 2012, objects screwed on wood, £3000 (each).

To the Limit by Anna Gillispie, bronze, £15000.

STAIRS OF LONDON

Two beautiful stairs of a XVIIIth century London building: Somerset House.

Nelson Stair which leads to the Navy Board Room where Lord Nelson attended some meetings and Stamp Stair which gives access to the Stamp Office. 

ARENACROSS LONDON

Yesterday evening we were in O2 Arena for Arenacross London to watch the amazing show of motocross riders. We are motorcyle lovers, we love the idea of preparing two small bags and going for a ride (preferably to a small Greek island) but we are not big fans of watching motorcycle races on telly.

We love touring motorcycles, not the racer or motocross ones but on the other hand, we love watching live Moto GP races and we find really impressive watching so closely their actions at the curves. But we never watched an indoor motocross race until yesterday. Because of being an indoor track the atmosphere was little bit smoky and watching racers jumping and flying with their motorcycles all around (and meanwhile drinking few pints) was amazing.

In one part of the show, the little ones took place. Specially 7-10 and 10-12 years old racers were as breathtaking as the professionals and they earned all spectators respect with their talent and perseverance.

Now, while we are drinking our teas at home, still coming little bit smoke from our lungs but it worth to be there and being part of that ambiance. 

Photos: Arenacross UK

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON, PAUL WENHAM-CLARKE AND TAYLOR WESSING PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT PRIZE EXHIBITIONS

There are some photo exhibitions in London which we were thinking to visit since weeks and today was the day. We visited three of them in a row. First we walked to Somerset House to visit Cartier Bresson: A Question of Color photo exhibition. The exhibition is questioning the colour in the photography, with Henri Cartier-Bresson’s ten black & white photos never exhibited before in the UK and  colour photos of 14 international photographers. The photography lovers should not miss this exhibition. Exhibition is free and open until 27 January 2013 in Somerset House.

After Cartier-Bresson exhibition, we went to Soho, to our favorite tea shop to buy some jasmin tea, then we walked to Trafalgar Square and visited Paul Wenham-Clark’s photo exhibition The Westway at The Gallery in the Crypt, in St. Martin in the Fields. It was our first exhibition visit in this gallery, we didn’t know about him before either and we are glad to meet his works now. Paul Wenham-Clark’s documentary photos in this exhibition, show parts of lifes of the people who are living around A40 road. The exhibition is free and open until 28 February 2013 at The Gallery in the Crypt.

The last photo exhibition of the day for us was The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 at the National Portrait Gallery. We really loved some of them but generally, the photos choosed for the exhibion of the prize (except some frames) little bit dissapointed us. The exhibition’s ticket prize is is £2 and is open until 17 February 2013.

After visited three exhibition we were feeling really hungry and popped-up in Chinatown Gerard Street for a chinese no limit buffet treat to our stomacs. Lofffly friday!

GEFFRYE MUSEUM

We are living in London since two years and every week we are visiting or discovering a new place in this city but there are still plenty of places we didn’t visit yet. Geffrye Museum where we’ve been yesterday was one of them. That’s why, when we were leaving the house we decided to be there two hours earlier then the event and visit the museum also.

Geffrye Museum is located at Kingsland Road no:136, in a beautiful building with a big garden and is a perfect place to see diffrent styles of British living, decorations and furnitures of different periods since 1630.

Because of the christmas, each room was decorated with the ornaments and style of the period and again beacuse of the British tradition of keeping the christmas decorations until the Twelfth Night of Christmas, we could have the chance to see them yesterday and then to be part of the one of the oldest British christmas traditions which is burning the holly and the ivy to avoid the bad luck.

After celebrating the Twelfth Night with carols, mulled wine and cake around the fire, the smell of the fire made us feel hungry for a Turkish barbecue and we found ourselves at Mangal, the smallest and the first restaurant of the chain at Arcola Street no:10 in Dalston. Yummy! 

FAREWELL TO CHRISTMAS

Today we had a short walk by the Regent’s Canal to the Geffrye Museum to be part of an old British tradition which we learned from the Book of Christmas: burning holly and ivy on Twelfth Night of Christmas to avoid the bad luck.

When we first arrived there, the big garden of the Geffrye Museum was ready for the event. The Twelfth Night cakes and mulled wine on the tables decorated with candles, the place of the fire, the little scene for the band.

When it was getting dark, the garden was packed by people. When the time arrived we ended up by eating Twelfth Night cake, drinking mulled wine and singing christmas carols around the fire all together with the lyrics of the carrols on our hands. Farewell to christmas and another well lived day in our little kingdom.