You may have noticed that I quite like bright colours, so I was always going to like Mexico wasn’t I?
More on my Flickr here.
United Colors of Mexico
Viva Mexico!
I LOVED Mexico. I can’t tell you how much.
The places in the world I love best are in Southern Europe – the South of France, Italy and Greece – and Mexico is as close as you can get to being there while being on a different continent.
While my relationship with the US is sometimes strange and ambiguous, I felt utterly, completely, at home in Mexico – the colours; the light; the delightful, crazy people; the margaritas; the food, the interiors.
Things I learned in Mexico
– It is possible for a hotel to be too pink
– If you teach a small blonde girl a bit of basic Spanish you get amazing service in restaurants
– Heidi Klum has thread veins on the back of her left knee
– Heidi Klum had a nanny and her mother hanging around all the time and didn’t seem to know how to interact with her kids
– Heidi Klum is still far too pretty to meet by the side of a pool, though not as luminously pretty as Kate Moss
– Parasailing is as terrifying as it looks
– It was lovely to see churches with spires and domes and things dotting the landscape.
– It is not possible for a margarita to be too large
– Guacamole is not entirely devoid of calories
– I hadn’t realised how much I miss football. It was great to walk into a bar and see PROPER football on the telly, and kids playing football in the street and PROPER goalposts in the school playgrounds. It was like rejoining the rest of the world again.
– Air travel into and out of the the US is a total nightmare
– A very large part of me still wants to give everything up and go and live on a beach somewhere
– I urgently need a friend with a large and expensive yacht
Back properly soon. The house is currently covered in piles of washing, the garden has turned into a jungle (apparently Seattle had summer while we were away) I have a shop which requires rather a lot of TLC and I somehow managed to take 901 photos on our travels. It is possible you may see more Mexico photos anon.
An Interlude
Huge apologies for lack of bloggery in recent days. We’re on vacation and I was so busy in the days leading up to our departure that I didn’t quite get round to mentioning it.
Anyway, after a few days here (the Husband was conferencing again), we are now having a fabulous time here in Mexico, having scored another great deal via LuxuryLink.com.
Don’t miss me too much. I will be back next week, with loads of holiday pics to bore you with and HOT CELEBRITY GOSSIP (guess which A-list stars had booked out the Mexican hotel for a party for their wedding anniversary?)
Lisa in India
Photos of the ‘Holi’ festival from Lisa’s blog
OK. This is completely and utterly off-topic, but my friend Lisa from Victoria BC is now in India and she’s started a blog about her travels.
Which I strongly advise you to check out if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to leave your job and go wandering for a year. Fabulous and fascinating photos too.
Where to go in Mexico?
We’re thinking of going to Mexico in March and April, but don’t know where to go. Any suggestions?
We need a nice beach for the Minx but would also like to find somewhere with a bustling Mexican vibe and traditional Colonial architecture, but not too touristy – which I think rules out Acapulco, Cancun and possibly PV -, and not too remote either as I fancy sitting in little cafes and restaurants and watching the world go by.
And any recommendations for beautiful, smallish (and cheap!) boutique-y hotels would also be much appreciated. It is possible that the things I desire are not actually available in reality.
Let me know all your ideas – I know next to nothing about Mexico, so the smallest bits of information would be useful. Thank you!
Shades of Grey and A Farewell
The Minx and I (the Husband went skiing instead) set off for Victoria, BC this weekend to say farewell to my great friend Lisa who is off backpacking in India for a year at the beginning of March.
Living comparatively close to her has been one of the highlights of living in Seattle and the Minx and I will really miss her. I doubt we’ll popping over to Victoria so often either and will miss its reassuring Englishness and its fabulous bookshop full of English authors and childrens’ books (I’m finding a lot of American childrens’ books unbearably sanctimonious and twee).
This time we flew out on one of tiny six seater seaplanes which we watch all day landing in and taking off from Lake Union (why is it terribly romantic to be in the flight path of floatplanes whereas we’d be complaining like mad if we had the same number of jets flying overhead?)
Flying past the Space Needle in black and white
The Sound was blanketed with cloud as we flew (must do this again in summer) but you can just make out all the islands below the clouds). This is a colour photo.
A grey day is still good for the beach.
Though we did see some blue sky
Girls on tour. A tremendously unflattering picture of the Minx and I messing about with the camera while waiting to get the boat home. You really wouldn’t want to mess with us, would you?
Back Home
The ‘Mountain’ was most assuredly ‘out’ as we flew into Seattle
Apologies for lack of bloggery in recent days.
Our flight back was delayed due to the Husband mixing up the plane times and us having to spend Thursday night in an airport hotel at LaGuardia. His ‘you owe me big time’ points total has accordingly gone off the scale.
Jet lag has also been surprisingly bad this weekend, with the whole family being utterly exhausted. It scarcely seems natural or right to have jetlag without even leaving your own country.
It was interesting to be back in New York. Until this year, most of the time I’d spent in the States was in the Big Apple, but now I can appreciate how different it is from the rest of the US.
I’m a big city girl at heart, so I loved the hustle and bustle, the noise, the energy and the melting pot cosmpolitan mix – of all the cities I’ve been to in the world it definitely has the most London-like vibe. It was great too, after spending a year in Seattle’s outdoorsy, fleece ‘n jeans culture, to see some seriously cool, kick-ass clothes out on the streets. And to be able to eat top-notch Italian food.
What was interesting though, was how struck I was by the rudeness and dirtiness – things which as a Londoner had never bothered me before – after the pleasantness and helpfulness of Seattleites and the cleanliness of their city. Maybe Seattle is turning me into a softy?
The downside to the trip, as ever, was having absolutely no time to shop at all, which was frustrating as I was desperate to work my way through Grace’s Brookyn Shopping Guide. The Husband’s business commitments meant that I had the Minx in tow pretty much all the time, and although she has become much easier to sightsee with (she can walk further and follows directions somewhat better), in my experience interiors shops and nearly three year olds do not mix.
However, I have come to the momentous decision that now that the Minx is more grown up I can start visiting some trade fairs in New York and on the West Coast, and spend some time enjoying the cities on my own.
The only problem is I have no idea where to start. Can someone tell me which are the best fairs for top quality homewares, interior design and gifts – the equivalent of Top Drawer, Pulse or Decorex in the UK or Maison et Objet in Paris?
Miss Liberty
I *heart* New York
a heck of a lot.
Summer Idyll
Pics on my Flickr
We stayed in a pretty white house overlooking a small beach (the cabins were all booked so we stayed in the chintzy but comfortable main house), surrounded by lovely gardens and towering madrona trees; watched the moon glisten on the water, and the morning mist rise over the bay; splashed in a sparkling (if very cold) sea; learnt how to kayak (which was amazing) on mirror-smooth waters with seals popping up to say hello; swung on the rope swing under the old tree; picked apples in the garden; walked on soft pine needle-covered paths by emerald lakes; drove to the top of the mountain and gazed on the islands spread before us; went whale-watching (again) and saw more seals, porpoise and eagles but no whales (again); lay on the grass amid the dandelions; had a first ever ride on a horse; went to a farm and gathered eggs, plums and peaches for supper; saw a small covered bridge which wouldn’t be out of place in Madison County and picture-postcard farmsteads; sailed home through the most glorious sunset and drove back to Seattle by the light of a huge harvest moon.
San Juans, we will be back.
