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Working Our Way Around The World as Ad Lib Artisans

I’m proud to announce that the new website for our around-the-world building, decoration, and renovation company, AD LIB ARTISANS, is now live at http://www.adlibartisans.com

Please enjoy the FIVE galleries which are full of pictures of our work on various projects in England, France, Scotland, Germany, and Australia.

Mark enameling custom cabinetry that he built in a period home in London

In a future post I will explain how this work has allowed us to work our way across the world over the last 10 and 1/2 months!

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Prepping For A Winter In Europe

Just in case, mind you — just in case we can’t find steel cut porridge oats or my particular brand of shampoo or Mark’s all important wholefoods peanut butter in France or Italy or wherever we might be in Europe, we have done a bit (!) of shopping and placed almost all of it into stackable snap lid bins. Add a bicycle, a ladder, a few wooden boxes of tools, all of our luggage, clothing on hangers, and our bedding (we do love our own Egyptian cotton bed linens and down filled pillows) — and we are going to have a very full van! But now we can head back across the English Channel on the ferry this weekend in a much more organized manner.

Snap lid bins to help us organise what we travel with

Mark has spent part of the last 2 days lining the back of the newly purchased diesel van with a hardboard-plywood decking followed by new carpeting. That should make everything quieter and easier to load in and out of the back in the months to come.

Back of the van lined and carpeted and ready for travel

I’ve finally broken down and purchased an iPhone as a work tool whilst travelling and writing/photographing. And until I explored the APPS area of the iTunes store, I really had no idea how comprehensive the programs on offer were. I have spent a couple of days loading my selection onto the phone — so I’m ready to go.

Selection of APPS for iPhone

Need to run — my label-maker is about to get a workout!

Last Days In London — Not What We Expected To Be Doing!

VERY short post today as a quick catch-up. It’s our last weekend in England and we’re still in London. But we certainly aren’t out in the steamy heat of the day seeing the sights.

We are WORKING all day — finishing up the renovation work on our latest commission. I’m enameling the front of a newly built wardrobe and Mark is refinishing the music room floors. We’re both so tired, but we’re also very proud of the work we have done here.

Deborah enameling the front of a newly built wardrobe

And just wait — you’ll be seeing the photo documentation online at our NEW website in a few days!

Those paragraphs above are going to come as a bit of a surprise for anyone who thinks that I am always a photographer and journalist and marketing consultant. Nope! Part of the time I work with my husband in our building and design company.

We’re leaving London tomorrow afternoon, going up to Norfolk to visit with Mark’s parents for a few days, and then next weekend we’ll be taking a ferry back to France with our new diesel van. And our first stop will be at a chateau in Normandy.

More soon — and a long post will be coming in the next week or two that explains just how we have been able to keep travelling for the last 10 months without settling down and getting ‘proper jobs’ again.

Bye for now!

A Tiny Splash at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London

Calmness, tranquility, order, and beauty — all of these sensations settle upon my shoulders like a soothing cape whenever I step through the doors of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. I’ve been coming here for well over 20 years now and each return visit delights my eyes and stimulates my imagination.

Sculpture Gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England.

Plaster cast room with massive reproductions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.

There is an even more relaxed vibe in the warmer months as families and individuals flock to the central courtyard to enjoy an outdoor lunch or a coffee or to allow themselves a little splash and a cooling wade in the shallow reflecting pool.

A welcome bit of shade in the courtyard of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.

Cooling off at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England.

We arrived on a steamy day two weeks ago. The galleries were cool and comfortable inside but there were even more people outside where it was quite hot and sticky. Almost everyone, especially the children, were drawn to the water like a magnet.

Toddler cooling off in the water at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England.

A charming place, a charming day. No matter what the season, do try to visit this wonderful museum for yourself when you are next in London!

London’s Funky and Vibrant Spitalfields and Brick Lane

One of the nicest aspects of living in a thoroughly metropolitan place like London is the market scene and we’ve recently discovered two back-to-back and quite wonderful areas. The neighbourhoods are gritty and funky and full of a mix of old shops, new shops, converted warehouses, and vast spaces that formerly housed manufacturing of some kind and which are now partitioned into market stalls where up-and-coming fashion designers ply their wares. Art galleries, performance spaces, and the vintage clothing and goods scene are all quite well accommodated in this part of London, too.

The markets at Spitalfields and Brick Lane are both a short walk from the Liverpool Street Station which serves both the London Underground and the regional above ground trains.

Just getting there is an interesting walk past a mix of old multi-story buildings with shops or restaurants on the ground floor and apartments above juxtaposed with glossy, glass, and oh-so-contemporary skyscrapers such as the London landmark amusingly nicknamed ‘The Gherkin’ and more correctly named 30 St. Mary Axe.

London landmark skyscraper nicknamed 'The Gherkin' looming over older buildings.

The walk that leads to the Old Spitalfields Market has the beautiful Christ Church, Spitalfields at the end of the street. Shops, pubs, and galleries flank both sides of this lovely street.

Christ Church Spitalfields at the end of Brushfield Street.

We entered the vast glass-covered area filled with market stalls and stumbled upon an in-progress beauty pageant featuring four-legged contestants — the Paw Pageant.

Spectators and participants at the Paw Pageant in Old Spitalfields Market.

The Paw Pageant in the Old Spitalfields Market.

Leaving the market and turning right onto Hanbury Street, we popped into a vintage store, Absolute Vintage, that was lined from top to bottom with purses, dresses, shoes, and more. In case you were wondering, that perfectly posed female is not a mannequin in the picture below — it’s a shopper frozen in the moment of deciding what purse to take off of one of the many overflowing displays.

We walked a few blocks further and arrived at the cafe-lined Brick Lane. I can honestly say that I have never seen such a concentration of Indian restaurants in one place!

Brick Lane in London's East End is lined with a vast variety of Indian restaurants.

More markets are held within the old Truman Brewery buildings — the smokestack of which is seen in the photo below. Everything from one-off sales to designer samples in sparsely furnished warehouses line Brick Lane so it is a slice of shopping heaven for the hip and trendy.

Smokestack of the old Truman Brewery off Brick Lane in London.

The funny, funky streetlamps on funny, funky Brick Lane in London.

One last note — in spite of the occasional crowds in various restaurants (and that is to be expected on any weekend!), this entire area felt less like a ‘tourist market’ and more like a local market with quality products that are aimed at London residents. In a previous post that discussed a visit to the Camden Markets, I aired my aggravation with the throngs of pushy people, the overlapping food smells, the sheer tattiness of most of the goods on offer, and the distinct sensation that it was being touted as a ‘must do’ thing for tourists in London.

Camden Market was such a jolting disappointment that we were thrilled to visit the Spitalfields and Brick Lane area after a recommendation from our friend Claire. This is the happy, upbeat, relatively uncrowded, and genuine market experience for the kinds of quality items that we were looking for in London.

Try it for yourself and see!

London Police Come Out Again

An English summer brings to mind sandwiches and cold drinks, barbeques in the back garden, leisurely days by the seaside or amidst the green and rolling countryside. And we mustn’t forget the bright pink skin from too much sun on too pale skin. Instead, the summer of 2011 is going to be remembered, particularly in London, for being the year of the riots and for being cold and wet and distinctly un-summer-like.

Emerging from our semi-housebound state (work commitments have kept us tucked up inside), we relished the opportunity to get out into the sunshine with cotton clothing on instead of the cashmere cardigans that have been our friends for months. So on this bright and sunny Saturday, we ventured a few train stops away to go to the markets at Spitalfields and Brick Lane.

Liverpool Street Station exterior on a bright and sunny day.

The sight of London’s police force out in great numbers was a bit jarring as we emerged from the Liverpool Street Station and heard the shouting crowds in the distance. Whole streets were closed off to pedestrians and vehicles alike and we could see — no exaggeration — hundreds of uniformed officers in every direction. According to the late coverage in The Guardian, “EDL London march halted by police”, approximately 3,000 members of the police were in attendance at several key locations in the East End.

Barricaded streets in London during EDL march on Saturday, 3 September 2011.

And the reason for all of this police presence? The EDL — English Defence League, a white supremacy group, was marching in force in the East End and we could certainly hear the roaring and chanting both for and against these people. I lingered long enough to take a few pictures, but we thought it best to keep moving in case the situation degenerated into the kinds of violence that we all lived through in early August.

Strong police presence to deter violence at EDL march on Saturday, 3 September 2011.

Police in London waiting calmly as EDL white supremacy group marches through East London.

There was a calm sense of purpose on the faces of those uniformed men and women — orderly and matter of fact. It’s an odd thing to comment on, but London has been rather turbulent lately so it is comforting to think that there are enough law enforcement folks nearby to keep any potential violence in check.

London policeman quietly watching the streets and people.

Tomorrow will be a pleasant change of pace — a story about the colourful areas of Spitalfields and Brick Lane and I’ll have photos galore to show you that vibrant and fun part of London.

Come back soon!

A Sigh Of Relief

The air was soft with rain — the garden extra green. It felt as if the city of London had taken a collective deep breath — and then exhaled with relief.

Soft London Morning After Rain

Things are not settled by any stretch of the imagination and the dialogue about how these riots and violence could have happened this past week, what factors contributed to it in the preceding years, and what solutions must be embraced are well under way. There is a sense of hope that last week’s startling wake-up call will be enough and a state of social order and civility toward one another can return.

But for now, I can gratefully report that things are quiet, life has returned to the busy-purposeful London state that is oh-so-normal, and I saw smiles on the faces of people as we walked through the city today. Such an ordinary and taken-for-granted thing — a smile — and yet so appreciated after the tension of the last week. Let’s hope those smiles stay firmly planted on the faces of the people of London.