Pretty-hogging

Pretty things heal. And they're fun. And I hog them.

Whenever I'm going through a rough, busy, or just plain challenging patch (and who isn't having one, in some respect, all. the. time?!), I always notice how I am more tuned in to beautiful things. I'll take anything that makes me smile, or makes me inspired, uplifted, connected. I'll squeeze it for every drop of glowing colour it is worth. And the more I do that, the more I notice that beautiful things (or books, or people, or drawings, or ideas) come my way.

It turns into a happy, upward thermal and I try to spread my wings and surf it past the clouds.

Here's some of the things that have come my way over the past few weeks:

New books: I used to have a passion for reading. I still do, but is often buried by the sheer volume of reading I need to do for my work. Over the past few weeks though, I've devoured From the Holy Mountain (for the fourth time. Travel books. Travel books about the Middle East. How can anyone resist?) and The Shadow of the Moon. M.M. Kaye writes about an India that is in my head. Dark palaces surrounded by emerald gardens and hazy sunsets. Princess laden with jewels and the scent of roses and adventures on horseback and a wild, dark beauty. There was a lot wrong with the India she described (as there is a lot wrong with any place, at any time). But she described it accurately and wonderfully, and saw the beauty in it. I've also started Roger Deakin's Wildwood. Every page is a jewel. I read it sitting outside, or by a window, and drink in the words, and let it connect me to the trees and the wind and the birdsong and the light. And I bought Chasing the Sun and can't wait to get started.

An old habit of mine was to underline in the books I read and re-read. Meaningful passages, witty quotes, the odd brilliant phrasing. I haven't done that in so long. I can't wait to make friends with each of these new books, and see which ones become good enough friends that I turn back to them a second, or even a third time.

Some of the other things that have me buzzing about what a pretty world it is we live in:

African violets. I bought a small pot of these the other day. Oh my god. The colour!

If you have some, and know how to keep these beautiful, fragile little jewels alive and happy, please tell me! In the meanwhile, I'm reading more about them here.

I don't know why I haven't thought of this before. Jam jars as vases, and candle-holders. I saw a picture of this at one of my new favourite blogs (seriously every post is so. beautiful!) and have now gone jar-mad. I cleaned out all the jam jars lying at the bottom of the kitchen storage (where they've been waiting to be recycled for about 5 years), made sure they looked sparkling new, and then filled them with beautiful flowers. I have about 6 of them all over the house. I can't wait to have them full of cherry blossom! At the moment it's simply too cold (and I am too lazy) to go out blossom-hunting.

And of course there's clothes. Is there a better way to literally wrap yourself up in beauty than to wear beautiful clothes that really, really do something for you? I've been eyeing this jacket from ASOS for a while, but haven't gotten around to it yet (my list is larger than my bank balance)... There's something about it... A beautiful playful whimsy balanced with a certain sophistication. I think it's beautiful.

And in the midst of all this prettiness, my April Vogue has arrived. I'll emerge in a couple of days :)

Notes from a trainride

I take a train 'up' to London every so often, for work, for play.

And though I've seen it dozens of times before, the landscape always looks beautiful to me. There's nothing particularly dramatic. No high cliffsides or turquoise sea, no mountains or villages of stark white houses. Someone in the paper today wrote about "bog standard rural England" and capped it by saying, "...and it's wonderful". That's what this is like.

The train is called The Evening Star. I can't think of a more beautiful name. I can't think why it was used, but that it was used adds some beauty to the stained carpet and the overfull wastebins. I agree with whoever took the photo above and said " a warm smile spread over my whole body when I saw the name of the train".

Yesterday, standing by the door and peeping out of the open window (my favourite way to travel), I saw:

A ginger cat sitting in a field of young wheat. At least I think it was wheat.

A raptor gliding low over another field and landing in a tree.

Clouds of starlings.

And beautiful spring blossoms: cherry trees and plum trees. The oaks haven't got their foliage back yet, but here and there are wisps of green starting to cloud everything.

The platform at Shenfield station was empty except for a couple kissing on a bench and the railway officer who whistled the train off.

I bought a coffee from the cafe bar and pulled the window up against the slight chill and watched Essex race by.

An idea from my mother, which I remembered after a reading a similar idea on Gala Darling's gorgeous blog:

If you can't face the outside world without makeup on, you need to practice doing so.

I'm in a pretty made-up place at the moment. I've been sleeping late, rising early. Stress-eating and starving by turns. It's not a pretty place.

The day before yesterday though, a cab driver who was driving me to University gave me a compliment. He said I had a lovely face. And my reaction surprised me. Without a pause, I said, "That's just makeup and dark glasses". He laughed. I did not.

I thought about going in to work today without any on. It turns out I can work from home today, so I'm cheating a bit and just nipping to the grocery store and back with a bare, clean face. I'm not sure why this is difficult. I'm sure it 'shouldn't' be hard at all though, so here's to freeing up my face, and showing it as it really is.

I'm helping to organise a conference in April, and playing around with what to wear

Shoes: ASOS / Dress: Topshop

Thoughts on the morning bus.

Time does not heal all wounds.

Time covers all wounds. Love heals them.

Milestones

I bought a concealer today. My first.

Sleep deprivation is ug.ly.

I love old places. Old stone, worn over time with sun and wind and rain. Colonised by lichen, sheltering tiny creatures far more transient than itself in its tiny cracks and crannies. I love how it looks, and how it feels on a warm day. I love imagining who else has touched it, or passed it by.

People just like me. People from many years ago. People from decades ago. Centuries, millenia. I feel strangely thrilled in old places, around old stone. And strangely at home.

The Man and I often walk past the Roman wall that once formed the perimeter of the town. It's still standing. The colours: rusty brick, sage-green scrub of the weeds that live between the stones, the slate grey of the stone and the bleached white of the mortar (is it mortar?). The flame-coloured flowers that peep out between the bricks in the springtime.

Every tiny crumbling thing here is special, alive, aglow.

I don't know why. But it has always felt that way to me.

Twice at sunset, I've stood in what I imagine was the guard's alcove at the old wall, now open to the sun and wind and rain. I've watched the decades and the years peel away, backwards. Opposite the road there's an old brick building from the early part of the last century. And beyond that, a line of apartment blocks from towards its end. I've kissed the Man, and imagined - or wanted to imagine - that we were here before. That somehow our love was here before. Or was meant to be here now, from the day these bricks and stone were laid, to the day we leant on them. His hand rough against my cheek after it's been pressed against the crumbling wall.