Atomic Appliance

My Atomic stove-top coffee machine makes a perfectly strong espresso base for an iced coffee. Yes, we are experiencing heat, finally, and the challenge is how to stay cool and refreshed. Bring on the iconic equipment. The ZipDee awning provides a shady space and the Atomic provides the caffeine stimulation to prevent me from slipping into a siesta-loving languidness.

I nominate this chunkily elegant 'objet' as my full-timer's non-practical indulgence item. For what would life be like if we were ruled by the head alone, without influence from the heart? Well, we wouldn't be living in an Airstream for a start. It isn't impractical, the Atomic can make great coffee once you've mastered some variables, it's just not the most compact coffee maker you could find. But it is the most beautiful. I should know, I have a thing about coffee machines. And, it's aluminium and curvy. Ring any bells?

Recipe for staying cool and alert: 2 teaspoons brown sugar in a sturdy glass (maybe leave the spoon in to absorb some heat and prevent your glass cracking!) Add a shot or two of perilously strong coffee. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Top up with milk and leave for a few minutes to cool. When you can wait no longer, add ice cubes and stir some more.
The result is so sweet and milky that you hardly notice it kicking you in the head. Enjoy.

Airstreams Inspire

'Palm Springs Airstream' by Leah Giberson

One of my favourite shops on Etsy is Leah Giberson's. Many of her paintings are of Airstreams and other cool trailers, as well as iconic houses and objects. Her style, which saturates the image with colour while pairing back extraneous detail, is really suited to her trailer, suburban and urban structures, and pool-side subjects. In this one she has captured the sunlight so well, you almost need to squint to look at it. On her website she describes her subjects as ordinary. I find them anything but. I love urban and suburban images. We have known for some time that we will not be returning to live in the city, but urban landscapes are as much a part of my experience and inspiration as any pastoral scene.

The Genius of Wally Byam

Last night I was already enjoying The Genius of Design on BBC2 but got very excited towards the end when the subject became Wally Byam, the designer of the very first Airstream trailers and the founder of the Airstream company.

The programme was about 20s and 30s design innovators and the birth of modernism. It showed the explosion of creative invention going hand in hand with the development of industrial materials, a move towards minimal and functional style as a reaction against the overly-decorated. One of the principles was that good design can be more affordable and democratic if it isn't laden with unnecessary adornment. The story went from Bauhaus to Habitat via Le Corbusier, Henry Dreyfuss and Wally Byam. Those kinds of leaps in creativity make my heart flutter. And the paring down and simplification are like a whiff of eucalyptus to me.












The narrator described the Airstream style of the thirties as "folk modernism", "Le Corbusier meets Henry Dreyfuss from a designer who probably never heard of either of them." I guess that puts Wally in a school of his own then. I know that the best thing you can ever see in your rear-view mirror is an Airstream. That's just one of the many reasons why we live and travel in ours full-time. Like the Airstreamers on The Genius of Design said, it's self-contained, has all the comforts of home and if you don't like the view you can just move on.