Miss Moussetache aka Mimimou

Antoine de Saint Exupéry's Little Prince came from a planet scarcely any larger than a house. He shared his little planet with good plants, bad plants, a couple of vulcanos and one beautiful rose. The image of this small asteroid covered in green with one magnificent flower sticking out of it, has always made me smile: wouldn't it be magical to live on such a planet? One day, while on an urban exploration of Amsterdam, there it was, my first string garden: a little ball of soil, covered in moss, with one, tiny plant growing on top. I wrote about the moss ball, or Kokedama as it is called in Japan, in a previous post but I have waited the whole winter before venturing on making one. In the end I even turned this event into something special by inviting friends and teaching them too how to add a bit of magic to the world: because that is truly what they do. That's why I want to teach this to you too. What you will need 1. a tiny plant ; moss can't stand direct sunlig...

Urban Green A plant takes up space. Which is fine if you have space but more complicated if you live in a Harry Potter-style broom closet. But plants are even being used as purifiers by Nasa so it might be worth throwing a few pair of shoes away in favour of a green friend. Unless you are as lucky as I am to live near the just opened (and AMAZING) shop Urban Green . If they would serve coffee, I would move there. In this shop I have discovered something which they call string gardens . Small planets with grass growing all around except at the top where you have a different plant sprouting, like a cherry blossom or an olive tree. Apparently they are all over the web but I am thankful Urban Green showed them to me. Sometimes it's nicer to discover something yourself than have a blogger pointing it to you. The inspiration for these string gardens can be found in the kokedama , an ancient form of bonsai, and is fairly easy to reproduce: 1. Roll clay-heavy soil into balls; 2. Cover th...

Wednesday 1 September I had parked my bike next to someone else's when I noticed one thing missing: the other bike only had one pedal. 'How uncomfortable for the riders' right foot!' I thought. My grocery shop was across the street so I started walking towards it. I can never walk in one straight line so I was sort of zigzagging on the road when I noticed a familiar object lying on the tram rail: a bike pedal! It wasn't the right color nor the right size but it was a bike pedal. So I ran back and carefully pushed the pedal in the metal pin. It fitted! The cinderella bike had found its almost perfectly fitting shoe. I smiled and left. Little things can change the world too. The End.

Floods , another oil spill , giant hail , food riots ... OK. Yes. I understand. A lot of things are not going very well in the world and there are many reasons to be sad. But at the same time... should I be sad because I can't do much about it? A week ago I have decided to change the world and I am making one step a day towards my destination. At least. The great thing is that there are no rules and it's not really important where you start. Which means you could do ANYTHING, ANYTIME. For example, you could make a complete stranger smile, just by saying something nice or sharing a moment ('look at that rainbow'). Or you could make seed bombs and drop them in desolated areas of your city. Or you might embellish the street with a few crayons and the help of some children. Take a few things into consideration: it's important to stick to your believes as much as possible, to mean what you do and to act impulsively . Monday 30 August My boyfriend and I have named this...

At exactly 02.47 PM on 3rd October 2007 in Central Park, New York, I discovered poodles scare me. At that moment in time a perfectly trimmed, white poodle was walking majestically towards me and I swear the pavement cracked underneath his paws: he was so big, he was able to look me in the eye. I used to beg my parents to get me a poodle when I was a little girl, but from that day on, my conception of a 'poodle' had changed. All information in our mind is stored in little boxes, which we then label with a name and fill with a memory, a rough concept and an emotion. My poodle box said 'cuddly; small and fluffy; happiness' but when I saw the poodle mentioned previously, my mind and my senses conflicted with what I thought a poodle to be and I was forced to renew my information box. I changed that into 'scary; BIG and fluffy; fear'. Then I realized there was another box which information was very similar to the giant poodle's, its label read 'monster'. ...

It was rush hour at the Amsterdam railway station and I was on my way to Brussels. The train was running late and as a consequence everybody was walking up and down the platform impatiently, moving in coordinated blocks. That's how I saw her: at one point the mass left a huge gap right where she was standing. At first she seemed motionless like a statue: an elderly lady, somewhere in her eighties, with wavy hair, a soft suede coat, a mohair turtleneck sweater, wonderfully cut pants and lovely flats. All of which was in the purest shade of white. She looked as if she had stepped right out of a Vogue winter fairytale. But the lady was conscious of everybody staring at her: young girls with their mocking smiles, young boys rolling their eyes in disbelief. The white lady's hands clutched more and more to the bag she had pushed in front of her like a shield. I thought she looked amazing. I went up to her and said 'Madame, you look beautiful'. A lovely smile broke her face in...