Passementerie

More covetousness.

Can I make a confession? Last night the baby gave me a little trouble about going to sleep, so I had to spend quite some time sitting in her room, cuddling and nursing her.  I was very tired, and would have preferred to be curled up on the couch eating the fabulous dinner my husband had made for me, but well, in the long term, there is no better way of spending time than cuddling Beatrice, so I did not begrudge her.  Much.  I begrudged her just a *tiny* bit, perhaps, so I consoled myself by putting a number of carefully chosen items into my Tiffany shopping basket.  Just four things, very modest, all completely versatile.  Just $35,000.  Ah.  Oh well.

While I start saving for that, here are some more things to tempt you, this time from Rockett St. George, a boutique I mentioned on here a very long time ago and completely forgot about until this morning when I came across them as I searched for silk velvet cushions (Toast has some, but I'd like them cheaper).  Rockett St. George has a fantastic array of odd treats from patterned tape to silver globes (not to mention some very nice cushions!).   A different style from yesterday's Bodie and Fou, but I'm sure they'd get on royally!

I especially love these bird cage wall stickers...

 

Rockett St George

Looking for something to covet today?

What about practically everything from Bodie and Fou? A terribly smart and inspired boutique run by two French sisters, the shop has a very distinct and clean style with fantastic bursts of colour against a largely white and grey background.

I love this gorgeous wallpaper:

And this ever-so-chic and fabulous map of Paris:

 

And this wonderful cluster light:

Visit Bodie and Fou here.

Curious Clubs and Cream Teas

Sometimes Oxford itself can seem like one great big private members' club as you walk through narrow and wide streets and peer in through archways past the porter's lodge into a quad, sometimes huge like Christ Church or tiny like Corpus Christi, sometime stark like Queen's or impossibly pretty like New College.  Sometimes you go for drinks in the Oxford Union with friends and enjoy the peace and quiet of the private bar or library. 

But there are a couple of problems with all this from my point of view.  First of all, everybody is VERY YOUNG.  The fact that my husband and I have a baby is regarded with awe and some suspicion by many of his peers in his college, most of whom are fresh from their undergraduate degrees and barely have girlfriends at this point, never mind wives and babies.  Secondly, whatever about my husband, I myself am not a member of the University and am thus a bit of an outsider, particularly as I can't go to all the social events because of said baby.

This is not to say that Oxford social life is restricted to this sort of thing for me - we have gathered around us the funnest and nicest people of the MCR (Middle Common Room) in my husband's college and as you know from here we enjoy all sorts of shenanigans - garden parties in Staverton Road, dinners in the University College Boathouse and Formal Hall at various colleges where we entertain ourselves by criticizing the food and marveling at the evolution of "slut fusc".  We also abandon the dreaming spires completely for jaunts to Blenheim and The Trout (lest you think that I spend my afternoons gazing sadly through the gates of the Union!).

But in the city there are other sorts of private club, and some are perhaps even chicer than those populated by teenagers who dress in Jack Wills and  eat kebabs on the High at midnight (although given the standard of food at some of the colleges, you can't blame them), yes - even chicer than that.

Like The Corner Club .  Essentially it offers an much needed escape from the busy streets and crowded tiny cafes of Oxford, unusually (for here) hip surroundings, a very large member's floor with a library and fabulously comfortable couches, a beautifully decorated restaurant (that serves cream teas as well as dinner) and darkly decadent bar on the floor below and two more floors that have yet to be decorated and their role decided upon!  What's not to love? 

The club has only been open for a year since it was taken over by new owners, A Curious Group of Hotels, and is still finding its groove so far as events and activities are concerned.  Nevertheless, I think the lure of the beautiful members' rooms and chic dining area will suffice to entice me in for now.

Autumn Adornments

Lately, I'm not much of a girl for necklaces for some reason.  Maybe it's because I have a baby whose little eyes light up at the sight of something new to grab at.  But these last few weeks, I have been tempted over and over again - is this just a good autumn for adorning one's neck perhaps?

 

Butterscotch Eclectic Necklace, Monsoon

Scattered Seeds Necklace, Anthropologie

Jane Eyre Necklace, Birdseye Jewelry, Etsy

Weekend Report: Mission Rainy Days

This was a weekend of rainy Oxford antics... on Saturday afternoon I braved the deluge in my waterproof jacket (more in this below) and wellies (Hunter, of course) and whisked baby into town to have lunch with John in the Covered Market.  We met outside University College on the High, had hummus salad baguettes in the Market, made a couple of depressing forays into the likes of Topshop (why can't I find something as simple as a nice TOP?) and had a dreary hot chocolate in the dated and badly designed (although virtually brand new) Cafe Coco on Frideswide Square (I knew that I must have had a good reason for not going in there before).  Dull as that all sounds, it was made fun by the lively debate which we kept up for most of the afternoon on our differing views of how to store dvd's and suitable tops for me to wear this autumn. 

That evening we went out to dinner in Little Clarendon Street, a narrow street linking Jericho with St. Giles, lined along one side with Oxford's best selection of restaurants.  Thwarted in tapas, we ate in Strada and had a fantastic meal for £50 - highly recommended.  Drinks afterward proved to be a bit of a challenge - the Duke of Cambridge was full of prats, the Jericho Tavern was full of everybody else but the crowd for the bar was four people deep so finally we repaired to the Honeypot to discover that it was just us and their very laid-back dog, which was bizarre as it is has always been full to the brim whenever I've been before.  Oh well.  So much for drinking in Oxford.  But huzzah for eating - dinner was fantastic.

Yesterday the rain continued, but nothing daunted, I waterproofed myself again and went back into town to confirm the fact there there isn't a single top to be had in all of Oxford and to meet friends for burritos at The Mission and then for mysterious Australian style coffees - the flat white - at a new cafe, the name of which escapes me, on the Turl.  A latte without any foamy nonsense, it may be the perfect beverage.  Apparently the Australians are very impressed.

No pictures for you today because the baby has just woken up.

Re. waterproof jackets, I already told you about my waterproof North Face Resolve jacket but I was of the opinion that I would need something a bit more hard core for the cold this year, especially as we are spending three weeks in Philadelphia in January, so yesterday Ebay yielded up this beauty - the North Face Greenland jacket in cream (now renamed the W Atlantic  jacket, I understand).

I need something... can you help?

After reading this week's posts on the ever-inspiring Academichic, I have to acknowledge that my otherwise extensive and (I hope) stylish wardrobe is missing one key accessory.  A belt.  I don't own a SINGLE ONE.    So I have to change this.  Please make suggestions (of a reasonably affordable nature).

For example, I  like this one.

Fields and farm animals in the heart of Bloomsbury

Yesterday was wonderful.  Smooth morning, easy trip to London and Holborn... but then lunch in Cafe Rouge happened and time slipped by with kir royal, tarte citron and an adorable baby who ate everything that was put in front of her and suddenly it was too late for the Soane Museum and the only thing for it was to head for Coram's Fields, the fabulous Bloomsbury park that only admits adults if they are accompanied by children.  

On my birthday last year, after having lunch with DCS and LMJ on Lambs Conduit Street I walked past Coram's Fields with DCS and she told me that she had always wanted to go into this park but needed a baby (anyone's baby - she wasn't choosy) to do so.  As I was quite pregnant at the time and noticed her glancing nonchalantly at my bump as she said this , I was suspicious of her motives, and my suspicions were proved correct yesterday when she gleefully led the way through the hallowed gate pushing Beatrice's stroller.

The seven acre park is bounded by a single-storey Georgian colonnaded building which, apart from being all that remains of the original foundling hospital, houses all sorts of delights, including cockatoos!  There are farm animals, peacocks, a huge paddling pool during the the summer and a fabulous-looking playground (with very good swings).  I think I will be heading straight for here on all and any future visits to London.  And it's about two minutes away from the Persephone Books shop.

With a baby, I have developed a greater interest in London's parks than before and am especially keen on parks with animals or birds.  Do you have a favourite London park?

Images with thanks to here, here and here.

Beatrice in Bloomsbury

This afternoon I am seizing up my child and leaping onto a London-bound train to meet my dearest friend and Beatrice's godmother (in one and the same elegantly dressed person) for an afternoon of thrills and excitement in the Soane Museum, a variety of teashops (hopefully including the aptly named, under the circumstances, Bea's of Bloomsbury) and perhaps even some feeding of ducks if any such creatures can be found. 

It is possible that my standards of excitement have changed somewhat over the years, but this sounds like a pretty perfect afternoon to me.

What would be the perfect way for you to spend this afternoon?

Unexpected Beauty

Beautiful design can be found in the most unlikely places in Oxford.  My husband has been using the library at the Said Business School for his exams lately because it's so much closer to our house than the Bodleian so I have popped in a few times to bring him chocolate and encouraging kisses.  

 
What makes this such an extra popular pastime for me is the row after row of tan leather Barcelona chairs in the lobby of the school.  These chairs, designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1929, are blissfully comfortable and prefectly elegant.  Read about them on the Moma website here.

Brightening up a gloomy Oxford

I can't post a picture of my front door just yet because I have to put the brassware back on, polish it, clean the little bits of paint from the glass and pick 5000 tiny flies out of the new paintwork, but soon, very soon I will be able to show you my shiny new door!  

We have lots of little things that need to be done around the house at the moment and I think we're going to hire a "man" to come in and do them - each job would take us ages and make a mess, all of them together would take a professional about two hours - some shelves that need to be put up on our brick kitchen wall, a bookcase that needs to be bolted to the wall and our recently acquired antique clothes maid which I would like put over the stairs.  I'm handy, but these jobs defeat me, I'm afraid and as John is in the middle of exams I don't want to ask him to do any of this right now.

Then there are some other little brightening jobs that need to be done - our white-painted hall floor is looking very worn indeed, so I think I will be taking myself off to the paint shop this week to buy some floor paint - I should really do the stairs as well, while I'm at it.  If I do that, then I should start thinking about stencils for the treads, as I mentioned last week.  I'm leaning towards the numbers now.

In the meantime, this fabulous Boden dress arrived with me yesterday (via Ebay, of course!) and while it needs to be taken in a little, it is simply perfect for brightening up these ever-greyer days here in Oxford...

I just came across this wonderful company through Twitter (I'm meeting more wonderful people very day there!) and had to share - The Balcony Gardener - lovely people in London who will delivery ready-planted container gardens (as well as lots of other fun things) to your very door!  Can't make it much easier than that, can they?

 

What is the autumn weather like where you are right now?  How are you dressing for it, or dressing your house or garden for it?