London Impressions 2014 / I

Posted on January 1, 2014 by bloggingsandra

Letters are an always present topic in Alex’ and my life. Without even noticing, we have gathered a quite big amount of different letters: wooden letters, electric letters, lego letters, cardboard letters…

As Sofia keeps on growing, her reach is also wider and we needed to find a solution to our picture wall in the entrée as she started grabbing the pictures and throwing them around.

I think the idea came during our holidays in London this summer. Alex discovered a really nice shop called Glyphics Shop. He was so keen to see this shop that he even said he was going to divorce if we were not going!
It is a letter lovers paradise!
You can find letters from all over the world. Brian, the owner, can tell you a story to almost every single letter. He stores the letters in drawers and all over the place. And by the way: what an incredibly pleasant and enthusiastic man he is! If you are travelling to London, make sure you are visiting Brian.
An idea of what the shop looked like when we visited (as the decoration changes):

We decided that we needed to find a word or a phrase we wanted to create with the letters and then come back to find the suitable ones for us.

After some days we knew what we wanted and we spend 2 hours in the shop, on the floor, opening the drawers, taking out letters, combining, changing again until we finally had the chosen ones.

And this is the result in the shop:

And this is how it looks on the wall:

It means ‘welcome home’ in swiss german and is like a welcoming greeting when you enter the door.
We had a helping hand from my father, who painted the wall and put all the letters in place. Most of them are not really heavy, so a simple velcro was enough.
The E is from an old pub, it is a simple wooden letter painted in gold. I wanted to include this one as soon as I discovered it. It almost falls into pieces, but it has a story to tell.
The M was another story. It weights 3 kilos, so you want to make sure it does not come off the wall when going to the bathroom! It has some old nails on the back, so we have used a wire around them and then hung it up on two nails with L shape.

The space below the letters will be a magnetic chalkboard, but this will be done later on this year.

My glasses, at last!

Posted on January 31, 2013 by bloggingsandra

Sofia is going to sleep very late in the evenings, which makes writing a post almost impossible. It’s not that she is over-excited, it’s simply not her time to sleep and I am not going to force her. We have been talking about sleep patterns with some friends and how people really have to force themselves to get up early during a whole working life. And then there a others like Alex, who are just not able to sleep until late in the morning. That is why he never uses an alarm clock to get up.
I did that for some time and it was great. It is much more stress free and you just wake up when your body is ready. Unfortunately that worked for getting up at 7h00, but now I have to get up earlier, which has sent me back to using the alarm clock. Don’t like it.

Well, as usual I am getting absorbed by my musings while writing, when all I wanted to show you was my new spectacles from General Eyewear in London! Finally I can show you my new Oliver Goldsmith glasses.
Mine was made around 1970 and if you missed the post about the very nice shop in London where I bought them, you can find the information here.
Although I am happy that I do not need to wear glasses or lenses all the time, I feel very comfortable to use them in front of the computer. It relaxes my eyes and they are not reddened and tired in the evening after work.
The glasses are so cute that I have decided to wear them a bit more often than just in front of the computer (although Alex thinks that they make me look older).
Alex’ spectacles are also great, but he can basically wear all types. Except for the very big and sort of square glasses, for which I have given my veto as I think he looks like a weird guy ready to lose his wits.

Well, here they are!

Missing London

Posted on January 7, 2013 by bloggingsandra

We came back from London on Saturday and I already miss it! The two weeks were interesting and full of impressions.
Our friends Fran and Martin were so kind to offer us their apartment during the first week of our stay.

What I liked most was to experience the friendliness of the London people. Wherever we went, we got help with the pushchair or when moving around with Sofia in the sling, we were offered a seat. On a full street, there is no one that bumps into you when carrying a baby (and in cases it happened, it was a tourist). I know I should not generalise, but it has really amazed me how different people react to children comparing to Zurich. They are always welcome, lots of cafés and restaurants have a high chair or a nappy changing station or both.
I also understand Fran when she says that she does not use the pushchair. There is no way to master all the stairs of the tube alone!

Another thing that was great is that most museums are free and only for some special expositions there is a fee. As Martin mentioned, specially with kids, maybe you want to see a museum, you pay a lot for an entrance and after half an hour they are bored or just not in the mood that day. With a free entrance, you are most probably going to return (and buy some snacks or drinks again). Switzerland should consider this option!
We have seen the Saatchi Gallery, the Tate Modern and the Science Museum. All three of them great and highly recommendable.

And there is life on the streets every day. Shops are open, and with that, people go out to have a walk. Foodwise there is an amazing and affordable offer.

Shopping was nice but a real madness on boxing day. I bought some things from Anthropologie, a really nice shop. One of the walls has plants all over!

This shop is not in my budget normally but I have found some really cool pieces the last day before sales started and rates were already adjusted. Great for me!

We have also found some really cool things for Sofia. There is a little shop in Camden Market which is called Heavenly Monsters. They have really cute stuff for the little ones.

And the glasses we bought at General Eyewear: Only Alex’ glasses made it. Mine was not ready and will be sent to me. And I am sooooo waiting for them!

Other than that we have just walked a lot to discover different boroughs. Ah, another cool tip from Fran was to visit Northcote street, near to Clapham Junction. It is a cute little street with cafés, restaurants and little shops. We then wanted to go to Shoreditch, which is really located in the opposite part of the town and suddenly we saw a bus that was going there. We were lucky to catch seats in the upper level in the front. The ride took about an hour, so that was like discovering a part of the city but on a regular bus.

All in all two fantastic weeks in London. A pity time runs so fast when having a great time. But I know we will be back soon.