voracious reader + full-time optimist
Did I ever mention that I love Valentine’s Day? That I’ve been almost bullying my colleagues with my anticipation and enthusiasm since the first Valentine’s-Day-themed window shop decorations popped up around central London? Well, I do. This is why I put together a list of ideas in case you were wondering what to do on Valentine’s Day.
Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit the fresh & fit fest at Hoxton Hotel in Shoreditch, where I attended a talk on body confidence by Tally Rae, Victoria Spence and Zanna van Dijk, the wonderful ladies behind #GirlsGains and the BBC Radio 5 Podcast Fit and Fearless. Their experiences and advice hit home which is why I would like to share with you what I took away from this session in this post.
Okay, let’s get this out of the way. Guillem Clua’s Smiley is stupendously good. It’s warm, heart-felt and human, walking on the very thin line between romance and reality.
According to Instagram, most of my top nine 2017 moments have my face in them as if I was an otherworldly beauty set to conquer planet earth. This, though, could not be any further from the reality.
These are my true top 2017 moments:
One of the things that I love about London is the countless opportunities one gets to meet genuinely creative people. Serendipitously. It was a sunny Sunday towards the end of May and I was hanging around Columbia Road with my friend Lili and a gigantic bunch of sunflowers, when a girl with a 100-megawatt smile and a camera approached me. “Are you a blogger?”, she asked.
“Yes, erm, why”, I hesitated.
“Could I take a photo of you holding one of the notebooks I’ve designed?”
Monday night found me listening to electronic music with Icelandic lyrics whilst standing blindfolded between an Australian girl and a choir bass.
Hallucinating? Unlikely.
Moving away from Athens (and then around Europe) has taught me a lot about friendship. Here I’m sharing my tips for keeping the (friendship) flame alive:
Fahrelnissa Zeid is renowned for her vibrant abstract paintings – a colourful and energetic fusion of Islamic, Byzantine, Arab and Persian influences with a pronounced European touch: the result of her being trained at École de Paris (School of Paris) in the 1950s and leading a cosmopolitan life as Prince and Iraqi ambassador Zeid Al-Hussein’s wife. Fahrelnissa Zeid was also an important figure in the avant-garde d Group that opened the doors for contemporary art trends in Turkey during the early 1940s.
With its endless options for food and entertainment, London can make you feel both relentless and overwhelmed. Here, to offer a helping hand, this week’s recommendations:
Kythera (also transcribed Kythira) is a picturesque Greek island lying opposite the southeastern tip of Peloponnese, between the Greek mainland and Crete. Despite having fewer than 4,000 permanent residents, the small island is spangled with dozens of small villages, some consisting of only a handful of houses. After driving around the island for a couple days, there was a definite winner for me: Avlemonas.
