chocolate, catalanism, and more catalanism

With Albert and a friend in town for the weekend, it seemed as good a time as any to engage in a winter breakfast tradition... chocolate con churros. I only do this about twice per winter though, to avoid the inevitable heart attack. Below you'll find the typical pudding-thick hot chocolate completely submerged under a wad of whipping cream, plus churros, melindres and an ensaimada. I have a feeling I may have eaten more than everyone else...




colourful tiles on Carrer Petritxol

Then it was time for a lengthy wander through the streets, leading inevitably to my favourite Sunday morning destination, the second hand book market at Sant Antoni (previous posts about this are here and here--they are also documents to the growth of my hair over the past year!) It was time to renew my collection of Asterix in Catalan!



I may as well include this picture, of a Barcelona fashion magazine from the 30s, since the woman whose stall it was yelled at me enough for taking it. :D




It was election day, essentially a one-issue election--shall Catalonia hold a referendum on separation from Spain? (which is actually illegal in the Spanish constitution, which might tell you something about the current political situation). The pro-referendum parties won 87 seats vs. 48 for non-referendum, so I guess we're headed to the polls! Plenty of Catalan spirit on buildings all over town meanwhile.


And then my friend and I went to famous Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí's Casa Batlló (it's good having tourist friends in town). I'm about to become an insufferable Gaudí expert since I'm currently translating a book about him at work... Casa Batlló was marvellous, and worth the (kind of steep at €20) admission.



Anyway, just another Sunday really!

Photos of me by Albert

in search of the hound of the baskervilles

"The road in front of us grew bleaker and wilder over huge russet and olive slopes, sprinkled with giant boulders." The Hound of the Baskervilles.

This isn't much of an outfit, but I couldn't not share these photos, because Dartmoor may have been my favourite place of all the ones we visited in the South West. I'm not sure what it is with me and wild, inhospitible landscapes... well, I guess it's growing up with frequent visits to the North Yorkshire moors. I loved Dartmoor just as much, maybe even more. It didn't have the pure expanse of riotous purple heather, but it did have enormous craggy rocks that pitched up against the sky, and were perfect for climbing a la Famous Five. Hikers with dogs and picnics tripped across the uneven ground amid the purple heather, golden gorse and rough, serrated bracken and a blast of wind sent great clouds across the sky, dousing the land in sunshine one moment, and throwing it into gloom the next.

And of course, having spent my youth obsessively reading Sherlock Holmes, I kept an eye firmly open for the hound of the Baskervilles. I fancied I saw a great black dog at one point, but it turned out to be a horse. I should probably wear my glasses once in a while.









I was as happy as this the whole time:

the wards in jarndyce

The lovely and thoughtful Rosalind recently asked who among her readers uses literature and film as influences in getting dressed. I'm guessing many of us, but I will say that I love literary inspiration. I have already dressed up as a Victorian orphan (here) but sometimes the influences are more subtle.

In Charles Dickens' Bleak House Richard and Ada are pulled before the courts in Chancery Lane, as claimants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, a case involving a fortune which has dragged on for so long no one can see the end of it. They become the wards of Jarndyce, and go to live in the paradoxically idyllic Bleak House, but the long shadow of hopes and aspirations, always thwarted by the dithering ways of the Victorian British courts, already has a deathly hold upon one of them.

If you're wondering what on earth this has to do with my outfit... a Miss Flite lives in a tiny dreary flat in Chancery, herself a former ward of the courts, herself waiting for a settlement that may never come, and keeps in her room flocks of caged birds-- named Hope, Joy, Youth, Rest, Peace, Want, Ashes, Life, Waste, Dust, Madness, Despair, Death, Words, Wigs, Rags, Folly, Cunning, Jargon, Precedent, Sheepskin, Gammon, Plunder and Spinach--to be released upon the "day of judgement." And through the course of the story she adds two more little birds to their number, named "The Wards in Jarndyce."

Ah Dickens at his long-winded, sentimental, delightful, nonsensical and profound best. I hope my robin necklace and empty-birdcage skirt do Miss Flite a modicum of justice.











Photos by Albert

skirt: Snoozer Loser, sweater: Ralph Lauren circa 1998, vintage beret, scarf: gift (for someone else), boots: Camper, necklace: gift from my sister

land girl

Almost a month ago I posted a quote from a Steinbeck novel I was reading: "The women and girls wore pants usually of corduroy and thick sweaters, and they covered their heads with bright-colored scarves to protect their hair from the dust that rises from the fields with the smallest wind."

Steinbeck was speaking of French-Canadian potato harvesters in Maine in the 60s, but, here in London, it also reminded me of the Women's Land Army. This was an organization during the two world wars that organized for young women to go an work on farms, as extra food provision was necessary, and many of the men had been conscripted. I first heard of them several years ago through the film The Land Girls, starring Catherine McCormack, Rachel Weisz and Anna Friel (from Pushing Daisies). It's not an amazing movie, but very interesting and well acted.

While many of the girls who worked the fields were already from the country, many others were city girls from London or the Northern cities. Despite the back-breaking work, I bet many of them had the times of their lives away in the country with a group of girls. Like the women Steinbeck mentions, they were dressed for hard labour in thick trousers and sweaters, with scarves to keep back their hair. I skipped the labour but took the inspiration for a walk up the canal.






sweater: vintage, shirt: Pure by Alfred Sung, trousers: H&M, shoes: ebay, scarf: gift

Photos by Albert

Oh, and I'm quite loving my orange lipstick again. So glad it showed up in my passport bag!

super-sexy valentine's outfit

Mwahaha!





I promise this will go back to being a fashion blog soon, but I felt that I couldn't let Valentine's pass without an outfit post so...
My boyfriend took me (well, us) to Andorra to go snowboarding for Valentine's Day. As I said before, I don't really celebrate it much, but we figured we would have done something decadent for my week's holiday so we might as well coordinate it. I took us out for dinner. And then we both staggered home with our bruises declaring "don't touch me!" Neither of us really knew how to snowboard before, so we were a bit sore to say the least.

Andorra is a curious country: beautiful scenery and quite an ugly little city. The economy could be described as a combination of Switzerland (skiing and tax evasion) and the duty-free lounge in Heathrow Airport ("shop till you drop")!

Have you had an eye full of that jacket yet? Now imagine it... in duplicate! Yep, I was wearing Albert's brother's jacket from when he was twelve, Albert was wearing his own from when he was fifteen, and apparently their mom thought matching sons was a good way of keeping track... The three days in Andorra were definitely the least stylish of my life (it didn't help that the snowboarding pants were all sold out in my size so I was wearing them three sizes too big). Hehe. Sometimes it's quite liberating to be deeply, deliberately unstylish for a bit. And it was certainly comfortable.



I was given this sweater about two weeks ago and have worn it at least ten days out of the fourteen. It was Albert's mom's from the seventies, and I am completely in love. I've stated before that I don't much like "basics" or "classic, key pieces," and that the Céline-esque collections make me really bored, but I think actually it's upper-class classic style that I don't like, and actually I really like folk pieces, or classic working-man's style.

In fact, while in Andorra I started reading the wonderful Travels with Charley in Search of America, by John Steinbeck. It's a memoir of Steinbeck's travels in the 1960s with his dog, and at one point he describes a group of French Canadian labourers harvesting potatoes in Maine:
"The women and girls wore pants usually of corduroy and thick sweaters, and they covered their heads with bright-colored scarves to protect their hair from the dust that rises from the fields with the smallest wind."

Note to self for next fall...



Photos by Albert

Victorian Orphan Chic

The last few days have been hugely windy. Great gusts throw whirling leaves and birds into the heavy sky, and stray fragments of wind whistle down the chimney and moan in my hearthplace. A perfect night, in short, to imagine myself as a Victorian orphan in an attic.

I've always loved the Victorian period for styling and verging-on-the-sentimental drama, full of girls bereft at an early age who only manage to pull through due to an overactive imagination and innate sense of right and wrong. In London, it's even easier to identify with these past heroines, as I walk past rows of Georgian houses with the top windows overlooking the sparrows among the chimney pots.

What is Victorian Orphan chic? A hungry look, a pale complexion, a too-short but well made dress from days before poverty struck, and a borrowed book for keeping oneself educated. : )
My two favourite Victorian orphan heroines are Emily (of course) from Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery and Sara Crewe from Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess.



I fancy I have their same roving imaginations, curiosity for all kinds of books, and Emily's literary leanings... unlike Sara though, I have no attic rat to make friends with, since the pest control man took care of our resident mice earlier this week.





Goodnight!



P.S. If you only know A Little Princess through the abominable film version, don't let that turn you off. A classic example of a bad American remake. No offense to any Americans, but why does Hollywood have to take other cultures' literary and cinematic treasures, and remake them boring and bad, with a miscast American star? On the other hand, there's no excuse for the awful Canadian TV adaptation of the Emily books. It's our own cultural heritage we were destroying there...

velvet dress: vintage
lace: fabric shop
shoes: Camper (they are really comfy, to the person who wanted to know before, and I believe they're available in the States...)
rings: Whitby and Grannie