As you know I’m a self-employed interior designer, working from home whilst also looking after little LMH can be a little bit of a crazy balancing act! The toddler is only in nursery school 2 mornings a week and the rest of the time my work gets done during nap-time, in the evening and at weekends, I’m not complaining but the lack of downtime takes it’s toll which is why I need travel in my life to give me the opportunity to recharge, reenergise, make memories and feel inspired to be creative.
Gaining inspiration from every possible place is SO important in this industry which is why I always try and tie in our family holidays with some inspiring sight seeing too. Last month we visited Norway, one of my favourite countries on Earth, we sailed there which gave me the much needed ‘sea days’ to really relax and rest my mind that, when at home, never stops ticking over things whether they’re work or family related (it also gives me the chance to catch up on some sleep after months of late nights working, everyone naps on holiday right?). Visiting the Norwegian Fjords gave me the perfect combination of natural and architectural inspiration, Flam offered up some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever seen.
We took a train ride up the mountain which is one of the world’s steepest journeys which gave us views of waterfall after waterfall.
Bergen gave us the iconic Scandinavian architecture, with colourful wooden buildings in the UNESCO world heritage old town (it’s also the rainiest city in Europe and lived up to that name on the day we visited!).
Stavanger was an unlikely hit with me, I wasn’t expecting much more than a working fishing town but it had a really creative vibe to the place with rows of wooden buildings housing cool bars and cafes. There was also some fab street art on the newer buildings and the small city had ALL of my favourite scandi shops within walking distance of each other, maybe in another life I’ll be a Stavanger dweller!?
I wrote a post a while back on my favourite sources of inspiration
which might be of interest if you enjoyed this read, now back to work whilst my creative juices are still full!
