Browsing Tag

France

Maison et Objet, Paris – part deux

There was so much to see at the show that it was almost impossible to cover in one day, let alone one blog post. So this second post focuses more on furniture and objects.

There were distinct themes and trends coming through. My favourite was the natural, scandi-influenced furntiure and styling, using natural palettes, fabrics and textures.

This table was a stand-out piece for me. It reminded me of long-lazy summer lunches and made me wish for a mediterranean terrace to set like this. The picture probably doesn’t do it justice, but it really was wonderful. I could imagine an outdoor wedding or birthday party full of friends and family around this table.

There were lots of dusky pinks and slate colours, and light blues as accents.

There was also some quirky stuff, which, in small doses in the right place could look quite cool. This bird and the weird wooden lamps were fun.

This is literally a drop in the ocean on the items on display and the beautiful roomsets to view. You could easily spend a couple of days taking in the vastness of the show and spending time talking to the designers, but all too soon our whirlwind tour was over! I think we covered about 5 miles in the exhibition centre alone, so if you do go next year, wear comfy shoes!

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5th February 2017

Design

Maison et Objet, Paris – part une

I was invited to attend Maison et Object with a friend who is an interior designer. I had never heard of the show before as the worlds of digital and interior design don’t really cross that often, but I was excited to find out what it was all about and learn a bit more about interior design.

An early start from home to London then a hop on the train across (well, underneath) the channel and we were soon in Paris. The Maison et Objet international trade fair is held in a huge, multi-hall complex out near the airport. There were (I think) 8 halls in total, covering sectors such as ‘Eclectic’, ‘Cosy’, ‘Elegant’ and many others, right through to ‘Fashion’ and ‘Beloved’, and many more. Quite a daunting prospect to cover that much ground in one day, but that’s all we had, so we dived straight in – starting at the very first row.

Immediately I saw much that caught my eye. These beautiful metal lamps and lightshades looked wonderful together, throwing out warm and homely light. They are from a company called Zenza, based in the Netherlands, and I wanted them all!

There were some real standout themes for me; silver coloured metals, drop lighting and coloured glass, along with North African inspired colours, set against natural palettes and fabrics really worked.

Talking of metals, there were pinapples everywhere – though not many in silver, like this one.

There was lots of lighting at the show, and these ones from Le Deun really stood out for me. I’d love to use these somewhere – I assume you can place them on walls or ceilings. They looked stunning together on the stand, and they are designed and manufactured with low energy consumption in mind.

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5th February 2017

Play

Endurance – racing and riding

Le Mans is the most frustrating racing circuit I’ve ever been to. Perhaps it’s not like this for MotoGp or for the cars, but for the Motorcyle World Endurance it was crazy. None of the main entrances were open and there were no car parks. Like, none.

When we arrived on the Friday we decided to head over to the circuit to see Steve. Easy, right? Our hotel was at the bottom of the Mulsanne Straight – no more than 2 miles from the circuit. So we jumped back on the bike, expecting to be able to go to the main entrance, park up in the car park and buy a ticket. Oh My Days. Firstly, not one of the main entrances was open – the one off the motorway was coned off and the one we found was an entrance to the campsite only. We drove round in big circles, getting increasingly more frustrated and using increasingly ridiculous bad schoolgirl French to get directions!

Finally, we worked out that the bike had to be parked in the car park for camping and that there was an almost hidden entrance we could buy tickets at and walk through. We walked under some tunnels and alongside the track and eventually found the paddock and met Steve, who walked us in. Time for a quick brew and a catch up on the news and we headed back to the bike and the hotel, for some much needed food and a glass (bottle) of wine (or two). Perfect, and we assumed that the main entrance and car park would be open on race day.

We slept in and missed breakfast, so decided to wander over the road where there was a supermarket, and get some bits to have a picninc in the park. We bought a local ‘delicacy’ which we think was called ‘marmit’ – but to be fair, it could have been called anything. It turned out to be some cold vegetables and a chicken and bacon type mayonniase salad. We think. It was ok, but mostly sitting in the park, eating weird food with a plastic fork in the sunshine after riding an epic ride and with a motorcycle race ahead of us was just about perfect.

So, the plan was, get to the circuit ahead of the start, which was at 3pm. We set off, confident we could get in to the circuit car park, so we headed again for the main entrance. Still closed. On race day. Back round in circles, we eventually worked out that most people were parking on the street/pavement a little down the road. So we did that. Not so easy to manouvre that enormous bike in between cars but got there in the end. We were parked. We were in the circuit. Success!

We had tickets to get into the circuit and grandstand seats so we were not really expecting to get into the paddock again. However, Steve managed to sneak out a couple of passes and we were in. ‘Would you like to see the bikes?’ Errr…YEAH! We were in the garage and on the pitlane at Le Mans. Seriously super-impressive.

As the race start got nearer the crowd filled out in the stands and the atmosphere started to change in the garages, as it always does. The starting boys went out to the grid and then suddenly there was an open grid gate in front of us. We stuck our heads down and walked out…onto the starting grid at Le Mans. WOW! It’s almost like an ampitheatre, with the crowd and bike noise being amplified.

Seeing the Le Mans start at Le Mans was special, especially seeing it from pitlane. We slipped out of the paddock after that and had a wander around and then made our way up to the stands to watch Steve, who was out third for the team.

A bit later we went back to the hotel for dinner, decided to sleep and set the alarm for 4.30am to go back to the track. We were back for 5am. Everyone was tired, but Steve and Caroline were still in really good spirits. Once again we were lucky to get into the garage and see a night-time changeover from the perfect viewpoint. Totally fantastic – the highlight of the weekend.

We stuck around for a while then decided to get on the road home. We had a long journey and back to work tomorrow, so unfortunately we couldn’t stay until 3pm, when the race finished. No only that, but rain was forecast and we were a bit knackered.

The journey home was a bit wet and windy, some hairy moments over the long viaducts with the cross-winds and we were glad to see Calais and the train terminal. We even arrived home in time for a glass of wine and an evening. Tiring but fantastic weekend.

: Lunch in the park

: Getting ready to go to the circuit

: Hotel

: Picnic

: Pitlane

: Bikes

: Le Mans pitlane

: Penz 13 BMW

: Twits in the pitlane

: The rider

: Steve, me and Madge

: Night changeover

26th September 2014

Travel

Le Grande Depart

Last weekend we decided to ride to Le Mans. Our friend and former team-mate Steve Mercer was racing in the 24hour Motorcyle Endurance World Championship and we wanted to go and cheer him on. I also wanted to see what the difference between National and World Endurance racing is really like.

It’s the first long journey since we bought the new bike, and in fact, the longest journey we’ve ever doneon a bike so I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

We got an early start on the Friday to get to Folkestone for the EuroTunnel train to Calais. It was just getting light when we left and it was really foggy, which wasn’t particularly nice. But we managed to avoid too much traffic on the motorway and got to the train terminal with time for a quick breakfast in Leon.

I love going on the channel tunnel train, it’s so easy and the journey is so quick. They gave all the bikers our own carriage and before we knew it we were the other side, having to remember which side of the road to ride on.

We travelled south from Calais, stopping at Abbeville, Rouen and somewhere about an hour outside of Le Mans. We got a lovely steak-frittes at a service station and had a few coffees to keep us going on the way. The BMW is very comfortable, but there’s no doubt about it, Le Mans is a little bit further than we’d kinda realised. Or rather, I’m not really sure I’d considered what 6 and a half hours on a bike would feel like. Numb bum!

Thankfully the weather was beautiful and I had lots of amazing scenery to distract me. You can do a lot of thinking on the back of a motorbike but I definately need some sort of voice activated recorder so I can remember my genius ideas after I’ve got off! Mind you, I was also doing a lot of very bad singing, so not sure I’d want that recorded…

We finally arrived in Le Mans about four o’clock, quite stiff and tired, but otherwise excited to be there and excited to have finally made it. I didn’t get bored once and it was a great adventure.

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24th September 2014