TGIFash

Ladybird

2011-05-20T13:15:00.001+01:00

Today is my best friend's birthday. She is a whopping twenty one years old, and I've known her for eleven of them, since we were young and naive, chasing ice cream vans and making up songs, having sleep-overs and writing messages on ceilings with a torch, running around Europe on school trips and summer holidays, and wondering what life held for us; I hope it holds only wonderful things for you, DL, because that's all you deserve.

Mono

2011-05-12T12:52:00.000+01:00

Your heart can pick out colour when your eyes cannot.

source
(all others unknown)

In Flight Of Night

2011-05-09T00:12:00.001+01:00

"The human mind cannot bear very much blankness - where we do not know, we invent and what we invent reflects our fears of what we do not know..."

- Purkiss, 2001

Birdy - Skinny Love

Kite

2011-05-01T11:39:00.008+01:00

It has been a year to the day that I first laid eyes on the boy I was going to fall in love with.
He makes me feel like flying.

Plage

2011-04-28T22:44:00.011+01:00

The summer has brough the sunshine back, and everything's getting brighter. Light on water and other beautiful things.

Crystal Fighters - Plage
Do you want to go to the seaside?

Lit Lunacy

2011-04-26T20:21:00.003+01:00

When seeking illumination, we look to the moon and the stars. We peer into blackness and find bright faces. We ask our questions into the dark night sky because it in itself is a question. The mystery that the moon sits amongst, the furthest reaches of time and space. You can't stare the sun in the eye.

I see the moon and the moon sees me...

All Is Wild, All Is Silent

2011-04-21T11:36:00.005+01:00

Balmorhea - Remembrance

I'd forgotten how this time of year feels.

Ondine

2011-04-01T12:13:00.007+01:00

My curiosity about selkies hasn't abated one bit. I spent this morning tucked up in bed whilst the rain came down outside my window, and delighted in a selkie story for an hour or two.

I didn't know until today that Ondine's Curse is a real congenital syndrome, one in which the body only breathes voluntarily. It's name is taken from the German myth of water nymph Ondine, who fell in love with a mortal man and cursed him when he was unfaithful to her. He had sworn that his every breath would be testament for his love for her. When he broke his promise, Ondine made it so that he would stop breathing if he ever fell asleep.

My fascination with these sea-folk is mainly to do with the questions they provoke about the people that create the stories. Selkie tales seem to alway surround the tearing between two worlds and the conflict that exists within us all between falling in love and retaining a sense of self.

Navigation

2011-03-31T12:21:00.006+01:00

The last day of March this year began windy, blowing a gale as my grandma would say, and early cherry blossom was rudely flung from the trees and onto the lawn like sad confetti. I ate museli, fed the cat and the rabbit, and watched The Lady Vanishes. I also remembered how I used to write and write and write - for catharsis, for pleasure, for the capture of something that otherwise might fly by too fast to recall or understand. It helps to make sense of things, to tie up loose ends and see where everything smooths out and becomes clear. For me, not much has been captured, offered catharsis or given pleasure for a while. There have been different kinds of capture, release and happiness, but nothing that has compelled me to write.

The morning slowly bubbled into rage. Behold, the vanishing girl. Certain certainties and truths I used to know have disappeared. How? When? At what point did I get lost? I forgot to eat my lunch, and reached a boiling point of frustration and discontent that was somehow hilarious in an empty house. So I went for a walk.

There are woods outside my house, just a small copse of trees that extend less than a mile, but I would always go there when I was small, when the weather was nice and when I needed to think about something. The wind died down, and the sun shone. Everything was quietly pushing itself upwards and outwards and the birds were calling back and forth to one another. I hitched my skirt up and climbed over stiles, held a conference with a grey horse and a Shetland pony and saw two magpies. I cut down apple blossom and the branches wept petals all the way home, leaving a breadcrumb trail behind me. No great or remarkable realisation dawned on me as I muddied my boots, but there was some kind of circumnavigationand my thoughts began to calm and organise.

I had not realised how much I had needed a homecoming, or how easy it seems to be to lose sight of yourself. Even if you look yourself in the mirror each day or constantly sign your name on pieces of paper, forgetting who you are, what you want and what you need is horribly effortless. Sometimes you need to be lost for a while in order to realise you need to be found. I want to reclaim my ambition to one day be a part of something big as well as all things small that make a life complete. I need not to vanish.

Flaws

2011-03-20T12:43:00.004Z

I am writing an essay on brotherhood in Irish Fenian tales, another about community archaeology in Scotland and a third comparing two traditional folk-drama plays from where my family live in Yorkshire. I have a bad habit of letting my work surround me until I can't see anything over or around it, and I look a little like this in my own imagination.

I have been dreaming of BKFST and listening to snow tunes. Despite the fact that the crocuses are all out and Spring is pushing through, the melodies take me straight back to a bone-deep exhaustion, endless woollen layers, frostbitten finger tips and the smell of winter.
I will be home for Spring break by the time the daffodils are out.

46664

2011-03-17T20:25:00.004Z

One of my books to finish at home over Easter is 'The Long Way to Freedom'.
It makes me so happy that Mandela was freed in the year of my birth.
I always think that coming home is freeing.

"I am the master of my fate.
I am the captain of my soul."
- William Ernest Henley

Who can truly say this?

Union

2011-03-16T17:33:00.002Z

Isbells - Reunite

"Now this enchantress claims that her spells can liberate
One heart, or can inject love-pangs, just as she wishes;
Can stop the flow of rivers, send the stars flying backwards,
Conjure ghosts in the night: she can make the earth cry out
Under one's feet, and elm trees come trooping down from the mountain."
- Dido in Book IV, lines 457-461; The Aeneid by Virgil (Oxford World's Classics)

Joseph Noel Paton's "The Reconciliation of Oberon and Titania" (1847)

You have power over someone.

Reflection

2011-02-28T15:35:00.002Z

That flowery dress was bought for a first date in the summer and worn for the 19th date, and the 34th, and the 62nd...The cardigan is green and red and cream with gold buttons, bought at Barnardo's where I volunteer and where this photograph was taken. Those boots are from Russell & Bromley, my absolute favourites; I had to send them away because their heels are so worn down that they needed to go on holiday. I've been living in that pair of jeans.

Hyggelig

2011-02-23T15:19:00.000Z

Hyggelig (Danish)
Its “literal” translation into English gives connotations of a warm, friendly, cozy demeanor, but it’s unlikely that these words truly capture the essence of a hyggelig; it’s likely something that must be experienced to be known. I think of good friends, cold beer, and a warm fire.

(found here)

A WEEK OF REUNIONS!

Blandine

2011-02-14T15:13:00.001Z

I know a boy who created an entirely new kind of crystal.
I know a girl who made a New Year's resolution to send more death threats.
I know a boy who is so full of metal that he makes machines go crazy.

Band of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You

You instead of I.

Elle Est

2011-02-11T12:37:00.003Z

After a double take in Vogue many moons ago, it would seem wrong not to acknowledge little big sister's entry into Elle this month.

Blood

2011-02-10T01:06:00.004Z

There are bonds that do not break, bridges that won't burn, ties that still bind.

The Middle East - Blood

Quainthood

2011-02-08T22:33:00.001Z

I'm all about the quaint.

Ships & Sealing Wax

2011-02-04T17:00:00.000Z

Last semester I gave a presentation on necromancy, and this term I am almost certain will do the same for selkies. In books on my course's bibliography, old lectures about St. Kilda, from a collection of Icelandic folktales given to me by my best friend and woven into the sea-sweet film The Secret of Roan Inish...these islanders and water-dwellers, their bobbing boats and fireside stories are seeping into my consciousness.

Letters like these are one of my very most favourite things - from Lenka and Michael, from me, from anyone really. I like to write and I like to receive. Write someone a letter; the time has come to talk of many things, or so a walrus told me.

The past month, Edinburgh has played witness to the kind of glorious sunsets that you wish would last forever. There are skies so beautiful that you almost hate to see them sail away into the west, fading into inky blues and violets and indigos, slipping away like a seal into water.

Pig Island Letters

2011-02-03T00:10:00.004Z

It is an odd business, tattooists practicing their art on pig skin.
Odd but interesting and bizarrely beautiful.

"Ride easy stranger
Surrender to the sky
your heart of anger."
- James K. Baxter

1674

2011-01-31T01:06:00.000Z

Consider this irrefutable proof that I time travel for a living.
Au revoir January!

Easy Company

2011-01-30T18:46:00.003Z

I'd rather have a mango than a Valentine.

Best Coast - When I'm With You

Safari Njema

2011-01-27T10:58:00.002Z

There are many long over-due photographs of my time spent in Tanzania. These are a choice few taken whilst on safari at Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro Crater, August 2010. We watched hippos appear and disappear like sinking islands in the water, saw a family of warthogs racing along the lake's shore, scalded dipped fingers in hot springs, rode jeeps standing up, stopped to let baboons cross the road, broke down next to a sleeping lion and wondered if car failure would lead to our grisly deaths, had Mexican stand-offs with vervet monkeys, got dirty and dusty and burnt and enjoyed the most amazing time.

Half Full

2011-01-26T18:36:00.003Z

I haven't been angry out loud for a long time. I'm making bread, tidying store cupboards, whirling around libraries, talking my throat hoarse, writing postcards, eating pancakes, planning trips, waiting for plans, watching True Romance and not playing Solitaire.

The loathly lady crept into bed with him and he cowered away from her hideous appearance. But when he woke in the morning, there before him was the finest drop of blood there ever was, from the beginning of the world to the end of the universe...

- taken from today's lecture, 'The History of Tales'

When upright, the Ace of Cups stands for the commencement of creative or artistic projects and all the positive powers of the unconscious mind. I don't do tarot, but I'm tipping my cup to inspiration, enlightenment and an end to apathy.

Carpe Diem

2011-01-11T00:01:00.005Z

The day is yours; go seize it.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Home

"this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart" - ee cummings

Eve

2010-12-31T18:08:00.008Z

May your decade end well, and your new year begin beautifully.Don't be the wallflower at the edge of the festivities. Remember the good times, reminisce about the past, drink and eat and make merry. Make sure you kiss someone special when the clock strikes twelve - be it your beau or your best friend, your mama or your daddy, your sister or your mister, your confidante, cousin or cat.

Hallelujah

2010-12-21T22:29:00.002Z

Peace and love, comfort and joy.

Angeles - Elliot Smith

Winter Solstice

2010-12-21T10:50:00.008Z

Today I slept through a lunar eclipse and I am not allowed to leave the house.This is not mine, but a place I like to be.

I see the moon and the moon sees me,
The moon sees the one that I want to see.
So God bless the moon, and God bless me,
And God bless the one that I want to see.

Equations

2010-12-15T23:32:00.005Z

Coming home for the holidays is as bittersweet as dark chocolate. Sweeter, though, with roast chicken and red pepper houmous, balsamic olives and feta cheese, cherry tomatoes and cranberry chutney, coleslaw and potato salad, rocket and minted peas and edamame beans, red velvet cupcakes and Christmas decorations. And family, of course.

Today I read the sad story of a girl named Lillian, and learnt that energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared.

Prayer 238

2010-12-10T10:09:00.004Z

‘…I am placing a lock upon my heart,
I am placing a lock upon my thoughts,
I am placing a lock upon my lips
And double knitting them…’

The Carmina Gadelica, collected by Alexander Carmichael, 1899

Swansea - Bombay Bicycle Club (Joanna Newsom cover)

The snow is slowly melting, there are puddles everywhere.

Giving Thanks

2010-11-25T11:41:00.005Z

For the understanding that nothing is set in stone.What are you thankful for?

Gladly, The Cross-Eyed Bear

2010-11-23T12:15:00.011Z

source unknown

Mondegreen is the word for when you misinterpret or mishear a phrase, like a line in a poem or a lyric in a song, in a way that gives it a different meaning.

‘Poetry is always a dying language but never a dead language.’

- Robert Smithson, ‘A Sedimentation of the Mind’, 1968.

Absence

2010-11-19T16:10:00.003Z

You leave a void within me.
When you go
You take the W
and leave a hole.

Here I am again.

Kickswitch

2010-10-07T16:54:00.005+01:00

Oak trees are often hit by lightning because they usually stand alone. They have thick, tough bark and softer cores of buttery wood. The lightning splits them apart, bursting through them from within, because when it strikes, it travels down through them and they explode with light.

It's my favourite month, and there has been sublime unseasonal sunshine on top of the autumnal deliciousness. I am reading 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter' for the first time, learning butterfly-fragile lines of prose from it because they are too heart-beatingly beautiful to forget. There are so many interesting and amazing things happening around me, melodies flying and chances arriving.
How and why, then, do I feel so entirely uninspired?
I miss summer strawberries and warm, white sands.
This might have something to do with it.

Ready Set Learn

2010-09-29T20:21:00.007+01:00

I'm back to my books and a busy bee schedule in a big, big way. I am studying Archaeological Theory, have a lab. class of Animal and Human Remains and also delving deep into The Supernatural World - basically myth busting and archaic cosmology. I've got a lot on my plate already this year in every little nook and cranny of my life; lots to learn and practically every part is promising to be amazing. So far, so very good.

Atlas Hands

2010-09-17T15:39:00.002+01:00

The beautiful video for Atlas Hands by Benjamin Francis Leftwich, who was charming my ears last year.

I feel like jigsaw pieces scattered across a table top, needing to be thoughtfully puzzled back together by patient hands on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.

Waka Waka

2010-09-12T00:56:00.003+01:00

My time in Tanzania has been and gone, and I'm slowly putting my life here back together. It's nearly time to head north in time for all the academic circus to begin again. I African't believe this summer is over - it has been indescribably illuminating. Incandenscent. I'm a little bit in love.

Love and Sate

2010-07-20T13:37:00.005+01:00

source unknown

Today I have a bloody throat and outside it's like monsoon weather. I had porridge, and clementine juice with honey, hot water and 10 year old whiskey, and felt better. I worry about the bumblebees when it rains like this. How can you sip flowers when the world is wetter than the ocean? Do they all just stay at home hungry for the day?

I leave for Africa one week away today. I'll be gone until September but you can hear from me here.

The Head & The Heart - Down In The Valley

You can have a little and you can have a lot, but sometimes, regardless, you just want more.

Bright Sight, Dark Memory

2010-07-18T11:14:00.009+01:00

My sisters made this happen.

This makes me think of New York.

A best friend took this photograph.

You are a shining shadow.

Away We Go

2010-07-07T14:47:00.006+01:00

I am all about the quaint.
"It's all those good things you have in you. The love, the wisdom, the generosity, the selflessness, the patience."

Truly

2010-07-06T18:32:00.000+01:00

I'm trying.

Little Maid in Adelaide

2010-07-04T12:14:00.005+01:00

REMEMBER me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

- Christina Rossetti

The copper plated leaf is going to Oz around the neck of one of my favourite people. The posy of flowers was for my best friend's little sister on her 18th birthday. The dress is China silk and used to belong to my grandma.
Today is for chicken soup and making crab apple jelly with my ma, and a belated birthday.

No Girls Allowed

2010-07-01T10:44:00.018+01:00

Stargazing at the stone circle and seeing sunrise day after day, Somerset cider and silent discos and the best breakfast sandwiches. Beautiful people, beautiful music and the most blisteringly beautiful weather. Glastonbury 2010 was such an amazing experience. I've never felt so much in the right place at the right time.

King Charles, The Avett Brothers, Ray Davies, The Temper Trap, Local Natives, The xx, Laura Marling, Avi Buffalo, Jack Johnson, The Unthanks, Mumford and Sons, Grizzly Bear, Miike Snow, Two Door Cinema Club, Frightened Rabbit...there are some acts I missed and desperately want to see somewhere one day, but I knew each day that I was exactly where I was meant to be.

Free

2010-06-21T18:00:00.005+01:00

"Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else." - Mitch Albom

Frightened Rabbit - Set You Free

The days grow shorter from here on out.

Sailing Home

2010-06-20T18:31:00.009+01:00

Home has this magically familiar and endlessly comforting smell that I really can't describe or ascribe to anything in particular. It's the earth in my garden, the trees across the road, our washing powder, the distinctive scent behind my cat's ears, rain on the pavement, the dusty warmth in back bedrooms on sunny days...of the north wind and the fleeting flowers and the food we eat together, the cast-off skin of those I love and my whole life in this house.

She & Him - Home

I'm starting to remember what beauty looks and feels like, and learning again what it's like to be at home with a someone as well as a somewhere.

Happy Father's Day.
Today I'm grateful for all the different kinds of fathers who've helped to shape so many people around me into such remarkable and valuable people. Mine is one of the best; he's always provided for me, taught me so much and loved me so well. I hope he's as proud of me as I am of him.

Buddy

2010-06-14T10:47:00.001+01:00

I have some fantastic friends, I'm so excited to go home and see them soon. I also can't wait to meet the new addition to our family...

Awake

2010-06-13T10:15:00.002+01:00

Have you ever been given a glimpse of something, of how something could be, only to have it snatched out of reach? I am all hope and excitement, fear and dismay.

Poppy

2010-06-12T11:41:00.011+01:00

Van Gogh and Monet. Tex-Mex and cherry vodka. Avi Buffalo and People Under The Stairs. Crown jewels and dog cemeteries. Secrets whispered in castle enclaves and dancing hard in underground clubs. Book shops and the Writers' Museum.
A pair of days, and everything went in two by two. Including us.

You never fail to make me glad to be alive.
This is my current favourite song, courtesy of you my friend.
Who's to say it can't be taken platonically?

King Charles - Love Lust

If I Was, Wish I Were...

2010-06-11T12:47:00.006+01:00

a month, i would be: cosy October, with warm wool, apple bobbing and ghosts
a day of the week, i would be: Sunday, with lazy mornings, country walks and roast dinners
a time of day, i would be: just before sunset, when the light is the loveliest and the stars start coming out...or perhaps teatime
a planet, i would be: Planet Earth
a sea animal, i would be: a blue whale that knows all the secret places in the sea
a direction, i would be: North
a piece of furniture, i would be: a rocking chair by a window
a sin, i would be: pride
a liquid, i would be: raspberry-mint lemonade
a tree, i would be: a knarled old mulberry tree that’s good for climbing
a bird, i would be: singing
a flower/plant, i would be: anything you find in hedgerows or meadows
a kind of weather, i would be: fresh breezes and sunny skies
a mythical creature, i would be: a unicorn, loyal to the last
a musical instrument, i would be: a harpsichord
an animal, i would be: a tabby cat
a colour, i would be: red because it’s all I am on the inside
an element, i would be: earth, the kind that’s good for growing things
a car, i would be: a beaten-up Landrover Defender with blankets in the back
a song, i would be: a homespun symphony, sung until hoarse, with xylophones and violins, clapping and stamping for percussion
a movie, i would be directed by: Wes Anderson
a book, i would be written by: Susan Fletcher
a place, i would be: somewhere undiscovered
a taste, i would be: honey
a scent, i would be: lilacs and woodsmoke
a religion, i would be: personal
a word, i would be: cariad
a body part, i would be: hands
a facial expression, i would be: smiling
a subject in school, i would be: History
a shape, i would be: ever-changing
a number, i would be: 2

Thank you for the reminder darling, and for thinking me spectacular.

Scramble

2010-06-06T10:58:00.008+01:00

An evening wander up Arthur's Seat to see sunset turned into a bit of an adventure when we took a bad path coming back down. It turned into a steep rock face and loose earth as the dark set in, and we had to be rescued by the police...I was fine, but my wee walking companion was a little too shaken after a near-catastrophic slip to make it down single-handed. We eventually got home, three and a half hours after we began the ascent. We fought scratches, bumps and bruises with vodka, ice cream and Heath Ledger. All's well that ends well!

Simplified

2010-06-04T22:16:00.007+01:00

'It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated.' - John Ruskin

Soleil Me Down

2010-06-02T20:59:00.005+01:00

Explosions In The Sky - Your Hand In Mine

There are dreamy days, full of sun and the scent of salt and soil and flowers. Picnics. Lying down and feeling the grass grow, watching the day pass, and not having a care in the world. Circling birds and flying kites and cloudless skies. The smell of the sea on the air. Sunspots. Buttercups and daisy chains. Holding hands, laughing the day long and lapping up ice cream as it drips down your wrist. Freckles. Suncream. Sandy sheets and dirty feet. Warm pavements, bare legs, skipping for no reason. Balmy evenings and shooting stars. Mowed lawns. Dock leaves and dandelion seeds. Apple cores, french fries, iced tea. Well-thumbed books. Noise and naughtiness. Flyaway hair. Open windows. The peace, the calm, the quiet. Joy, elation, love.

Caffeine

2010-05-31T11:11:00.002+01:00

Days made of morning, lilacs losing their perfume.
The oceans all are yawning, May is falling into June.

Simon and Garfunkel - Wednesday Morning, 3am

Been And Gone And Got The Love

2010-05-30T15:52:00.003+01:00

I have been absent without leave, shockingly so. There have been exams and parties and trips to the beach. Alcohol has been plentiful and good food has been back on the menu. My absence is mainly due to the fact that I, alongside my favourite partner in fundraising crime, organised a summer ball. There was music and dancing, friends and flowers, packages and pretty dresses. It nearly killed us, and now I have no idea what to do with myself. My head has been in orbit, and I'm only just tiptoeing back down onto solid ground.
I promise I'm not gone for good. I'm simply doing much more than I have time to tell anyone about. I'm also going to be writing on my organisation's blog about my upcoming trip to Tanzania. Keep those eyes peeled. Peace and love!

Lost Girl

2010-05-14T01:48:00.004+01:00

Celestial Sweethearts

2010-05-12T22:38:00.003+01:00

When it is darkest, men see the stars.
Love makes the world go round.

I just stole a book about cosmology by a man called David Sang loudly.
Cosmologists are apparently clever and quaint graffiti artists.
As impermanent as stars, too - it was written in pencil.
Thank you Greg Matthew U6P.
I'll to try return it.

Bye, Baby Bunting

2010-05-09T09:51:00.002+01:00

Daddy's gone a-hunting
Gone to get a rabbit skin
To wrap Baby Bunting in

Doyouthinkhesaurus

2010-05-08T10:08:00.014+01:00

I had a lucky windfall and received free tickets to Florence + The Machine, supported by The Drums - both favourites - and also to the Edinburgh College of Art Fashion Show 2010. Both were fantastic and inspiring nights that dragged me up out of the rut revision has had me stuck in.
I collected for The British Red Cross for four hours at the train stations and that restored some faith in humanity. My cheeks still ache from smiling. I sent happy birthday presents and tiny hopeful packages, and avoided the Julio-Claudians like the plague.

May feels more like April.

found here
Hail Mary

Not having a camera really makes me feel like I have lost control.
It makes it feel like I haven't done anything for months, when I've been doing so much.

Gunshot Ballet

2010-05-06T01:16:00.003+01:00

Today, I will return overdue library books and sell tickets to a ball, and I will mourn my lack of a camera, and the daffodils will die and the bluebells will begin, and I will walk until my feet are sore and ride a bus across the city, and I will sit a while with a pretty little lady in a pretty little place, and we will talk about whatever is on the tips of our tongues.
Today, I will also vote.

Maillé

2010-05-01T18:52:00.012+01:00

MAYDAYMAYDAY
eating edamame and remembering a rambling man
soy sauce stained paper
car graveyards
seagulls that walk on water
flowers living between train tracks
best friends
chapped lips and fiddling ghosts
eating tears
feeling powerless
hello, goodbye
25.8.1944

"...but I'm a good fake."

Daisy, Daisy...

2010-04-19T16:07:00.005+01:00

...give me your answer, do.

What has happened? I think I recall. I made bread, washed clothes, watered the mint and the tomato plants, devoured the last of my book in the sunshine with my cat, plumped the cushions. I went on a bike ride and gave my limbs that giddy weakness. I got crotchety for the first time all month and it was because I had to go away from home. My mama bought me things, and like always, she tried to give me everything she has.
I came back to the city with hats and herbs, and found Heart-Sick Groans to join the endless songs already singing in my head.
I spent today with a numb face and rubber lips and aching teeth and a mouth of metal. I spent it talking to strangers in a strange room about the university's plan for a social responsibility and sustainability website, and thought of my own little corner of the internet where I can write whatever I like. I now wear my boots inside the house all the time, where are my manners?

The Marrow Morosky

2010-04-16T09:42:00.000+01:00

"If marrow were a geological formation, it would be magma roiling under the earth's mantle. If it were a plant, it would be a delicate moss that grows only on the highest crags of Mount Everest, blooming with tiny white flowers for three days in the Nepalese spring. If it were a memory, it would be your first one, your most painful and repressed one, the one that has made you who you are." - Julie Powell

Are you ever caught up all at once in several different and seemingly unattached things, only to sit back and realise where they all tie in together? This happens to me constantly.

I have recently been considering blood and bone marrow donation. Discussion about the discrimination many of my friends face in regards to donating blood reminded me; gay and bisexual men, and women who sexually engage with either are prevented from joining the National Registry as they are at risk from HIV and AIDs. This is an understandable risk, but all those I know falling into this category are scrupulous about their sexual health. These lost donations are desperately required by our health service and yet the policy remains unchanged. I can't understand.

I came home from my grandmother's house, rested and relaxed, and armed with Julie Powell's book, 'Julie & Julia: My year of cooking dangerously'. I've wanted to read it - and watch the film (which looks doused with a healthy dollop of Hollywood sickly sweetness to combat the original wonderfully offensive acidity, but whatever) - for a while. The novel is already so much more satisfying than I had anticipated. It's full of all the good things in life, written with a multitude of my favourite words and expressed as if by your very closest, dark humoured friend, the one who knows you inside out. She has a way of writing that strikes me hard somewhere, the same way I imagine Julia Child's cooking struck her. If bone marrow was a kind of woman, it would be women like Julia Child and Julie Powell.

I also finally watched The Way We Were and Barbra Streisand blew me away. K-K-K-Katie might have been more complex than the inner most interior of our bones but what Hubbell could never learn is that in life, as in Potage Parmentier, simple is not easy. And what is exciting about easy, anyway? For the most part and the meantime, I'd rather times were tough and exciting - there are enough good books, feisty heroines and pots of potato soup to see me through.

En Pointe

2010-04-15T19:40:00.001+01:00

Tujiko Noriko - White Film

Something's A-Changin', Something's Occuring

2010-04-08T10:36:00.015+01:00

A day of driving and Dylan, sunshine and sustenance, farm life and friends, catching up and castles in the air, Greek myths and good company, laughter and love love love!

Commercielle

2010-04-06T16:49:00.004+01:00

I'm sick and tired of beautiful songs being seized upon by television advertisers in order to attempt to make me connote the pretty music with the product they want me to buy, to pretend the company attempting to infiltrate my mind and bank account are just as warm and fuzzy as the melody and the dreamy aesthetics.
I am claiming you back, beautiful songs. You will not make me think of endless capitalist opportunities and how I can get more for my money on my mobile. Instead, I will listen to you whilst writing people real letters, and think of nothing but the bright and breezy buttercup days you were made for.

Allie Moss - Corner

Vashti Bunyan - Diamond Day
(this is, in fact, exactly the kind of buttercup day I will be picturing)

Free Design - Love You

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

2010-04-04T18:45:00.004+01:00

"Busy Doing Nothing"

Nothing except filling myself with food, friends and family. Spring break!

Fury and Future Dust

2010-04-03T19:59:00.009+01:00

Lunar sunrises, stellar curries and miracles in space. 13th birthday parties and virgin cocktails that taste like ice cream sundaes. Candy painted nails that draw blood like cat claws, and cat hair all over my clothes. Sinking back into old books like into a bed that remembers your sleeping shape exactly. The heartache of spring fever Mark Twain understood so well, the wisdom of Nelson Mandela that no number of cutting teeth will bring me, and the fullness of everything around me.

Phantogram - Mouth Full of Diamonds

(the sweetest little vintage heart-buckled harem pants, deadstock from a vintage fair; a broken earring bracelet; an old apostolic teaspoon bent into a knuckle-dusting ring)

'Not all those who wander are lost.'

- J.R.R. Tolkein

I'd Rather Be In Rekyavik

2010-04-01T11:22:00.003+01:00

One of my favourite people on earth went on an adventure to Iceland. She saw some wonders of this world of ours and made a new friend. I love that everyone is being bitten by the travel bug; we all have so much to tell nowadays.

Marching On

2010-03-30T15:22:00.007+01:00

March is over...

...but Spring has just begun.

"For now, you're lucky-

across the world, someone loves you hard enough
to sieve a single star from this dark sky."

- 'Oslo', Carol Ann Duffy

(delicious words a friend reminded me of this time last year)

Up, Up

2010-03-28T11:26:00.006+01:00

Spring is here to stay now, daylight saving time is bringing me more sunshine and I am finished for the Easter holidays. Finally, I can relax and finally enjoy the Spring fever that was bringing me no end of heart aches last week.

I would like to buy endless copies of this lovely card and hand them out through the city like flowers. I had a lot of work this week and didn't sleep for 43 hours straight and I have never felt my soul soar more than when I was finally free.
My mama once told me I was the girl with kaleidoscope eyes; I know a girl with a kaleidoscope heart. She tells me things I've never heard but always known, and plants my feet in the ground whilst our words go flying. Without her this week, I would have been washed away.

If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom.
~Terri Guillemets

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - Learning To Fly

Take and Leave

2010-03-24T15:33:00.005Z

Maybe it's an adverse reaction to Spring fever and the resulting exhaustion of this busy end to term, but just like almost exactly a year ago, I'd really like to go home.

Humble Fumble

2010-03-22T10:42:00.001Z

Yarn Owl - Bicycle

I sent one of my sweethearts a recipe recently, and then realised that I've been so busy that my finest culinary achievement of late has been a turkey sandwich. Not counting the apple and blueberry pie with Sarah a week or so ago.

I've missed kicking up a fuss in the kitchen. So I dug out my adorable little copy of "Women's Institute Tea Time Treats" and let my leftovers guide me to a suitable recipe. Namely, coconut biscuits, more sweetly referred to in my mind as coconut sugar cookies.
It's simply equal parts plain flour, sugar, dessicated coconut and margarine, with just enough milk to make a stiff dough. I made them the size of a walnut, squashed flat on the baking tray and popped them in the oven at gas mark 2 (150oC) for about ten minutes, until "pale fawn in colour" as the W.I. ladies so eloquently put it.
They'd be perfect as a treat with coffee, smothered with chocolate spread, with strawberries and cream at a picnic, atop an ice cream sundae or just by the handful. Be warned, they are addictive - I won't be making these again for a while, lest I eat every single last one...

'Parting' by Michael Steven

The late
Sun slowly rising

our ceremony
weakens.

A cigarette becomes
a kiss – a wordless goodbye

you follow

the smoke into your
clothes – you follow the clothes

into your body.

Karakuş

2010-03-21T10:05:00.003Z

It means 'blackbird' in Turkish. These are the types of things I like to know best - little nuggets of knowledge that tumble out unexpectedly and illuminate your day for a moment.

I've found I have a dimple. Just the one, but I discovered it with what I believe to be a similar excitement to those foreigners from Spain first setting foot on the Americas.
Currently, I am reading six books simultaneously. In the past, I could only ever commit to one, but now I dip in and out of different words like an indecisive paddler at the seaside.
I've been listening to The Drums a lot, not the primal kind that keep you up at night, but the happy-go-lucky New York foursome I'll be seeing alongside Florence + The Machine in May.
February seems forever ago, and I'm not very sorry to see it go. The painfully perfect parts, I'll carry into Spring with me. The rest has been leaped over.

"I personally like the adventure of difference. And what's beauty anyway?"
- Dawn French, Dear Fatty

I've Never Been To Nepal

2010-03-20T09:06:00.001Z

...but I stole these from someone I know who has.

Codswallop

2010-03-19T11:50:00.006Z

The Rosie Taylor Project - Lovers or Something Like It

I'm beginning to realise my most interesting, challenging and ultimately fulfilling relationship in life will be with myself.

Sunday Still Life

2010-03-15T13:52:00.003Z

After the giddy excitement of two birthdays, the happy chaos of an all night party, the delirious exhilaration of a hike to see sunrise...there was nothing better to do than wander the Royal Botanical Gardens and think of growing things, green expanses and the beautiful world around us.

Now You See Me

2010-03-08T00:21:00.002Z

Take heart! Someone still loves you, whether your name is Boris Yeltsin or not.

Nieman; Keim

2010-03-06T18:19:00.000Z

I found this article and accompanying photographs by the author when researching for a tutorial about cultural representation through photography, and the ethnographic real. I am also reading "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery. My camera is broken.

Daffodils, My Darling

2010-03-03T19:29:00.005Z

I went for a St David's Day picnic on Monday, and desperately looked for daffodils. My mum reminded me of the wise words of a friend, who said that flowers make you happy. Daffodils are one of the most cheerful blooms in the world. They smile and nod and remind me of sunshine.

I wore this very skirt today; it makes me think of spring, of light and life coming out of the darkness. It truly is one of my most bargainous and beloved items of clothing.

Spring has not sprung just yet, but I can feel it coming. It lies in wait patiently, coiled under the cold earth and ready to break free. There are crocuses peeping on the edge of the meadows, and the sun is shaking off its cloudy winter clothes.

The Cat's Mother

2010-02-23T21:39:00.007Z

Old Old Fashioned

2010-02-19T12:04:00.003Z

I study folklore, literally dig down into the past and am learning more about this old city everyday. I volunteer for a charity vintage shop, wander the Edinburgh vaults and read historical novels. I love period dramas and wear secondhand clothes.
I get nostalgic about last week. My feet are on the ground but my head is up in the clouds of yesteryear. I'll get old old fashioned with you.

enitnelaV

2010-02-16T15:57:00.007Z

Seeing as I don't believe in manufactured affection, I intend to boycott 14th February from here on out, and instead, treat at least a little of every day like the V word. Spread the love, people, it makes the world go round.

Valentina

2010-02-14T23:54:00.002Z

Love yourself as well as you love others.

& In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees

2010-02-12T16:45:00.002Z

This week was for dreaming about paper planes.
...for The Magnetic Fields.
...for getting a new job.
...for Michael Steven;

The Portrait
The day hardened with every sigh.
Something old returned -
Something new was forgotten.

Finally, we had reason to be still:
leaning on our tiny secrets
as if they were about to escape.

Port Waikato
Bone white -
her bare arms bent
at the elbow:

inside the soft flesh there,
as shadow. She digs her heels
into the dark sand:

her face tilted towards
the sun: her wet hair falling
wherever it chooses -

over the stones hurled
at seagulls by children howling
from the dunes: beyond

bright lines of endless breakers
where mist sits unreal
& refuses to lift.

...for finding fitting answers to unspoken questions.

...for being not heartbroken, for getting out of bed bright and early, for working hard, for doing anything to be happy, for knowing that Spring is on its merry way, for coming home and for all things hopeful.

Noah and the Whale - Blue Skies

The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future

2010-02-07T23:18:00.002Z

"And that maybe we only fall in love to have something to do,
But what a lonely and tasteless and bitter excuse
When you're starving to death, even fingers will do.
Cutting out our own organs and limbs to make fuel
For a ship that set sail with a wiry crew.
And the paper boy's there, and the butcher, and you,
And you navigate lost in your vessel of glue
And banana peel, vinyl and driftwood and news,
Tossing violently in your sleeps as you move
Through a simmering ocean of broken-heart stew."

- Amanda Palmer, The Sugar Club, 16/02/09

Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land

Dip your toes in the water and soon you will see

that it is the same ocean as is in front of me.

With our toes in the water of the same sea,

we are practically touching, you and me.

Keep Calm and Carry On

2010-02-03T00:53:00.004Z

More snow. Post for my precious. The naked women of Dali and Klimt. My plant falling out of flower. My budgie memorial. A message or two.

Xave

2010-01-31T10:19:00.003Z

I don't believe I've mentioned something momentous occurring in my future...
This summer, I'm going to Tanzania to teach children first aid. My life is full of fundraisers right now, and one of them is quite special. I invite those of you on Facebook to have a look at a personal invitation to SHAVE IT OR SAVE IT. This is not a request for you to join or give me money, just for you to take a peek at what is happening in my life and what I want to do with it.

Xiu Xiu - I luv the valley OH

Do you remember forgetting a song? When it slips away into your past? When it boards a steamboat, waves goodbye and sails off into the sunset without you even noticing?

Remember how inexplicably bittersweet and splendiferous it feels to hear it again?

Yesicanuary has been a productive month!

Scrawl

2010-01-29T02:02:00.004Z

I found this outside where I used to live.

I wrote this in its place over a year ago. I still believe it.

Shining Shadows

2010-01-28T10:42:00.001Z

Let my shadow disappear into yours
Let me lose myself
under the tall trees
that themselves lose their crowns in the twilight,
surrendering themselves to the sky and the night.

- Pär Lagerkvist (1891-1974)

(vintage silk scarf from Buckingham Palace that belonged to my late great aunt)

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

- from Pablo Neruda's Love Sonnet XVII

Sublimity & Something Blue

2010-01-27T11:12:00.004Z

I have talked before about beauty and the sublime, or at least have referenced someone else's words on the subjects; I had a mind-blowing lecture about the pair on Monday that reminded me. According to Longinus, "a well-timed stroke of sublimity scatters everything before it like a thunderbolt" and has the power to fill us with inspired emotion. The power of sublimity fascinates me.
There is a school of thought that sees there being no pleasure without pain. Edmund Burke wrote on the subject and asks what we are afraid of; pain, vastness, obscurity. The powerful, the infinite. All of these "fill the mind with delightful horror, the truest test of the sublime". It is a paradox - we are drawn to pain and terror, and yet we seek pleasure. The sublime is only that because it both terrifies and delights us. A way to resolve this is to see ourselves finding pleasure in fictional or imagined pain, or that the pain of the sublime is metaphorical to begin with.
I prefer to see sublimity as something both frightening and illuminating.
Like a thunderstorm at sea, or real heart-wrenching love.

On an unrelated note, it is Holocaust Memorial Day today. A favourite girl of mine sent me John Boyne's The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas and I finished reading it yesterday. Tonight, I want to watch Mark Herman's film, and take a little time to think about what we are capable of as a race - all things bad and beautiful.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Edmund Burke

Still On Fire

2010-01-25T13:00:00.004Z

I am listening to last month's playlist and contemplating the weekend. We had a terror-ific time down in the the Edinburgh Dungeons, ate more than was necessary or sensible, shopped, sight-saw, drank and danced and stayed up and slept in.
Happy Burns Day; for me, this means haggis, neeps and tatties, a ceilidh and striking a match to banish with fire a chosen secret something for the next year.

Beauty

2010-01-22T01:55:00.004Z

No one can explain beauty.
It is a matter of soul, not eye,
and lightens the darkness within
as a rainbow lightens the sky.

Now as the years go by,
a rose is no more than a rose to me.
But sometimes I see in your soul
what to me is a rose in its beauty.

- from 'Buds of Heaven' in Light in the Darkness? by Bill Donaldson

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home

I'm not really sure what beauty is anymore.

Heaven's Stranger

2010-01-21T19:18:00.012Z

Doing the hippy shake to Eat Skull with my best friend who made it over the border for a visit, just in time to eat barbeque tortillas and take these pictures.

I went to a lecture about Christianity and the Visual Arts hosted by my university, given by John Lowrie Morrison, AKA JoLoMo, a fantastic Scottish contemporary artist. I would say that I see more positives about personal belief than organised religion, but visual arts are something immediately accessible to all. Self expression and having faith in something are so important.

His work is so full of life, almost childishly excited about the brilliance of simply being. Very vibrant and distinct yet always familiar, as if he has painted the houses of those characters you read about in story books once upon a time. All the colours are somehow the way I feel on the inside, and the scenes are ones I want to see myself in, living slowly as the world goes by, with boats and birds and the soft breath of not-quite silence.

Kick Drum Heart

2010-01-20T10:12:00.004Z

My plaiting skills are improving, my sleeping pattern is not. I have had to, on occasion, turn to the dark side that is caffeine in order to make it through more endlessly fun things like dinner dates and dancing, fundraising meetings and midnight birthday parties on the playpark. My eyes are fluttering shut when they shouldn't, but my heart is quicker than a kick drum and twice as loud.

The Avett Brothers - Kick Drum Heart

Some like it hot
And some do not,
But the important part is making a choice.
Choosing is pleasing;
It is moment-seizing
And a way of talking without using your voice.

Crepeutation

2010-01-17T13:59:00.002Z

When you are...

there's only one thing to do...

...flip out a few and chow down.

Thank you, Hugh, for the perfect pancake recipe. My homebears were very impressed and I am forever in your debt.

Pathless Woods

2010-01-14T12:46:00.004Z

I've missed this old city, but I like it when I can't see the forest for the trees.
It will be a while before I can be somewhere as beautiful again.

Festivity

2010-01-12T12:17:00.010Z

The past few weeks have been filled with beautiful things...

homemade treats...

crazily good cooking...

winter wonderland weather...

fantastic friends...

sweet dreams...

light in the dark...

...and the most amazing heart-skipping times.

Yesicanuary

2010-01-01T18:41:00.006Z

New year always feels so momentous. This year, it was rung in with a magical full moon, tealights in jam jars, barbequed hotdogs, flying fire lanterns, chocolates, champagne, the dissection of a decade, a little more snow and a whole lot of love.

I'm using the term 'resolution' broadly this year, not making a list and checking it twice. I am simply resolving to live better in all ways possible. I want to make a difference for myself, other people, my country and our planet. It's a resolution revolution. Never mind January, this is Yesicanuary!

Auld Lang Syne

2009-12-31T17:34:00.000Z

Dear year of the ox,

There are many days of new year for me and many days when the year feels new; 1st September, 31st October and 1st January...Tonight is the recognised date in 21st century England, when the year's hourglass is turned upside down to start again. It is the one given to me from birth with countdowns, clock chimes and fireworks. I realise, year of the ox, that you officially end on 14th February, but I can't help but fit my Westernised calendar around you.

You have been trying and a tribulation, a blessing and a curse, offered salty crying and sweet celebration, made me wonder what could be missing and what on earth could be worse. Regardless, you have seen me through some things that have moved and shaped me and I am grateful. However, you are over and I am not, so this is goodbye.

I won't miss you. We might meet again and when we do, I will eat roast beef with horseradish and mashed potatoes, and pretend to plough fields whilst wearing leather and drinking milk. Until then, I promise to remember you, and to grab life by the horns with both hands.

Yours, Fiona

Mairi Campbell and David Francis - Auld Lang Syne

Happy New Year everyone! May the next decade be everything you wish it to be.

Wassailing Song

2009-12-24T11:48:00.002Z

Wisselton, wasselton, who lives here?
We've come to taste your Christmas beer.
Up the kitchen and down the hall,
Holly, ivy and mistletoe;
A peck of apples will serve us all,
Give us some apples and let us go.

Up with your stocking, on with your shoe,
If you haven't got any apples, money will do.
My carol's done, and I must be gone,
No longer can I stay here.
God bless you all, great and small,
And send you a happy new year.

- Traditional

Happy birthday to two lovely ladies, and a merry Christmas to all!

Noah and the Whale - Love of an Orchestra
(thanks for the reminder, Jordan)