marrakech

I'm about as spiritual as a sock (writes Jessica), but on my first night, sitting at a rooftop cafe overlooking Jema Al Fina listening to the call to prayer I certainly felt something stir inside. Mind you that could well have been something to do with the amount of food my friend and I had eaten earlier. There were so many amazing market stalls selling colourful dried fruits, nuts and aromatic spices you could bottle the smell of Marrakech and sell it.

We spent the first part of our holiday exploring the narrow winding streets the locals call the souks. You can buy everything from your own authentic tagine to sequin-embellished sunglasses. After exhausting our shopping budget we set off on a real adventure - a two day drive to the Sahara desert. I can't do the desert justice by describing it but the photo at the end can give you some idea of how remote it really was. I travelled with two local guides and my friend Hanna and the four of us drank Moroccan tea and watched the sun rise over the sand. We were only away from the office for a week but it felt like we'd had the trip of a lifetime in those seven days. Incredible.

(that's Hanna walking up the sand dune in the last picture)

happy new year resolutions

It's 2011, so that means some of us are making resolutions to either give up, do more or change something in our lives. Chris Streger came up with the ide of the 'To Resolve Project', a challenge to illustrators and designers to create an iPhone wallpaper featuring their New Year's resolution. The results are some of the best looking resolutions I've seen, and although I'm not normally very good at sticking to my resolutions, I will keep checking Chris's blog to see what others are (rather beautifully) resolving to do.