I can spend hours and hours at vide-greniers (flea markets). Yes, I love them. During the summer holiday, after our tandem trip, we went to Île d’Oléron for the weekend. One morning, we went to a vide-grenier. Since I try to buy less at flea markets these days, I took pictures of things I wanted buy but resisted.
Not pictured are a few things I couldn’t resist and brought them home ; )
A view from the helicopter ride.
Oléron oysters. Many many of them went into my belly : )
Mattie and I are back from our a few days short of a month summer holiday. I arrived home with lots of energy, thinking of all the projects I would like to do. But instead, I’m struggling to shake off the holiday mood and get to work. This is usually the case after any trips because I work for myself at my cozy home. So today, I spent all day going through the holiday photos.
Every summer for the last seven or eight years except last summer, Mattie and I travel on our tandem bike and wild camp in nature (trip of 2014, 2015). We decided to return to the Dordogne region. We have biked here a few times already, and we also got married here last summer. Yes, if you still didn’t get it, it is our favorite region ; )
For seven days – we first biked northeast along Dordogne river, then we climbed a small mountain (but big enough for us on a tandem!) westward to meet the Vézère river which we had planned to follow, but we took a detour following the cutest Coly river which we found only by lucky chance till we met the Vézère again a day later, which led us to another bigger mountain we had to climb up to get to a festival in the middle of nowhere, then the following day, we biked to the place where we had our wedding last summer, had lunch under a tree, felt loved and fuzzy inside, and that was the end of our tandem trip.
Unknowingly we chose the hottest week of the summer for our bike trip.
Our tandem fully loaded – a front bag, two back bags, two sleeping bags and a tent, a triangle tool bag, a black camera bag, a small bag for stuff I collect on the way (attached behind the front saddle), three water bottles, swimming suits drying in the back, a fan we made on our first day in between sleeping bags. Oh and a fishing rod between two pedals : )
The Dordogne river
Magical Coly river where we stopped for breakfast.
The bestest walnut tart from the boulangerie in Condat-sur-Vézère. We ate it so fast that I only took a photo of the last bite before it happily went inside my tummy.
After climbing for hours, we finally got to the top. Here we also found a plum tree with sweetest plums. We each at two and kept the pits.
I found things like stones and fruits and kept them in this blue bag attached behind Mattie’s saddle. Sometimes, it carried some mint.
Our usual lunch
This is where we got married last summer : )
After the tandem trip, we took the train to Bordeaux, surfed and ate fougasse in Montalivet, ate oysters and flew on a helicopter in Oléron island, back in Bordeaux for a day, then finally back home in Paris. I said to Mattie – we need a holiday to recover from our holiday.
Mattie and I, once again, made a mistake with the train ticket and had to buy another return tickets. It seems like an ongoing theme this year, but thanks to the mistake, we had an afternoon by the river ; )
After the residency in La Patronne early this year, I spent a few days in Marseille before returning to Paris.
Eating navettes sort of became a must whenever I go to Marseille. I haven’t seen them anywhere else but Marseille, and they are so yum! These are from Four des Navettes who have been baking navettes since 1781!
On the return day to Paris, while eating french fries waiting for the train, I realized I forgot my laptop at my friend’s house. The train was leaving in a few minutes and my friend was returning home only in the evening. So Mattie and I had to miss our train and were forced to stay one more day in Marseille. Not knowing how to spend a whole extra unexpected day in Marseille, we walked to the seaside, laid down, got comfortable and watched seagulls.
It was our bonus day <3
We had another adventurous moment the morning after at the train station. We left our luggages at the train station when we missed our train, but when we got to the locker room in the morning, we learned that its opening hour was after our train time (panic). We were lucky to find someone to beg and able to access our locker just in time for the train, but people, always check the opening hours before you lock your stuff away! Lessons learned ; )
Mattie and I were in La Patronne, a small town somewhere in the south of France, to join a winter residency organized by Sarah Blumenfeld and Guillaume Pellay. For two weeks, we lived in a big stone house along with several artists in the midst of nothing but nature.
It was cold wintery days and we had our fireplace burning all day and we all smelled of burnt wood. We worked on our projects near the fire, we had many promenades in nature, we tried things we had planned to try before the arrivals and also the things we discovered there. And we ate well everyday.
Some rare days when I was the first to wake up, I walked down to the dark living room where ashes in the fireplace were still hot and red. It was so pleasant to open all the shutters and to restart the fire. Then I went outside to greet the dogs who came to visit us everyday. Then I wondered what if this is everyday.
Mattie and I wanted to try watercolor for a while, and we decided to practice everyday while we were there. It wasn’t everyday, but at least the first few days, we took our watercolor and brushes to our walks, we settle in front of sceneries we liked, and painted.
Old dogs, whom I named Kombucha and Bear, visited us everyday from somewhere. They would accompany us on our walks and they seemed to know all the existing paths. We fed them and they slept in front of the house most of the day, until they return somewhere in the evening.
Left over carne alentejana from the day before dinner cooked by Estelle. I regret not documenting all our epic dinners.
Wild rosemary field.
Thelma <3
Some new sketches and an experimental pot we made with the clay we found in nature.
He showed up one rainy morning in front of the house. He looked lost and helpless, but turns out he was a local hunting dog. I think he just wanted to sleep rather then hunt in the rain.
Now back in Paris, I wonder again what if this is everyday.
Besides the new white wall, we also got a new furniture – flat file drawers. Mattie and I were eyeing for this for many years to find a way to organize and store our ever growing art prints and posters we have made and also collected. But they were always too expensive and moreover too big for our tiny flat. But one day we found one at leboncoin (French second hand market) which all the stars sort of lined up – price was reasonable, size was (almost) workable and the nice sellers were willing to deliver.
After carrying it up six floors one drawer at a time and cutting through our bookshelf (yes, we cut off the bottom half of our bookshelf), oh we are so happy to have this in our living room.
It snowed in Paris this week! It properly snowed on the second day that the snow stayed on roofs, balconies, my outside plants, streets, everywhere. Such a rare view! It made recent freezing cold weather worthwhile.
We had some friends visiting us this week, and one of them a Brazilian, who has never seen snow in her life. She made a snowman on our balcony with bare hands and she didn’t seem to mind the cold at all. I can only imagine how she could have felt when she saw and touched the snow for the first time. It must have been magical.
At midnight, we all ran out of the house to see the sparkling Eiffel towel under the snow. We were a little late so we only saw the last few seconds of the sparkle, but it was beautiful to see Trocadero all white and empty. There was a dog being wild in the snow, and I wished I were a dog too. Then of course our outing turned into an epic snow fight, and I’m sure I had as much fun as that dog.
As soon as I moved to Paris several years ago, Paris no longer became a cliché most-romantic-city-in-the-world to me as I uncovered its raw and rough face, which in truth I prefer. But when it is covered in white white fluffy snow at midnight with the Eiffel towel as the backdrop with no tourist around, yes, Paris is the most romantic city in the world.
One day, a randomly realized that I’m in three different groups, and as I’ve never been a part of any sort of groups until recent years, this surprised me. First is a graffiti crew Moderne Jazz which I often speak of or about on this blog, the second is AMATEURS which embodies Mattie and I whenever we make something or do exhibitions together, then the third and the most recent is the Club du Dessin. This is a very small group of illustrators and artists who get together monthly at a chosen location to draw for a day.
Around this time last year, Vanessa from the club invited me to join. Oh, I was very excited and honored for the invite, but it also made me nervous as I have fear of spending time with people I don’t really know and most importantly, I don’t really draw. But I braved it, joined the club, tried to draw, made new friends and very happy to be a part of the club : )
For every session, we meet in the morning and everyone roams around the place and draws. Then we gather for lunch. This could be one of my favorite moments, because where to eat is as equally important as where to draw – the rule which does not apply when I’m with other crews like Moderne Jazz ; ) Therefore, with Club du Dessin, I always eat well.
Because our flat is old and it is also our studio, we don’t have clean white walls. It would be too much of work to paint our living room white (yes, we would paint on walls outside, but we think it is too much work to paint our house), so we decided to cover up a piece of wall which was painted by a friend CT many years ago back to white.
A week later, I’m still not use to the new clean wall with Fredun Shapur‘s poster. Now, I’m thinking that it would be nice to paint the whole living room white, but the clean walls wouldn’t last long anyways so I will just leave it as it is.
By the way, the paint splash on Mattie’s shoes and pants is from another day when he went out to paint, and didn’t happen in the house ; )
and how are you.
I'm Jin Angdoo.
This is what I do. But here is a little more personal and casual place where I hope to share and meet like-minded people.
Welcome. Hope you stay awhile.
If you'd like to know a bit more about me and the blog, please read my very first post : )
And you can contact me here.
