La dolce vita
With work finally winding down, I'm looking forward to the Christmas break. Always a good time of the year; there's a palpable excitement in the air as the holiday season kicks off AND it's Summer too. And there's the promise of a new year just around the corner to look forward to. 2016 will be interesting for W and I. We've already booked our honeymoon. it's a surprise. But it's a part of the world I've never been to before, so I'm really looking forward to it!
Here are some photos of our time in Italy. Some of these photos are from Rome, but they're mostly of the Amalfi coast. I wish I had a good photo of the old house we rented there. It was a charming 200-year old mansion in the midst of being restored by the charming granddaughter of the original owners. This house sits on a hill in a small village called Albori and the drive up took us through winding roads so narrow in some parts that we had to stop to let the other side through. It rained all day when we got there. The wild coastal winds whipped the rain horizontal so we stayed indoors, enjoying the breeze and taking time out to catch up on reading. The house has a beautiful old kitchen and it was amazing getting to cook a few meals in there with the local produce we found at the single grocery shop in town, and the abundance of beautiful cherry tomatoes from the garden. And then we were rewarded with stunning weather on the day we went to Amalfi itself. blue skies, the sea and gelato.. la dolce vita indeed :)
Here's wishing all of you a very happy Christmas, and more adventures in the year ahead!
Custom K. Jacques
There's not much better than well-made shoes that you can customise yourself - and that's exactly the service that French brand K. Jacques St. Tropez now offers on its website. The Create my K. Jacques browser-based tool lets you pick from a huge selection of materials and styles, and they have so many different types of leathers and finishes that honestly the hardest thing was deciding on just one. The photo-realistic preview is pretty fun to play with. I finally decided on some new sandals which I need for Summer (it's only November but already 30+c!) but keeping away from the all-black design, I opted for some colour and texture just on the one strap but kept everything else pretty clean. Blue seems to be a recurring colour in my wardrobe so it was the obvious choice. I wasn't sure what to expect as I've not tried customising stuff online before but the sandals are hand made and beautiful quality, and they look exactly as I thought they would. Happy customer! How would you customise yours? I'm already thinking of my second pair. it's going to be Christmas after all :)