Fire and Ice

As part of my D esign Thinking course , I had to take photos of objects I like and then submit them to the Online Design Studio. They are intended to act as practice for taking and uploading photos which I already have lots of experience on… but I still took a while to do it. Why? I just couldn’t decide on only 3 objects to photograph! In the end the three things I chose probably say a lot about me, so I thought it would be fun to share them with you and explain my choices further. The first object that I chose was a Smart car. I chose this pretty quickly because it is something that has always made me smile. I used to own one and even though I have nothing against the car I have now, if I could I would go back to my Smart in a second. The second object took a bit longer to pick. I was looking around the kitchen for inspiration and considered my blender (which I love but not THAT much), my slow cooker (which is great but let’s not get carried away) and finally settled on ...

When I first moved to the UK (almost 13 years ago) I had to learn a lot of things all over again. One of the most useful was to ‘learn’ to drive UK-style. As you probably already know, the UK driving is on the left – and of course I learned to drive on the right. It’s not just a case of sitting on the other side of the car and going though, think about it: all the controls are in the ‘wrong’ place and the mirrors too! Thankfully the foot pedals are the same but things are different enough that I really did have to take lessons and stuff. I had been driving for more than 10 years when I had to do all of this. The actual mechanics of driving were the easiest part – the challenge was learning the new rules and driving decently, at least during the test. (Those that know me will agree that I drive like a lunatic with lots of bad habits. I drive pretty decently now, until I get back home and then all those bad habits and lunacies make an appearance!) Anyway, one thing that was different wa...

Before I had my baby, I had my first "baby": Ever since I saw one of these in London , circa 1999 I wanted one. It looked so cute, was so unique yet included all the comforts of more expensive cars. So after pining for one of these, I finally got mine in November 2001. It was brand new with 4 miles on the clock and I was the happiest girl in town! Over the years this car has been loved like no car before: it has always been lovingly hand washed (none of those rough machine washes for my baby!), kept in a garage most of the time, all services done on time and fluids kept topped up and has always been kept very clean on the inside and out. I love driving this car, I love the fact that it’s left-hand drive, I love the color, I love the panoramic sunroof, I love the way I can use the gears but then push a button and turn it into a full automatic… I just love this car. Circumstances are forcing me to sell and although I know that it’s a sensible decisi...