Back in the game.

I took a massive break from blogging last year, but I'm back!
There were various reasons for the break, but mostly a month long holiday to the US with my husband to see my family, and working two part time jobs that fluctuated between 45-50+ hours per week. My hours have changed now, so I am back on it.

Here's a small collection of photos from each month I was absent.

July. Improvised UK s'mores.

August. Ballet dreams come true during our US visit.

September. Canal wanders.

 November: Walking through Kensington on my way to my first day of a new job.

December: Christmas party feast at a friends place.

The Winter's Tale at The Royal Opera House

Ever since we had Royal Ballet principal dancer Ed Watson in the gallery, I've been watching loads of YouTube ballet videos, and finally got the guts up to go to an adult ballet class, which I wrote about here.

My partner and I have been having a tough month with immigration, which I'll write a post on when I'm ready and feel more distanced from it, as it's too stressful right now to really break it down. But I've welcomed all sorts of distractions, such as volunteering at a local Educational Library Service on my days off, and ballet. I bought £6 tickets for my partner and I to go see The Royal Ballet's production of The Winter's Tale, and we went last week on Wednesday, April 23. Talk about the most beautiful escape where every real life issue was instantly forgotten and left outside of the theatre for the three hours the ballet was on.

For £6 seats in the amphitheater what you do miss out on is some of the background and beautiful sets. But what you don't miss out on is the dancing. We could hear the pitter-patter of the ballerina's pointe shoes across the stage, and see the sweat dripping off the principal's faces as they danced. It was fantastic.

At this point I've only seen Giselle and The Sleeping Beauty, both performed by the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, which I enjoyed. But The Winter's Tale was different. The narrative of this story was so strong, and the acting was superb. Ed Watson as Leontes was like a lizard, crawling out of his skin with jealousy as he skulked around Hermonie and Polixenes during the first act. Act 1 was emotionally traumatic to watch, because as a viewer I felt part of their story, and watched the happiness of Leontes' court fall to pieces as he lost everything.

The second act was full of sweetness and light due to the gorgeous music and Sarah Lamb's Perdita and Steven McRae's Florizel. They really made the audience feel them falling in love during their pas de deux.

After that Wednesday, I fell in love with the ballet to the point where I booked a ticket to see it in Cinema's during the ROH Live showing. (It's probably unfair to mention I paid £12 for two tickets to see it live, and £20 for one ticket to see it in the cinema.) I was a little skeptical that the ballet wouldn't translate well on a screen as opposed to real life but I really shouldn't have worried. It was almost better in a way due to the sweeping camera angles and close ups, the subtly of the dancers acting was much more visible. By Act 3 there were sounds of crying as the audience in the cinema was moved to tears by the end. I walked out of the cinema feeling the lightest I had in months.

Here's hoping The Royal Opera House releases the ballet on DVD, it's truly amazing.

Image credit to ROH and The Guardian. 

Birdy backpack

Yesterday while walking around Belsize Park, we spotted a man in front of us with a backpack. Which is not so unusual for Central London. What was unusual was that it was a bird backpack, with a full size parrot inside! Crazy. I love living in the city. I wish I had gotten a better stealth picture of it but this will have to do. How do you get the bird out with all of those safety pins?

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Muffin cupcakes (Muffcakes?)

This weekend has been dreamy because of the lovely weather. I went over to my friends house in North London for a day filled with gloriously crap chick flicks and baking. We procrastinated on the baking for a good hour, haphazardly flipping through her cook books while soaking in the sun on her roof terrace with a few glasses of Proessco. It's amazing how indulgent a little sun and bubbles feels.

Ultimately, we decided on a baked Camembert studded with garlic, covered in olive oil, rosemary and thyme and wrapped and baked in short crust pastry. The real star of the show was the blueberry muffins that we turned into cupcakes. There are no strict rules regarding the toppings of muffins, so why can't they have a little frosting? I don't have the recipe for theses muffins, as it was out of one of my friend's books. I'll see if I can get her to send it to me. It was really interesting, as it included regular flower, chickpea flower, and buttermilk (which I haven't used in muffins before).

Weren't they beautiful? Thanks Nigella. Hopefully I don't get in trouble for posting the recipe here. 

Cormeal Blueberry Muffins Recipe

• 1 cup (250 mL) flour
• ½ cup + 1 tbsp (140 mL) cornmeal
• 2 tsp (10 mL) baking powder
• ½ tsp (2 mL) baking soda
• 2/3 cup (150 mL) sugar
• pinch salt
• ½ cup (125 mL) vegetable oil
• ½ cup (125 mL) buttermilk
• 1 egg
• ¾ cup (175 mL) blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400 F (200 C) and line a muffin tin with papers.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and sugar and salt. In a measuring jug or bowl, pour the oil and buttermilk and whisk or fork in the egg.

Stir the oil mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients – remembering that lumpiness is a good thing when making muffins – and fold half the blueberries into your thick golden batter.

Divide this batter between each muffin case (they will be about two-thirds full) and drop the remaining blueberries on top; you should have about 3 for the top of each muffin.

Cook in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, till a cake tester comes out cleanish (obviously it will be stained if it hits a berry). Leave the muffins in the tin on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then remove the muffins, in their cases, to the wire rack to cool a little (not too much) before you serve or eat them.

Frosting:

100 g soft unsalted butter
100 g icing sugar
3 teaspoons (or to preference) blue food colouring

Whisk until combined.

Sarah Jessica Parker answers 73 questions

This video is nothing short of perfection, because it's SJP. Check out how dreamy her home is!

Springtime

It's so ridiculously lovely out, I've got the door open at the gallery despite the traffic noise to take advantage of the sun. I wish I could roam the city with my camera, but since I can't have these springtime shots from 2012 taken in suburban Leeds, UK.

Alexander Ebert

Have a photo of Alexander from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros to brighten up your Thursday evening.