Here are some of my favourite things about the holiday season:

- Carol singers at tube stations
- Gorgeous lights in the trees lining busy streets
- Birds close to the house looking for a bite to eat cause its cold outside
- Knowing the shortest day of the year is fast approaching – it’ll be in the rearview mirror soon, as the mornings light up again
- Clear, crisp mornings (snow optional)
- Candles
- The scent of Christmas trees

I’m spending Christmas in London this year, the Londoner’s family have kindly adopted me. I’ll miss my family and our special way of celebrating Christmas, but I got to spend five days at home in the Netherlands just a few weeks ago, so that should last me until the new year.

What are your holiday faves? Join List It Tuesday here.

You’d think a 16 year old girl in central London would have seen an impaired pigeon before…

Of course, it’s only now that spell check throws up that my automatic spelling of “pigeon” (“pidgeon”) is incorrect that I realise this, and the spelling error in my illustration for this week’s topic. Oh well, here’s to spontaneous illustrations with the odd error. It’s not the first time! ;) Perhaps it’s a good theme for another List It Tuesday week: words that trip you up every time! :)

Joining in – on time this week – with Aimee’s wonderful List It Tuesday initiative. To see more entries and find out next week’s topic, join the fun here.

Hot on the heels of my recent move to London (that’s kept me from joining in for the last two List It Tuesdays), the topic this week is What I Love About Where I Live.

1. Big Parks. Richmond Park and Kew Gardens are my favourites, but I won’t pass up a stroll through Regent’s Park or Hyde Park if offered.
2. The Londoner and friends. After more than a year of commuting back and forth between my social life in London and my home in Cambridge, it’s so nice to have it all.
3. Courses. Because I’m here full time now, I can go to foreign policy/journalism lectures at the Frontline Club, sewing classes at Ray Stitch, or creativity-fuelled evening classes at Central Saint Martins. Also on the wish list: bookbinding at Falkiner’s, and perhaps a ceramics class, desperate as I am to recreate something as wonderful as this? The possibilities are endless!
4. London Underground. By no means perfect, frequently out for maintenance on weekends, hot and smelly in summer, but my god is it a convenient way to whizz around London.
5. Gateway to everywhere. On a train to Southampton, Brighton, or even Edinburgh; on a plane to anywhere… London makes it easy to travel, and I do love a trip!
6. Great book shops. Everybody needs a book shop, and I’m not talking about regular chain stores such as WHSmith. Waterstones is passable, but shops like Foyles, Magma and the London Review of Books really  make my heart sing.
7. Arts supply shops. I never did manage to find anything in Cambridge beyond the haberdashery section at the local John Lewis. In London, I’m spoilt for choice. The aforementioned Ray Stitch for anything sewing related (and copies of Uppercase Magazine); Blade Rubber for all my stamping needs, the London Graphic Centre for just about everything, the massive Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road for all my paper-based fancies, and Cass Art for a great bargain?
8. London opening hours. Shops are open till 20:00 most weeknights. All shops. This is such a blessing for someone who used to have to race home to get to the shops before 18:00.
9. Foodies. Independent food retailers are everywhere. Coffee shops, butchers, greengrocer’s with vegetables I’ve never seen before, bakeries. It is utterly delicious.
10. Wholefoods. I love visiting Wholefoods for weird and wacky dinner ideas, cosmetics or yoga attributes. They’ve got several shops in London covering all my hippie-esque needs.

What do you love about where you live? Tell us and join in at List It Tuesday on Artysville here.

List it Tuesday, not so much on Tuesday this week. Frankly, in a week where I’ve both moved house and changed jobs, I think I get a pass! :) More about both at a later date, no doubt.

For now, I present you with this week’s List It theme: nostalgia. Autumn and nostalgia are almost synonyms in my book, and as you can see, I didn’t quite manage to contain my list to one page. However, in the interest of getting something up (versus trying to get the perfect list up and not getting around to it before the next Tuesday), I present you with a delightfully imperfect list of items that make me nostalgic, and an eternal conundrum about the final item you can’t quite see on page two:

To join in or to find out what next week’s theme is, visit Aimee at Artsyville here!

The second pic from the left at the top? That’d be me! How lovely to be mentioned on the Simple Things magazine blog! It’s one of my favourite things right now, even if they’ve only published one issue so far. It just seems like someone peered into my brain and made a magazine based on things I like. (Apart from the cheese special. I still don’t like cheese.)

If you’re not familiar with the magazine (yet), and you live in the UK, be sure to check out your local magazine-selling shops soon, as the second issue is out on the 4th of October!

I’m excited to be joining the wonderful Aimee from Artsyville in List Tuesday.

I don’t know about you, but I love a good list – it helps focus the mind and keep track of things. If you write it down, you don’t have to worry about remembering it any longer. Handwritten lists are the best, because you get the satisfaction of crossing items off.

This week’s theme is “goals from now until the end of 2012″.

For next week’s topic and to join in, you’ll have to check out Aimee’s post!

I spoke too soon! Summer came back today – it was in the high twenties/near thirties. After the chill of the last week, it was quite a surprise. I went from jeans, a top and a jacket to jeans and a tank top, to a dress. It was just too warm in anything else!

This photo was taken on my way to what was the first step in a day full of delicious food: St John’s doughnuts. These were followed by a Coffee Mate cup of coffee, and stunning chorizo from the Ham & Cheese Company. We may or may not have sneakily enjoyed a beverage from the Kernel Brewery in the sunshine outside (very naughty, you’re meant to stay inside with alcohol). I had some delicious nougat and stracciatella gelato at Gelatorino in the afternoon. Let’s hope it’s not the last one this year!

This is the gift I put together for my lovely friend Alice. I’d recently received some beautiful twine as part of an order from Studio Carta (credit where it is due: Geninne posted about this wonderful webshop last week).

The wrapping paper was made using some thick A3 copier paper and a hand-carved stamp. I used a blue stamp pad… Mostly. (Can you see the smidgen of pink on the top edge of the parcel? :)

I used washi tape to secure the paper and then tied the cotton twine. It also looped into a small glassine envelope with a made-to-measure light blue card. I stamped the message on the front of the card using one of these, and scribbled a personal message on the back. Done!

It was so much more fun than using store-bought wrapping paper – I’m itching to try more!

PS. The gift inside was a copy of Nora Ephron’s inspiring and funny “I Remember Nothing“.

I’ve signed up for Andrea Scher’s Superhero Photo course. We kicked off yesterday and these are the first photos I’ve taken triggered by what we’re learning.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what all the course participants come up with in the next couple of weeks. Already I’ve seen people’s photos and websites and gone away excited to try something new with my camera.

They look best slightly larger than they appear in this post. If you click on any of the photos, you’ll be taken to their Flickr page where you can select a larger size.

I won’t tell you what the uniting factor between these three items is (cause that would be telling), but I hope you enjoy them!

Occasionally, a song grabs my attention.

I’m a faithfull BBC Radio 2 listener on my commute. I don’t think I’m exactly a part of their target audience, if Chris Evan’s reaction was anything to go by after the annual listener figures were released and someone in their twenties sent him a message. “We’ve even got a 26 year old!” he gleefully exclaimed on national radio, as I drove my 25-year-old self to work.

Anyway. Radio 2, because the chatter is clever and fun, and the music often very good.

They’ve recently been playing this gem by Glen Campbell a lot, called “Any Trouble“.

You know I don’t stand a chance with lyrics like Don’t pin your hopes, don’t pin your dreams, on misanthropes and guys like me. Don’t pin your hair, let it hang down; don’t go to any trouble on my account“. He used the word misanthrope, in a song lyric, and he used a nice bit of internal rhyme to higlight it. My stylistic heart is beating proud.

Go listen. You know you want to. It’s a very pretty little song.