trinkets and baubles
my o my. i’ve been waiting for some weeks, with impatiently tapping foot, for elizabeth taylor’s stuff to be shown online at christies. i’ve waded through PAGES of awesome jewels and frocks and i’ve got a little something all picked out. isn’t it gorgeous? wouldn’t the five brooches look FABULOUS pinned up in the right [...]
financial crisis? what financial crisis?
i do wonder what kind of dual-economy madhouse we are all living in when i receive an email from a brand new retailer, on her second day in her brand new boutique, in a teeny weeny town (but i note that it is slightly larger than malanda!) requesting more soaps pronto pronto, because she has [...]
listening to…
….red hot + blue. a tribute to cole porter. i’ve had this album for a long time and i don’t think i’ve ever sat down and listened to the whole thing properly. we were making soap in the workshop during the week and suddenly, i had to stop and run over to check the ipod….was [...]
steve jobs
i came to computers late in life….about 34 years old. i googled soapmaking and a whole world opened up for me. online friends taught me how to do everything from opening a second window (omg!) to cut and pasting to emailing images and links. i struggled along with various PCs for about 7 years, because [...]
garlic lovers, rejoice
we love garlic around here, but nobody adores the job of peeling the stuff. after seeing the smart saveur clip below, we are now lining up to peel the garlic! i’ll do it! NO, let ME!! this really truly works, and is a great dinner party trick too. and i use bowls that are about [...]
more photos from japan
really old
and then there was this weird little pottery pilgrim’s bottle. 10th century, liao dynasty, green glaze, gangwa ware. i fell in love with the glaze on this piece and the shape of it, not to mention the sheer utility of it. a bit of rope through the hole, hang it round your neck, and off [...]
really really old
at the tokyo metropolitan museum, we spent hours poring over amazing samurai swords and pottery and kimonos and calligraphy and prints. but these two items really captured me…..both of them ancient and both of them just kinda cool in that design-y way. check these out. first up is the 3500+ year old jia wine warmer [...]
big in japan
we certainly felt big in japan when we visited our soap in a couple of perfect potion’s kyoto shops. both are simply beautiful shops, with that unmistakeable perfect potion scent of blended essential oils as soon as you walk in….fabulous displays, and charming staff. the temples and gardens were amazing, but seeing our soap here [...]
the golden temple, kyoto
this is possibly one of the most famous sights in japan, apart from mt fuji of course. (we saw mt fuji from the train en route to kyoto and she was completely magnificent). we were there on a boilingly hot late summer day, no breeze, just a bit of cloud cover….and it was difficult to [...]
fushimi inari taisha
i took a lot of photos at this fascinating shinto shrine. it is the main shrine to the deity inari, who is the deity of rice and foxes, amongst other things. the foxes favourite thing to eat is inari sushi…balls of rice stuffed into fried tofu. this is one of my favourite things too! coincidence! [...]
miso mayo
i do have some photos of japan to upload and organise (temples temples temples and our soap in kyoto) but in the meantime, i want to talk about a very simple dish we ate a few times in kyoto. it was simply miso (usually a lighter sweeter miso, not one of those dark and mysterious [...]
matsuya ginza
we arrived in narita late last night, after a slightly delayed, but otherwise uneventful flight. maurice got us onto the jr express train to tokyo, then we hopped on a very short tokyo metro ride to ginza. our exit was the furthest-flung imaginable and my leg had begun to play up, so the last bit [...]
this and that
o dear….it is like a ghost town blog around here! i can hear the wind whistling through the empty streets and see the lonely tufts of tumbleweed rolling. you must forgive me…i have been IMMERSED in google+. and today, i deleted my google+ account. why, you may ask, as you scratch your puzzled head. and [...]
at least one thing stayed the same
i saw my podiatrist yesterday and did the thing where you stand on the computerised pad and then walk over it and your bio-mechanics show up on a computer screen, all colour-coded and what-have-you. he sucked his breath in when he saw my x-rays and was mightily impressed by the degree of dislocation my ankle [...]
google+
so, i guess you’ve heard all about google+ already? i have been there for a few days, playing with the circles and checking things out. it is easier and nicer than facebook, and not as shallow and demented as twitter. if you would like an invitation, please send me your email address in the comments….i [...]
make your own pita bread
my oven needs cleaning. in fact, it is shamefully filthy and it is now smoking like a train whenever anything goes in there. it’s just going to have to wait until my leg is really a lot better. however, just because the oven is horrid, doesn’t mean that everyone around here is suddenly tired of [...]
a blast from the past
there has been some chitchat lately around the interwebz about soap makers all copying one another and who was first with a certain look, and then the copiers usually shout “but it doesn’t even matter who was FIRST and there is nothing original anywhere anymore anyway”. there was a hideous blog post recently, with some [...]
new kittens
finally, some photos! mr knut: mr bolli bollason: all together now:
google+
via my soapmaking connections, i finally wrangled a google+ invitation. i’m here: gplus.to/soapmaker so if you are in the neighbourhood, please add me and i’ll add you back. so far, it seems a lot cleaner and a more intuitive user interface than facebook (which i never got the hang of anyway, and in a fit [...]
kittens! soap! walking!
KITTENS: our oldest cat, miss mousie, the savage and beautiful, has shipped off to parts unknown. maurice has combed the neighbourhood for her, but she has simply vanished. she was 13 years old, mightily bad tempered, and very independent. i think she has succumbed to something or other, poor old thing. we have looked and [...]
i know it seems….
….as though i have been harping on about my leg! my leg! lately….but the damned thing is really on my mind. and hanging off the end of my torso constantly. after what felt like an interminable time in a wheelchair, things have started to move rapidly. i refused to have any truck whatsoever with crutches….dangerous, [...]
cold moon soap plans
i am astro-soaping again! tomorrow at 6.14am, here in malanda, it is the peak of the cold moon. we are all getting up before dawn, so i can make a proper full moon soap. i’ll prepare the essential oils tomorrow before we start…..but i am dreaming of a blend of lime/vetiver/bergamot/geranium/basil/patchouli…..something really different. i reckon [...]
slow but steady progress
since wednesday, i have been stretching my foot and leg, and hobbling with the walking frame, about doing some partial weight-bearing on the poor deformed limb for a couple of minutes at a time. i can stand up on both legs now and rock my weight back and forth gently between my feet. every morning, [...]
van gogh cats….there’s an app for that
lately it seems that you can get an app for almost everything. so, when i wanted to turn some favourite photos of some of our beautiful moggies into paintings, i knew where to look first. fennel: norbulingka: miss mousie:
keep looking »