Summer Tribe

Harpers Bazaar 

I loved this editorial in July's issue called "Tribes of Summer" - I have always loved Missoni vivid knits to conjure up exotic summertime escapes - this kaftan is a silk-knit mix from the Italian Fashion House.

I won't be going away this summer but I can wonder and reminisce my GetAway capsule : ) 

I have worn this silk chiffon embroidered shirt almost everywhere I have travelled to - I love it so much - it carries the memory in its fabric of so many adventures and places - I bought it in a thrift store in Greenwich:

Including to Sri Lanka - where I paired it with baggy khaki combats rolled up to mid-calf.  On my feet some leather thong sandals I bought from a shoe-maker, cutting and melding the leather around my soles, on the side of the dusty road.  He had a shiny, toothless smile and I watched his labouring hands with fascination - the teak and texture, sinewed knots and veins, the cuts and abrasions to fingers, but ever nimble and calm - he knew soles very well.

As sunset fell over the bush planes in Dambulla, we went down to the water and bathed the elephants.  They had a long day I think, giving rides to people or being watched or had carried logs. They liked the evening cool water so much, they knelt and softly placed themselves horizontal into the shallow bank side, while I took a brush and scrubbed them down and then lowered my cheek to theirs and whispered my fondness into their ears - they were giants, mild in my hands and they slumbered.

Another stop was at Kandy in the centre of the island, where I convinced my friends to take a walk with a guide through the rich surrounding forest.  We had walked 45 minutes up the steep forest slope to the boredom of my friends who were not much into fruit and fauna talk and I felt guilty.  All of a sudden, there was a scramble of hundreds of macaques down the slope, taking over the path and overhead canopy. I will always remember the sound of their calls and chatter and the heavy rustling of branches and leaves surrounding us like the centre of an aural whirlpool.  We froze, I had never seen a sight of animal domination and charge.  I looked to our guide, who said it was okay, just to keep still, they were not interested in us, they were just passing.  Every evening they migrate from the peaks to the ground, I can't remember why, I was so in awe.  I saw the males, the mothers carrying their young on backs and cuddled in bellies, I half expected at least one to come and investigate us but they didn't.  The whirl was gone just as fast, leaving us wondering if it happened at all?

These are my memories of travel to a most beautiful land.

Hot colours instantly sweep me away:

Shop: Passport and Indie purses

These accessories from GirlWithARadioMind give me just that wanderlust and imagination.  I especially love their combination of hot colours with earthy grade jute and burlap.

 

ooak-Aztec-patchwork-pillow 

I get the same feeling from this patchwork pillow with it's fiery colours - this is a favourite!

 Freedom Flock

Singapore Top 5 Must See Travel Tips

Being one, always curious for travel, I asked girlwitharadiomind  to share with me her top 5 tips should you find youself in her home land of Singapore - Asia's "melting pot" of cultures:

1. Take a walk down Little India. Beautiful Hindu temples with colorful goddess statues and rows of pre-war shophouses. This is in one of my favorite street of shophouses in Little India. Little India mini-travel-notebook

2. Arab street - Immerse in the rich culture of the Muslim district. Have a pipe of shisha and chill by one of the many indie cafes or jazz bar. Discover local indie fashion shops at Haji Lane.

3. Chinatown - Crazy good Chinese food. Walk through the street and end the day with a cheap but good foot massage. Lovely :)

4. Take a long and good bus ride. My favorite is double decker bus 30 that crosses through the East coast express way and you can see the Singapore Skyline in a cool cheap bus ride.

5. and lastly, food of course. How can we forget that? :) If there's 5 must try, it'll be

-Chicken Rice( most travelers told me that's their favorite),
- Roti Prata (Indian bread with curry),
- Ice Kachang (it's a dessert made with a pile of ice with colorful syrup),
- Teh Terik ( how they make the tea, it's like a 10 second performance. See how they make the tea "dance from one cup to another")
- and finally, Durian, the king of fruits ( the most "unique" fruit in the world) ;)

This is exactly the sort of guide I wish I had when I was there!

Sticky and Rich

I like my food hearty.  Or is that cooked with alot of heart or perhaps best, when my heart is full?

In the South of France.  A slow cooked duck in a heavy pot; sticky and rich.  This may sound alittle too glutinous for the clean and healthy of palate.  But we ate late into the night; sharing good food and local wine makes for effervescence.

It was the summer of the infamous heatwave and we had exhausted ouselves just by moving that day.  Heat that makes everything stick and clam.  The sort of heat of Tennessee Williams and Orleans, and the sort of heat that made for unrest.  Protests ran abound, with bin men striking in Marseille, and the smell of the sea had been all but forgotten with heaps of molten food scraps and infestation that had piled onto sidewalks.  In the spirit of our Beat brother Jack - we ran a short road out of there.  Retreating to a tiny studio in a  Medieval townhouse inside fortress walls.  With its fairytale spiral staircase and cotton cool solid stone walls that mocked the raging heat.

Our local hosts had invited us to join a reunion dinner with two other couples from California, all married into their middle years and revelling in the same trip 10 years prior.  The writer and I felt oddly juxtaposed amongst this crowd, we were co-pilots, captain and navigator, travellers together in a renault clio. We were both escaping and seeking; the default of fragile artistic souls. They were all women of grown confidence, and they were all husbands very much in love with their wives, one who had sought to hold her hands through cancer, her delicate frame giving away the long battle which she had bravely and only just won.  The flesh on both their faces, now laxed after having been so taut through stretching on their masks. But we needn't have shuffled awkwardly.  We saw, that what becomes of lovers down the years, are great friendships.  No heft with which to lull the lover or whimsy, but the love of longevity and angels.

Make your own way: Marseille - coastal road to Casisse - inwards to Aix-en-Provence - into the fortress of Manosque  - Pierrevert home of rosé wine - lavender fields of Valensole  - Moustiers-Sainte-Marie "big rock" - breathtaking gorge road through Gorge de verdon and a boat out onto its great lake - onto field and wine roads of "A year in Provence" country - Cucuron and vineyard camping and garlicky and buttery escargot - stoney Lacoste and Luberon landscape -"red chalk" road to Roussillon - onto Arles and a salad of summer blooms and field grass "art on a plate" - the heat really soared - back to Marseille.

Tangerine Summer

Spring is here but I am already impatient for summer : )

I want to open my French doors wide and sit out on my tiny balcony, and have the branches of the tree limber over the bars.  I want my lavenders to singe ever so slightly and as the heat dries, to sublimate.  And the cherry tomatoes to roast ever so slightly, to sweeten, as I imagine them picked, and sat beside red snapper and capers in the oven.  The fox gloves that I carefully seeded last year to bloom and grow strong and tall.  My arid plant to be reminded of the heat, which is its idyll after I absent mindedly forgot to bring it in over winter, for which I am so sorry. 

 Available on Etsy: tangerine-stripes-deluxe-large-cushion 

This summer, orange is to make a big statement in fashion and home styling.

And this one is perfect as a scatter pillow for indoor/ outdoor living.  For the patio or pool house, garden, decking or porch, as picnic or al fresco seating......

In a large fun size 18" x 24" - superb quality and comfort.

Here is a treasury I made to : orange