Fake Vintage

I love this town; it's quirky, unique and international. But Hong Kong does not do vintage, it does not like to do second hand in any form. Here things should be NEW. It forms the foundations of society, this is China - things are replaceable, disposable, cheap and ready to be consumed. If you want retro it can be manufactured for you in an instant. As good as new......as good as old!

So a search for vintage included a chain of vintage 'style' clothes or a shop in central owned by a Macao casino heiress selling off her already worn but current season designer catwalk fashion. If any reader has found King street here in SARS please correct me. But my journey to vintage 'style' clothing shop reflected the cities second hand sentiment. A city where shopping ceases at 11pm every night...the vintage 'style' clothing joint was closed.

And just to prove everything else was open....

So in the spirit of the city, I embraced the ironic notions of retro and purchased a pair of wedges straight from The Loveboat. Or lets say inspired by Loveboat re-runs. They are finished with navy terry towelling lining. Now I LOVE a bit of terry towelling and am of the school that there should be more of it - MUCH more. So whilst wearing these beauties I will imagine sipping cinzano laced with glazed cherries, I turn my mary-kay face carefully as to not upset my blow wave all the while watching tanned men in euro trunks diving off platforms into a blue pool.

Aside from my loveboat fantasy, these wedges are as vintage as yesterdays vegetarian noodles were vegetarian (the inclusion of roast chicken and pork sausage was stretching the commonly held definition). In a last ditch effort I have photographed them in possibly the only remaining vintage item in Hong Kong - a red taxi!

My first good chat with a local..

There is a little shop that opened in our street about 6 months ago that keeps catching me eye. I keep meaning to go in there but fail each time because I’m either embarrassed by the cumbersome and bright orange Sainsbury bags in hand or I’m meant to be somewhere else in a hurry. The shop has little hand strung Tibetan style flags out the front and its window is filled with quirky vintage style dresses, buttons and badges, even handmade cards. It’s a treat just to look at.

Finishing work early yesterday gave me a carefree hour to finally step beyond the pretty window into the shop and its vintage inspired clothes and accessories made by local designers. On this occasion, despite admiring everything, I left empty handed but opted to make up for this by grabbing some dinner treats from the café a few doors down - and this is where my day became so much more interesting. I had my first good chat with a local in my new neighbourhood - the woman who runs the clothes shop I’d just been to! Turns out the shop used to be a chemist run by her father and then after that rented out to the local antiques buyer and seller before finally coming back to her to try her hand at. My new found local is also a yoga teacher – unfortunately not in London Bridge – however she did remind me that there is a new place that has opened up just down the road that I should try. As I was handed my fresh pastries and made my way back down the street towards home I was left with only one disappointment – not having the courage to ask her name and introduce myself. Next time, there’s always next time.

Task #13- Vintage Shoppe

Visit a vintage shop or any quirky shop that has caught your eye recently. Try something different on. Does it suit you?

Hoot!

"What is it?" said the husband. "It's an owl," I replied. "Can't you tell?"

"No," he said. "I love you, but no."

I have very vague memories of learning macrame at school as a small child, and being really into it. I remember twisted strands that formed pot holders. There were beads and coarse twine. I don't recall it being overly difficult, at least not as fiddly as it was when I threw myself into it again this week with my 'Woman's Day Complete Book of Handicrafts' (1973) to guide me. After practising the basic knots, I decided to launch myself into a real project - an owl. I found the pattern online and began...well enough.

I tied the strands onto a dowel and taped it to a work surface (the back of a cardboard coffee tray!)

The first alternating square knots were a breeze. More detail was added. A couple of beady eyes, some half hitches, more alternating square knots and some square knot sinnets.

Needless to say, this little number took most of the afternoon. There's meant to be more to it - another dowel for the owl's perch, and more bloody alternating square knots for the tail. But I was done... I'm quite into 'crafting' at the moment. I knit whenever I get a chance, have great plans for getting back into sewing and really look forward to teaching myself some new things, crochet and embroidery amongst them. I rather fancied I'd really enjoy this macrame thing, but no. It was fiddly and fussy and a bit boring. But there's the lure of a few garments in the Woman's Day craft book...

This elegant necklace, for instance...

Or this glamorous golden shawl...

Or perhaps this jaunty little number for the Christmas party season...

The Hand Thong

Patience is one virtue I don't have. Even as an ambitious 8 year old I knew macrame was beyond me. I gave the old Knitting Nancy a fairly pathetic whirl, and tossed it aside quickly for full two hour renditions of Joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat in front of the mirror with a hairbrush. Even so I was determined to give this one a bash. Several trips to baron craft shops left me floundering without tools - I had a good go at the basic knots on kids how-to websites. I think Hugo's understanding of macrame is that it is a matted knot to be launched across the room.

I descended into my 8 year old feelings of failure, only this time Joseph and mirror dancing would not save me. Just as it didn't when I failed my year 8 sloppy joe assignment.

Woe.

Then a moment of inspiration. I might not be a macrame master but I could manage a bit of finger knitting back in the day. Yahoo, hold on cowgirl. I finger knitted my way into the night, until I came up with this exclusive yet functional design, I have labeled it ....the hand thong. Feelings of year 8 sewing failure cast aside, I marched proudly onto Zara in the hope they will take it on as part of their winter collection.

Task #12 - Out-of-Date Crafts

Remember macramé in primary school? Revisit those crafty days with some rope and beads and try to create something spectacular.

(I know these are busy times, ladies - you have until Sunday 20th June!)

Success!

It's late by a couple of weeks but I finally played a board game. Ange and I sat down to an intense game of rude word Scrabble. It was great idea in theory, but in practice there aren't enough 'F', 'U', 'C' and 'K' tiles to really make it work. We stretched the definition of 'rude', used as many vague euphemisms as we could get away with and struggled through the last of the tiles, yawning past our bedtime. Result: I won, thanks to a few triple word score lucky breaks.

Croupier

Since you guys have stolen my proposed titles of 'failed miserably' and 'Cheat', I have pursued the task with the added guilt of missing the deadline. Here is my week with this seemingly SIMPLE task.

THURSDAY

Babe, I have to play a game for the blog this week, fancy a game of scrabble

I will be asleep in five minutes

FRIDAY

Monopoly???

It's Friday night babe

SUNDAY

So how about that game of scrabble?

Work tomorrow babe

MONDAY

Scott we HAVE to play a board game

Can't you play that one by yourself ......patience!

TUESDAY

Hugo you ready to learn a new game

No I don't

Here is a pictorial record of how Hugo's first board game went. I especially purchased a Thomas the Tank Engine game of pairs. He began by using a piece of bluetack on the card he had to remember! The game was completed in record time!

(note bluetak)

GAME OVER!

Failed miserably!

Its 10.17pm on Tuesday night – I have less than 2 hours to complete this week’s task. Over the last week I have continued to bore myself stupid with study of the body’s systems – everything from understanding the ugliness that is the penis to the beauty that comes with the 6 senses. I have hand written study notes then retyped them, I’ve drawn fancy looking pictures and impressive flow charts in hope that something might stick in my head for the exam. Around this mountain of boredom I have moved house and completed a round trip of IKEA. I have transformed the bachelor pad into a very happy home that I LOVE and spent a weekend lunching with gorgeous friends. I am telling you all of this for one reason – I have failed miserably at completing one simple task and need to seek some forgiveness for letting the team down. The board game still sits in the shop waiting for me and at 10.25pm it will be waiting in the shop for another night yet. Will as I might, I cannot come up with even a simple pack of cards in the new and improved happy home. I say goodnight to you with a promise to do better next week and with a photo of the last time I played a good game in fine company…..it was known as the backgammon tour of Eastern Europe – too many backgammon contests to remember played in pubs, alongside rivers and in the midst of a very funky music scene.

Cheat!

I'm moving house tomorrow. I'm surrounded by mess and crap and chaos. Alas, the board games, all three of them (Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit and a chessboard), and a couple of jigsaws, all went into a box marked 'board games' weeks ago. That box is at the bottom of this pile of boxes:

So I'm not playing a board game this week. It's a bit like the cocktail 'cake' post of another Tale of Three-er - I'm cheating. I'm sure you understand.

In the spirit of it all, though, I did have a few games on Lexulous.com last night. That's online Scrabble. I heard Richard Glover describe it on his radio show recently as "the heroin of online gaming." It's true - I used to be addicted, back when it was Scrabulous.com. A member of my household may or may not play quite keenly at times. He claims that he controls it, it doesn't control him. I'm saying nothing.

It's a pretty poor effort, I know. I promise, when I'm in the new place and everything is unpacked, the bloke and I will sit down to a good old-fashioned game of real Scrabble. But in the meantime, I've got to fly - this computer is about to get packed into one of those boxes.