My favourite words are possibilities, opportunities and curiosity.
I think if you are curious, you create opportunities, and then if you open the doors,
you create possibilities. – Mario Testino
This will stick with me all weekend.
For me, I’m doing two things this over the next few days:
- I’m trying out a new recipe for a chocolate-orange loaf made with coconut flour. And yes, reading the recipe already made me hungry.
- I’m going to try to get 6 reps done on Inis Oirr. I hate the word try but I’m not sure it’s possible. I’m really going to try though. I need to do this if I’m going to wear it in Rhinebeck and we all know there’s no greater knit-fashion show than Rhinebeck.
Eating the loaf will be easy. Getting those reps done will certainly be harder.
In the spirit of being curious, I wanted to know more about Mario Testino and I learned a lot:
- His work has been featured in Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ
- You’ve likely seen his work. He was described as “the world’s most prolific magazine and fashion trade photographer”.
- He’s generous with his success. He has worked with Save the Children, amfAR, the Elton John AIDS Foundation and CLIC Sargent for children with cancer.
- When his brother was only 10 he lost him to cancer. This remains a cause near to his heart.
- Mario is known for photographing royals, but had also done a lot of work with the major fashion houses (to name a few – Burberry, Calvin Klein, Estée Lauder, Dolce and Gabbana). {read more about him in this article}
- He was presented with an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 2014
Be curious in what you do. Learn something new. Try that crazy way of knitting a stitch, or cook up that new dessert you read about. Create opportunities and make things possible.

So how was the chocolate-orange loaf?
It was too hot and I didn’t want to bake. I wanted to eat it, just didn’t want to warm up the kitchen.