Colour me Happy.

This is a hair salon.
Where you can smoke luxuriously on vintage couches in the courtyard,
listen to Edith Piaf,
drink delicious wine,
and walk out with a million dollar looking hair cut.
for reals.
two words,Summerfield.Neil Star.
look them up.trust me, you and you hair will thank me for years to come.

To Market.To Market.

On Sunday we had the spanking brand new shiny shimmy opening of our very own Jozi gourmet food market.
Market on Main was held and will be for thousands(here's hoping finger and toes crossed)of sundays at Arts on Main in the pumping beating heart of Jo'burg's city centre.
It was a swarming hive of artsy bee's. Drunk on the sweet honey that is a top notch food market. Gourmet Boerewors rolls('Someone pass the onion coulis please') the smoothest of smoothies.
pretty in pink cupcakes.poetry you honest to god wear around your neck.two tone shoes that make you Un-sing the blues..
It was some kind of wonderful, with a whole lotta soul.

Charlie and Lola.Lola and Charlie.

Pooches make me happy, and these two take the cake.
My dear friend Mandy is mother to these two rascals and a dose of dog park and dog is enough to make my day just a total Woofin'wonderful thing.

Here's looking at you kid.

Im a Grace Kelly at heart...
I long to walk in a little black Yves Saint Laurent number down fifth avenue eating pastry and browsing the sparkly things at Tiffany's.
But seeing as we will always have Paris, and no body puts baby in a corner... im okay with having my local thrift and vintage stores as Parisian inspiration...for now.

You and me lets be free

We all saw those mattress adverts, that were terribly bad but we secretly loved the idea of waking up in a deep green forest surrounding by little squirrels and butterflies and all things nice,stretching our arms up above our heads with mozzerella cheesy grins on our sealy-Postropedic happy faces.
When my year of magical thinking allows for more budget in the decorating my little home department, i fully intend on creating an outdoor bedroom like this one.
I am completely in love with one miss Ditte Isager, New York based Danish photographer.

excuse me madam...You have a forest around your neck

Sjoe but this is really really nice...
Living in an urban jungle we have often forgotten the colour green.
So imagine my earthy delight to see these mini terrarium's.
Send some forest accessories to Johanesburg amazing Erica Weiner.pretty please. http://www.etsy.com/shop/EricaWeinerJewelry

Lets meet in the drawing room.

A Magical new year should be filled with chalk scribbled thoughts.
Wouldnt you agree?

Jasmyn and Istar = L.O.V.E

Just like Taylor and Burton... Winnie the pooh and Christopher Robin,
Jasmyn and Ishtar are two names that i have no doubt will forever be scratched into a tree with a big ole' heart around them

cakes!and flowers!and pugs!oh my!

This is Rubinella's.
A Mary Poppins store crammed with flowers, cupcakes, an amazing pug, and a wall covered in a tree.
its a treat to walk in there, because...everyone should once in a while, stop and smell the roses.
Vist them at http://rubinella.tumblr.com/

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels .Door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles.

My year of magical thinking started one sunny then rainy then sunny afteroon.
My friend Emma and my four legged child Maya the bee decided to swim.
They swam, they read, they swam some more, which resulted in much siesta-ing on my lawn.

Oh Sylvia Plath!to have tea, just you and me.

I was thinking today somewhere between boiling the kettle and staring out a the grey clouds looming,
That boiling the kettle to make tea for Sylvia Plath would be a super wonderful thing.
I suddenly had one of those movie-esque moments, where Sylvia and i would be in our poodle dresses, with curlers in our hair, volumes of poetry spread out in chaos all over the floor,We would share cigarettes, pour sneaky tots of whiskey in our Royal Albert tea- cups, and talk and talk about everything and anything.

what a doll!

This is my friend Nthato.
and the oodles and oodles of perfect loveliness next to him is his story book lovely daughter Khaya.
This is one of my very favourite photographs taken one lazy Saturday afternoon at a little food market in Observatory.
There's nothing quite so lovely...as father and daughter and lots of happy facepaint

.

Lets be five and make mud pies.

Just for a day.
I would like to make these lovely forts my lovely home.
We can drink tea out of little plastic teas sets made in China.
and be oh so very happy.

Let them eat Cake.

And so they did.

Good Golly!

Sjoe this is really Nice.

And this is really really nice.

You are the butter to my bread.

I am a chef at heart.
Self taught and a sucker for vintage recipe books found in the R5 scratch patch,
I am more than likely to be found daily in my kitchen,with my apron and red lipstick on(what other way is there but to cook in red lipstick...ask Nigella she got that little trick from me.)
I bake i fry, i whisk and i try... to whip up as much happiness as i can.here are some of my favourite food pictures.In sequence of course.

Bollywood night in a penthouse in town.Chicken kali Mersh simmering away...leads to...

happy chicken curry resulting in a view like this...which resulted in...

Super happy friends like this.

Little Roses and Big hearted You.

My friend Shruthi makes me Happy.
She is a bollywood queen with a heart the size of ten Taj mahaal's
Shruthi Nair has a Love job.
She bravely and without fear walks the streets of Jozi's inner city searching for day care centers in desperate need of assistance.
She is a the proverbial candle in the dark for these little kids.
Here are some pictures of her very first fundraiser for a creche called Little Roses..
and heres a little big thank you to this bollywood queen with the oh so very big heart.

Come On and Lets get Happy.

Just like Peter Pan these two Happy thoughts need to be known as the first bricks on my yellow brick road to Happy.
Thanks Effy and Moeg.

You make me feel like dancing.

My friend Jasmyn believes in Dancing with a capital D.
Much like Ellen Degeneres so do I.
Here she and a few of our beloved friends are dancing wildly to the sounds of the amazing band Uju,

One fiery and delcious night at Love and Revolution in Melville.
A fantastic hangout for creatives who have any form of voice or opinion.
Drop by for a Bang Bang(rum cocktail de jour)
If the people don't get you hooked, the books, music, food,wi fi, and conversation certainly will.

Big In Japan

At a casual dinner of rabbit in red wine sauce and cheeky strawberry tart,
My friend Ruby insisted i go to Japan for two reasons.
One being that the cherry blossoms make you so happy you cry.
And two, that the Japanese have a few wonderful traditions:
In Spring they go outside and listen to the cherry blossoms opening(yes REALLY, they go outside and listen to the Cherry blossoms opening)
And in Winter they go outside and listen for the first snow that falls.(Yes i too was a little blown away by the romance of it all)
I found this picture and it will stay glued for dear life on my fridge untill i can replace it with one of me standing under those cherry blossoms.

Sunny Side Up.

Im super new to the blogging world.
Im absolutely a modern day,wish i really was, Jane Austen. Forever dreaming of days gone by where typewriters and stamps were the cool kids on the block,
And the postman, much like the milkman, was invited in for tea and cookies.
But alas, all is not Austen here in Jozi, not even one dainty gloved hand's worth of the darling writer is to be found in my town...
and i, well im writing to you,dear blog reader,via my oh so tiny computer, in my oh so tiny loft apartment in the heart of Melville.
A village of happy and sometimes unhappy creatives. who drink coffee and swear they have day jobs.
We are in the first week of yet another Un Jane Austen Year and i am already exhausted at all the ideas i have for this shiny happy new year.
Dont you love those times, much like at the beginning of a spiffy new relationship when you can say things like dreams! aspirations! This is going to be the year! and almost believing them?
Well dear reader, I have made a heartfelt decision that Miss Austen would have been proud of, I have decided to be one of those spiffy happy sentence saying people and actually try for My Year of Magical Thinking.May i just re-iterate my dreams are not of trapeze walking proportion.I simply want to butter the bread of my life.With Tuscan olive oil and melted briee cheese.
I want to be my happiest glove wearing self.
And this is where this blog comes in.
A year's journey of epic or unepic events.
Snapshots of lovely moments and tissue grasping ones.
So here is to the little things,and the big things the 'oh!' moments...the 'A-ha!' moments...and for everything else in between.