Gaye Parieee

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I realise I have taken one step forward by coming to Italy but then two steps back by continuing to post about France but until I have any decent photos of where I am I'll just play catch up with a few snaps of Paris from this spring.

France - Lonely Planet

"Good, bad or ugly, everyone has something to say about France and the French: chic, smart, sexy, rude, racist, bureaucratic, bitchy as hell, pavements studded with dog poo, baguettes that dry out by lunchtime and a penchant for torching cars is some of the chitchat on the street."

Villa Venir

Tomorrow I will be here (a tiny hamlet called Invillino in north eastern Italy near Udine) for a month of work with the coolest people I know. Here's to 4 weeks of extreme pasta consumption and Italia tongue twisters!

Saturday sewing

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I've been to town and bought the Saturday paper for my dad, picked up a roll of film I had developed and drunk 3 cups of tea. Now I'm sat looking at this book with my pretty thread tin and pin cushion (thank you Cath Kidston) wondering how the hell I'm going to make a bag ...... all the gear but defiantly no idea!

Of late

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A few random pics from my last fortnight in England. I've been "stuck" in Yorkshire for a week now because of the volcano and I know there are much worse places in the world to be stuck but I would rather be stuck in somewhere hot ... like Madagascar ;-) Being home means reverting back to a strict 8 cups of tea a day diet and catching up on all the dodgy literature I wouldn't usually been seen in public reading (Dan Brown books are a guilty pleasure of mine ... very very guilty pleasure)! I've just put a lemon cake in the oven so I'm going to work on getting fatter. Laterz xx

Can you tell the difference?

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Eiffle vs Blackpool tower

BP by night

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Having developped a love of all things in drag whilst in Montreal its only natural that Kate's 21st had to be dragtastic. Dressed as girls from Chicago (a fish net enduced nightmare) we went to see Funny Girls (a drag queen cabaret show) and spent the rest of the evening dancing barefoot in numerous of Blackpools more dodgy establishments (encluding a rather hilarious take away window danceoff). Jenna and I ended the night eating a monsterous vegetarian pizza in our hotel bed, simply legendary!

BP by day

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Arrived in Blackpool early afternoon after taking the train and painting our nails en route. Walked the length of the sea front eating fish, chips and ice cream (not together ... that would be grose). Someone had the bright idea to go on the big wheel ... I'm not good with spinning or heights and thus thought I was going to die. We didn't die. Happy about the fact we didn't die. Caught the tram back to our hotel and sat in bed eating bakewell tarts watching credits on the TV. Perfection!

In the company of some drag queens

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Pretty horrendous photo warning! The two above photos are the classy tip of the iceberg from an IMMENSE weekend away for Kate's 21st birthday. And in the words of a wise woman "drag, feathers, Chicago, chips as an appetiser, free shots, barefoot dancing, takeaway danceoff's ... I ♥ Blackpool!"

Hola

Today it's very sunny in the conservatory! If we were posh we'd call it "the garden room" but we aren't so we don't ;-) Life is oh so good when you are wearing a grandma knit jumper and jeans which you bough a decade ago (cough cough)!

Birds and the bees

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My mom always gets obsessed with flowers round this time of year and navigating your way from the kitchen to the lounge becomes a dangerous activity of ducking, diving and pollen avoidance. We do like to leave the dead ones on show a bit more than would be considered classy .... still smells good though!

Published

It's very very strange seeing your work in print for real!
Mont Sainte Victoire, January 2010.

The two greatest Montrealers ...

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I'm back at home in England for Easter holidayness and I'm going to Birmingham to party/drink/eat/shop/veg and pull some dirty dirty dance moves with the two greatest fake Canadians the world has ever known. Laters x

???

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I found these three photos of Alice and Rach on a memory card in my trouser pocket this morning. I have no idea when they were taken and also why my memory card had chosen to hang out in my trouser pocket but I'm glad they resurfaced. I miss them, I miss France!

What happened? We were all so cute ...

Portrait 1

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These were taken back in October when everything was a bit dead. The grafiti gets white washed over on a regular basis and the kids then repaint so its almost as if we have a constantly evolving piece of street art work a stones throw from the military place des armes. It is also where/when Muriel took what is now my favoutire club photo portrait from last year.