Summerhouse with friends

Saw some pics on a blog about this house that is for sale. It is located in the South of France, in Roquebrune near Monaco. 

I love the turquoise shutters. And I like that it matches with the turquoise of the swimming pool, hehe. 

The house is for sale for $27 millons. If I can find 26 friends it will only be $1 million per person, that's a deal, no? ;)

 

So, who's with me?

Paté

Didn't come back from France empty-handed... ;)

Champagne

I love champagne. Simple as that. I was in France three weeks over Christmas and New Year's and it was a great luxury to be able to be with the family for so long. And during these weeks I had many opportunities to drink champagne. Here's what I drank, in alphabetical order:

• Ayala
• Ayala Rosé
• Dom Pérignon
• Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial (twice)
• Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial Rosé
• Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage 2002
• Ruinart (twice)

A very good 2011 millésime I would say! 

Saveur de l'année

Look what I found at my local supermarket on Sunday? Some cherry tomatoes. What's so special about cherry tomatoes you might wonder... nothing special, it's true. But check the language on the packaging. Nothing wrong with a packaging in French, it's true. But you are in Sweden and you see those tomatoes. With a packaging in French. With a sticker saying it was voted "Saveur de l'année 2011" (2011's best flavour)... well that starts to be a little surreal, right? 

Green

November is usually the month of the year I like the least. You could go as far as saying I hate it since it brings the worst out of Gothneburg and Sweden's west coast. Grey, rain and wind... most often all at the same time. Doesn't sound too good, does it? 

Well, this year has proven me wrong! We have had an exceptionally good November with temperatures above normal (7-8 degrees today compared to -1 in Mexico City!) and a lot of sun. The good weather have given a feeling of a lot of light. A consequence of the sun and light is that the grass is still very green! Almost nuclear green sometimes. Unusual but I am not complaining. 

The photo below wasn't taken in November but in July and not in Sweden but in France. At home, on holidays. But it's still green, right? And it's nice so...enjoy!

Grès

Last March, I flew quite hastily to France for sad circumstances and I spent a few day in Paris and the champagne region. A few days before that I had read on the Internet about a fashion exhibition about Madame Grès in a sculpture museum. That could sound like a strange idea but when you see the dresses below you realize why this was a genius idea. 

So while I was in Paris, I went there with my mum and my aunt and fell in love with the dresses and Madame Grès' genius... I mean look at that! The dresses below were designed between the 50's and the 70's but could just as well have been shown at fashion week this year. They are so modern...

The orange one is from spring/summer 1977, the black one I don't know. The grey one is a spring/summer 1956 (!!!) collection and the red one on the left is a autumn/winter 1961-62 piece.

Anyone need a wedding dress? Personally there are a couple here above I could think of for my wedding (just need to find a hubby first but that's another question, hehe). 

And speaking of wedding, I just froze when I saw the red dress here below, an autumn/winter 1974-75 model. Turned to mum and told her it reminded me of her own wedding dress. Not a coincidence she told me, my mum designed her dress herself and had it sewn by a seamstress; and she said she was inspired by this very dress. How cool is that? The dress was white though. :)

Espadrilles

Do you collect things? I have never collected stamps or perfume bottle or anything. Shoes possibly if that is something you can collect. I don't collect them, it's just that I like shoes a lot, buy too many pairs and have a very hard time throwing away old pairs.

But with my espadrilles you could say it's a collection. They come from St Jean de Luz where I lived the first three years of my life and where I also spent all my summer when I was a child. They have a local brand making espadrillos by hand. I bought the first two pairs two years ago. The turquoise and the pink ones. They are so comfortable I love them! I used them all summer on holidays and then at home instead of slippers. So I decided I would buy a new pair every year. So last year I bought the red ones and this year the aqua ones.

Wonder what colour it will be next year...

Food!

I most of the time do my grocery shopping at the supermarket closest to my home (who doesn't?). But the other day I decided to change and go to Lidl, a German rather lowcost chain store. What a good idea it turned out to be. I found lots of French food there! Not only the Maille mustard or Le Rustique camembert cheese. No, Lots of food and local dishes. 

Not too difficult to identify as French right? Now, I didn't know this brand before, you can't find it in France but I checked the packaging and every product is produced in the right region so I believe it is a brand focusing on exporting outside the hexagon and working/buying from local producers. 

But the best that day was this cheese. My sister and brother and my cousin will grasp the magicness of it.

Home sweet home

Where I spent the first two weeks of August...

This is the first picture I took when I arrived. More to come soon from these, as you can imagine, exhausting two weeks.

Summer

Avignon, end of July 2011

The world's proudest sister

Do you remember when my sister was running for 80 or 90 km two or three years ago? If not you can read about it here, here and here.

Well, forget about that now. How about:

- leaving from Chamonix, all around the Montblanc through France, Italy, Switzerland and to go back to France and back to Chamonix

- 170 km

- 9700 m of positive altitude change

- max 46 hours to complete

Pretty crazy, uh? Well... 

As you can guess from the smiles on our faces, these pics are from the finish line where the world's best sister arrived after 44h and 10 min.

I am not going to write more about it. First because Gratianne will, hopefully, in a couple of days and she does that better than me [will give you the link if you're interested). And then, because it's something I shared with my parents, my brother and with her and I kind of want to keep it that way, wonderful memories that are just ours.

But one thing I can say: I am the world proudest sister!

Back to the roots

I spent the first three years of my life in this town as well as every summer when I was a child. Since then I like to go back and spend at least a day there every summer. Like a pilgrimage. 

Do you know what city I am talking about? 

(I have a lot of pictures to show you from my holidays but I shot around 1,5 Gb so I need to download them first and sort them out.)

Cuvée 2011

This *cough* *cough* was not in my luggage three weeks ago... Every year is the same. Or every time I fly back to France I should say. Every time I get home (to Sweden) with my luggage full of more things than I left with... 

I must precise. I didn't buy everything, thank god. I got some stuff from friends or family. Oh and there is one dress missing. Had to have it redone a bit. A 15€ sale from Zara.

Not much food this year, no space in the luggage. Need to learn to leave more space. But shoes and make-up as usual. And handbags. Only things I need of course. ;)

Love is all

Loved that ad when I was a kid, loved the music. Can't believe it was 20 years ago. TWENTY!!! How old am I really? Pffff... anyway, fun ad.

Longing

Back and forward. I want to go back there. Hopefully this summer, I'll go again. But I also want to go back there. Back to my childhood memories. 'Cause there wasn't that many tourists back then. We had a flat very close so the place was ours. It was like our garden, our backyard. Pretty cool, uh?

Saint Jean de Luz - France

Click on the picture to see it full size, you'll be amazed.

Woman and child

There's a woman and a child in me. The woman likes fashion and magazines, the little girl remembers eating Dinausorus biscuits when she was younger. They both got to take something back from France. Everybody's happy! 

I love pink!

Drinking this tonight. :)

Competition

As you know I am making a website/blog in my search for my new job and I need your help for my header. Here are some options, please let me know which one (or two) you like best. And if there is one you don't like at all. 

I need as many answers as possible so please, vote, vote vote! Either in the comments or using the poll on the right. Thanks!

Option 1 - Bohuslän, Sweden

Option 2 - Pyrenees and garden, France

Option 3 - Pyrenees, France

Option 4 - Palenque, Mexico

 

Option 5 - Puerto Morelos, Mexico

Option 6 - Tulum, Mexico

Option 7 - Tulum, Mexico

All pictures are taken by me. In case you wondered.

Paris

I was in Paris a month and a half ago. I was there to celebrate Xmas with my family. In the middle of February yes. I was in Mexico over Xmas and New Year so I didn't have the chance of celebrating with them at the "right" date. Furthermore, my sister Gratianne was leaving for Canada a couple of weeks later so we wanted to use this occasion to be all together since we didn't know when the next time will be. 

Or so we thought at that time. And now, a month a half later, we're going to meet again. Gratianne and I are flying back for a couple of days. Unfortunately it's under sad circumstances. But I will use this time to see my family, hug them very strong and enjoy a couple of days in the springy Paris.

Mars and Venus

Last week I had some friends visiting from France, my dear Fanny and her friends/colleagues. When I opened my cupboard and Benoit saw that (see picture), he started to laugh.

He clearly doesn't know what it is:
- to be a girl
- addicted to chocolate
- who lives abroad
- where you can't buy Côte d'Or or Poulain
- And no Bonne Maman jam!!!!

Otherwise he would definitely not laugh... ;-)