ninetwelvetwentyfive

by the time you read this (isn’t scheduled publishing grand?) i will be on a plane on the way to brazil.  i don’t think i will be taking these shoes, as they are not quite brazil-style, really.  brazil does not encourage dressing like a parisian schoolgirl, in thick black tights and short black skirts;  it is more colourful, more fluid, more relaxed.

things i am looking forward to, in no particular order:

• watermelon smoothies, made with ice and a dash of sweetener
• shopping for melissa shoes, possibly several pairs
• sun-warmed skin, hair going lighter at the ends
• seeing the rockstar in his natural habitat (heh)
• showing my parents around my adopted home (well, one of them) and watching them fall in love with it just like i did
• learning how to cook more brazilian dishes, with a view to a possible project (!!! very exciting)
• seeing my friends!  gorgeous television presenter friend, dashing superstar lecturer friend, hopefully even the bbcbrasil posse at our favourite rio-style bar in são paulo (yeah, i know, contradiction much?)
• seeing my brazilian family!  gosh, i’ve missed them so much
• just being in brazil, the one place on this beautiful blue planet where i feel properly at ease ..
• .. with the rockstar, the one person who could make it even more special.

oh me, oh my.  it’s like the two halves of my life .. the dislocation between which has caused me so much disquiet .. are finally coming together and becoming one.  it’s the strangest and yet the most natural thing.

anyway.  posts will be forthcoming, just as soon as i figure out a good place to post *from*.  there is a lot i want to say about brazilian fashion, about globalisation of style and how brazil seems to firmly resist it .. and, of course, about my beloved melissa shoes.  i’m already dead keen to buy a pair of the vivienne westwood lady dragons .. because, well, come *on*, i resisted when i was in rio in april and i’ve regretted it many times since .. but would i be brave enough to buy the scent?  we shall see .. xoxo

in order:  last view of london, real cutlery in business class, a (brief) upgrade to first which was somewhat scuppered by the plane developing a fault and having to switch to another flight, a night in a hotel near the airport because the delay meant i missed my connecting flight.   interesting coincidence:  the hotel i stayed in was the same hotel my family stayed in the first-ever night we spent in new zealand, back in january 1978.  by the looks of those avocado-green bathroom units, it hasn’t been decorated since.

more to come xxx

i won’t pretend i feel as gleeful as i look in this picture.  but lost in the weirdly international space of an airport business class lounge — where only the brands of the mixers would let you know you were in britain — i feel like maybe i’ve already left london.  here, i know what i have to do.  here, i am at home.  sad to think that the nearest i seem to come to home these days is an airport, but there you are.  maybe it’s time for that not to be the case.  to stop wandering.  even for a bit.

it’s going to be okay, you know.  it’s just a shame that before you arrive, you have to leave.  i hope you know what i mean by that.  if you don’t, i am not sure i can explain.

anyway.  some very brief long haul travel tips:

1.  wear a good coat.  a trench coat is ideal.  draped over the chair next to me is my beautiful purple jil-sander-for-uniqlo trench and it makes the scruffiest outfit seem magically pulled-together.

2.  take a big bottle of water on the plane with you.  lip balm, a really good moisturiser (i heart bio-oil) and, if you wear contacts, your glasses.

3.  noise-cancelling headphones and some dreamy music are your sleepy friends.  john coltrane, dead can dance and henryk gorecki work for me.

4.  if you’re expecting your sweetie to meet you at the airport after a long-haul flight, see if you can find out where the showers are in your transit airport.  auckland international airport has showers that you can rent — they’re basic, but they’re the best eight bucks you can spend.  (unless your sweetie likes that plane-dishevelled look.  i guess that’s possible.)

5.  and research pays off in other areas, too.   seatguru, when combined with online checkin, can be a lifesaver.   try waiting out an eleven hour beijing-london flight in a seat that doesn’t recline — with a killer hangover — as i did last year.  you’ll never leave seat selection up to the ground staff again.

right.  time to ring my boy, brush my teeth, get ready to board.  laters, gators.

what’s the first thing you do when you’re travelling and arrive at your fresh, clean hotel room?

do you throw off all your clothes, pull off your shoes and walk around naked and barefoot?   (i do this sometimes, but only after a long haul flight).

do you open all the cupboards and drawers and check out the minibar?

or do you — as i do — get out your camera?

(grey cardigan from uniqlo, customised by stitching on a diamanté necklace to which i was fiercely allergic;  the big quartz ring is vintage and was a present, the small ring with rotating topaz/amethyst cube is mont blanc and was also a present).

so anyway, i went to stockholm.  it was a trip for work and it was furiously busy.  seriously, all the mental.  but i did manage to sneak in a trip to the fantastic lisa larsson, a truly impressive vintage store where i was served by the sweet and charming lisa herself.  spoils:  a gorgeous 1940s jacket and a tooled-leather-and-rivets handbag. both things i clearly needed vitally, of course.

so i got back really late on thursday night, rolled out of bed a few hours later to sit in a hot edit suite for a long long day .. and i have now officially shot and edited my last frame for my current employers.  it was a bittersweet moment.  sad because i will miss the place and the people;  excited because of what’s to come.

more pix to come.  xoxo

.. and they know you at the mac store ..

i went to launceston in cornwall and stayed in a b&b.   for work, obv.   english people, explain something to me.  carpet in bathrooms.  seriously, what is the deal?

things that are great:

1.  maybelline mineral makeup.  quite miraculous.

2.  roast chicken made the quick way, boned and butterflied a la this method.   YES I SUBSCRIBE TO GWYNNIE PALTROW’S NEWSLETTER THING WHAT OF IT.   her recipes rock and the chicken was divoon.

3.  this amazing mixtape which i found via the rather fabulous agent lover.   seriously, it’s really good.  it might be titled winter solstice mixtape, but it sounds pretty good in the middle of a london summer, too.

4.  skype dates with my boy.  i miss him so much.

5.  this book, which i’m devouring at the moment.  leaving aside the chavez hype, it’s an intelligent (though fiercely leftie) analysis of generations of plunder in latin america — definitely food for thought.

xoxo, jetlag girl.

(attracting stares in the emirates lounge in dubai.  t-shirt and circle scarf american apparel, uniqlo skinny jeans, karim rashid for melissa shoes which you can’t quite see but are awesome, karen walker necklace, prada glasses)

i might look incredibly boho when i travel .. this is my usual outfit, minus the topshop pleat trench coat thrown over the top .. but i have done so much flying back and forth from NZ this year that i am apparently a “high value” customer for emirates and so i am allowed into their lounge.   the assembled businessmen gape at me, the ladies look at me like i’m a high-class hooker.   for me, it’s just a slightly mellower place to drink coffee and read weblogs while i wait to board ek001.

while this journey has been less hideous than it could have been, it’s still been vile as every single minute spent in the air takes me further and further away from the rockstar diplomat.   i had a dreamlike ten days with him in new zealand.  for a couple that’s spent very little time in each other’s company thus far, we glide alongside each other very smoothly.   there is nothing better than lying in his big comfortable bed (*our* bed, as he always corrects me) watching films, kissing and dozing in each other’s arms.   well, almost nothing ;->

but now i am heading back to london again .. one last long separation before we are together for good.   i can’t wait.

i don’t have very many pretty things to write today .. be kind, i’ve just come off a 14 hour flight.  more, inevitably, when i get home.

well hi there, interbets.

i am in wellington at the moment and it is cold but beautiful.  today i am flying to auckland to go to my best friend’s wedding.  i will be staying in a lovely hotel with my favourite brazilian and we have dinners, coffees and sightseeing planned.

i am also trying as hard as i can not to think about how i am going back to london on monday

anyway, welcome.  seja bem-vindo.