Nora

I went on a field trip to visit Iron Age hillforts, and I'd forgotten just how much I love the countryside.



The ever cynical and wonderfully sarcastic Te tagged me for having "brilliant blog content or design" (clearly a compliment). She herself is rather brilliant; as a history graduate, she gets nothing but kudos from me and she's moving a million miles from Australia to Spain, proving what a brave, bolshy lass she is. She also has wonderful taste in photographs and music...and skills with boys. I won't boast about myself as I'm about to bait you with ten demanded truths. So now, without further ado, for the spill of honesty.

1. I study Archaeology, did a week of seminars when everyone else had gone home and (amongst other things) I got to examine bones. And I discovered that I love holding bones. I am dark and sinister and macabre and morbid. But they're fascinating. My mother is a doctor, I must get it from her.
2. Beached whales break my heart.
3. I'm an amateur dramatic. My favourite things to be have included Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Romeo's spurned Rosaline the Queen of Cats, a bearded lady, a girl pretending to be a boy playing a girl and Orphan No. 5.
4. I love cats. I will be one of those women who, in old age, replaces affection and attention with cats. There is an alleyway between my flat and a friend's, and after two fateful nights of seeing a black cat stalk it, I can't help but wait a few minutes whenever I go past, in case it comes back.
5. I was in a band for the briefest spell. We practiced in a church. My dad used to be in bands, the one I remember best being called Shadowfax. We play sometimes, my dad and me, when I go home. One day, I will be in another band, and I promise to bring something changing to your ears.
6. I'll eat almost any vegetable you can throw at me.
7. I often do a gesture that looks like I'm clutching at my heart; it's because so many things touch me that I can't actually express it in any articulate way and therefore can only do the gesture. When I do this, I am not suffering from cardio-vascular trouble and do not need an inhaler - I am just moved.
8. I once ran away barefoot into the woods after a fight and left a trail of banana peel so people would know how to find me when they noticed I was gone. They didn't come looking so I ate my banana, went home and washed my feet.
9. I believe in love.
10. One day, books will swallow me whole and take over my life. I was brought up in a house with a study, bookshelves on each wall and every one full. I will go home this Easter to be overwhelmed by this literary chaos. This is the way I think life should be, and so it is my fate to eventually drown in the written word.

I also got a chance to go to Forest with Kerri before leaving. Blooming lovely.


dress and belt - Barnardo's; shirt - Bear's; tie - left over trim; brooch - grandmother's