What I miss right now..

The town by the sea.

Marilyn Monroe

This is how I want to look for this year's Christmas parties!

Christmas earrings

These lovely earrings arrived in the mail the other day, from Smykk Deg in Trondheim. They make really beautiful jewellery, and if you live in Trondheim you should have a look in the shop Sukker, which sells their stuff.

These are just perfect for Christmas!

Pictures from a Sunday

Christmas tea in a nice cup,

and 'Pan Am' on BBC.

Advent

Happy Advent!

I am listening to one of Bach's advent cantatas, drinking coffee and making Christmas cards. This is probably my favourite time of year, and I will try and enjoy it as much as I can this year.

Hope you are having a good Sunday!

Finally Friday!

I am, for once, spending my Friday at work, singing with lots of tiny little children dressed as sheperds, wise men, cowboys (yes, that's right), Mary, Joseph, sheep and a donkey. It is so lovely to work with children at this time of year, I love it so much! It is cold, it is Friday, I am happy.

A very happy Friday to you!

Christmas tree

I bought a few of these lovely Christmas cups for a fraction of their original price on Ebay this week. I just love them! They remind me of H. C. Andersen's Christmas stories, and although they are really quite sad, they are some of my favourites. When I was little I had a cassette with Per Aabel reading them, and I used to listen to it again and again.

The other day I realised that next Sunday is the first advent Sunday. I can't believe how quickly time has passed!

Hope you are having a good week!

Monday happiness

After a long day at work it's lovely to come home when Husband has made dinner and poured you a glass of sparkling!

My London Alphabet: F

Fortnum and Mason is a wonderful place. I often go there to get my tea and to look at all the beautiful teacups and other lovely things they have there. It is also a great place to have afternoon tea! I could spend hours in there just walking around, smelling different types of tea, looking at people and thinking about my dream house full of tea cups. The closest tube stations are Piccadilly Circus or Green Park, and it is located on the south side of Piccadilly.

La Fromagerie is a café and cheese shop just off Marleybone High Street. It has great atmosphere and a lovely selection of cheese, wine and food. It is the perfect place for lunch! You could for instance order a cheese platter to share with a friend, or a sandwich or salad...

Foyle's books on Charing Cross Road, near Tottenham Court Road is my favourite book shop in London (apart from Daunt's), and is a must to visit if you are a book lover. It also has one of my favourite cafés in it; Ray's Jazz. The shop has five floors full of books, in every genre you could possibly imagine. I regularly spend hours and hours in there, and would have no problem spending my entire savings in one day. (Thankfully I haven't.) They also have music scores and a record shop that only sells jazz records!

Fulham Palace is dated back to the 11th century and used to be the residence of the bishop of London. It is surrounded by a big park which is lovely to walk through, and it has a nice café on the ground floor. And the best thing is that it is FREE to visit!

Sunday

Sunday morning. Freezing fog outside. I have coffee, the house to myself and the table full of craft projects (my course literature is hidden underneath in all). Bliss. I'm thinking of Christmas projects and presents, trying to figure things out.

A very good Sunday to you!

My London Alphabet: E

I have tried and failed to find anything for the letter E, so I will just repost this post about Eating in London.

Finally Friday!

I changed the buttons in this cardigan with some that I have covered with some lovely pink fabric. It looks a lot nicer now than it did before!

What makes me happy today: cold weather, coffee and a nice weekend ahead

What I am listening to right now: She & Him

Plans I have for the weekend: do some work, read, go for long walks, have breakfast in bed, watch a good film

What I am reading right now: a lot of course literature and 'Irr! Grønt!' by Dag Solstad

Things I do that make me feel better on a bad day: read a good poem, put on red lipstick, wear high heeled shoes, listen to a great song, sing really loudly with my hairbrush as microphone, wear bright colours, send a text to someone I love, eat chocolate.

What about you?

A very happy Friday to all you lovely people!

Winter

I took these pictures last year, on a frosty morning at work. I really love proper winter, when everything is covered in frost and the light is so blue. Beautiful. It's getting colder now, and I'm crossing my fingers that we'll have a winter like last year. The sound of frozen leaves underneath my shoes, seeing my frosty breath in the morning and wrapping up warm are things that make me so happy in winter.

A good Wednesday to you!

Finally Friday!

I love Fridays, and it's here again! Winter has arrived with fog, rain, naked trees, dark afternoons and gloomy light. I've been making apple crumble and custard to feel a little lighter. Lighting candles also helps. And listening to Edith Piaf.

I don't have many plans this weekend, apart from drinking a hearty cappuccino like this:

And looking through my kaleidoscope:

Hope you have nice plans this weekend!

Happy Friday to you and you and you!

Like a dream..

I love these clothes from Cabbages and Roses, they're like a fairytale or a dream. Walking into one of their shops is like walking into Narnia, a different world. I wish my wallet would allow my closet being full of these clothes! But for now I'll settle for dreaming...

Pictures from cabbagesandroses.com

Teacup love

I absolutely love this new collection from Green Gate! Perfect for Christmas. It is, of course, essential to have separate Christmas crockery. I don't think Husband would agree, as the cupboards are already pretty full of tea cups, bowls and plates.. I'm still putting in on my wish list, though!

Finally Friday!

It's Friday again, and the last one before work starts again.. This weekend I will:

enjoy the rain

drink tea and read books, both coursework and hopefully other things as well, if time allows.

enjoy the piles of leaves on the ground.

enjoy a visit from a friend.

have a nice pub meal.

celebrate Bon Fire Night.

drink mulled wine and watch the fireworks.

bake scones.

Hope you have nice plans for the weekend too!

Happy Friday!

Another country walk, a knitting shop, and a tea room

If you've had enough of country walks and autumn colours you should stop reading now, because this is another post about just that.. Although this one also has a little tea room in the middle! It's our second week of 'holiday', so this week Husband and I found time for another countryside adventure.

We started our adventure in this lovely little village with beautiful, old cottages.

A pretty little church.

And some more lovely cottages. I'd love to live in one of them!

I will spare you all the photos I took of the pretty trees we passed, and just include this one that has a little cottage in the background.

After walking for an hour or so, through fields and woods, we came to another village. This one had a wonderful little shop that sold vintage tea cups, jewellery, some plants and lots of knitting yarn.

We then walked along the road to a little tea room nearby..

Lovely little tea room run by two lovely ladies!

I was thirsty after the walk, so I had some tea and lemonade. I absolutely love the little milk jug!

On the way back we walked through fields with horses.

And we watched the sun go down. It's funny how quickly it gets dark these days. For the last bit of our walk it was getting pretty dark, and I was terrified of running into badgers, as there are a lot of them in the area.. We made it back to the car without seeing any, thankfully!

Hope you have all had a good week!

Leaf

I found this leaf outside yesterday. It still had some drops on it after the rain, and they looked so pretty in the sunlight I just had to take some photos.

I love introducing the Brits to some of my favourite Norwegian treats, to see if it is purely my Norwegian-ness that makes me think them wonderful, or if they might be considered universally delicious. When we had some friends over at the weekend, I saw my chance to make one of my favourite desserts of the season; 'tilslørte bondepiker', or 'covered up farm girls' as I like calling it in English! It's fair to say that it passed the test. Yum!