On The Long Island Railroad

JONES BEACH, LONG ISLAND, NY

Dress is an old favourite picked up in NYC three summers ago.

Please note that what appears to be a pair of waist-high sludge-green knickers is actually a rather pricey BCBG Max Azria swimsuit. At the time of purchase I was very tanned and it matched my coral lipstick.

During our stay in New York, my family and I had booked tickets to see Sting perform with the London Royal Philharmonic at somewhere called 'Jones Beach Theater' on Long Island. So we travelled on the L.I.R.R. (Long Island Rail Road), immortalised for me and my brother in The Great Gatsby of course, watching skyscrapers morph into low concrete garages, parking lots and eventually, spacious wetland.

Upon arriving at the theatre, realising we were hours early, and the whole venue being deserted, there was nothing to do but grin, bear it, and do handstands for the next three hours...

P.S. Now I know some Americans get a bit funny about using the old naughty 'toilet' word, but 'Comfort Stations?' I found that beyond bizarre!

\\\ ' N'importe Quoi' ///

PS1 Warm Up, Queens, NYC

Caution: Art-heavy images ahead. Concentrate, and see if you can spot me in my Edie-print dress.

After five days of being overwhelmed with creative greatness, it all culminated in me dropping in on a PS1 WarmUp party at the MoMa's cooler little brother gallery across in Queens the night I flew home. The current exhibition showcases New 'New York Art', which means stuff by New York artists, I suppose. The big old school building is a bit like a maze, and anything goes; every room is a surprise. There are labels describing the pieces, but they're so small and 'n'importe quoi', nobody looks at them. This is full-blown, life-size, in your face art by and for a ' n'importe quoi' generation. And outside, a huge crowd are bristling in the fading sun, beers in hand, waiting for darkness to fall and Animal Collective to play on the stage, which constantly seems on the brink of falling down a steep set of stairs.

\\\ DO POST BILLS ///

NEW YORK ; LOST & FOUND IN ARTLAND

Edie screenprint dress from Lisa Perry on Madison Avenue. This was a very, very special purchase. A once in a lifetime purchase, and is my most favourite thing right now, and probably forever.

I'm a huge Art fan. I'm not an artist as such (although I did paint a watercolour landscape recently), but one of the things I looked forward to most about New York was being able to hurl myself energetically around the galleries. This city really must, hands down, have the best art collection in the world. It is just stupendous. While I was there, between the Met and the MoMa, you could see pretty much everything Picasso ever created - rooms were absolutely overflowing with him! Then there was the Matisse exhibition at the MoMa, the 20th Century European galleries at the Met, Gustav Klimt's 'The Kiss' at the Neue Gallerie... I was just blown away. And that's just the official stuff. Take a walk around SoHo, or the West Village, or Queens, and at every corner you'll discover an individual's artistic contribution to the city, whether it be rainbow graffiti or pop-art stencilling, or a lifesize steel sculpture of Charles C. Ebbet's iconic photograph Lunch atop a Skyscraper parked on Broome Street.

\\\ THESE GREEN WALLS ///

NEW YORK; CROSSTOWN MEANDERINGS

Seeking relief from the heat and the crush of the city streets, it was an absolute joy to retreat into the cool green-ness of Central Park. On could spend days alone exploring every nook and cranny of this cosmopolitan haven, designed in 'English Garden' style, which is unsymmetrical and more 'wild' than 'French Garden' style, as I learned from an Upper Westsider and avid fan of the park. The landscaping of central park is such that with its many levels, you can get so many different vistas from different viewpoints. It's beautiful to observe the skyline erupting out of lush greenery; and despite being in the centre of Manhattan you feel far, far away. Especially while enjoying a sensational picnic from Dean & Deluca's!

Another naturalistic retreat to escape to is the Highline on the west side of the Meatpacking District; a section of deserted elevated railway line which has been converted into a public walkway and planted with wild flowers and grasses. Up above the pavements, among the roofs and fire escapes, away from the traffic, people came up to enjoy the peace and read in the sun, socialise with neighbours or sell organic plum and lavender popsicles (lush).

As if the culinary delights of earlier hadn't been enough, I couldn't pass through Greenwich village without popping into the Magnolia Bakery on the way home, much to the delight of younger siblings!