Fa-la-la-la-la  la-la-la-...yum!

With the festive season here, it is time to stock up on sweet treats for Rudolph and his horn-clad mates. In old  chocolate and tobacco tins from local second hand shops and car boot sales, some home-made ginger bread moose and trees rub shoulders with some home-made chocolates (cinnamon/hazelnut-flavoured, see recipe here), eyeing up the colourful candy cane strangers in the taller tin. 

The home-made goodies are clearly a little thrown by the curvy shop-bought cane knock-outs, and earlier today I heard worried whispers from the sugar-stacked tray... Concerns that the humans might reject the 'boring browns' and aim straight for the 'stunning stripes'. Hushed voices talking about 'outsiders' and 'initiation rites'. Well, reassuring the gingerbread and the chocolates that I would always be faithful to my brown buddies, I managed to calm them down...

... and with the help of my yuletide-spirited mediating pine twigs, gone is now all talk about 'outsiders'. In fact, as I was leaving the room, I heard the pine twigs invite all the sweets to embrace the message of peace and love...

Not that it matters that much...

In a house full of sweet tooths, these sweet darlings will not be given much time to fret...

... they will most likely not live to see tomorrow! 

Oh dear, I am now worried that anyone using Google Translate will end up with a horribly morbid story here... Let me just clarify, I am only talking about eating the biscuits and the chocolates!!!

Wishing you all a lovely start to the new week!

Helena

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From all of me to all of you...

...a very, VERY Merry Christmas!

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Defying gravity...?

Who says baskets need to stand on tables and floors? I like to play Mary Contrary sometimes and avoid placing everything on ground level, or table level, or any flat surface reminding us of Newton's boring law. Hanging things from the ceiling, like lanterns or levitating Buddhas on swing-like shelves, or even upside-down flowers in tune with the season, all very modest outbreaks of civil disobedience. Or perhaps more like interior decorating naughtiness. Or could I plead artistic freedom? At the very least, it makes life a little more interesting.

As for baskets, walls are definitely the way to go.

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Go East...

For those of you who have just begun to relax into the tranquil white backdrop of our kitchen-diner and the CALM area, it is time to hold on to your seats and open your minds to a little taste of saffron, a whiff of baklava, a hint of the Orient.

And for those of you who may wonder what one does when one cannot find a curtain material one likes, but is head over heals in love with a particular wallpaper? Easy. You hang two strips of wallpaper from the rail and ask them to believe they are curtains. Think wallpaper. Be wallpaper. And oh yes, you also prey your baby who is just getting ready to walk does not decide to pull himself up grabbing any curtains... Success rate on last prayers? 100 %. Still hanging and baby boy will be four in March.

And by the way, wallpaper cum curtain prayers require no religion. Just some faith in interior well-being.

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