BLOGGERS + CATS...

I was tempted not to tell you who the owner of these cats was and let you guess. (The feet are a good clue.) 

It's not really accurate to call Maria just a blogger. Art director, stylist, photographer, writer, printer, publisher, online and print creative visionary powerhouse or something might be getting closer, but isn't very succinct. You can probably tell I've been a bit of a fan of MAV's for a really long time, but through seeing her inspiring projects and collaborations, I didn't really realise she had cats until I saw them in the new issue of 3191 Quarterly. So of course I had to ask her, you know, not some really probing questions about her creative process or how the light in Portland, Maine affects her work like a normal person would, but all about Charlie and Scotch. I should have known that despite her claiming to not be a cat person at all, her cats have a pretty sweet life. Thank you MAV!

Charlie and Scotch

What breed are they, how old, how did you come to live with them, why did you call them Charlie and Scotch?
They are both short haired cats. I think they are tabby cats but I really have no idea. I am not a cat person at all! I got Charlie when he was 10 weeks old; he is now 9 years old. I got Scotch about 4 years ago. I was volunteering at a cat shelter and there he was. I had just lost my beloved Raven (the black cat on the orange couch in the photo below) and was not feeling like I would get another cat but there was Scotch. I couldn't resist! I'm not entirely sure why I went with Charlie as a name ... I just remember liking it. Scotch was named by my boyfriend. We both love to drink Scotch so voila!

Raven and Charlie

How would you describe their personalities? Are they friends?
Charlie is a complete pain in the ass. He's demanding, rude and bossy. He's in my face all the time! But he's also beautiful, soft, great company and very smart. I love him so much. Scotch is ... well ... he's sort of dumb! He's sort of skittish and also very, very sweet. Both cats are very friendly and always out. They *never* hide. They are like dogs. And yes! I would say they are friends. They are like brothers ... snuggling most mornings and then fighting a few hours later. I love that they have each other. Charlie is definitely in charge but Scotch shows him the business sometimes too! It's a great combo.

What are their respective favourite foods?
Chicken, chicken, chicken. And they also both love cheese and butter (but they don't get those unless they sneak up on the counter).

Do Charlie and Scotch have preferred lounging locations? Any signature poses?
Their favorite locations change but right now they are loving baskets with wool blankets. For a while they were fighting over one round basket but now I added a second one and they seem to each love having their own. They both love to curl up into a ball. They both love to be warm. Oh and Scotch will lay on any paper in the room. He'll jump up on our table and lay on our papers. He loves papers!

Charlie

What is a day in the lives of Charlie and Scotch like?
Wake up at 6AM, demand food by jumping on MAV. Eat excitedly! Charlie goes for a nap immediately and sleeps till 2PM. Scotch follows me around until about 10AM. He's my shadow. Sometimes he even follows me into the shower! Then once I start the shower he scatters but he waits by the door for me. He likes to sit on my lap while I have coffee. So yeah. They both get up around 2PM and wander around for a bit, sit in the sun, get into trouble. Then they nap until 4PM and then are back to demanding food. They eat dinner around 6PM and then it's back to napping and wandering. They are ready for their evening treat at 10PM and then to bed. They are *very* into their eating routine! Their days are much the same every single day and they love it.

Do you have any amusing/weird/cute Charlie/Scotch moments or stories you'd like to share? Well Charlie likes to sit at the table with me when I eat. It's pretty cool. I pull a chair out for him and he sits right at the table with me when I eat dinner, lunch or breakfast. It's pretty funny.

Scotch

Quickfire round: 

Birds or mice? Birds for Scotch. Mice for Charlie.

Sunlight or radiator? Sunlight for sure!

Tap or bowl? Neither. These cats don't drink water. Odd, right? They get wet food.

Lap or laptop? :) Laptop!

Snuggling or stretching? Snuggling. These guys are pretty good about snuggling.

Cats or humans? Humans! They are like dogs, I'm telling ya!

Scotch

{All photos © MAV}

POESY...

 Clemence Poesy and Jalouse are always so good together - I think so anyway, or maybe it's that I don't really look at Jalouse unless Clemence is on the cover! You can download the whole November 2011 issue here.

1. Mason Poole, 2. CP scrapbook for Jeanne d'Arc

May 2009
Ph: Emeric Glayse

FOG...

More late autumnal pictures - I still feel the need to document, even if it's a bit boring for you. I've dealt with having to take my car in for repairs every weekend for the past month or so by setting up a task/reward scenario. There's a place nearby that does really good bacon sandwiches (I may have fallen slightly off the greens wagon temporarily) so I always get one when I go. Then I have a snugs time with my mechanic's dog, who's obviously the best dog that ever existed. She likes to sit on my foot so I can't leave.

I keep seeing extremely dapper gentlemen about the place and struggling to sneakily capture them on Instagram. You'll just have to trust me that the man at the top of this tube escalator was wearing a pinstriped suit and bowler hat and moving at quiiiite a clip - too fast for me. The man in the red trousers was more leisurely, was smoking a pipe and wore subtly striped socks.

Finally, this November has been wonderfully foggy, which makes everything feel mystical and - to coin a phrase - Brontean. The final picture was taken yesterday morning; then last night as I was driving back towards London from Sussex I swung down the slip road onto the motorway to see fields with hovering low fog, silhouettes of trees and the sky bright neon pink. Like this (the only picture of it I can find on Flickr) but as if someone scrawled all over it with a bright pink highlighter pen.

p.s. I know this is sacrilege being a cat person, but I can't help looking up stuff about Akitas - the Japanese breed of dog my car guy has. I had been told they're very loyal and I found a story about one in Tokyo that used to meet his owner from Shibuya station every day. The man died at work one day and the dog continued to go to the station every evening at the right time for nine years (until its own death) to wait for him. There's a bronze statue of the dog at the station and bronze paw prints at the exact spot he used to wait.

WINTERS PAST...

Some pictures taken between 2004 - 2009 around the hood. 2009 is incidentally when I got an iphone. I do miss having a decent little camera that I can pop in my pocket and take random pics with. Must sort that out. Looking through my iphoto it's clear that post 2009 my picture taking fell off the edge of a cliff. These pictures were all taken on my old Panasonic Lumix FX7 with the Leica lens. I loved that little camera - it was not much bigger than a credit card, and the screen took up most of the back. It took pretty decent pictures but it doesn't really work anymore. Can anyone recommend a replacement?

LONDON...

Here's a little London itinerary I wrote for Fathom - it's essentially where I'd take you if it was your first visit to London; as opposed to where I'd take your granny or your annoying little brother.

Read it here.

NOVEMBER...

{Photos from other Novembers 1,2,3, in Greenwich great park and 4,5, the Kent countryside not far from London}

FAVOURITE SHOP IN THE WORLD...

This is my Christmas wishlist - and all from one shop. I've been familiar with the branch of Nauticalia in Greenwich for years. It proclaims itself "the first shop in the world", being the closest shop to the Meridian line. It sells among other things: decorative ship's wheels, ship's cats that dogs always bark at in the window, green (starboard) and red (port) lanterns, compasses and a variety of other seafaring related ephemera. I'd bought gifts there for the sailing obsessed (hi dad!) and had noticed a small selection of clothing, but I didn't realise until my friend got a beautiful aran cardigan from there that they had a website - with loads of stuff I want! I'm keeping it to just a small edit of clothes here but I could browse for hours. I think I prefer this type of shop, where the buying isn't necessarily aimed or marketed at someone like me, but you can find fantastic stuff if you sift through all the randomness without the selection having all been done for you. Yes, I definitely prefer that.

Merino wool Norwegian sweater

Breton shirt

Merino wool Celtic cardigan

Gamekeepers bag

Breton cap

Merino wool cardigan

Nightcap!!!

Cotton flannel pyjamas

EAT YOUR GREENS...

Anyone who's been reading this blog for a long time might remember that a few years ago I studied macrobiotic cooking - it's true! That was when I was going to Paris a lot - try doing your macrobiotic cooking homework in Paris - it's like a sick joke. While I got bored with the strictness of it, felt life was too short not to have a little brioche once in a while and was frustrated with the whole needing to use eighteen different pans and thirty six ingredients from four corners of London to compose a simple meal, I must admit that it taught me certain principles and gave me skills to look after my health. This has come in handy over the past few months when I've been ill more often than well, and the only thing the doctor can do is give me repeated courses of antibiotics which even he admits probably won't have any effect and I think knocks my immune system out even more. So all I can do is eat as well as I can. I've been loading up on seasonal veg in every meal - until I was confronted with the dark leafy greens block. I know it's really good for you but I've just never known what to do with it. Kale, greens, chard - anything like that is exactly what I should be eating but I just seem to make it into a soggy mess.

I'd been looking at Ashley Helvey's blog for inspiration a lot - apart from her aesthetic, which I love, she cooks in a way I can relate to - really nourishing healthy food from good sources cooked in the unfussy way that I like. I eventually reached across the interwebs and asked her if she'd share a few ideas on what to do with greens and she was so kind to send me a load of recipes, which I'll share below. I've done the chard I already had at home with olive oil, lemon and garlic which was delicious, and now I've got masses of curly kale to play with. I thought collards were the same as chard - see the depth of my misunderstanding about dark leafy greens - they aren't at all! Collard greens are just much less available in the UK, who knows why, but I reckon all greens are interchangeable so would work with any of these recipes. Enjoy - I know I am - and feel free to leave any recipes for leafy greens of your own in the comments.

Greens with shallot and crumbled egg:

Boil two small eggs (or one large egg) in generously salted water for six minutes, add ribboned collards with stems removed, boil for an additional three minutes, strain, squeeze excess water from collards/greens with fresh dishcloth, toss with high quality extra virgin olive oil, Meyer lemon, crumbled egg yolks, and paper thin shallots. Garnish with cracked black pepper or cayenne. I added feta, but this recipe can take whatever you've got. I think it would be delicious with torn bread croutons.

More after the cut...

AT FRIEZE...

I arrived at Frieze slightly irritable that due to a series of events I'd ended up going at the weekend, when the hardcore art people have gone, replaced by families with strollers, the parents of which probably studied fine art before they got jobs in media and started dressing like Jamie Oliver. This put a dampener on my intent to snap pictures of interesting looking people juxtaposed with art, which is one of the things I like to do at Frieze. Crazy art + crazy/interesting people = good fun as far as I'm concerned. By Saturday there's also an air of apathy - all the deals are done, the exhausted gallerists have switched into wearing jeans and are glued to their iphones and laptops while eating salads, not paying any attention to what's going on around them. My preference is to go as early in the week as possible, but maybe I'm spoiled since Nina took me to the preview evening last year and we were, in her words "watching TV" - just gawping at all the crazy/interesting people until our eyes almost fell out.

In the end, after a shaky start rectified by a double macchiato and a lemon meringue cupcake at Gail's, this supplemented by a quince and pear bellini and some smoked salmon at Hix, I had a fine old time - the best part was actually outside where the sculpture was. It was such a beautiful warm autumnal day, it made sense to be outdoors in the park, rather than inside what is essentially a plastic tent, however enormous.

Thank you Aesop for the tickets!

{In the picture: the earth and goldleaf piece is by Michel Francois and the silkscreen on canvas is by David Noonan}

LEAVES ME GASPING FOR BREATH...

Anndra Neen jewellery. So insane, it might have given me pleurisy. Or that could be entirely unrelated. The sisters behind Anndra Neen also have quite a nice little flat.

THINGS I {LOVE}, OCTOBER...

I'm doing away with the "like" for October; this month it's actual love. Maybe it sounds all swishy, but then some of these things are pretty swishy themselves. Beware that I'm about to gush massively about girly stuff.

My first love is: matte velvet. I've never been that drawn to shiny things. The walls of my flat are painted in flat eggshell, the woodwork is matte enamel paint - I'm just not a gloss type of person. Perusing the new Chanel nail colours for autumn I was not convinced by Quartz and Peridot: not very flattering to my skin tone and very reminiscent of the metallics from Urban Decay and Hard Candy in the nineties, which wasn't that long ago. . .was it?! OK, maybe I'm ancient, but I've seen all that before.

By far the best offering is the mat velvet top coat - it's also in its way a frugal chic purchase as you can use it on top of any nail polish and it will turn it completely matte in seconds. Hours of fun, you have no idea. First of all I was doing a kind of French reverse manicure thing over oxblood red, keeping the half moons shiny with matte tips - then I went for just matte. It makes the polish look like it's fused to your nail, which is somehow very smart. More matte nails here. (D.V. would be so into it - you know she claimed in her memoirs to have been the true unsung inventor of commercial nail polish.) Then if you put hand cream on, it turns a kind of burnished half matte - let's call it satinwood if we're sticking with the Dulux theme - but you can just put another coat on to re-mattify it. I think I've already used half a bottle, which by the way is also extremely handsome to look at, being matte black. I also bought the Chanel Rouge Allure Velvet lipstick in La Somptuese - a matte brick red. But if I wallop on a highly pigmented lipstick like that, I just look like Cruella de Ville or a goth - so I smudge it on lightly with my finger. This is the first Chanel lipstick I've bought since they brought out the click release opening and I don't care what anyone says: design matters. It's so pleasing to use - the iPhone of lipstick case design.

Girly onslaught over.

My new winter peacoat from. . . my family friends' attic, where it had been hanging for 30 years having been bought as part of the school uniform for their son's short lived attendance at boarding school at the age of 12. It was a mean, horrid school so he got out of there fast, and the coat was never worn. Possibly noting that I wear navy every day, they thought I might like it and they were right.

Mat topcoat AND old/new/old button = efficiency.

Being a boy's coat, rather than a man's the proportions are perfect and the cuffs just hit on my wrists. When I had it dry cleaned it lost a button so I changed them for the buttons that came from the WWII military great coat D's mum gave me years ago in Italy. (I sadly had to part with the coat, but I kept the beautiful buttons.) So happy with my new old winter coat with the old new old buttons.

Sewing helper

Bill Cunningham New York. It's frustrating to write about films here, because release dates differ so drastically worldwide and people are reading from all over. I know this film was released months ago in the US, but it doesn't have a release date in the UK until February 2012 for some bizarre reason. I was able to watch it yesterday, and again this morning. It's hard to even put into words, but honour, ethics, kindness, joy and singular vision are the ones I wish I could arrange into something coherent to describe Mr. Cunningham as seen in this documentary. This film was so moving and poignant. It had me in pieces.