Uncategorized

Hello readers and a Happy New Year to you all! I hope you all had a restful Christmas with your family and friends- wishing you all a prosperous start to the year.

I’m not one for the New Year, New Me rubbish. Personally, I’ve always started off with New Years resolutions and they teeter off my the end of the January 🤣🤣🤣 So this year there’ll be no New Years resolutions for me but instead just take each day as it goes by and show gratitude as much as possible.

Anyway, enjoy the rest of the rainy weekend!

Dear Lovely Readers,

Apologies for the lack of posts but I’m going to keep this one short and sweet. I have not been making any new work lately as I’ve had a really tough old time over the past couple of weeks. It’s been one of the most horrible and awful weeks I’ve ever experienced- but I keep on reminding myself to take each day as it is. I’m allowing myself to feel sad and to validate those feelings and not saying sorry either.

One day I may share with you all what we’ve been going through, but for now, I’m going to have a break from here and hopefully I’ll be back in the autumn with a positive mindset.

Enjoy the summer wherever you are and take care,

Jo.

Update!

Hey folks and hope you’re all okay. I was away in Doncaster for a couple of days and I’m feeling recharged already. I feel like I needed to get out of London from time to time as it can feel quite overwhelming at times, as in, just the constant amount of people in your face all the time. I needed to see some green fields! My heart is always and forever with Yorkshire; I’m just a Northerner at heart. ❤️❤️

So our Art for Activism has come to an end and we’ve raised £167.00! I just wanted to say a massive thanks to those who have donated to the raffle- we’ll announce the winners this week so keep your eyes out for it over on Ivy’s Instagram Stories. And, of course, a big thank you to the artists who donated to the raffle, none of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for your kindness and generosity for such an important cause. The money will be split between Kids of Colour and The Literacy Pirates– I’m so happy to see the money going towards these two great charities.

Of course, it doesn’t just stop here. Black Lives Matter movement continues to be an important part for things to come in the future. For drastic changes to happen it all starts with grassroots movements, whatever and however that may look. Take the time to educate yourselves; read about the history of the slave trade and how the British Empire thrived on it, and what irreversible damage it has done up until this day. Let’s be honest and open up about racism, as difficult as it might be, but talking about it rather than sweeping it under the carpet is a good way to start open dialogues with others. And whether those conversations become hard it’s well needed.

No one should be living in fear because of the colour of their skin. Small changes are needed and over time they’ll grow. Let our voices be heard.

From myself and Ivy thanks again everyone and enjoy the rest of your week.

Hello everyone, hope you’re all keeping safe and taking care of yourselves. The last couple of weeks since my last post has been, well, sort of strange. Since lockdown has extended, I have been trying to stick to some sort of routine as I’m finding myself getting a bit worked up not being able to go out. We’ve got a garden and I’ve spent a lot of my time gardening and hanging outside now that the weather has been proper beaut. I do want to buy some flowers and large planters so that I can get started with making the garden looking prettier for the summer time. 🌼🌸🌳 We’ve also been talking about getting another barbecue as a our current one is looking slightly sad and rusty! You can also get mini pizza ovens that go on top of your barbecue… I know, a game changer right?!

I finished reading The Testaments by Margaret Atwood the other night and I have to say that although the book itself was pretty gripping, I found the narrative to be quite repetitive at times. Not like I’m giving anything away, but in my opinion I really enjoyed The Handmaid’s Tale more than The Testaments. I suppose I had pretty high hopes for it but unfortunately it doesn’t cut it for me. The next book on my reading list is In A Different Key: The Story of Autism by John Donavan and Caren Zucker. The book looks at the history of the development of autism theories, with it comes other theorists who’ve studied autism so you read it from the pretext of the theorists for that time. Some of it is actually pretty challenging and controversial (for then and now), and I don’t mean it in a good way either e.g. everyone highly praises Leo Kanner but if you look into his later work its gets super weird and horrible. The book also examines our understanding and notions of autism, currently, we are getting better at diagnosing children (I will include adults) on the autism spectrum due to major advancements in technology as well as science. I started reading it a few years ago and then stopped so I’m going to start again and carry on with it.

Apart from talking about food all the time (when all this eventually blows over and we return to some sort of normality), I’ve also taken up weaving which I started a few weeks ago and I’ve not looked back since.

From left to right: my first weave and the second image is one I made two weaves later!

I’m planning on buying a bigger loom from Etsy as I would like to have a go at making a larger weave for our living room. There are lots of kits on Etsy (just have a search for it) and most of them include yarn so you can get cracking on it. I really enjoy being hands on and practical again, the act of making something with your hands is super rewarding. I also can’t stop buying yarn as well…. please stop me! I need help with my yarn obsession.

In between weaving I bought a lovely embroidery kit from Cotton Clara and I’m so happy with my little rainbow banner 🌈🌈. It brings me so much joy every time I see it! I also bought my mum a kit and she was overjoyed with it (will be being her another one…).

I also wanted to get my hands on clay and make some ornaments/presents for people. I bought some air-dry clay from Hobbycraft plus lots of other bits and bobs, I have to say, I’m really pleased with the results. I made some moon ornaments using two types of clay as I wanted a marble effect. You can YouTube tutorials for all these things (hurrah for this!), or ask folks on Twitter or Instagram. I varnished the ornaments using some Fimo gloss varnish, once they were dry I made a garland using some twine I already had.

 

I love working from our loft space. During the evenings when the sun is setting, the light is incredibly beautiful and our view overlooks other houses on our street. There’s this warm fuzzy glow just as the sun is about to set.

My desk space overlooking our street in the evenings.

I’m going to end my post here. Are there any other crafts/hobbies/books you’ve picked up since the lockdown? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

❤️❤️Thanks for reading as always! ❤️❤️

Hello folks! It seemed so long ago since my last blog post- I hope you’ve all had a nice start to November (also, you can believe that Christmas is literally around the corner?!). I can’t believe that it’s been almost two weeks since we left Japan, I know, sad face right now 🙁 We had such an amazing and an unforgettable time in China and Japan, it’s such an eye-opening experience when you go away to somewhere for a good amount of time and you’re kind of left feeling like you want more of it. The day after we came back I was looking at flights to go again next summer!

I have decided to split this blog post into two parts as I feel like I’ll be rambling on for ages (mostly about the food of course), but I also want a well written and documented experience of it so that I have something to look back on. Sit back, get yourself a drink/snack and I hope you enjoy reading our experiences in China and Japan!


China: Beijing.

Well, spent a day in Beijing since our layover was about 12 hours- so we decided to make the most of it and get out of the airport! The only time I’ve been to China was when we went to Shenzhen a couple of years ago, so I was defiantly looking forward to visiting China even if it was for a short period of time. For some reason I expected China to be small, as in, you could walk from one place to another a bit like Hong Kong. No. Not at all. China is massive, absolutely huge. The roads are massive. To get to one place to another you’re better off getting the metro. We thought we could walk it but we got lost for a bit and ended up having to navigate to the nearest metro station!

Once we got to the Forbidden City we were both in complete awe. Actually, we couldn’t get in as tickets for the day were sold out so we walked around it and went into one of the gardens. I cannot describe how incredible it is to see the Forbidden City in real life.

After spending a good couple of hours at the Forbidden City we got some food at a restaurant and literally fell asleep at 10pm as we were both completely k.o.’ed from the flight! I have never had jet lag this bad before and we were both awake for about 20 hours straight! Absolutely knackered having been awake due to adrenaline and the time difference, I couldn’t keep my eyes open for any longer and slept with a full belly.

Goodbye China! We’ll be back in the future for sure.

Note: You don’t need a visa if you’re visiting for 24 hours, 72 hours or 144 hours but do let your airline know about it before you check-in. Also, you need to fill out a form before going through immigration for the visa. 


Japan: Jozankei and Hakodate

Our first stop in Japan was Hokkaido. I’ve been to Hokkaido before, but that was a good 13 years ago so my memories of it are slightly hazy (apart from the sweet memory of us eating Kobe for the first and last time!).

Sam had booked us into to a ryokan in Jozankei. Jozankei is known for its hot springs since there’s loads of them around that area. We stayed in this lush little place called Nukumori No Yado Furukawa. Just what I needed! The rooms are an absolute delight, really spacious and they provide you with traditional Japanese pyjamas called jinbei. If you are not familiar with onsens I totally recommend you experience it if you are ever in Japan! Totally do it otherwise you are missing out on it! You can spend a whole day chilling out: go for an onsen, eat nice food, have a spa sesh, then repeat this several times until you are in ultra relax mode. I can’t tell you how good your body feels after an onsen.

When we left there were quite a lot of staff who waved us off (even the chefs were standing outside of the inn to say goodbye to us!). I was so gutted to leave the place; the staff there were so friendly and kind and were always willing to help us whenever they could. They even had a buffet Japanese breakfast! My eyes popped out of my head when I saw the food, it made my peanut butter and toast look well sad! The food there was absolutely delicious. We also had a set dinner the evening before we left and it was so, so good.

Breakfast!

We stayed for two nights and although there isn’t loads to do around the area, you can spend most of your time in the onsens. There are a couple of local places to eat and drink, again, the food was amazing.

Side note: I recommend you get the JR Rail pass as it makes travelling around Japan so easy. The JR Rail Pass allows you to travel on the Shinkansen (apart from two other lines though, please check the terms and conditions! It was the Nozomi line and another one I do not remember!) P.S. The trains are increibly spacious and clean. You need to get the ekibans (local bento boxes) if you’re hungry.

… or just 7-Eleven it!

 

Hakodate

After leaving Hokkaido we got the Shinkansen to Hakkodate and stayed over for the night. It was a good couple of hours on the Shinkansen so I decided to start working on my sketchbook Chantal had bought me for our honeymoon (another post to come). The next morning we got up super early to go to the Morning Market, which is right next to the station.

Unfortunately, we weren’t there for super long as we were heading to the cat island so we didn’t get the chance to eat as much as we could! We had fresh scallops for breakfast and a squid ink boa, which I could’ve eaten 20 of those! I think if we were there for longer we would’ve gone to the outdoor bit as there were tons of food for sale.

 

I am going to leave it here as I’ll continue with the next post over the weekend. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it and if you have anything to share please post in the comments section.

 

Thanks as always!