amsterdam break

Leaving springlike Barcelona for shivery Amsterdam in January might seem to be backwards way to take a holiday, but that's just what Victor and I did last weekend. We stayed with friends and bundled up, then spent our days moving between cafés and museums and anywhere that had Glühwein.

This was my fourth visit to Amsterdam but the first one in winter. I found it a bit hard going (if I ever go back to Canada I'm going to die I think) but that the rewards made up for it: fewer people, less chaos, an equal number of murderous cyclists, and endless excuses to eat cheese and apple pancakes (ever since my first trip, ten years ago, when a Dutch family introduced me to this flavour combination, it's been the only one I order).








I had the most delectable cherry-infused gin

bridging

My lack of an internet connection is getting on my nerves a bit, when I desperately have to send something into work or when I realize that I have at least five blog posts lined up but no chance to post them. I realize that no one is bothered about this except me, but I hate lack of continuity... The increased reading, cooking and talking time at home is all good though.

Anyway, first off, these pictures from a gorgeous Romanic bridge near Girona from oh... months ago. November, possibly. In any case, consider them a bridge to a (hopeful) onslaught of catching up!







Pictures 2 and 4 by Amandine, #5 by Víctor.

january simplicity

I think every January I come trotting out on the blog in a super-basic outfit going on about how, after sneaking Christmas cookies out of the freezer for a month and drinking liters of wine, plus wearing velvet, sequins and so on, I'm all about a bit of simplicity. This year is no exception, and this is one of my favourite outfits, which I've been wearing in one form or another since November. These days, except to go to work, I barely stir off my sofa or out of my fluffy red dressing gown, so it was nice to get dressed, go for a mid-week lunch and take some pictures for a change.

Happy 2014 all!





Photos by Víctor

on the feast of stephen

I'm so out of the habit of doing outfit posts that I felt positively shy posing for these, although it was Boxing Day and windy and cold and the bars were closed and the streets deserted. The perfect day for donning this dress, which I love but which really can only be worn in the dead of winter, and the Hudson Bay Company toque my mom gave me (and each of my sisters too, making family outings potentially embarrassing). Apart from its extreme wintery-ness, the other thing that has kept me from wearing this dress more since I got it over two years ago is that it's longer than the average coat, which tends to look a bit weird on the street. However, my snuggly cashmere coat has happily solved this problem, allowing me to go out feeling like I'm still wearing my pyjama and housecoat combination that I live in in the flat.

This year Boxing Day wasn't the usual snoozefest, but was a proper Feast of Saint Stephen kind of affair. After two days of gorging with Víctor's family, my sister and her visiting friend came over and we spent five hours cooking, eating and drinking red wine. Followed by a good bout of reading and snoozing in front of the space heater, and drinking water in a desperate attempt to avoid the dehydrated skullface look that tends to come down on me post-festive-season.






Dress and coat by Family Affairs (I think I might be developing a problem with this brand)
Photos by Víctor

shitty christmas

That would be shitty in the Catalan sense of course. I've gone on at length in past years about the Catalan "Caga Tió" tradition of feeding a log, and then hitting it so it shits presents, but this year Víctor and I organized a Caga Tió party to initiate our foreign friends (and some gate-crashing Catalans) into the tradition.

Otherwise, it's been a home-made sort of Christmas, which suits me perfectly. I bought a little Christmas tree at the cathedral market and staggered home with it, and we made paper ornaments, and also a paper Happy New Year sign for the front hall. My sister and I had TWO all-day baking Sundays to stock my freezer with a dizzying amount of traditional family goodies (sugar cookies, rum logs, truffles, magic squares, shortbread, gingerbread, birdsnests)and Víctor drew a delightful Christmas window for us.









Anyway, I have been failing on blogging lately, which hasn't been due to lack of interest, but lack of internet (we made an executive decision that we get more done and have more fun without its evil influence at home) but I REALLY intend to be back before the new year with a Year in Review, and perhaps even and outfit (I KNOW!)

Happy Post-binge detox day, meanwhile!

winter!

Reading my blog, you'd think we were in permanent summer in Barcelona... and we were for ages and ages, but the winter finally arrived with the snappiest of cold snaps (my sister could see her breath in her room, and I started sleeping with TWO hot water bottles). Still, during the day it meant glorious sunshine and cold breezes, the perfect weather for enormous scarves and autumn colours.

I went with a group of friends on a day trip to see bridges and lakes (one of those trips that starts out as a few people in a car and morphs before long into three cars). The bridges were probably the best, but for now you get me all bundled up, and sunset over Lake Banyoles.

family intervention

One of the few things I had left to complain about in my life was the fact that I never see my family as much as I'd like to, living on different continents and all... and then one day, it was decided that my sister Morna would come and live in Barcelona too. She spent 3 weeks on the pull-out couch in my spare room and is now all set up with a job, a flat, and a burgeoning new life... and I have family where I live! My dad is even coming for a visit this week so I feel completely spoiled. In the meantime my sister and I have been going for sunny walks, hot chocolates once the weather turned cold, and enjoying the chance to talk properly, without the looming deadline of leaving that has been a constant in our lives for years!


(Hallowe'en - least imaginative put possibly most gratifying costume idea ever, and also fun to beat all that Movember silliness to the punch).


...later we came across some facepaint and morphed into pirates...



Thank you all for the support on last week's post by the way. It's infuriating to know how many of you have had similar experiences, but good to know I'm not alone in my frustrations.