Wish

I'm wishing so hard it feels like I can't breathe.

Please God, please please please, I need this.

x

I'm Gonna Shine Today

The sun is shining today. It's the kind of watery yet intense sunshine you only get in Spring (OK, Winter, but a girl can dream). It's as though someone took a picture of a sunny Summer's day but the photo has now faded and mellowed. It has made me dream of Summer and not having to pile on about a dozen layers of clothing every morining to keep warm.

I am now longing to laze in the sunshine, for picnics in the grass wearing shorts and pretty blouses and straw trilbies, cloud watching and dreaming, eating strawberries, whilst the sun warms your already tanned skin.

Topshop:
Liberty Print Shorts £32

Christopher Kane Collection:


Holidays in the sun:


Strawberries in Season:



Images as follows 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6

Food Glorious Food.

Beetroot is to me a much under used vegetable and as such I was very pleased to see when I opened up the latest edition of Easy Living Magazine an article on new things to do with Beetroot, some of which I put below for your delectation:

1. Toss boiled beetroot wedges (slip off the skins after cooking) in herb butter or with butter and shave Parmesan, and serve as a vegetable accompaniment.
2. Roasted beetroot is a fantastic addition to a Sunday Roast. The simplest way is to trim the tops (no need to peel) and then boil them in plenty of salted water for about 20 minutes, or until tender, then drain, cool and slip off the skins. Halve or quarter them and then roast with a drizzle of olive oil and some thyme for about 30 minutes (while your roast meat is resting).
3. Cooked beetroot wedges taste lovely in a salad with cheese such as feta or goat's cheese.
   

Speaking of cheese, as a confirmed Cheeseaholic I was delighted to see a post on Cheese on A Cup Of Jo today.

Anyone else feeling peckish?
Now where did I put that beetroot?
x

First image taken by me, second image found here
Tips taken from article by David Herbert in the March 2010 issue of Easy Living.

Yes please...

...I'll take these.


Shirt (£38) and Mug (£9) from Urban Outfitters
Skirt (£65) from Joules

Paris, 1962.

Came across these pictures today, they are simply deliciously gorgeous.





These are by a guy called Tom Palumbo and are candid photos taken in Paris in 1962. He has photographed for Vogue and Bazaar amoungst others which is pretty damn cool. Find more of the same on his Flickr here.

Funny Fun Fun Stuff

Nedroid Picture Diaries:

This one is very funny -
"you just don't understand cats"

We All Live In A Yellow Submarine:

How ace is this submarine tea infuser!
Available here from Monkey Business
(Found on A Cup Of Jo)

Lovely

I'm Ok.
Seriously I am.
Plus these pictures are lovely.



Images from Scarlet Begonia on Flickr and Kristine May on Flickr and here comes the sun

Bad Medicine.

It's time to stop taking these pills.

Image via Red Lips and Ice Cream

Shiny Happy.

I've always had a soft spot for Elephants.
This necklace is real pretty.

Available from SeaUnicorn on Etsy (loads of other lovelies there too).

x

Glass Half Full?

Listening to:
Leisure Society album
Michel Thomas teaching Spanish

Reading:
Book on Insolvency Law (teaching it to myself)
Book on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawkings

Watching:
Spaced on DVD
Inspector Morse on DVD

Writing:
My journal
This Blog
A children's book


Why does my glass feel half empty?

x

Image via here

I Wonder...

via Red Lips and IceCream

Summer dreams.

This picture makes me feel as though I am sitting in the backseat of a car in the summer as it drives past fields under bright blue skies and warm breezes. Windows open. Music drifting. Mind drifting. Cheshire cat smile.
Memories are made of this.

Image from here

Simple?

Why is it that the simpler the thing you want, the more difficult it is to attain?

All I want is to be loved - when no-one is there to love you
I just want to get some sleep - when insomnia becomes your bedfellow
I'm simply looking for a pair of jeans - when the twentieth pair you have tried on still isn't right

I just want a job - when nothing is out there.

I sometimes wonder if God (or Budda, or Allah or whoever or whatever else it is to believe in) has made me unemployed to test me and to make me grow. I sure as hell have been tested and I like to think I have grown and learnt and experienced (even bad experiences are experience at the end of the day).
So Please just let me have a decent job, preferably a permanent one.

Pleeeease.

Patience is not one of my many shining virtues.

x

Picture via Red Lips and IceCream

Hullooo?

Hello.
I am still here (somewhere).
Thank you for not running away because I have been so useless on the blogging front for the past three or four weeks.
I hope you had a merry merry christmas (that seems a looong time ago doesn't it?).
I hope you are having a happy new year so far.

I have been writing my book
and looking for work
and working out what goes on in my mind
and staying out of the snow that has made England look like it has been involved in a huge foam party
and doing Pilates to stop my neck from being so achey.

I'll be back properly next week or the week after my dears.

Love,
Me
x

Image from annabellp on flickr

Quelle est le date de ton anniversaire?

Tomorrow!

Yes dear readers tomorrow is my birthday - Hip Hip Hooray!

Below are some pictures of the delicious and pretty cakes my lovely Grandmother baked for me (and my sister, as it is her birthday too).






There was another cake with a tiny sugar bluebird on it but it mysteriously disappeared, naming no names (DADDY!).

Have a good day dearies!

Love etc
x

Oh Me, Oh My.

These pictures are utterly lovely. So dreamy and sweet.
I wish I looked like the girls she draws.
Prints by Audrey Malo available from shop 'Cendrille' on Etsy (for only $5!) she also has a Flickr page here.

I also like this one and this one but my silly computer wouldn't let me put them up here. Silly.

Au revoir
x

I Am But...

Today I am cutting my fringe and deliberating my long hair
and feeling alternately happy and sad
and thinking of Christmas but wishing it wasn't so soon
and wanting things but not right now
and questioning myself but finding no answers
and wishing I was someone else but not sure who I would rather be
and wondering about the future but confused about the present
and not knowing how the day passes so slow yet I can never get everything done
and singing along but wishing it was someone elses voice other than my own that I heard
and yearning but for what I do not know
and desperate to be certain
and longing to be confident
and wondering 'is this it?'


Image from Jostein W on Flickr

How To.

Image from Isaahunny flikr

I would like to apologise for my lack of posting this week. I fully intended to post every day this week to make up for my possible non-blogging next week however, what with my 50minute train journey home taking two hours on Tuesday (all of which I had to stand, grrr), finding out my job ends tomorrow so looking for a new one, contacting recruitment agencies and trying to organise references and me FALLING OVER at the train station yesterday morning (it was an impressive full dive to the ground), I have been a leeettle busy this week.

Here are a few things which I have come across this week which I would like to share with you.

How to be happy

Step 1:Smile. Smile even if life isn’t good,

smile because life can be good. Smile because

of the possibilities and everything that’s going to be.

Step 2:Find a way to destroy whatever (not whoever)

destroys you. No matter how long it takes.

No matter how hard it is. Make it go away.

Step 3:Get yourself a passion.

Something (not someone), a hobby you can live for.

Step 4:Love yourself. I know it’s hard,

but you have to find a way, or you will never

know how good life can be.

Step 5:Stop thinking. What others think is not relevant,

if it makes you unhappy. Enjoy.

Concentrate on what you’re doing.

Decide by feeling: If you feel like something’s

the right thing to do, just do it.

redlips&icecream

How to get the perfect messy-chic parisienne bun here.

Found via a new fave blog called A Cup of Jo.

How Do I Love Thee?

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and Ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Hope to be on here again soon, until then - Toodlepip!

x

Happy Monday!

How cute are these items of Bunny Jewellery?

Both are available from Rabidfox at Etsy

(the Octopus ring is ace too)

.

.

I love Neil Gaiman (and the books he writes too obv).

Image via RedLipsandIceCream

This picture is really good.

Image via RedLipsandIceCream

This website makes me giggle, a lot.

This post in particular.

Hope you had a super weekend.

x

THE DARKLING THRUSH
by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

LEANT upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seem'd to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seem'd fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

.

.

Good week thus far I hope!

Love

x

Image via here and via here