Le 1er février

London, 8.20am, 1st of February 2012.

Clear, cold and crisp.

The year is already flying by it seems.

Travels of the body and the mind

2012 has already been full of surprises for the Petit Filoux household. Amongst those, promised travels.

I shall tell more about this when the time comes, but until then I am preparing myself for travels of both a physical and spiritual nature. I would say wish me luck, but above anything, it is courage and strength that I need. Heeps of it.

I don't mean to be all cryptic here, but let's just say my road to happiness is full of obstacles. All of which I need to be prepared to face all on my own, with noone else's help but my own determination.

Quick crochet

I've been teasing you with this for a few days now, and here's the time for a big reveal! Well a little one really, because this project is rather quite small... but very useful nonetheless!!

Father Christmas was rather generous you see, and he brought me a new fancy phone this year... and fancy phone = new cover, because I'm taking no risks with this baby. So I whipped this up in no time, with a little leftover yarn I had lying around.

Nothing fancy, just a practical phone cover. Does what it says on the tin pretty much. Rows of double crochet, a neat little trim a la Attic24, and bob's your uncle.

I'm rather pleased with this one. It's nice and soft, and very snug. Lovely!

:-)

At the weekend I...

Enjoyed some newly purchased art displayed at the top of the stairs...

Together with the display directly opposite...

Marvelled at my new blooms...

And breathed in the incredible scent emanating from these beautiful flowers...

Started thinking about potential crafting projects...

And abandoned others until help is at hand...

Unfortunately, all the coffee in the world didn't seem to help...

Had fun stalking (and feeding) local wildlife from my bedroom window...

And finally put up our kitchen calendar...

All in all, a pretty nice weekend and a lot of new things for this January 2012. A very promising start I reckon :-)

Beginnings and endings

Beginnings...

and endings...

Hopefully more to show for both very soon!

Which cake to bake

This is the question I asked myself at the weekend. I was going to make a birthday cake for my nan and I couldn't decide which one to make. One from a Christmas present cookbook, one from a foodie calendar, or one I'd seen on a blog? In the end, I made two, the choice was just too hard.

I made an orange and yogurt cake taken from this year's Good Food calendar and the apple sharlotka I'd seen on Thomasina's blog.

Verdict? You'll only be seeing photos of the orange cake because my grandparents kept the leftovers of the apple one (guess they liked it!). And I wasn't clever enough to take a photo of it while I had a chance. Which is a shame, because it looked damn good, so pretty with the icing sugar powdered over the top.

My favourite was the orange one though, so it's a good thing we got to bring the leftovers home with us. It went in a flash, needless to say. So light and fresh, not too orangy or sweet, just the right amount. And you just can't go wrong with mascarpone icing!! (which I slightly altered by the way, didn't have any marmalade to mix in, so just added some orange pulp and a little orange juice - it was delicious!). I'm afraid I can't find a recipe of this online though, so can't give you a link to the recipe... would it be naughty to take a photo of the recipe and post it online? Mmm...

Baby it's cold outside

Blimey it's freezing at the moment. No snow, just plenty of frost.

How to beat it? By wearing some of these:

And drinking some of this:

A duvet and thermal clothes would help too, but I'm not sure that would be a good office look.

There's no other word for it

Happy.

Nan shawl

I did it. I finished it on time, by the self-imposed deadline that was the 22nd of December. This gave me plenty of time to block the shawl and have it all dry and wrapped up before the arrival of the French guests on the 24th. Phew. I can't say it was a greatly enjoyable knit. It was put on hold for a couple of weeks before I messed up a couple of rows and had to take a few back as a result. Most painful.

But looking at the result, I'm ever so proud. It looks as intricate and delicate as I'd hoped for, and most importantly, my nan loved it.

In the end, it will have taken a lot of time, patience and concentration, but it was worth it. Although don't ask me to make a second one, that won't happen in a million years!!

ps: all details on Ravelry!

Hot chocolate

The best thing about the weather being utterly dreadful is that we finally have an excuse to have a proper hot drink. A home-made hot chocolate. With real chocolate you know, not the powder stuff [chocolate curtesy of my mum :-)]

It was dreadful the other day, really cold and windy. This drink is exactly what we needed to pick us up. Utter decadence, a real treat. The secret recipe? Haha, the simplest ever! Fill up a mug with milk, tip the milk in a pan, add good quality chocolate (about 40g), heat gently until the chocolate has melted. Add a dash of ground cinnamon and serve up quick.

Drink up thinking  the world has been made a better place.