When to spend

Even in these frugal times there are some things you spend money on. In a quest for quality not quantity my list of things to splash on would include:

Loo paper (or toilet roll if you like)- this has inspired the whole post really. The cleaners at work in an effort to economise have started providing us with what seems to be rice paper. This is not helpful. Especially as in an effort to economise we all use the loo paper for tissues. I have scratched half my hay fever-plagued skin off because I'm too thrifty to just go to the supermarche.

Tissues- see above. A big manly tissue is my favourite.

Chocolate (as in Green and Black's worth spending money, not as in silly gift boxes that cost more than a meal, I mean I like those if anyone wants to send me one but I wouldn't buy one for myself)

Coffee

Chicken (although that's more for reasons of conscience than cash)

Shoes. Sort of. In that ones made of a breathable material (not necessarily leather) mean less blisters, bad smells, strange infections and happier feet!


Things I am very happy to economise on:

Books. Not that I don't spend lots on them I do- but I am more than happy to buy a second hand one or ten- because obviously I can have more and also I am happy about passing them on to people. Also if I buy paperbacks from a charity shop or second hand shop I can have more brand new ones.

Water. I like the tap stuff, it's not too cold and when I buy mineral water I seem to spend my life recycling.

Nail varnish. I have bought all kinds from the champagne to the white lightnings (if you are not British that is very, very cheap horrible alcohol) of nail varnish and honestly I think all that matters is that you like the colour, put two coats on and don't let it go gloopy. Good base and top coats do seem to matter though. Oh dear this is getting perilously into preachy beauty magazine territory isn't it.

Travel:
Buses: I love the bus, you get to drive around London looking in shop windows, seeing people go by and you can listen to podcasts and music. The tube is often too loud to hear the spoken word and quite a lot of quiet songs. That said I don't like traffic jams, misty bus windows, seats facing backwards or bendy buses- or when the bus terminates for no reason and the driver doesn't know (which means can't be bothered) to do a transfer.
Walking: clearly the best way to get around and to see London, always my preferred mode of transport where possible!

Travelling souls

I stood on a very crowded northbound Piccadilly line train last week with my head phones in and my cross face on. I was feeling grumpy about the lady who was insisting on crouching down next to me for no obvious reason and had her head in my back and the guy next to me who kept shifting about and saying sorry for bashing me- don't be sorry just stand still I thought.

I don’t know if it was my exposure to the mystical, magical and very friendly Cornish coast recently or the wise words of Marcus Mumford in my ears but as the train driver announced that mind the doors didn’t mean hold the doors my agitation completely subsided. I realised that the tube I was on was carrying hundreds of souls and that they were probably all as difficult to know anything about from looking at their outer shell as mine was. Of course they all hated being pressed up so closely, the lady probably didn’t mean to have her head in my back and the man didn’t mean to bash me or he wouldn’t keep apologising. I felt lots of love for the hot, sweaty tube too- for carrying us to our destinations safely- so many important hearts and minds- even if those hearts or minds were only important to one other living thing- hurtling along those dark, Victorian tunnels.

These thoughts aren’t especially original. Of course it stands to reason that you cannot judge a book by his cover or a woman by her shoes. Likewise although the tube it’s at once hot and harbouring the most chilling arctic winds; it’s often closed and somewhere you might like to leave your sense of smell at the ticket barriers, it really is what gets most of the city moving to the pubs, gigs, cinemas, fancy and not so fancy restaurants, to work, home, to friends and even to far away lands. It carries us through ancient earth as it carried our ancestors before us and it will probably carry on carrying people long after us, even if it will most likely still be mostly closed all of the weekend…

Poster above from the London Transport Museum shop here.

Lovely Lille

I am still recovering from a bank holiday break to Lille.

The whole experience was a lovely mix of British and French with a little bit of Flemish and even Welsh thrown in.

We started at the newly redecorated St. Pancras station which does live up to all the hype. I can see why the French envy us our international terminal if nothing else. We had very British tea and scones at Peyton and Byrne (if you think this is making you hungry wait for later...) and then skipped onto the Eurostar.

We arrived in just an hour and twenty minutes and were soon trundling with our little suitcases looking for pitchers of wine and cafes in which to ahem familiarise ourselves with Lille.



There is actually a great deal to do and to eat in Lille and I cannot mention all of it. Mostly I enjoy soaking up a French town, sitting in the restaurants and cafes and walking around the gorgeous streets.

However if pressed my favourite things were: the book market off the main square, the interiors shops on the way to our hotel and the onion soup at the cafe which is open until 6am- I have no idea of it's name because I had one too many glasses of rose the day we visited...

My favourite place in Lille was definitely the cafe Meert







As you can see it's a wonderful chic French patisserie. It is filled with cakes, nougat and macaroons. It was the tea that was the revelation though, I had the most delicious rose infused tea, better than any I have tasted in similar French and Viennese tea rooms. Of course I should have bought some when I was there because by Monday it was closed for the day and the website doesn't do mail order tea. Still sometimes what's best about holidays is that you try things you cannot have at home.

I also had the local speciality, the Flanders version of welsh rarebit. It involves rich bread being soaked in Flemish beer then cooked with lardons and lots of rich local Maroilles cheese. It's all topped off with a friend egg. It's wonderful but you need a lie down afterwards.

Lille street picture courtesy of: http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/09/15/85/vieux-lille.jpg

Meert picture courtesy of: http://lh5.ggpht.com/_ws0o3ljJUHw/R_pX_HdiS3I/AAAAAAAAA3o/q5V_uoR0Un0/L4007.JPG

Picture of Meert inside: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2196/2229630688_44e1cbdd92.jpg?v=0

Your duty to buy perfume

I read this article in the Sunday Times this weekend. It's about the best duty free buys in various countries- perfume barely gets a mention, which is madness when the DF perfumes are one of my favourite bits of going on holiday!

I am recently back from Barcelona and so was lucky enough to go through the excellent airport there again. I often fly from Heathrow which it has to be said has an excellent scent selection including some unusual sniffs like the Hermes essence range. So it's tricky for lots of other airports (not cities airports) that I visit to match up. However what they might like in square footage they more than make up for with unheard of scents and lines that are no longer carried at home.

What I always long to find in the DF is an unusual Guerlain like Nahema or Lancome's Mille Et Une Rose. I haven't been lucky anywhere yet...

However it isn't really the buying that is the main joy of DF sniffing. It's the fact that you're in transit and there is very little to do so no one can really mind you spending a lot of time sampling and enjoying the scents.

I also think it can be very nice to pick a scent either at the start or the end of the holiday. If you buy at the start of the trip you can wear the scent throughout the holiday and it will always remind you of that place- and if you buy a perfume at the end of the trip it's like a last gasp of the holiday and a little pick me up to carry you through the drudgery of returning to work and holiday washing!

Laugharne

I can't decide if I am excited about the forthcoming John Maybury film The Edge of Love or not.

I greatly admire Dylan's work and I'm a sucker for anything wartime- be it London or rural- so I should love this but I'm not convinced- we'll see.

What I know is that I love Laugharne, where Dylan and Caitlin Thomas spent their later years together.

The pictures above are by a photographer called David Wilson whose work I came across when visiting West Wales about a year ago.

Ever since visiting Laugharne and seeing Dylan Thomas' writing shed (above) and the ramshackle but gorgeous old book shop in the town(also above) I have coveted these two prints quite obsessively.

I sought his work out on the internet having told myself when in Wales that I didn't need two large framed prints and would be much better putting the money they would cost towards saving for a wall of my own to put pictures on.

I eventually found his work and you can see more of it here.

Watching America

I have just returned from a trip to American and Canadian Prairie towns.

It has been my experience with all places North American that aren't New York that you have to embrace the strange and peculiar to start to enjoy yourself. For all that the language is the same this world is far more alien than any European places I have visited. So I rode the roller coasters, shopped the shops, ate the pizza slices and got at least waist deep in it all.

Here are my best bits of Minneapolis and Winnipeg:

1) Orange Julius a frozen orange and cream type drink. I was dubious but this stuff is like nectar. I was totally addicted. If one ever opens in the UK I will be making a pilgrimage.

2) Seeing real Amish people

3) The sunset driving through the Prairies. The amount of land and the red skies were awe- inspiring. They have so much land in this part of the world that all that we drove through seemed to be surplus to requirements. It wasn't farmed with crops nor grazed with animals. It was just open for miles and miles. I felt an enormous sense of respect for the people who settled here, the land is open and it's very, very cold. To come here and make a life can't have been easy- but the beautiful sunsets must have helped.

4) Driving through Fargo! It's a real place and it was one of only 2 turns we took on our 9 hour trip.

5) The Mall of America. This might sound like the end of civilisation and a palace to celebrate consumerism, which I'm sure is partly the case. However it also offered this British girl many lovely shops with goods priced in dollars, meaning her earnings could stretch that bit further. It also had roller coasters, a cinema and all kinds of ice- cream. So what's not to like really?

sunset image courtesy of http://www.terradesign.ns.ca/perspix/prairie%20sunset.jpg