Cuteness overload

Super Cute Holland Lop Bunny
Originally uploaded by curryosity

Ok you have Christmas bunnies that end up on your plate, but this is the kind you want to find as a present under the tree, your very own fluff ball :D

Nothing special just thought I'd share it ... Bunneh kisses :)

ISN'T SHE LOVELY?
Originally uploaded by unaerica

Some pretty stuff I did...

Work for me around this time of year is so busy, all those companies that want to get their site/product ready for Christmas. I actually love this time of year, I'm always busy with nice things and there is never a boring moment.

At the company I work for we have loads of clients that are fun to work with! I always like working on the London Eye - their new brand looks stylish.
Every time there is a special event they do a site 'overhaul' and change the colors and the main Flash. This year I got to do the main flash banner and I went for a magical Christmas feeling.
So here you have it snow falling, lights twinkling - I'm very pleased with this.
My work in action can be seen at www.londoneye.com

I'm taking the train .....

I'm actually going to the Netherlands and celebrate Sinterklaas there, Im truly looking forward to this - I'm already building up my pepernoten appetite.

Unfortunately 'Bloke' is not coming with me, but I'll be bringing him some nice noms back.

Normally I fly from London heathrow to Amsterdam and then from there I make my way to my parents. But this time I'm actually taking the train to Rotterdam - I haven't done that journey before and I'm actually quite looking forward to this journey. Just chilling and play a bit on my Macbook, read a book, have a snooze I'm sure those 4.5 hours will be by in no time. I only have to wake up in time to transfer trains in Brussels.

Now 4.5 hours might seem very long since the actual flight only takes 45 min, but think about the whole check-in mess at the airport and other things like that. It's a good thing I like trains so much :) So now I'm thinking about what presents I need to bring over for sinterklaas. Only I don't have Sinterklaas gift wrapping paper :(

It's the season to be Jolly...

Well we're not quite there yet as a Dutchie I'm awaiting the arrival of Sinterklaas, here you go non-Dutchies the Wiki link. As described in the Wiki page Sinterklaas is mainly about chocolate and lots of this commodity. I can tell you one thing ever since I was a little girl nothing is more exciting then getting the first letter of your name in chocolate - of-course during the years you try to be 'special' and swap from milk chocolate to white, but in essence it stays the same chocolaty goodness.

The 5th of december is approaching and I do miss the Sinterklaas decoration in the store windows and occasionally replacing your dinner with perpernoten & speculaas (it's in the wiki) just because you had to miss all those goodies for a whole year. Mind you 3 weeks after Sinterklaas you are still eating pepernoten because you bought a few bags too many....

Anyway my point being is that at this time of year I'm missing the Netherlands the most, Christmas is Christmas but Sinterklaas is something so Dutch only a true Dutchie will starting to get the 'feeling' around this time. So I think for me there is nothing left then watch the arrival of him by steamboat on a internet stream and hope my parents will get this hint and send me some goodies, yes I know subtle.

Besides all of this I am also having fun with my driving lessons. Yes, the lack of proper public transportation here in the UK has driven me to take up driving lessons again. Only this time I think I'm not that bad - my instructor had a few white knuckle moments when I had a bit of a relapse to the Dutch side of the road...I manage on a bike but a car was tricky the first few lessons. However Richard seems to be patient enough with me, which in itself is quite an achievement. So next time you are on the road better check that rear view mirror again, I might be driving behind you :D

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeee....

Yes another year has gone by - and to mark the occasion my sister decided that it would be fun to dress up her pet rabbit Bumper with a festive outfit. I'mnot entirely sure that she is very much approving the choice of her owners sense of humor, but oh well - I enjoyed receiving the picture :)

So my 28th birthday came in unlike last year I had my parents over to actually join the celebartion. I got hopelessly spoiled by them and David a.k.a. 'Bloke'. Gifts ranged from Guitar Hero 5 - which David still regrets giving to me since I have a tendancy to try and 100% a song by playing it 21 times in a row - and a lovely silver necklace and beutiful designer dress from parents.

David also thought the world was ready for me driving so I also got driving lessons, for all those in the Berkshire area, I will warn you when I go out on the roads :) For lunch I was taken to Jamie Oliver's restaurant in Oxford - http://www.jamieoliver.com/italian/oxford
I must admit it was the best past I have had for a very long time and if you do happen to eat there try the anti-pasta starter plates, simply amazing!
For dinner we went to my favorite, The Crab at Chieveley - nothing can beat that place when it comes to seafood. I have had an amazing day surrounded with the people I love most - It was all very special.

After a few days off work - it was back again, some really nice things have gone live in the last few days. I love the London Eye Halloween site: http://www.londoneye.com/ - we did the Flash on the mainpage and the site overhaul. I'm very proud with my 'Blinky the Frog' :)
I love making those little Flash animations - Rachel did a very good job on the extra mouse over fog to compliment my area fog.... anyway go check it out!
Lot's of exiting stuff is incoming but more later ......

poladroid - family photo? :)

poladroid - family photo? :)
Originally uploaded by designcuriosities

Well I was doing my daily browse on Flickr - and I bumped into a Flickr pool called 'For the love of Lops'. Lops in the meaning of lop eared bunnies.

I saw this picture and I though this was the coolest family portret!
For your daily bunny fix hop to www.dailybunny.org

Busy, busy, busy - did I mention busy?

I promised to be good and post a little bit more, but who am I kidding :) Anyway a few updates on how life is going on this side of the world. This weekend I went to the Battle Proms at Highclere Castle, although the event is always great fun - this time the weather was just bugger.

It was cold and rainy and it took a good time before it cleared up a bit in the evening.

Due to the weather we did not have a Spitfire flying over for an air show, but the weather did pick up enough for some amazing fireworks! However there was enough alcohol to keep us warm :)

And believe it or not I was home and in bed before midnight... am I getting old or what!

Unfortunately in May me and a group of friends had to say goodbye to a friend of ours who went back to Malaysia after studying here in the UK for a few years. Priscilla is part of our kimono group and the 5 of us normally go out and about in kimono to eat sushi and be stared at by Japanese tourists in London.

So we organized a farewell lunch in Mitsukoshi - the food was amazing, pricy but amazing.

Afterwards we all ended up indulging our sweet tooth in Häagen-Dasz London. It was sad to see Priscilla go but at the same time another member of the Immortal Geisha Forums joined our group here in the UK. Her husband is in the military and is stationed in the UK.

Lyuba is now part of the IG UK team :)

Anyway here is my lunch 'Kitsuke' (Go google it)

I love combining modern with traditional! Sunglasses and kimono. The Obi I'm wearing is light grey with bamboo

embroidery on it, and a very funky looking kimono.

Now that I finally upgraded my Flickr to a pro account the shocking truth and amount of my kimono collection is shown. However I have been good and sold also quite a few items in the past few weeks, just to make room in my drawers - or David will go nuts :) More pictures of the lunch can be found *HERE*.

At work things have been pretty crazy! Been doing a lot of Flash work lately and here are some of my projects:

- Carlsberg Export - Flash Site

- 7-Up Natural Wonders

- London Eye - Suitcase game

- Benney Watches

And I seriously need to update my portfolio site since that has been a bit neglected.

However it is growing really fast and I am doing really cool stuff right now at work - however I'm longing for a proper holiday.

But in about 5 weeks David and me are flying to the land of clogs to celebrate my mums 65th birthday!

Speaking about work the guys in the office see me getting my packages from Japan every now and then - so they all challenged me to come to work in kimono one day. Well don't challenge me since I probably end up doing it :)

So that is pretty much it for now - I'm going to log into World of Warcraft and check out my new present ... a Teldrassil Sproutling. It was a present from David *love*

Why no title? Well I couldn't think of one fitting this post. I could start off with something along the lines of 'AWESOME QUEENS DAY 2009!!!' But after yesterday it was not as festive as one would expect it to be.

For those who have not caught up with the news, yesterday a 38 year old male drove intentionally through the crowd who was watching the Royal Family go by, in an attempt to their lives.

Fortunately they did not get injured - however a lot of innocent people did. The current situation is 5 people dead and the idiot who did it dead as well. Watching the Dutch news in the UK is proving to be a bit of a challenge at times - but there is a steady flow of information from other sites.

In my opinion Queens day have lost it's innocence - we always could get very close to the Royal family when they participated in Queens day activities. I even got to shake hands with the Queen when I was a toddler - she visited the city I lived in that year. I think only time will tell what will happen to Queens day, I hope it will stay the same old Dutch party that we all know and love, but I'm doubt full.

Hopefully there won't be any more deaths, two of the nine people who are still in the hospital are critically injured. Let's hope for the best.....

Now that mini image at the top is my attempt to make my own Tompoezen this year. So for the non-Dutchies a Tompoes is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tompouce

After my horrible attempt to make pastry cream on the 28th - I had better luck with a different recipe on the 29th. It actually was the proper solid stuff. One of my colleagues followed a different recipe this the result (no I'm not laughing....too loud). I did the pretty one in the back (^o^)

Besides all of this the move is going fine, despite the fact that there are boxes everywhere in the house now. I cannot wait to get rid of them and make the place look pretty again. I simply cannot live that way with boxes everywhere.

Today the IKEA furniture arrived adding to the boxcount, but hopefully we can work hard and get it all built this weekend! And I think I got the coolest officechair in the house

Things are going to change....

So March was a busy and interesting month just to name a few things:
- I passed my probation at my job
- Going to move house (again)
- But just to live with my Bloke :)
- Got a massive expansion on my kimono/Japanese collection
- Did I mention moving in with my Bloke?

Job wise it was a lot off stress an mayhem over March, end of the financial year was looming and all the design work had to be squeezed into very little time. Fortunately I was able to work fast and not get stuck with loads of work in the evening and weekends. Some stress and hard work is fine but I'm glad that month is over.

David decided to take me out to the Crab at Chievely, which is a lovely restaurant with amazing food. Starters like scallops with white chocolate & caviar - and if you get a chance do go for the Crab, that baby is huge! Anyway he asked me just before the starters to move in with him, now I can be a real girl and start crying (I must admit that I had to swallow a few times to keep the tears back) but I didn't want to just burst out in tears in the middle of the restaurant.

Also the couple next to us seemed to listen to everything we said and threw a bunch of dirty looks our way. So the big move of my place to his/ours will start right after Easter. It is pretty weird to see your place up on a letting agency site while you are still there. The sign has been firmly planted outside so it is all ready to go. I will miss my kittehs though :(

My kimono collection has grown rapidly in the last week! I had to indulge in some beauties (which all can be found on my Flickr stream on the right), but I think my latest purchase is one to look out for - It is an antique geisha doll. Which reminds me from when I was a young girl going with my dad onto big Japanese container ships to meet the Captain and where my dad had to do business.

They all had a glass display with one of those dolls inside, now there is a lot of touristy shit on Ebay - but I have found me a little gem. I think I will call her Katsuragi - seems to be fitting for her and also remind me of my first encounter with one of these dolls.

So as you might have guessed it will be a massive move with all the things I got to take - poor David :)

Ohhh puhlease....

You think you can pass? Well this the is day to day hassle I get from my local cats. They are all fun and games until you get home and you find all 3 of them on my staircase refusing to let me pass. And when I get lucky I get the 4th one from down the road with it for free.


Spring has arrived in the UK, which is always good when you are cycling to work every day. In the last months I have been battling with snow, rain and wind. Needless to say how much it sucks. But things are looking brighter my sunglasses are permanently in my bag again and during lunch me and the guys from the office head out to our local pub to have a pint and sit in the sun.

The pub is right next to a canal that flows through the city so during the summer and spring you have a lot of boats going by, and a bunch of killer swans (damn those things are big and cheeky)



This is what it looks like from our point of view whilest doing bugger all and enjoying a pint :)

Speaking about pints, yesterday -the 17th - was St. Patricks Day, since my other half is Irish this of course called for a massive celebration. Unfortunately I have been swamped with work again and barely made it home to him before 6. But I found a Guinness waiting for me and a lovely meal with Irish sausages, mash and steak and Guinness pie! Absolutely gorgeous.


Another reason to celebrate was our first kill on Malygos, yes I'm still the World of Warcraft Nerd. But after trying to kill it for the last 3 weeks you can imagine me and my guild was pretty happy with the kill. Anyway here is some belated St. Patricks Day fun :)





Right since I'm blogging during work I better get to it - catch you all later! More will follow soon got a whole post about my Kimono adventures lined up

PS. I decided to try a new font - just for laughs.

Snow, kimono and happy new year!

Well first post of 2009 so Ithink a very, very belated 'happy new year' is in order here :)

Without a doubt you all might have heard of the lovely weather conditions in the UK, and here in Newbury it is not any different: SNOW! When I get left to bed it was a mild drizzle of snow and by the time I got up this morning at 3:15am - Ebay auction - it was a white world outside with about 13cm of thick fresh
snow.
This morning it was even more and today it will get more, so I think hot chocolate is the way forward here. The picture is taken from my office window, check out the hill everyone is having loads of fun! So we might leave for home early cause the hills here are scary when you are driving a rear weel drive car.

Speaking about cars, I have finally got my provisional driving licence after loads of hassle. Sending in your photocopy of your passport is not enough to the DVLA, no you actually need to send out the original passport. So much for this great EU thing where every country can easily exchange information....FAIL! So when this lovely snow dissapears I will be taking my first lessons on English soil. Currently reading up on the theory and you got to love a place that has Pelican and Tucan crossings :D




Last weekend I went to Tokyo day in London, it was awesome! I don't get too many occasions to dress up in my kimonos and this time I thought it was time to wear my brand new light yellow houmongi. I had some people fromwork joining me that day as well and Christians girlfriend was happy enough to wear one of my kimonos and join the fun. She looked stunning in her ko-furisode. More pictures on my Flickr account (see on your left). At the end of February I have another kimono event, and I have been asked to participate in a kimono fashionshow! Yes it has been a a fun time the last few weeks.