SOUTH AFRICA - THE RAINBOW NATION

Some colours of the Rainbow Nation, here some forecast for 2010 colour trends...

2010 COLOUR FORECAST

South African Plascon makes the best paints that I have used so far. Their quality is excellent and there thousands of choices of colours...

WESTERN DESERT

Culturally exciting and vibrant West Africa...These are my favorite colours...

SOUTHERN SPECTALE

The hotpot of contemporary creativity, South Africa leads the way in its spirit of ubuntu and cultural merging...

EASTERN PROMISE

Warm and spicy colours of eastern Africa...

LAVENDER

I found some little embroidered cotton bags, which are good for storing the dried lavender flowers. They will keep the fragrance longer than keeping them in a open bowl. Those little bags can be used for your linen or in your wardrobe or next to your bed it will give you a calm sleep.

LAVENDER

Some lavender from our garden in Andorra, that I cutted before winter. I just kept the flower part and dried them on the oven pan on the top of my hot chimini. Drying the flowers slowly like that, they keep the perfume. Essential lavender oil is always handy, it has many properties. It is good for cuts and bruises, calming and relaxing, insect repellent and calming insect bites, excellent help for minor burns...

POSTCARD FROM SOUTH AFRICA

Greetings from South Africa, I arrived here yesterday. Pretoria is full of Jacaranda trees witch are blooming at the moment. Pretoria is called the Jacaranda city. I will stay a month in South Africa and I will try to post all kind of interesting things about this beautiful country that has been my home country during 10 years...Sunny Greetings to all...

COOKING POTS

Today I went to buy a gift for my friend, and I had to drive half way through the whole country,  I Andorra that takes only 30 min even you drive according to the speed limits, which mostly is only 60km/h. On the opposite side of the gift shop I saw a typical Spanish pottery shot, so I went in to have a look. They had these earthenware cooking pots that can be used in the oven or even on the open fire. And they are really cheap from 1 -17 euros. I bought few of them to complete my collection and the 32cm diameter, the biggest one on the photo cost me only 7 euros and it is 100% natural... These are the best ones to cook food in the oven. The lady who was taking care of the shop was at least 90 years old, a small lady with hundred of wrinkles on her face and hands that look like she has been working hard all her life, she counted my shopping on a piece of paper and I could see her mind was still so sharp... The Andorrans has the longevity record before the Japanese...Healthy food, fresh mountain air, clean water, no crime, no tax, people walk a lot...

DETAIL IN THE ENTRANCE

Different sizes of glass bottles on the top of the shoe boxes...

ELECTRICAL BOX

If you can't hide it, then highlight it... The electrical box gave me some thinking: What to do about something what is not pretty and it's in the middle of the wall... So after painting my stripes, this box was in the middle of two colour, so instead of trying to hide it some how, I painted in metallic silver colour...

MIRROR

The bigger mirror reflects the frame from the staircase.

COAT HANGER

Two metallic coat hangers are on the opposite side of the shoe storage.

ENTRANCE HALL

The entrance hall, you can't really call it as a hall it is just a small entrance area that the staircase follows (see previous posting about staircase). The wall painting from the staircase area follows to the entrance area. To have the most of a such a small area and even the front door opens inwards, so to have storage place for coats and shoes wasn't easy. The "boxed" mirrors are actually shoe drawers, each drawer can take two pair of shoes...Depending of the sizes of the shoes...

HAVE AN AMBITION

100% NATUREL

Last weekend on the Spanish market a French lady was selling natural soaps and beauty treatments. She convinced me to buy the "Savon Noir" black soap exfoliant for my body, made in Morocco, the Moroccan ladies use it in the Hammans. It feels like sticky soap and you use it with a clove the feels quite coarse. After testing it, my skin was very soft and because the soap contains olive oil, you don't need moisturise your skin after that. To use ones a week.

The soap on photo is a special "Savon Marseille" for stains on your clothes or on other dirty washing. It is nice to find more eco friendly products and if you think these are ancient products that most of us don't know about them or we have forgot that these type of products still exist with all the advertisement for fancy skin exfoliants and chemical stain removers.

ORANGE

Some vitamin C for rainy day...

BLACK; WHITE & SILVER

As the whole house, this staircase area was also painted in beige colour. To change the colour of the walls at 4-5m high was too complicated. So I chose some colours that will fit the beige paint, the light grey stone steps and metallic hand rail. Black, white and silver was a good solution, the silver colour makes nice effects with the incoming day light.

FRAMES

These three frames has the same leaf pattern, but three different colours, black, silver and bronze. Frames are from Ikea and the back ground is made with fabric.

ORYX

I have painted the cardboard letter with black and white paint. Ones I had painted all these stripes on the wall, the big window in the middle of the high wall didn't fit with the stripe wall. I borrow tall ladders and painted a frame around the window and now it really looks good...

STAIRCASE

From our entrance we have a staircase going  down to the kitchen and living area. Upstairs are the entrance door and 2 bedrooms and a bathroom.

RUNNING A NEW BLOG

Today I have set up a new blog that I will be managing for several month...My husband will be taking part of Tour d'Afrique race from Cairo to Cape Town, 12 000 km, 10 countries and bike donation for local communities... The race starts in January 2010, but the blog will  first follow his preparations for the long trip ahead...

WELCOME TO THE SPANISH FOOD MARKET

Fruits, ham, bread, olives, mushrooms, cakes, more cheese etc. The photos tell more than the words... Bon Appetit...

"SAY CHEESE"

Today we went to Spain to the town of Seu d'Urgell just 10km from Andorran border. In Seu they have this weekend a cheese fair. All the cheeses are from the Pyrenees, both sides, the French and the Spanish. We tasted plenty different cheese varieties with some nice Spanish wines. There were also a jury to give prices for the best cheese in it's category. What a nice way to learn more about products produce locally in the area we live.

THE VIEW FROM OUR TERRACE

This the view from our living room and terrace, down in the valley is the town of Massana...The drop from our house to the next building is quite impressive, these roof tops on the photo belong to the buildings with three floors...