At the end of the tunnel

Last week we went to the hospital with Johanna for her last appointment with the premature follow up team. She got finally discharged. Happy & relieved.

A VERY Old Tale

In July we went to the 1200 anniversary celebration in Steinfeld, a nearby village. It was a beautiful sunny day. Lots of people walked through the nicely decorated streets and enjoyed the festivities.

We found a quiet, peaceful place in a little park/garden next to the church, where I sat down to feed little Jacob. My daughter found a ball and was playing at a well. When looking at some of the pictures I took there, I couldn't help but think of The Frog Prince, one of Grimm's Fairy Tales.  [Find the english translation here.]

DER FROSCHKÖNIG 

In den alten Zeiten, lebte ein König, dessen Töchter waren alle schön; aber die jüngste war so schön, dass sich die Sonne selber, die doch schon so vieles gesehen hat, verwunderte, sooft sie ihr ins Gesicht schien. Nahe bei dem Schlosse des Königs lag ein großer, dunkler Wald, und in dem Walde unter einer alten Linde war ein Brunnen.

Wenn nun der Tag sehr heiß war, ging das Königskind hinaus in den Wald und setzte sich an den Rand des kühlen Brunnens, und wenn sie Langeweile hatte, nahm sie eine goldene Kugel, warf sie in die Höhe und fing sie wieder; und das war ihr liebstes Spielwerk.

Nun trug es sich einmal zu, dass die goldene Kugel der Königstochter nicht in ihr Händchen fiel, das sie in die Höhe gehalten hatte, sondern vorbei auf die Erde schlug und geradezu ins Wasser hineinrollte.

Da fing sie an zu weinen und weinte immer lauter und konnte sich gar nicht trösten.

New Tales and some old ones

I started to go through my sketchbook to pick up on abandoned projects. I also took photographs of finished pieces to update my portfolio.

 View some of my work here.

Making Chairs

Over the last few months I've been working on John's latest dance film - The Trouble with Chairs. Here's how we made it:


Making Chairs from John Coombes on Vimeo.
A short documentary about the making of my latest dance film: The Trouble with Chairs.
Shot over a period of five months as we pieced together moves and worked out the plot.
Some of the sequences rehearsed here didn't make it to the film, and vice versa.

dancers: Lucy Bourne and Irma Carpino
camera operator: Jess Hutchinson
costume designer: Ailsa Windsor
art director: Katrin Freitag
music: Chelsea Boys by Maerz
editor: Nigel Lodge

Our boy

It's been very quiet on this blog, and here's one of the reasons why:  Jacob. On 27th May our little baby boy arrived.

Welcome to the world Jacob! I am still over the moon and so relieved and grateful for having a healthy child.

Jacob is here!

Welcome to the world Jacob! We are still over the moon and so relieved and grateful that we had a normal delivery and have a healthy child.

After five days of early labour we went to Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax on Saturday afternoon. Our son was born on Sunday, 27th May, just after midnight and we left the hospital by lunchtime.

Johanna loves her little brother and seeing them together is the sweetest thing in the world.

Muttertag

Nearly there

Crochet your own coral reef

To get inspired you can virtually dive into the Coral Sea and have a look around the Great Barrier Reef with Seaview Underwater Virtual Tour. Seaview will soon be a part of GoogleEarth, but is already available on this website. It's well worth looking at snorkeling around.

There are tons of images of crochet coral on Flickr.

Also there is the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef,  "a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world"  created by Margaret and Christine Wertheim. Find out how start your own satelite reef.

Yeoman Warder Bill Callaghan

Watch Yeoman, Bill Callaghan, an ex-Regimental Sergeant Major, giving a brilliantly funny history lesson to a group of tourists. Part two is the funniest, but it's worth watching the whole thing.

I wish all history lessons would be so memorable.









I just found out that you can book Bill Callaghan for after-dinner speeches and auctioneering. I wonder if he'd also do master of ceremonies at a wedding - he'd be great.

The Yeomen Warders of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and Members of the Sovereign's Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary, commonly known as Beefeaters, are ceremonial guardians of the Tower of London. In principle they are responsible for looking after any prisoners at the Tower and safeguarding the British crown jewels, but in practice they act as tour guides and are a tourist attraction in their own right.

The videos are recorded by Jerry and Judy Clark.

Vorbote des Frühlings - Herald of spring

We enjoyed the warming sun today and so did this little flower.
Hope you are having a great weekend, too.

SchOreo Cake

Hmmm... the house smells lovely, I wish you could smell it - or even have a slice of this cake. Delicious!

I made up the recipe for this fabulous looking and yummy tasting cake with Oreo Biscuits. I used ingredients I had in the house and found it was fun to make it all up, going through the cupboards, thinking about what might go together well and then just mix it all in.

Afterwards I googled recipes for cakes with Oreo biscuits and was surprised to find that there were hundreds already. Anyway, I still love doing the cake my way. It's easy to make and absolutely luscious, with crunchy bits of biscuits and a magnificent flavor.


So here's my SchOreo cake recipe:

4 eggs and a pinch of salt
120 g brown sugar
50 g soft brown sugar
1 Vanilla sugar
250g margarine
2 tbsp rum
¾ cup Bailey's
250 g plain flour
1 baking powder
3 tbsp cocoa powder
½ tsp cinnamon
100 g dark chocolate
1 paket (154 g) of Oreo biscuits

Beat the eggs until frothy. Add the sugar and stir in well. Add soft margarine, then rum and Bailey's and stir until well blended. Mix flour with cocoa and cinnamon and add it to your dough. Chop up the chocolate and stir it all in. Chop up the Oreo biscuits and add 70 g. Mix well.

Put the dough in a greased small springform baking tin and put the Oreo biscuit crumbles on top. Slightly press them in.

Bake at 180°C in a preheated oven for about 70 minutes.

Enjoy!



Und noch mal auf deutsch:

In einer grossen Schüssel die Eier mit einer Prise Salz schaumig rühren, den Zucker zugeben und unterrühren. Die Margarine in einer seperaten Schüssel schaumig rühren, dann die Eiermasse unterrühren. Rum und Baileys zugeben und noch mal rühren. Mehl, Backpulver, Kakao und Zimt mischen und unterrühren. Schokolade dazu. Oreo zerbröseln/zerhacken und ca. 70 g zugeben. Rühren.

Teig in eine gefettete kleine Springform geben, die restlichen Oreo Kekse auf dem Kuchen verteilen und leicht in den Teig drücken.

Bei 180°C im vorgeheizten Ofen ca. 70 Minuten backen.

Be Linen Movie 2

BE LINEN MOVIE 2 from Benoit MILLOT on Vimeo.


More about flax and it's potential in this short film.

The fabrics shown in this film make me want to work with linen again, right away. I used linen in some of my textile sculpture and found that even with 100 % linen in plain weave there can be huge differences in it's quality and feel. It's a fascinating material, I love it's unique strength and performance as well as it's natural unevenness that reminds you that the fibre is grown, not manufactured.

Flax is one of the oldest fibers used for making textiles. Dyed flax fibers found in a prehistoric cave in Georgia suggest that wild flax was woven into linen fabrics 36,000 years ago. It's ecological and versatile qualities could also make it the fibre of the future.

Be Linen Movie

BE LINEN MOVIE from Benoit MILLOT on Vimeo.

A short film about linen - it's wonderful to see people who are so passionate about that amazing fibre. Via poppytalk.

... and a happy New Year!