Monday, December 31, 2012

What I read in 2012


The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling*
The Bolter by Frances Osborne
The Cook's Tale by Nancy Jackman & Tom Quinn
The Accidental Billiionaires by Ben Mezrich*
Move Over Darling by Chris Stovell
Mr Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal
The Colour Purple by Alice Walker*
A Kind of Vanishing by Lesley Thomson
The Soldier's Wife by Joanna Trollope
27: Six Friends, One Year by RJ Heald
A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale
Drowning Rose by Marika Cobbold
Ninepins by Rosy Thornton
Somewhere to Hide (The Estate, Book 1) by Mel Sherratt
Tony Hogan Bought me an Ice Cream Float before he Stole my Ma by Kerry Hudson
Gold by Chris Cleave
The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend
Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas*
The Expats by Chris Pavone
Various Pets Alive and Dead by Marina Lewycka
The Cornish House by Liz Fenwick
The Most Beautiful Thing by Fiona Robyn
The Buddha In The Attic by Julie Otsuka
Untying the Knot by Linda Gillard
My Dear I Wanted To Tell You by Louisa Young
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro*
You Before Me by Jojo Moyes
Nirvana Bites by Debi Alper
Everything and Nothing by Araminta Hall
The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale
Hothouse Flower by Lucinda Riley
Room by Emma Donoghue*
A Field Guide to Fabric Design by Kimberly Kight
When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman* (reread)
Limitless by Alan Glynn
Handmade Type Workshop by Charlotte Rivers
The Fundamentals of Printed Textile Design by Alex Russell
What the Nanny Saw by Fiona Neill
More Than You Can Say by Paul Torday
Cuckoo by Julia Crouch
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel*
How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

*Book Club choices

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Wednesday's Winter Windows

There might be snow, frost, icicles and snowflakes in Bangkok's malls (and not just because of the roaring air conditioning) but there's no sign of 'winter' outside. Let's face it, the three seasons here are hot, hot and wet and really hot, and I'm ready for simply hot.

What is that noise? Ohhhhh; that's the sound of you all tutting and unhooking your RSS feeds, right? Sorry; but it's meant to be a bit cooler now and it's not and I'm a bit fed up with it.

So here are some of Bangkok's winter wonderland windows:

(And, because great minds think alike, when you've finished at Tea Stains you can check out Vogue's Christmas windows here.)

Accessorize Mega Bangna

Dior Emporium

Department store, Siam Paragon

Zen at Centralworld

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Parent teenager miscommunications



Poor old Son had a long appointment at the dentist yesterday in order to get some treatment done before Christmas. He texted me - in misery (and sarcasm) from the dental chair - to confirm that afterwards he was meeting friends to go to the cinema. 

I was just trying to cheer him up; to give him a laugh but in my failure to pay attention (and my own obsession about costumes) I think I let him down…

(In my defence, the wool beard appeared to adopt a very similar method to the lion's mane I did a week or so ago... And if anyone knows the boys, please tell them they looked awesome and I really wished I'd asked them for a photo.)

Son's conversation is in yellow: mine in blue.


Thursday, December 06, 2012

TA- Daaa: the Christmas headwear



I knew back in the summer that I was going to attempt to make a holly sprig for the Christmas headpiece, an essential (if only to me) part of my Bangkok Christmas. These things often look awesome and professional in my brain and uhm, less so, in reality. Anyway, I’m relatively happy with how they turned out. Definitely room for improvement… but not bad.

I adapted a method I learned with Bridget Bailey in my tutorial back in the summer that involved layers (silk and velvet) and floristry wire. I estimated that I needed 9-11 per headpiece plus extras for disasters so I was cutting and assembling the layers for quite some time.

If I thought THAT was fiddly, it was nothing on the assembling of the sprig, which turned out to be more of a branch. (Note to self: Less is more.) And then the binding of the wire… suffice to say, they didn’t get easier and I’m glad I only had to make three!






Wednesday, December 05, 2012

No Wed's Window


I'm postponing Wednesday's Windows to show you how I've been spending my time.

I tried to call this activity 'work' at Book Club when I was trying to justify why I hadn't read the book (The Casual Vacancy) but I got sniggered at.

Still, whether it's work or play, it was a mammoth session: a four day, 6am to 10pm job. And while I worked, I 'watched,' (listened to) The House of Eliott; one episode after another. It send me a little, tiny bit mad but kept me going.... and I affectionately retitled it 'The House of Fraser.'

Right so this was for Husband's work Christmas party, theme: Animal Planet. Can you guess what he was?






No, he wasn't Rod Stewart with that bad mullet hairstyle; he was meant to be a lion.... Not sure how successful that was but still... at least now I'm experienced enough to apply for jobs as a carpet maker...