Words and Pictures

   Hows about this then ?!  Miss Double U was feeling very gracious and generous with her time and  'PATIENTLY ' helped me download these photos for a pictorial trip around some of the things I did this Summer[though God Help Me if I want to download some more -I daren't ask her again !!]

The Wedding

 

These are our lovely friends Amy and Simon getting married in the beautiful tiny church of St John Lateran at Hengrave Hall ,Bury St Edmonds , Suffolk . It was such an amazing day , the most gorgeous wedding I've been to ! After the ceremony we all sat out on the lawn with Champagne and canapes  and I felt like I had fallen into the back pages of Tatler !

                                                     
                                                       Ah! Mr & Mrs Double U xx

             

   Miss Double U on the Croquet Lawn [ being watched in the background by Mr Double U - trying to put her off play I dare say - competitive dad  syndrome ! ]
     

                     Soaking up the history of the place - Queen Elizabeth I  
                       once stayed here !

Congratulations to the Happy Couple !

Biarritz

                                                                   Me at sunset 

           Is it true that you get drunk quicker if you drink it 
          through a straw ? ! 

                    Miss Double U looking pretty as a picture at sunset

This is the great indoor food market at Biarritz . They also have a cool outdoor bit with stalls selling a mixture of vintage and crafts - I picked up a vintage YSL two piece ladies skirt suit for a bargain [ with a bit of bartering ].I will do a post of my recent vintage finds soon - photo down loading ability permitting !! 

                 Miss Double U looking good in her Rodarte swimsuit , 
      vintage overalls and Amazing flower bedecked sun shades

         Yes I think it's true , you do get drunk a whole lot quicker when you drink through a straw !

•   Ah Yes! And here we have exhibit A . See this outfit I'm wearing ?  You will never see me in it ever again !

   The T Shirt I've had for years , it's a comme des garcon . The skirt I got in American Rag - a great vintage shop in L A . It's white cotton pique with little strawberries embroidered all over it , a bit miu miu  I thought at time of purchase . For a while I've felt like taking a more feminine approach to my dressing . Normally I'm more Tomboy style ,so I thought a mini trip away was a good place to experiment with a couple of new ensembles-pffff !  Whilst we were in Biarritz it was Festival time and ALOT of people , mostly young folk , were  dressed in the Basque National costume which is ' Red and White ' - getting the picture ? God ! I couldn't wait to get back to the hotel that day and get changed   

Williamsburg - Brooklyn &  

 The Catskills - UpState New York

       
      Mr Double U  enjoying granola in some hip Breakfast place .

 Wet 'N Wild , Miss Double U having fun with our great friend Duffy in the Catskills .

 Me sipping iced coffee at the before mentioned hip breakfast         place - I like a straw don't I 
                     

  All hands on deck ! The inflatable deflated - whoopsie !

Master C Double U getting a great cut from our mate Russel at Tommy Guns in Brooklyn.

They also have a salon on Ludlow St in Manhattan . The interior of both are amazing ,using original 1870's Drugstore cabinets    

to create a truly authentic 'step back in time' experience.

So authentic in fact that Russel and his shop were used in an episode of Boardwalk Empire .

Cool !

   This was at Lucy and Duffy's place in the Catskills , we made s'mores and lay back to watch the amazing meteor showers and shooting stars , it was a pretty magical evening !

    These pictures were taken at a beautiful waterfall which Duffy directed us to - I doubt we would have found it otherwise . 
 I was informed by all that the water was icy cold - I was too chicken to try !

                                         Shootin the breeze at Lucy and Duff's

  The lovely Lucy cooking up a feast for us in her amazing              
  converted barn . Here's a great video that The Selby made of Lucy for the fashion store Zara .It shows her and Duffy in their Brooklyn apartment and then Lucy driving to their barn in the Catskills.I love it , such a cool couple !

           
                                                       The Boys get involved too

    This as far as I got  - if I can't see the bottom and there's no hand rail to grasp onto when I get splashed I aint going in !

This is the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn where we stayed whilst we were in town . The views from our room of Manhattan across the  river were stunning . In the Catskills we stayed at the Lazy Lodge which is owned by Kate's Lazy Meadow - Kate being Kate Pierson from the B-52's - a really great log cabin with wonderful interior and a stream running outside the back door , a wonderful place to escape the madness and heat of the city . 

Yoko ono at the Serpentine 

   
           I enjoyed 'To the Light' by Yoko Ono but no picture taking was allowed inside . This shot is of the wishing trees outside . I thought the large perspex structure 'AMAZE' was interesting because you were allowed to enter into it and try to find the centre of the maze, become part of the sculpture . I'm not a fan of confined spaces but seeing as the walls were see through I didn't thing it would be so bad -
Yeh right ! At first I kept my cool but then started to think - what if I get to the middle but can't remember the way back out and I start to panic and hyper - ventilate and everyone is watching and they have to come and save me - so I swiftly backtracked my steps and exited looking as unfazed as possible 

       Some ducks taking a dip in the 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavillion designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei .



                       Home Grown

I took these photos out of wonderment because nothing ever grows for me - probably because I forget to water them - but the excessive rain fall we had did me a favour  

            I love this Horse tail grass ,it's really growing fast now 

      Milo getting close to nature and wondering if it's good to eat

                                               Newquay , Cornwall

                 Here's our friend John and his amazing hot rod car at a vintage surf and skate board show we went to earlier this Summer in Newquay .

                                       picnic on the quay at Padstow

  A few pics of our place in Newquay which we don't get to visit enough but love it when we can .
  

Souvenir from Biarritz from a great little coffee bar by the market .   

                                    mmw

Oh Blogger Where art Thou ?

     

                                   

Where to begin ? I feel like summer vacation has been going on forever chez Double M Double U - Masters F and C Double U have been home from University since June and don't go back till October - what the .....? Miss Double U has at least 2 more weeks left till she goes back to school - will my purse strings hold I ask you, when will the laundry stop ,the pot washing [dish washer broke-down at beginning of Summer and have not had the gumption to replace it yet !],what I'm saying is ,order needs to be replaced into our lives . Love of my life , Mr Double U has to return to the office , my three wise monkeys need to get re-acquainted with their brains and I ,quite frankly need space - although I do have to share 'my space' with the most demanding , crotchety , time consuming , handsome and loving , part-human Whippet you will ever care to meet - Milo Double U - I salute you  

   

I don't know about you but there's something about this time of year that fills me with a sense of new beginnings and fresh ideas - it's nothing like the dread filled 'New Years Resolution' feeling , But is more akin to seeing things with fresh eyes after visiting great places and spending time with family and friends - I always feel energized and inspired .I can feel a new 'TO DO LIST ' coming on .            

    Remember when you were a kid and the first thing you had to do when you went back to school after Summer was to write an essay titled 'What I Did This Summer' and you'd forgotten how to hold a pen and write ,well that's how I feel right now .I want to tell you about my weekend in Newquay and my mini break in Biarritz with Miss Double U and our amazing family trip to Brooklyn and the Catskills in Upstate New York , but there's too much to tell in one Post ,so I'll go away and compose myself and tell you all about it next time , I promise .        

             

   sorry I just had to slip that one in - used to dance to this in my living room !!


                mmw                   

It's been a while ........

It's not that I've not been thinking about you Double M Double U,  I have. I've been wanting to tell you all about what I've been reading,listening to,eating,smelling,seeing,doing - all that stuff,but I've hit a glitch.I have a confession to make. Miss Double U, my 15 year old Daughter is an avid blogger, unlike me she's long in the tooth when it comes to the blogisphere world and knows her way round the internet. So, there's a few things I don't know how to do ,like down load pictures and show links to other pages - I know, sad isn't it - Miss Double U promises to show me and I've been holding back with my posts so that, with her help, I can get my ideas out there but here I am still clueless because schools out for Summer and she's "BUSY!".So i'll just have to soldier on and you'll hopefully be patient with me while I'm learning. That said , here's a couple of tunes I've had on replay recently. First up is an 'oldy' by Fleetwood Mac - "Landslide" - it gets me every time , Kleenex at the ready ! 

     Next up is the Jimmy Cliff track,"One More",from his new album "Rebirth",it's totally infectious and you can listen to the whole album on www.rollingstone.com/music/news/album-jimmy-cliff-rebirth

OK,I'm going to sound like a real fashion bitch here but......

Paloma Faith standing in the wings while Jimmy does his thing ,

WHAT THE FECK ARE YOU WEARING ?!!

Sorry!

Heard some good news today that Edwyn Collins is to release a new album "Understated" next January .He has been working with Richard  Hawley who co-wrote two of the songs with him . When asked on 6 Music what the Album was going to be like Collins replied "Northern Soul" - can't wait !

I feel much better now we've become reacquainted ,thats my listening section up to date,I think I'll give you some Summer reading lists next time.

Well I going to sashay away to this little gem from days of yore 

Till next time ...

MMW 

£££££ LOL $$$$ :c Totes Amaze hashtag WTF :L

A recent shopping trip into the West end of London with my daughter brought to mind this little film of P'Trique of 'Sh*t Fashion Girls Say ' fame. Before I let you see it I just have to stress that although my daughter does own up to displaying many P'Triquess traits-not physical ones I hasten to add-I for one do know who Tom Ford is [but have to confess,I did think LOL meant lots of love - that's all in my past now though!] 
   Before we headed back home ,we nipped into Choccywoccydoodah's [http://www.choccywoccydoodah.com  ]at 30-32 Foubert's Place , just off Carnaby Street' to replenish our energy levels-shopping can be so draining on mind, body [and wallet]. They have a tea room upstairs which serves all their cakes and sweet treats and is definitely worth a visit if you need a little sugar fix .  

Those were the days my friends

Ever since BBC4 showed the documentary 'Quadrophenia...... Can You See The Real Me '..... about the making of The Who's album and followed it with a showing of the actual movie last week , I've been reminiscing about my youth . From the age of thirteen I was a Mod and obsessed about the 60's . it's music  fashion , movies , I was hooked ! My Bible was Richard Barnes book ' Mods! ' which I studied religiously . When Quadrophenia came out in the cinemas in 79 I remember going to see it with my best friend Fitz - a fellow Modette . We were two 14 year old convent girls sneeking in to see an 18 cert movie which was being double billed with ' Scum ' that particular day ,we couldn't believe our luck ! It's no secret that I started dating Mr Doubleu 29 years ago because he got himself a Lambretta , I thought I'd died and gone to heaven on the back of that thing- fickle me ! I'm sorry but I'm going to indulge myself a whole lot more and run a couple of video clips ;

                         This scene cracks me up !

 
  Anyway , the day after my Mod fix I happened to come across one of those somewhat annoying Top Of The Pops oldies but goodies shows . I was waiting for Wimbledon to come on but thought I'd hang in there as it was showing tunes from 69 . Most were dire but they did dish this one up . Don't laugh , but back in the day I really wanted to be that girl in the song with the glamourous life who'd come from the back streets of Naples . I myself came from the back streets of Rusholme , Manchester, but I was well classy smoking my Gauloises cigerettes , or so I thought !

   O.K. Humour me one last time . In 1974 there was a song out by Terry Jacks called ' Seasons in the Sun ' and as a little girl the lyrics used to make me sad , but in a good way because I really liked the song !? I'm not going to show you that one but here's the original version 'Le Moribond '[which means the dying man] written by Belgian singer/songwriter Jacques Brel .

C'est Magnifique  non ?


             Well Pop Pickers that's all till next time ,


                          A Bientot !

                                                   mmw