Larkin & Catcher

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are in the perfect mood to face the New Year. I had the most relaxed Christmas ever and I loved it. Usually we have a big family get together but this year was a much more chilled-out affair. I slobbed out most of the time, eating the equivalent of a small hippo in chocolate, watching movies, and playing around with my lovely Christmas presents. Just great and no stress whatsoever.

The only turkey I saw this year was the ‘movie’ Four Christmases — what were they thinking? — I had bigger laughs when I had root canal work done last year. To restore some equilibrium we had to watch Star Trek again – now that’s a movie (there’s someone here who hyperventilates  near enough every time Chris Pike is on the screen – though I think it is the bad-boy Captain Kirk character who she is really in love with).

If you placed an order in the few days over the Christmas period, then be assured that all orders are packed up and ready to ship out today, as the postal service now resume their collection and delivery service after their Christmas break. It seemed an especially long break this year but I guess that is because the weekend followed Christmas day.

Back to the shop.

So what do you do when it is Christmas Eve and you’ve got some time off and you have a million things yet to do? Why, go and pay a quick visit to Anthropologie, of course. Strangely enough my first visit, now they are in the UK (dodgy grammar — must be the Festive Spirit…).

I’ve only had a few minutes but so far I’ve had a look at the clothes (obviously) and like some of the ‘leisure wear’:

 These retro-look ’sleep pants’ look fun  — I think I’d wear them around the house

   These bloomers are cute

  This ‘Tissue Henley’ (love the name) doesn’t look like me at all but it would be perfect for layering for all round winter cosiness.

The only other section I’ve had a chance to look at so far is the bath category (we’re decorating) and I love what I’ve seen there. Practically all my shopping has been online this Christmas and I’ve been fairly self-controlled — so I might treat myself to something house-related from Anthropologie in the next few days.

Back to the shop

Tonight — slip-sliding through the snow, back home to hot chocolate and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. A winter wonderland outside the windows. Just perfect.

Not so great if you have to drive any distance, or work outside, or if you are stuck in an airport watching the ‘cancelled’ or ‘delayed’ annoucements — and horrible if you do not have a safe and cosy place to be. But a White Christmas is perfectly magical if the circumstances are right.

We’d like to wish you all the very best Christmas — I can’t bear to write ‘Happy Holidays’ — even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, you know what we mean. We appreciate you all and we’re sending out a thousand thanks for your support throughout the year.

We’re doing a bit of a ‘countdown to Christmas’ here — just so you know where you stand in terms of getting your gift in time for Christmas. So you’ve got tonight and the next five days to place your order to make sure it is posted in good time.

Back to the store. 

Well, we’re keeping it simple here so our last posting day before Christmas will be 21st December for 1st class mail. Orders reaching us by noon on the 21st should go out that day. That’s for the United Kingdom — it is now too late for international packages to make it in time for Christmas.

You’ll probably find other places taking orders up until the 23rd and sending items out by Special Delivery but that’s cutting it a bit too fine for comfort as far as we’re concerned, so we’re sticking to the 21st.

Back to the store

You possibly know what photochroms are but I’d never heard the term until about an hour ago. From what I can work out the ‘original’ photochroms came about way back in the 19th century when photographers used various processes (a technical term) to colourise black and white photographs.

The resulting images are quite distinctive and rather pleasing to the eye. It’s a bit like seeing the world in what we’ve come to think of as a ‘retro’ colour scheme (…like real life colour was all that different then and now…).

It’s what we see in some old postcards and films and some people (me) think there’s something quite beautiful about it. Here’s a photochrom image of a street in New York, taken around 100 years ago (via Wikipedia)

I think that colourising old photographs makes the past less of ‘another country’ and helps us connect more with the people in the photograph. They just seem a little more like us somehow, less alien.

The reason I checked out photochroms is because I was working until 9pm tonight and decided to have a half-hour skive I’ve noticed that this retro-look colourisation is becoming popular with present day photographers and I wondered how they achieved the effect (and if I could do it too).

This Vintage Postcard Photoshop Tutorial from Alibony Web Design & Graphics seems to give a good step-by-step guide to achieving a photochromic effect.

Back to the store.