We've been back from our holiday for a week and a half and have come down to earth with a thud as the constant activity and adrenaline of traveling are replaced by the usual household and school routines. Returning to chilly temperatures from the balmy summer weather overseas has also been a bit of a shock to the system.
The trip, on the whole, was amazing but I know I don't need to tell most of you that travelling with toddlers and kids for an extended period is never going to be a job for the faint-hearted.
We covered a lot of ground from France to Spain to Finland to Japan. As well as revelling in the sights, sounds and tastes of all of those places we encountered our fair share of travel gremlins.
Luggage that didn't arrive at our destination including the stroller (twice!), sick kids, European train strikes and (horror of all horrors!) no functioning movie screens on one long 10 hour legs of our flight.
Cee Cee was great and enjoyed the constant stimulation of changing locations. Miss Wink, on the other hand, was not a happy camper for most of the time and missed her little routines and familiar surroundings at home. We celebrated her second birthday while we were away. In retrospect maybe she was a little young for a trip of that kind....
Two places we visited were fabulous from a crafty point of view. Tokyo, of course, needs no explanation but the other gem was Helsinki, both in terms of its handmade craft and also the higher end Scandinavian textiles and design.
I'll write a bit more about both places when I get the chance but in the meantime (for your viewing pleasure!) I've included photos of some of my shopping haul of stationery, fabric and notions from Japan throughout this post.
Some favourites are the pink and orange trellis flower fabric and the Liberty Mirabelle fabrics in the second photo from top, both of which are tricky to find online. I also treated myself to a couple of metres of Nani Iro gauze fabric in the photo below, the motifs and colours of which seem to happily echo (in a more modern way) the retro design in the Lecien print at right.
Am enjoying catching up on all your blogs. It seems everyone's been busy, busy busy!