The Sneaky Magpie

My weekend started at Osteria Antica Bologna in Northcote Road, a nice family run Italian restaurant where I enjoyed delicious scallops with lentil, apple and parsley salad accompanied by good wine and fabulous company. I actually tried to recreate the lentil salad but it wasn’t as good, truth be told I used the wrong kind of apple. If you are ever in Clapham Junction area do go, it’s a fantastic place for lunch, dinner or drink. Beware of a slow service but the wait will be worth it!

Saturday was all about food shopping and a very early spring cleaning of the flat, we have thrown out a bagful of old papers and organised a lot of cupboards. We also visited the local charity shop to offload some stuff where I couldn’t resist buying F.Scott Fitzgerald collection of short stories for 50p.

After last two weeks of ebay madness I hardly have things to get rid of which feels so good.

Sunday was spent on cooking and playing with my little niece. I baked Allegra McEvedy’s Swedish apple cake which is more of a pudding than a cake, especially when served with good vanilla ice cream. Very easy recipe, it takes about 10-15 minutes to put everything together and 50 min to bake.

Got to read a little too, Vogue and ELLE arrived, The Sunday Times had a good article on Mad Men which btw won the best drama at Golden Globes for the 3rd year in a row, well deserved!

I am reading Chekhov’s stories and this weekend I enjoyed Ward no6. I also got D.V. by Diana Vreeland which I am very much looking forward to. Following the Norman Parkinson show at Somerset House I decided to re-read The Golden Age of Couture – the book accompaniment to one of my favorite exhibitions.

I watched the rather bad Breaking and Entering (a total waste of time) and the very graphic yet beautifully shot Antichrist.

Few things I am looking forward to:

a visual feast of A Single Man thanks to Dan Bishop

visiting V&A to see Quilts, Grace Kelly and Horace Walpole shows, and might even pop in to see a rather intriguing sounding The Metropolitan Police Service’s Investigation of Fakes and Forgeries

Foal and Tuffin at Fashion and Textile Museum should be fun, along with a stroll down Bermondsey Street

William Eggleston at Victoria Miro Gallery

Irving Penn Portraits at NPG

whole lot of good stuff at the Tate Galleries

buying some plants – I quite like the idea of mother-in-law’s tongue in nice mid-century pots, at the moment I own no plants whatsoever, even my basil died so this will be a challenge.

Desperate to catch all the shows before they end I organised a tight schedule and stuck to it this weekend.

On Friday night I saw Ed Ruscha at the Hayward Gallery which was good but not mind blowing. Definitely few very good paintings. Afterward my friends and I went to BFI for some drinks, the new bar on the riverfront is so much nicer than the old setup and the chips are excellent too!

On Saturday I met another friend of mine at RA and saw Wild Thing: Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska and Gill. A truly wonderful collection of sculptures and sketches. The most impressive being Bird Swallowing a Fish by Gaudier-Brzeska and Epstein’s Portrait of Iris Beerbohm Tree and the spectacular Rock Drill. Amazing show, really worth a visit.

We had a quick lunch in Soho and headed down to Somerset House to see Norman Parkinson: A Very British Glamour. Another great exhibition, a lot of pictures of Parkinson’s wife and iconic shots of Jerry Hall from the 70s. Well worth a visit, especially if you enjoyed Golden Age of Couture at V&A a couple of years ago.

Warmed up by the museum hopping we decided to end the trip at The National Picture Gallery to see the very entertaining Beatles to Bowie: the 60s exposed.

I watched very moving Wajda’s Katyn – a film about an incident from WWII and its aftermath that not many people know of.

And I almost finished watching Mad Men season 3, a thought of only 2 episodes left to watch is making me depressed. Drooling over Betty Draper’s outfits.

I had a great day today and yesterday, I have posted near to 30 items on ebay and they caused a stir! Fingers crossed all will sell which will give my wardrobe much needed breathing space. I have decided that if I haven’t worn something for a year or longer I will never wear it again and it must go. I have also revisited the boxes of designer treasures that are not such treasures now I look at them, no classics, time to go. My fashion investments will remain in the bag and shoe stock.

I have loaded a bag for charity shop and will deliver it to Oxfam with all the ebay failures.

You know all the tasks that get put away like mending your clothing, polishing shoes and sewing missing buttons on? They have been staring at me from the depths of my wardrobe for some time and yesterday I finally faced them all at the same time. Such a relief.

I have invested into a small catering business in Philippines on Kiva. I really hope these ladies do well.

I have purchased two nice belts from All Saints, in brown and black leather. They are my only sales hunts so far, unfortunately the other belt sold out so I don’t have a picture.

I have really cracked on with my book pile, I have managed to read:

High Raise the Roof Beam, Carpenters by J.D. Salinger

Seymour an Introduction by J.D. Salinger

Nine Stories by J.D.Salinger

I know it is a lot of Salinger but he is such a good writer, I also found out that he is still alive, 100 years old!

The Most Beautiful Woman in Town by Charles Bukowski

The Faithful River by Stefan Zeromski

I have decided to put away Ulysses and The Corporation, at least for now.

So the only remaining books left are Tropic of Capricorn and some Chekhov stories and plays. This means I will be able to move onto some brand new books very soon. Really looking forward to it.

I have watched the 2 new episodes of Cranford and am awaiting the DVD of the first series, I might even start reading the books. I am quite glad I have not discovered it earlier because I am in real need of a costume drama fix.

I have made it to Tate Britain today to see the wonderful Turner and the Masters show, they had some amazing Rembrandts and Canalettos. I also checked out the Turner Prize which is definitely better than last year’s and glimpsed at some beautiful sculptures in the hall. This reminds me of few more exhibitions I must see and the time is running out. Especially for Ed Ruscha at The Hayward (Friday 6.00-10.00pm two for one deal) on till the 10th of January, Maharaja at V&A till 17th January and Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Eric Gill at The Royal Academy till 24th January. I knew I left it too late and now will have to rush.

The Mill by Rembrandt

And tomorrow I will have to take it easy….

Things that kept me company this month:

Masterchef Professionals – always a sucker for cooking shows

Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers – got few inspirations and I really really want an allotment, or at least a garden, or both!

Emma – BBC series and the book, very amusing. Johnny Lee Miller is excellent as Mr Knightly

Sandra Juto’s beautiful photos

Kevin McCloud’s Grand Tour – I wanna go and travel to all those beautiful places in Europe

Every year BBC produces an excellent period drama and I am a real sucker for these. In the perfect world it would be written by Andrew Davies.

Last year I was treated to Tess of the D’Urbervilles (I was crying my eyes out, book had the same effect on me) and Davies’ Little Dorrit which was excellent.

I was wondering what treats will come my way this year and it turns out there is a new adaptation of Jane Austin’s Emma which I watched last night and ITV are showing The Forsyte Saga as of next Sunday which is one of my favorite novels ever, I haven’t seen this adaptation before so fingers crossed it’s good.

I really enjoyed the first episode of Emma and it made me reach for the book as I couldn’t possible wait a week to see what will happen next!

Autumn is already looking better!

Yet another difficult project at work, they seem to come thick and fast nowadays.

I missed The Sartorialist book signing yesterday at Liberty as I was stuck in the office till 21.30!  Today was a bit better but still late.

Feeling tired and lazy.

I am going to curl my legs up on the sofa, have a bowl of pasta and watch Jamie Oliver’s new show which btw is pretty bad but hey, it is on TV and doesn’t demand any thinking.

If Jane made me smile with her post, thank you!

I feel slightly spoiled, after a week away I took this Friday off as well since my friend was visiting from Amsterdam, on top of it Monday is a bank holiday meaning 4 day weekend and two 4 day work weeks.

The weather was nice and on Friday my friends and I walked to Brixton Market and had a quick bite at Rosie’s and a massive catchup.

Saturday was not bad either and we had a picnic by my friend’s pool (yes, an outdoor pool in London!). I made an apricot cake, same recipe as tea cakes but in one piece and baked for about an hour, apricots and ground almonds on top. I love this recipe, it is so adaptable and the cake is not too sweet.

Sunday came and so did the autumn, tricked by the sunshine outside I put on a summer dress and was off for a day in town. Oh my Lord, I was so cold and felt totally silly with my summer attire, luckily I was not the only one. I didn’t give up though and off we went to Tate Modern to see a couple of exhibitions.

Natalia Goncharova ‘The Cyclist’

The first one was Futurism, this starts with Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto and has a great representation of artists including Boccioni, Carrà, the Cubist movement, Russian avant-garde and the Duchamp brothers to name very very few. The show explains the relationship with Cubism as well as movements directly created from it like Orphism and Vorticism with great examples of all of them. There is Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, Duchamp-Villon’s The Large Horse, Robert Delaunay’s The Cardiff Team, Natalia Goncharova’s The Cyclist (one of my favorite painting in the exhibition), Severini’s vibrant The Dance of the Pan-Pan at the “Monico” and Nevinson’s La Mitraillause.

C.R.W. Nevinson ‘La Mitraillause’

The Futurists loved speed, movement, modern machinery, streets, telegraphs, cars, planes, war. Morinetti was massively opposed pretty much the whole past, especially English decorative arts, romanticism, Pre-Raphaelits, revival trends and so on. He was also a misogynist and called for women to become more masculine so both sexes are the same, this strongly emerged in Russia where male and female artists became equal, one of the best being Liubov Popova, something that did not happen in Europe till much later.

Futurism died with the WWI, it was revived after the war but very soon it was overtaken by the … future, and other trends that evolved from it like Art Deco, Constructivism, Surrealism and Dada.

Robert Delaunay ‘The Cardiff Team’

I came out of the exhibition feeling very well informed, I finally fully understood the movement and wanted to find out more. The exhibition ends on the 20th of September.

We also had a look at Per Kirkeby’s show, I must admit, I am not a fun.

Then we headed to town to grab a bite at Pollo Bar in Old Compton Street where we indulged on pizza and good Chianti.

We finished the day by popping to few shops to check out the winter collections, high on my list is a winter coat and the first contender is this A.P.C. beauty but single breasted.

Now I am sitting wrapped in a woolly cardigan, drinking a cup of tea and planning tomorrow. I also must find the time to go to The Hayward, The Serpentine and The Whitechapel galleries before the exhibitions change.

I finally got my last disc of Mad Men, it was a very painful realisation that it will be a while before season three comes out in UK but the clever people at AMC made the 1st episode available online, fingers crossed they will do it every week!

First I got a horrible cold which knocked me out of action for the whole weekend. Then I was super busy with a project for the rest of the week, ending up on a shoot in a stinking burger joint in Yeading. Don’t ask me where it is, I still don’t know.

I feel like the last week was taken away from me and wasted. On top of it my very good friend was staying with us, she was in London on another shoot, and I hardly got to see her!

Anyway, it’s Friday today, can’t wait to go home and rest and eat healthily and just be.

In the mean time my new camera arrived from Scotland and looks like it has never been used, yay! I am now waiting for a memory card and then I will shoot away.

Have few films to watch (damn you Love Films for sending a film instead of the 3rd disc of Mad Men!), few items to go on ebay, I am going to see Coco with a friend on Saturday evening. Perhaps go for a walk in a nice green park with no mobile phone reception.

I also need to prepare for my trip next week, my first break this year, a small one too…

Especially rainy Mondays get me down. Can the weather improve please? I had to take a bus to work for the first time in a very long time and it took me over an hour to get to our office, half an hour Clapham – Oxford Street, half and hour on Oxford Street itself, and the bus didn’t even stop halfway so I couldn’t jump off and walk. Very frustrating. Anyway, Monday is almost over and the rain stopped.

My weekend was pretty chilled, went out for some tasty Japanese food on Friday night to Toro in Soho followed by few drinks at the Market Bar. Toro is an authentic Japanese eatery in Brewer Street serving some of my favorite dishes.

On Saturday I wandered (yet again!) to Northcote Road to meet my friend. We had lunch and then we did some shopping. There are few market stalls with some wonderful looking cupcakes, bread, fruit and veg. I bought some flat peaches aka doughnut peaches tempted by an article in The Guardian. Weirdly, some people have a problem with peach fuzz…..mmmm. They were delicious.

In the meantime hubby started to fix our old cupboard. Sides had to be glued, it needed gentle shaving and is waiting for linseed oil to give it a nice color. I am very happy to be rid of the dark brown color it had before.

On Sunday we went to the Battersea car boot sale, I was actively looking for Sylvac fruit and veg pots, saw an apple sauce pot however it was included in a lot with some stuff I either have or don’t like so had to pass. I managed to snap Lord Jim for 50p and that was it.

I ran out of food and had to improvise open sandwiches: Gail’s bread, Parmezan, courgette and olive oil.

Much of the weekend evenings was spent on watching Mad Men series 2, first disc. I know, I am obsessed with this show but I love it so much. All the characters, the interiors, the storyline, the styling. Absolutely spotless. Can’t wait for the next disc to arrive from Love Film.

I do get it sometimes and don’t really like it. To avid it I try to do something fun at the end of Sunday, it usually works.

Yesterday we went to the farmers market and got a great deal on basil, a massive bag for 2 quid since it was the end of the day. It needed to be processed very fast to avid wilting and after a brief deliberation I decided to make a copious amount of pesto. Since then I’ve been adding it to everything.

First meal was chickpeas with pesto dressing, tomatoes and French sourdough.

Followed by pasta pesto with buffalo mozzarella for dinner. Next is couscous with pesto dressing and veg for lunch. And I still have half of it left in the fridge.

In the late afternoon we decided to hop on the bikes and go to Tate Britain. We felt pretty confident we could do two exhibitions in 1.5h.

First was Classified, a selection of works by contemporary British artists. For the first time I saw The Great Bear – Simon Patterson’s spin on the London Tube Map. The same room had Mark Dion’s wonderful cabinet of items and objects, all found near the Tate on the Thames Bankside. Another room had some paintings by Gillian Carnegie, it’s so refreshing to see paintings. There are also some works by Damien Hirst including the Pharmacy. The last room has got a selection of tribal sculptures with heavy references to McDonald’s by The Chapman Brothers. The exhibition reminded me of a show from a couple of years ago when Tate did a retrospective of the Turner Prize winners. Overall, a selection of very good works, well worth a visit.

We spent way too much time at Classified and had 10 minutes to see the Richard Long show, it wasn’t enough. I had a look at some of the pictures and installations but was chased out of the gallery so will have to go back soon.

One of the best things I ever got was the Tate membership, we can go to all the exhibitions for free and skip the queues!

Back at home we indulged in Seinfeld marathon, must be my favorite comedy show.