Footloose

Yesterday as I left work to go to yoga, I spotted this:

aaargh, isn't it pretty? I walked over and had a quick look and I thought it was in good condition. But my brain was obviously partly frozen and not working properly. I hesitated, I snapped a picture, and I left! (silly silly bunny) I didn't want to miss yoga and I had no idea how to get the bed home. Boyfriend had an appointment at 6PM and there was no way I was coming back in the car after yoga without even knowing whether the bed was still there or not. (for the record, we both have a 1-hour commute to and from work and we both take public transport. We only use our car to go grocery shopping or on weekends/holidays. Being stuck in Parisian traffic is my idea of hell.) Why didn't I think to run back to work and get four strong colleagues to carry it into the car park? Why? because I'm a silly bunny and silly bunnies aren't good at handling beautiful abandonned furniture emergencies, I guess.

I posted the bed on facebook, I texted it to Boyfriend, I moaned and moaned, and guess what? When I checked my phone after yoga I had a message from my dearest: "Gone to fetch the bed, It's probably still there" (cue collective "aaaaaaaaaaah"). Well the good news is, it was. Sort of. Half of it was still there. The footboard and the frame (In other words, the crappier half). I can't believe someone came along and took my headboard!! The bad news is, you can't really do much with a footboard and two pieces of wood. It would need reupholstering which would cost a bomb, and then what? It's too narrow for us to use as a headboard for our bed, it would be perfect for the guest bed but it would need to stand about a meter high. Without becoming ugly. I just can't think how to use it.

The best idea I've come up with so far is to strip it, keeping only the wooden frame which is in great condition, make it weatherproof and turn it into a sort of bench/plant shelf for the balcony. What do you think? Any other ideas? I'm kind of desperate here...

Itchy (athlete's) feet

I went for a run yesterday evening.

(Dear reader who doesn't know me personally and who's jaw hasn't hit the floor yet: please be very surprised.)

The amazing part is that I actually enjoyed it. Well, some of it. Boyfriend took me along the Seine, we walked for 10 mins to warm up, then we stretched. His stretching methods make me feel like a total idiot by the way: weird bird-like movements that don't seem to pull on ANY of my muscles. I ended up switching into yoga poses. Can you imagine us by the side of the road, one giant flapping flamingo and one crazy yogi, with cars driving by blowing their horns at us? No? Well it happened!

We were out for nearly and hour, and I think I ran for about 20 mins total. Don't judge, I'm only a baby runner, and an asthmatic one at that! I stretched like crazy after, and I felt GOOD. I slept like a baby too. But the BEST part is that this morning my legs aren't sore. They feel a bit stiff, but I'm not in any pain. I feel healthy and groovy and I want to go again.

I'm hoping that somehow my body will get hooked and that I will feel the urge to go running several times a week, at least until all the Thornton's Brazil nut toffee that someone brought into the office has gone (from my bum).

On an unrelated topic, I'm planning our British road trip for september and I'm all excited. I can't wait to show Boyfriend the white cliffs of Dover, the little village in Norfolk where I remember fishing for crabs as a child, eating ice cream on the Brighton pier, and discovering lots of new places with him!  

 Hopefully I'll be able to tell you more in the next few days !

Growth - Part 2 - the good the bad and the ugly

In my last post about growth I showed you what plants we bought and what bulbs we planted, thinking we would have a nice flowery balcony this summer. 

Since that post, we've had some good:

No other Freesia bulbs came up, but those that did seem to be growing pretty tall and haven't been eaten by mysterious bugs, which can't be said about everything else...

Some bad:

Yes, this is all that's left of the Ranunculus...I'm very disappointed. The leaves just went all yellow and died and then were eaten by something. Sad face.

Some not too bad but a bit ugly:

All the initial flowers on my African daisies have died, new buds are starting to open but there's so little light that their stems are really long and I think the flowers will be tiny. At least they are alive though!

So far we're far from the pretty little garden I was expecting! I blame the horrible weather, and maybe my poor gardening skills a little. But mainly just the weather. Maybe I should go back to planting nasturtiums like we had in our previous garden. They would go crazy and cover every inch of ground, stopping to die only when the first snow covered them. Easy-peasy to grow too. I hope it's not too late to sew some. 

Oh yes, this weekend we made a few changes to the balcony and the terrace, and we plan to make even more in the next couple of weeks! pictures to follow!

Los conejos en vacancia - Part 5 - random fun

Just a few more photos of Barcelona that I had to post because they're fun:

 I'm guessing this little girl was a tourist and that she threw a tantrum in one of the souvenir shops so that her parents would buy her this dress, I doubt any little girl living in Barcelona would be caught dead in one of those, if only because nylon isn't ideal for 30° weather.

 Portishead have changed a lot in recent years.

 A giant lobster watching over you as you walk across to the beach. Great.

Don't lean on the 1,500 kilo Buddha, please. He might fall over. 

Brain eater.

We spent ten minutes watching these little cardboard simpson things and trying to figure out how they work. They jump up an down to the beat of the music, there's a magnet stuck to their backs, and their legs are made of string with a piece of metal at the end. I still don't understand what keeps them standing up.

 An Irish pub!!!!

 The Spanish Harry Potter. He's obviously not been wearing suncream.

 Caroline street!

We haven't had a "Barcelona by night" session, so here goes:

When you leave a too-trendy-to-be-fun nightclub at 3AM on a sunday morning only to find you are facing the beach and the moon is out, your first thought is: "oooooh pretty!"

 Your second thought as you stroll along the beach is also "oooh, pretty".

But your third (and probably last, for some people) thought as you see a heard of tractors coming straight at you is "aaaaarghlfqfqefqqsedqzedqzequé?". I'm all for clean beaches, but come on, one minute the beach is packed and the next everybody is running for their lives. Completely loco! 

 Since nobody has complained about my many Barcelona posts so far I'm doing one last one on Gaudi. Get ready for some very bad puns.

Try me

Hi! I'm the newest addition to the Bunnies & Stripes family of tabs. Feel free to try me out if you're particularly interested in the before & afters posted on this blog.

Pssst! did you notice the new layout and design? Better or worse? I can't decide...

Five minute man

This post will be short and sweet. It involves two of my current favourites: neon and ombre. Hopefully by the time you've finished reading it, the pun in the title will have become obvious. Just in case it isn't (I know my sense of humour is a bit odd), I will provide a detailed explanation below.

Take an empty hair conditionner tub (or two, but it turns out I didn't do anything with the one on the right):

Whip out your trusty foam roller and your beloved tube of neon pink paint and let your imagination run wild for five minutes:

Tada! 

Notice I didn't turn this one into a planter. I don't know what it will be yet, a little jewellery box maybe. 

Now do you get it? 

Five minute man. 

Man in Spanish = hombre

Hombre = ombre (almost)

Five minute ombre!

You're welcome.

Los conejos en vacancia - Part 4 - shopping

This is hard for me, but I'll say it again just for the sake of good communication: I did not buy anything in Barcelona (food doesn't count as we all know it disappeared within 5 minutes of me stepping through the front door). Nothing. Nada, zilch, nix, zero cents spent. 

There. Now I feel better and I can start firing some excuses at you: I was with a group of people (including nice boys, but still boys, and most importantly, geeky boys) who weren't into shopping. Also, two days is very short, especially when the second day is a sunday and all the shops are closed. I spotted a flea market but nobody else wanted to stop and I can understand how boring it would have been for them, so I let it go. I know I'll be going back with Boyfriend anyway so it's not a big deal. I do want to show you some of the shops I saw though, just to be a good blogger:

Very funky second hand shop with very funky prices.

Desigual is a Spanish clothes shop that definitely hasn't been hit by the recession: there's one every fifty metres. I'm hardly exaggerating.

 I love hat shops.

There were several beautiful looking antique shops near our hotel but I didn't dare go inside. Too intimidating!

 

Let's see, what else?

The flea market. Sigh. It looked so promising!

Even the habitat shop had killer style. Go aubergine.

The famous Spanish department store. I didn't even go inside. Shame on me!

 Every now and then you see a shop window you just can't resist snapping a bad photo of as you walk by.

See what I mean?

Luckily, Hello Kitty will always be there to cheer you up and take your mind off leopard print. Or not. Do these people look disgruntled to you? I guess Hello Kitty doesn't do it for everyone.

Right, I'm nearly done with Barcelona! Just one last post with the theme: random pictures of nothing in particular.

Stay tuned!