The Queen

Her Majesty The Queen paid a visit to Liverpool last Wednesday 22 June 2016 - I went to see her and Prince Philip. The Queen looked gorgeous in peachy pink and wore her beautiful Pearl Trefoil Brooch.  I could not have wished for the Queen to wear a nicer colour! It was great and I got some nice photos - a day to remember!

The Queen and Duke arrive at the station

A couple of hours later they appeared on the Town Hall Balcony.

Les Canyons Etoiles Bandana

So following on from the intro to the new bandana which you can see here I have done some photos of ways to wear it:-

A simple bias fold here secured with moyenne 

scarf ring and sliding both ends through the ring

Here I have done a slip knot using the 

moyenne scarf ring - that's securing one end 

of the scarf through the ring and then pulling 

the other loose end through the loop of the 

scarf rather than the ring itself.

Here I have made a half bow knot - as per the 

slip knot above, but fold the loose end 

in half and pull through the loop to make a 

bow, fan out to make a bow shape.  

This is one of my favourite ways to wear a 

scarf and very easy to do.

Here I tied a Half Ascot Knot and slid the scarf to the 

side - you can wear it to the side or centrally as 

shown below.

For this look I made a bias fold then put the scarf 

around the neck and brought the ends to 

meet in the front and secured them with a petite 

scarf ring - it is snug but warm, especially if you 

have a sore throat - they say silk is supposed to help cure it!

A simple cowboy look - fold scarf to make a 

triangle and tie at the back or use a scarf 

ring to secure.

Same again but shorter - I secured this 

one with a scarf ring and pulled the 

ends further through to shorten the look.

As above only I pulled the scarf round to the side - 

using a scarf ring for this loo allows the scarf to 

sit a bit flatter round the back/sides.

This was just a triangle secured at the front with my 

moyenne scarf ring for an easy to wear look.

Here I used the bias fold again, slipped a 

nice scarf ring on to the front and tied the 

scarf with a knot at the back - of course this 

would look much better over a polo neck 

rather than my open neck shirt but you 

get the idea!

Bias fold knotted in the middle and secured
with a knot tied at the back.

Here I made a butterfly knot from the bias folded scarf 

using a scarf ring which give s a nice puffy bow look.

I think you can see that with a bandana you can pretty much choose the same knots and bows as you do for 70cm or 90cm - just play around with it and see what you com up with!  Have fun playing!

Something Blue

It's been a while since I posted anything scarf related so here is a little something I picked up in Paris in 2014 I think.  I got it at FSH and remember that I was annoyed because they put it in THE WRONG BOX, I really hate that when Hermes do that especially at FSH, as they of all shops should have the correct box!!!!!  Ahem Ok on with the reveal...

That offending WRONG box!

Any guesses?

Something small and navy blue...

Ta-da!  It's a new Bandana...

Les Canyons Etoiles

I like the little shooting stars which fill the middle of the design.

The bandana is designed by Pierre Marie - I have a few
of his designs and like them very much.

Here you can see the canyons that surround the
edge of the banada.
Next time I will post photos of how you can wear this scarf.

Royal Fun in the Snow!

The Cambridge family shared some super cute photos from their short break to Courchevel in the French Alps.  I am very jealous as I love the snow but we don't get much, if any where I live!

Daddy's Girl Charlotte - I think she looks 

very like the Queen when she was little!

William and Kate took the chance for a spot of horseplay too!

Hermes FSH Windows November 2015

Oops I had forgotten that I was supposed to make this post - my apologies!  OK so on my way to the theatre to see the ballet I stopped off at Place de la Concorde and took a quick divert down Rue Boissy Anglais to the corner with FSH - it is always much easier photographing the widows at night which is why there is a slight yellow hue to the photos.

The scarfless Horseman atop Hermes HQ then one 

of the windows had a scale model of FSH complete 

with a horseman.  

Click on the photos to get a bigger view.

This is the large corner window which 

I found rather spartan this time. Not sure I even like it!

Around the corner some nicer windows showcased 

footwear, bags and clothing.  I rather liked the boots 

but alas Hermes only seem to cater for people with 

extremely skinny legs with which I am not blessed.  

Some darker coloured items against the scaffolding 

backdrop which I did not like at all.

Some nice blue things - and another nice pair of boots!

An equestrian window and one with diningware.
Not really the best windows Hermes have ever done but
I guess they have changed again by now!

Well that is the windows post - apologies again for the tardiness of posting it!
I hope everyone has a Happy New Year and thank you for following my (intermittent) blog!

Paris

Last week I went to Paris to see an exhibition and the ballet La Bayadere.  I cannot say I was not a little nervous before my trip after the troubles the week before, but once I was on my train I was fine.  I found Paris to be the same as usual with very little outward sign of security - bags were checked in museums, the theatre and shops but that was it.  The Metro was fine and the only armed Police I saw were in the UK on my return.  I very much believe that if anything is going to happen you can do little about it so I carry on regardless - carpe diem!  So let's see Paris.

My first stop was the Palais Galliera Museum to the see their latest exhibition about Proust's muse the Comtesse Greffulhe and you can watch a short video in French about the exhibition here and see some nice photos of the dresses on show here on the museum's website.  I really loved seeing the dresses and also the photographs and documents as well as accessories such as hats and shoes - the Comtesse had big feet!!

After visiting the Galliera I then wanted to indulge my foodie passions and I took the Metro to Sentier to find Rue Montorgueil as I wanted to visit the Stohrer patisserie - the oldest one in Paris.

It turned out that Rue Montorgueil is full of patisserie shops and food shops and I understand the shops in the surrounding streets sell the supplies for the patisserie craft...more of that later!  Above you can see a cheese shop and a green grocer who had those tiny little grapes that are in season at this time of year.  The patisserie nearby had these cute pink piggies complete with eyelashes or glasses iced on them LOL!

I found the Stohrer Patisserie and the photos above show the delights they sell!  They sell cakes, of course, but also savoury food (the top right photo in the collage below) and the most amazing lunch trays!  Sadly the rain never stopped all day and with having bags and an umbrella I was beginning to feel really tired from the effort - I detest cities in the rain I really do.  So with a heavy heart I headed back to my hotel for a rest and to dry out! 

All Le Notre except top right which is Stohrer's savouries.  

Those Autumn cakes at Le Notre are so pretty!

At the Metro by my hotel there is a lovely Le Notre Patisserie so I headed there to buy a treat.  

Here you can see my Paris Brest Eclair - it even 

came is a special eclair shaped box!  Delicious wasn't 

in it this was cake heaven!  You can see some of the 

other beautiful cakes that were inside the shop!

I visited the Place de la Concorde in the early evening and the lights of Paris were lovely to see and all sporting the colours of the tricolour for obvious reasons:-

The ferris wheel looked great and reflected beautifully in the puddles - left  

The central colours of the wheel changed as you can see on the right.

TL  - National Assembly and TR - Looking towards the Madeleine

BL - Champs Elysees and BR The US Embassy lit up red/white/blue

TL - the ferris wheel and Cleopatra's Needle

BL - the beautiful fountains on Place de la Concorde

Right - The Eiffel Tower - you can just see the blue and white 

illumination but the red was hidden by buildings.

And here a scarf-less Hermes Horseman - I have 

never seen this before and maybe it was out of respect 

for the victims of the attacks in Paris.

In the evening I went to the Opera Bastille to see Nureyev's version of the ballet La Bayadere (The Temple Dancer).  This is a lovely ballet and whilst I have seen it before in Paris I was so disappointed last time because I had a terrible seat at the much older Opera Garnier.  Since then the ballet company now performs this ballet at the Bastille, as it is a big ballet and extremely popular, so this theatre can fit more people in.  It has taken me a few years to be able to get to go again so I was very happy to go last week.  I was then delighted to find that the leading role of Nikiya would be danced by Dorothee Gilbert along with Mathias Heymann as Solor.  Hannah O'Neill danced Gamzatti the rival to Nikiya.  I have seen the Etoiles (Principals) Dorothee and Mathias before but was interested to see Hannah who has been newly promoted to First Soloist - I was not disappointed she was a fabulous dancer AND she had the most beautiful purple dresses!!  I also feel that her role had the best choreography full of fireworks and she danced it perfectly.  Of course the other dancers were wonderful as well and not least the 32 members of the corps de ballet (seen above) for they performed The Kingdom of Shades for which La Bayadere is so famous.  You can see the whole ballet if you wish on You Tube here with Aurelie Dupont as Nikiya but if you just want to see The Kingdom of the Shades scoot along to 1:28:30. 

On my last day ( I was in Paris for only 2 nights) I had booked myself onto a cookery class with Patisserie a la Carte learning how to make proper macarons - those made by the Italian Meringue method.  I learned that Laduree only make their with the French Meringue method - which is not regarded as quite so good and the macarons made that way are much sweeter too, but Pierre Herme do theirs with Italian Meringue which is not so sweet.  It turned out to be only me on the class as no one else had booked so I had private tuition!

In the collage you can see top left my macarons after baking, then below this the cassis chocolate ganache I made to fill the macarons with after it had been cooled in the fridge.  Next job was to pipe the ganache onto the macaron shells and then assemble the macarons - the bottom picture shows the macarons safely arrived at home - no breaks at all - I had taken a strong klik lock box with me!!  I was told that it is best to leave the macarons a day or so to allow the flavour from the ganache to pervade the macaron shells and I have to say they taste delicious!  I definitely can't wait to get back to Paris to do more cookery classes as it is such fun.  I did another one earlier this year too and I'm hooked!  After my class I was so close to Gare du Nord that I was able to walk to the station for my Eurostar home!

I'm afraid that the Gare du Nord is just not as glamorous as St Pancras in London - St Pancras is just fabulous and at the moment it also has a wonderful Disney Christmas tree made of toys!

I missed out on travelling on this brand new train 
(seen at Gare du Nord here) by 1 hour - lucky people!

My "normal" old Eurostar train at St Pancras.

The beautiful St Pancras Station
in London.

The Disney Christmas Tree

Hey Mickey!!  He has the best spot!

Next time on the blog - the Hermes windows!

Websites:-

Palais Galliera - http://palaisgalliera.paris.fr/en

Stohrer -http://stohrer.fr

Le Notre - http://www.lenotre.com

Patisserie a la carte - www.patisseriealacarte.com