When I moved to London just over a year ago I found myself living with rather bare walls for a while. I solved some of this by buying some cheap posters off eBay (I have The Boondock Saints guarding my bedroom door as a result) but I'm quite fussy and it was difficult to find posters that I liked.

However I do like postcards, especially photography print ones, and so I have slowly but surely been buying ones I like and sticking them on my walls. Some have been bought from Zazzle, but others have come from lovely Etsy shops so I thought I'd highlight a few that I've purchased already and a few that I hope to purchase in the future!

Winter Ice by Maddenphotography

Bree Madden of Maddenphotography currently has an 8 x 10 BOGOF sale going on so if you like her work, this is the time to buy! I got a lovely autumnal photo as well when I bought this print as BOGOF, they both came as photos on folded card, so I cut the excess card off before sticking them on my wall. She's got some lovely flower and shabby chic prints as well, and everything arrived really quickly in a nice secure card envelope. Definitely check her out!

Hearts All Over by AmeliaKayPhotography

According to her shop descrption Amelia Kay has been featured in quite a few magazines recently, and it's easy to see why! I love photos with light and light manipulation, which is why this postcard was one of my first purchases when I decided to decorate, but she has lots of other beautiful photos too which you can buy either as postcards or as prints.

Paris Photo Postcards by GeorgiannaLane

I always love photos of Europe, especially France as I spent many summer holidays out there as a child, and I love the bright colours Georgianna has used for this set. She's also got some gorgeous photos of Venice, and her shop also has photo pendants which you can use for jewellery making. This is one set that's definitely on my wishlist.

Postcard Set- Paris by TheParisPrintShop

When I said I love photos of Paris I wasn't joking! Nichole of TheParisPrintShop has got a whole collection of photos in various colour sets, I've chosen purple for the blog but the blue one and the red one are also catching my eye. She's got lots of lovely photos in her shop, or if you're near New York she now has a book out for sale which can be found in Anthropologie (we won't get in to how much I love Anthropologie and how happy I am that they now have a branch in London).

I'm going to go and count out the pennies in my penny jar and see what I can buy!

Have a lovely week everyone!

London Marathon

Last year, when I had only been living in London for a few weeks, I went to see the London Marathon with a bunch of people supporting the Motor Neurone Disease Association. Some of my readers may remember this charity from the sponsored walk I did back in August, for those that don't know the MNDA is my favourite charity and I do what I can to help out when possible.

Last weekend was the Marathon again and so I donned one of my MND Association t-shirts and headed to Limehouse in the docklands to cheer loudly for all the runners and then cheer extra loudly for the MNDA runners. I clapped so hard that my hands hurt on Monday, cheered so loudly that my throat was still sore on Monday, and the supporter group also had a DJ with them so I was still a little deaf on Monday as well. But it was well worth it and if any of the MNDA runners are reading this I want you to know I am in total awe of you. I can barely run 26 yards let alone 26 miles.

Hence also why this post is on a Tuesday instead of a Sunday, by the time I got back to my flat I was a bit too dazed to write anything.

The MND Association's colours are blue and orange, and so to celebrate my favourite charity and the amazing people that work for it, support it, and fundraise for it by running a marathon, I bring to you some blue and orange items!

Blue and Orange Wedding by JulianaWJewelry

ZigZag Lap Quilt by becauseimme

Feather Fascinator by MaddieLus

Blue and Orange Necklace by Karismabykarajewelry

Have a good week everyone!

The Zodiac

After my post about Little Brother and Dad's birthdays last week I realised that me and my siblings cover each of the elements in the western zodiac, air, earth, fire and water. I actually find this quite a fun coincidence, so today we're having a look at star signs!

Subway Art- Aquarius by PaperBleu

Doing these in date order, first of all is Youngest Little Sister! Her birthday in January puts her in Aquarius, which is an Air sign. Out of that list above I'd say she's definitely friendly and thoughful, and quite intellectual as well. She's the first out of me and my siblings to be put in the top class for maths!

I am an Aries by blushface

As you might have guessed from my post last week, my brother is an Aries and therefore a fire sign. I'm not sure about energetic, he seems to spend most of his weekends sleeping, but he's pretty enthusiastic about cars and QPR, and generally thinks he's good at everything so that's the confidence sorted XD

Virgo Cell Phone Charm by loveyourathlete

Eldest Little Sister is a September baby, one of the earth signs. They tend to get stressed easily, and they like things to be neat and organised, which is VERY much how Eldest Little Sister is, to the point of borderline OCD. She also has a way of finding small things to do for people, like clearing the table for our Mum after dinner or sharing her chocolate with me, another Virgo trait :)

Scorpio Hammered Pendant by PointyKitty

And then last but not least there's me, the Scorpio, one of the water signs. Scorpios are often given a bad reputation for being unforgiving (true) and stubborn (also true) but we're not so bad. The keepers of both promises and secrets. And we're passionate, you've all seen me rant about the football XD

So there we have it, the four signs of my siblings and me, air, fire, earth and water!

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Birthdays & Easter

In recent weeks my internet has been VERY wobbly. My housemates have now switched suppliers and we have a faster (although not necessarily more reliable) connection! So hopefully this will inspire me to post regularly again.

First thing's first; the two men in my family have had birthdays recently! Happy belated birthday to Little Brother (dying days of March) and my Dad (2 days ago)! Little Brother went to see our beloved QPR play Arsenal two days after his birthday, and win! This followed a recent pattern as a friend of mine, who shall be known as "G-man", had us beat Liverpool on his birthday, both tough matches that I assumed we would lose. I therefore hoped that today would be the same, QPR played Manchester United today and since it was close to my Dad's birthday I thought the birthday luck would continue! Sadly not :( But at least we're out of relegation zone (barely).

And then today it is Easter Sunday! My parents gave me a Lindor easter egg when I saw them last weekend, and it has been sitting on my shelf, mocking me, ever since. I'm trying to ration it as it seems like a waste to buy chocolate bars in the week after Easter XD

Easter Egg Sugar Cookies by WackyCookies

Here's a lovely picture of some tasty-looking biscuits! If I could bake like that I don't think my work colleagues would let me come in empty handed every day.

Happy Easter everyone!

Mothers Day!

A quick post because it's late. Here in the UK it's Mothering Sunday today, so I went back to my parents for the weekend.

We won't mention my brother crashing his car on Thursday (he's fine, the car has been written off). Friday was spent having a nice wander around Cambridge, Saturday involved watching DVDs with Youngest Little Sister, and then today Mum got gifts and cards from her four children, myself included.

I also agreed to make dauphinoise potatoes for lunch. However I'm used to cooking for myself, using a gas oven. Today I cooked for three adults (me and my parents, my siblings do not like cream let alone cream with potatoes) and was using an AGA. There was a moment where I thought it was all going to go wrong, but eventually the potatoes cooked fine and tasted very nice indeed!

So Happy Mothers Day to my Mum! Pictures of my brother's written off car may come in the week if he agrees to let me publish them XD

Crocuses

Spring is coming to the UK at last! Despite recent chilly snaps and extra snow up in Scotland and northern England it's slowly starting to warm up properly. There's blossoms starting on various trees around the place, daffodils are popping up in the grass in front of my flat, and when I go to Kew Gardens there's carpets of crocuses dotted around the place.

So since I've already done a post about daffodils I figured this time it should be crocuses. They look very delicate, but when there's lots of them together they create a really lovely sea of purple.

First Flowers by AniseSprout

Of course crocuses don't just come in purple, as this photo by Christine of AniseSprout shows. Her shop has got some really lovely photos of flowers and I highly recommend having a browse if you're looking for some new photography art for your walls!

Felted Crocus Heart Brooch by SandhraLee

I love the attention to detail in this brooch, right down from the beading to the thread used on the leaves SandhraLee has some seriously gorgeous felted pieces in her shop, well worth a look!

Miniature Purple Crocus by Marianne26

Speaking of attention to detail, I think it's safe to say that Marianne Cook has the steadiest hands in the whole of Wales! Her shop Marianne26 is all about miniatures for doll houses, including beautiful pots of flowers made using tissue paper such as these crocuses. It's fair to say I wouldn't have the patience to make even one of these!

Purple Crocuses Blank Notecards by pinkbathtub

These notecards are simple but very pretty, and just one example of the lovely paper goods that can be found in pinkbathtub. She also does recipe cards and giftpacks, all with lovely illustrations and designs.

Have a lovely week everyone!

SNOW!

My first year living in London and I've been lucky enough to get some snow! My main worry about leaving Hertfordshire was that I would miss one of the best bits of winter, the village I grew up in gets snow and in previous years me and my siblings have had a lot of fun building snowmen in the garden but London is always a little bit warmer than the rest of the country so snow isn't that common.

I will confess to staring at the weather forecast all week waiting for the good news. Then on Friday afternoon everyone was announcing that it was meant to snow this weekend. On the one hand I was incredibly excited and on the other I was very worried that it would miss us and hit the rest of the country, my luck has been terrible recently so I expected lack of snow to follow suit.

Imagine my excitement last night then when a few flakes fell, and then a few more, and then the snow started properly. I was bouncing between my bed and the window on a regular basis to see the progress of it settling. I even slept with my curtains open last night so I could occasionally lift my head up and see the snow falling, although this didn't work very well as I'm short-sighted and don't sleep with my glasses on so every time I tried it all I could see the orange blur of the streetlights XD

When I woke up this morning it was already starting to melt, so I downed two cups of tea and ate a biscuit, pulled on a multitude of layers, grabbed two cameras and went to Kew Gardens. I took quite a lot of photos with my Dad's old Canon Digital Rebel and two with my aging pocket Nikon, the Canon ones are in RAW and will need to wait until I get a new PC before I can edit them, the Nikon ones are simply awful quality so I won't be posting them up on here. However regardless of photos the actual Gardens were beautiful covered in snow.

I also ended up going to Marks & Spencer to buy a scarf as I don't have one and since the cold is due to hang around a while longer I figured I should get one, and then I also ended up buy 2 cheese scones XD

I've already had chicken soup and a lovely fresh roll and more tea, this afternoon will feature baking some cookies and then I'm doing roast beef for my dinner tonight!

Have a lovely weekend everyone and if you've got snow, have fun with it!

Treasury and Listing!

Bit of a short post today because I'm being very naughty and having a little lazy day today. If I ever get dressed it will be so I can go and buy cheesecake from a shop XD

Despite being lazy though I've just listed a new book, The Travellers Handbook to Paris from 1937!

Along with the usual itineraries one gets in these travel guides it all has thirteen maps and a whole load of adverts for shops and hotels one could visit in 1930's Paris. What makes this book special to me though is it's date; 1937. Two years later the second world war broke out and in 1940 the Germans occupied Paris. How many of the shops and hotels, immortalised in these pages, were still around by the time the war ended?

I've also been included in a Treasury this week! Everything Must Go features my vintage book "The Romance of Modern Electricity", thanks to LinniR for including me!

Have a nice week everyone!

The Flying Sock

Just before last Easter I packed up most of my life (about 20% of it stayed in the old stables at my parent's home) and moved to south west London. I rent a small room in a small flat. There's a small kitchen, a small bathroom, no living room because it's used as a storage room instead, and three housemates in two other bedrooms. It's actually quite nice, I have my own space (which I love) but if I need company there's generally always someone in the kitchen I can talk to.

It also means that things can't go missing in the flat. It's too small for you to lose something (although I do occasionally misplace one of my QPR mugs at the back of a cupboard). Sooner or later something will be found. And in my case I'm constantly losing track of my socks. It's rather embarrassing actually, I rarely wear matching socks simply because the other half of a pair will wander off somewhere (generally to the bottom of my laundry basket).

This evening this happened;

Housemate Mon- Biiiiibliophile?
Me- Yeeeeees?

Suddenly it came through my open door, flying through the air with all the grace and aerodynamics of something foot-shaped made of cotton and elastic. It hit the floor like a the lightest potato known to man, and sat there accusingly as if to say "why did you leave me in the storage room? Aren't I good enough for your feet?"

Housemate Mon- Hehehehehe.

Snuff

It occured to me the other day that despite the title of this blog being "The Bibliophile", and despite me claiming to love books, I haven't actually said that much about books recently.

But that is changing today because I got a great one for Christmas that I really struggled to put down!

Snuff by Terry Pratchett on Amazon.co.uk

Snuff is the 39th Terry Pratchett set in his alternate universe, the Discworld. Commander Sir Samuel "Sam" Vimes of the Ankh Morpork City Watch goes on his first holiday in years, visiting the country estate of his wife Lady Sybil. But all is not right in the countryside, and soon he becomes a one-man policeforce against murder, smugglers, and the persecution of the goblin race.

Ankh Morpork iPhone Sleeve by Flaming Watermelon

I'm a big fan of Terry Pratchett and I really love the City Watch series. I read Unseen Academicals (not a City Watch one but set in Ankh Morpork) and struggled to get in to it. It didn't seem to flow as well as Pratchett's previous work and given his health problems I had to wonder if things were finally taking a toll, would Snuff actually be any good? Well I'm very happy to say that Snuff was brilliant. I took it to work to read during my lunch break and then wished I hadn't done so because it was so difficult to put it down and return to work!

Wee Free Men (and Woman) by LunasCrafts

Yes the Nac Mac Feegle even get a tiny mention, as do Carrot, Angua, Nobby, Fred Colon, and Vetinari of course! If you're a Terry Pratchett fan then you really must read this book. Really. Just go to your nearest bookshop and buy it now, unplug the phone, abandon work, sit down and read it.

Have a nice weekend everyone!