Oh what a beautiful morning (2)

Greeted by this view of blossom on Saturday, this productive spring weekend was brought to me by the letters ‘F’, ‘R’ and ‘B’ and the numbers 7 and 452.

7 is the bus that got me from my brief haberdashery run  (shirring elastic – more of that anon) to Oxford Street to Ladbroke Grove.

F is for free, and the noise this stuff makes when it starts fermenting: kefir. Through the newly discovered treasure trove/cashless flea market/online skip that is freecycle, at about 11.00am, I found myself in the kitchen of a friendly stranger called Bill. He briskly, yet thoroughly talked me through the basics of making your own kefir, plopped my ‘starter kit’ of kefir into a large jar and poured milk over it, handed me a printout of instructions then off we both set, into the spring sunshine, to play squash (Bill) and trek across town for another bit of adventuring (me).

Grateful thanks, Bill –  so far so good! I’m enjoying a very yummy raspberry /banana /mango kefir smoothie as I type. More about my kefir making another time.

452 is the number bus from Ladbroke Grove that takes you to Battersea, where I went to pick up another bit of baby kit. Which leads me to…

…R, pronounced phonetically, as in ‘Aaaah’, is to express my thanks for the generosity of my colleague HMcL, who gave us the stairgate. Our lnaguid, lo-fi amassing of baby paraphenalia can now tick ‘stairgate’ off the list. Good for setting boundaries to cat, houseguests and the like when our home gets turned over to child-rearing.

HMcL Thanks for gifting us the stairgate AND carrying it down the road for me – I expect we’ll wonder how we ever managed without it!

And finally, B is for the bumble bee in Battersea Park who bumbled around us as we had our picnic Brunch, and for the Bread we threw at the ducks.  Oh and B is for brrrr – spring sunshine is not just bright, but COLD.

What is your type? Mine’s van Doesburg…

Enjoying some early morning blog-feed-foraging, come across Pentagram’s What type are you on Poppytalk.

Follow the four question test, to find I am emotional, assertive, progressive and disciplined, and therefore, according to the teutonically-accented narrator, my type iss (sic) van Doesburg. I did not know of van Doesburg at all, even less that he is most well-known as the founder of De Stijl. Oh. Well. Glad to get that bit straight!

Well this morning I am (emotional, assertive, progressive and disciplined). I find these either/or questions a challenge, because usually, my answer is ‘both’ or ‘depends on what we’re dealing with, what day of the week it is, whether we’re talking about a work or personal context. Maybe it’s better that someone else answer these questions for you?

I suppose that means to be true to type, I need to get on with something creative today. Might just watch a bit of Frasier first though…

But before I do, just thinking – I’ve been pondering the idea of adding a new page to this blog about typefaces, graphics, signs, graffiti  and so forth. I do like a letter, you see. Some of you may have noticed the lovely ‘G’ hubby gave me, proudly shining on the wall. It’s not the only letter we have, and pleases me greatly.

And I’m lucky enough to live in London, where from the top deck of most buses, you can enjoy a moving exhibition of commercial signage, old, new, stunning, indifferent, covered in pigeon poo or pigeon-deterring spikes. I don’t know much about typefaces as such, but I do know what I like. So I think I’m going to find out a little more. Watch this space. But not too closely. And no breath-holding there, either.

You see, the one question Pentagram’s resident shrink didn’t ask me is ‘how quick to act are you?’ I would still be mulling over the answer to that now, 20 mins later….