This year’s Halloween weekend went like this: I sloppily carved a moustache into my mini pumpkin, I ripped my tights in anticipation, I pondered skullifying my face with a black eyebrow pencil, and then I just stayed home and wrote until the small hours. Oops! I will have to protest to my friends that I was there at those parties, just as a spectre.
Good news however. The calendar has only just flipped to Monday the 31st of October and there’s still time for me yet to get into the spirit. I just found this recipe for those cute little chocolate bats to make later this evening. Happy Halloween!
Donna Hay’s Marshmallow Vampire Bats
{From the NZ Herald}
To make twenty of the sugar bloodsuckers:
20 white marshmallows 200g dark chocolate, melted 20 small chocolate-coated biscuits, halved 40 small white chocolate melts
Dip the marshmallows into the melted chocolate and place each on 2 halves of the chocolate biscuits to create the bat bodies.Place on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper. Place 2 white chocolate melts on each bat to make eyes. Refrigerate until set.
My new dress, bought at a car-boot sale for a fiver. I never ever used to wear red, but this year it seems to have crept into my wardrobe more and more. Maybe it’s a reaction to my darkening environment (British Summer Time ended today). The print reminds me of these beautiful photos of birdsinflight by Sarah McLean.
From what I can tell it’s a Japanese brand – DELICE by DOLCAS Tokyo Style Co. Searching doesn’t reveal much but I’d like to know more!
As far back as 1014, and probably much earlier, London Bridge attracted traders selling grain, fish, vegetables and livestock. In the 13th century traders were relocated to what is now Borough High Street and a market has existed there ever since.
The other day we went to Borough Market. Alongside cheese, breads, cakes and all those good things, it has the widest choice of fruit and vegetables that I have ever seen.
The atmosphere was incredible too; imagine crowds of happy people trading, supping on aromatic mulled wine, popping truffles in their mouths, pressing juices, ordering coffee, carrying armfuls of bread, commiserating on the weather… All the while trains rumbled across the viaducts overhead. I want to go back again and again.
This video was made at the very last minute for “Live Aid” in 1985. Bowie and Jagger were originally going to sing a duet, Bowie at Wembley and Jagger in Philadelphia. They discovered at the last minute that the sattelite technology of the time would cause a two second delay, so they could not sing in sync. Instead they decided to record this single. The video was shot on the Wednesday 10th, edited on Thursday 11th and released to the BBC on Friday 12th to be transmitted at Live Aid on Saturday 13th July 1985.
Brilliant. How drunk do you think these two were? I love the part where Mr. Jagger grabs his beer mid-shot.
London – September/October 2011. Roll number 3 with the Diana Mini captured the last of the summer light. I love shooting film, but I’m not sure how committed I am to the Diana Mini. It might be time to pull out the Canon AE-1, and get a sturdier satchel (I have my eye on a Cambridge batchel) to carry all my crapola round with me.
A majestic building in Bloomsbury.
An alternate view of Marble Arch. (I always get the sublime Jeff Buckley in my head when I hear those words.)
A flat white at Flat White, Soho. Good coffee is hard to come by in this city (country?). All the best places are run by Aussies & Kiwis, which is not that surprising.
A day trip to Oxford feat. The Queen.
I adore Hyde Park’s deck chairs in the summer… But goodbye to all of that for now!
I went on a book buying binge yesterday afternoon from the comfort of my kitchen table. Here are the books I now have lined up on my Kindle to read. It’s an odd mix… a little bit like October.
Jacob’s Roomby Virginia Woolf (it’s free for Kindle!)
When we left the restaurant, the sky was a brilliant splash of colours. The kind of air that felt like if you breathed it in, your lungs would be dyed the same shade of blue. Tiny stars began to twinkle. Barely able to wait for the long summer day to be over, the locals were out for an after-dinner stroll around the harbour. Families, couples, groups of friends. The gentle scent of the tide at the end of the day enveloped the streets.
Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami (rereading this – one of my favourites)
London – August/September 2011. My second roll of film shot with the Diana yielded significantly better results! This time the camera was turned to East London. I really love Brick Lane (haha, in case you hadn’t picked that up yet). The diversity and noise reminds me of my beloved K Road; but the markets are way better, and the vintage is pricier!
August, 2011. Images of a black and white Paris, shakily shot through my Diana Mini.
As you can see, I didn’t do a very good job of exposure or winding the film on – but I like the ghostly quality of all these images. Roll one down, many more to go.
Hello! My name is Amber Parkin. I'm a writer obsessed with fondue, chesterfield sofas, vintage dresses, foxes, 35mm, and a New Zealander living in London.
Here I like to talk about fashion, design, food, travel, writing & books, and culture. Everything else (including my photography) goes into my digital notebook.
If you'd like to email me the address is amber@codeforsomething.com
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N.B. Due to a most erroneous move on my behalf I recently deleted four years of CFS archives. You may experience some dead links. Please bear with me as content is unearthed and reposted.
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