you're a warden's pet, she's a screaming suffragette

After my hugely successful fuzzy felt Cat-Pig that I made Edward as part of his Christmas present (read: it was quite poorly executed and looked rather more piggy than catty), I feel inspired to do more sewing this year. I live very near a huge fabric shop in Southampton so really have no excuse.

Nikon N60 - Fujifilm Superia 400 35mm (ew finger smudge!)

The sewing machine will be going back with me, as will various kitchen items that I've been gathering since I got back. It's surprising how neccessary a ladle is when you don't own one. Another thing on my kitchen wishlist is this one-cup teapot from Zero Japan, which they use at a really lovely cafe called The Larder in Edinburgh on Blackfriar's street off the Royal Mile.

They also had Eteaket's tea 'Blooming Marvellous', which is the nicest green tea I've ever had. Look, flowers!

A final word, again nothing to do with what came before - it's New Years Eve tomorrow, and I have nothing to wear.

all the while we wear a party smile

Pictures (Of Cindy) - Josef K
I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter - Fats Waller

Fireworks 12″ Nigel Gray Mix - Siouxsie And The Banshees

Heroes - TV on the Radio
I Happen To Love You - The Electric Prunes
Long Tall Sally - Little Richard
We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful - Morrissey
Melon Yellow - Slowdive
Strange - Patsy Cline, The Jordanaires
Misty - Robin Guthrie

Things I've been listening to, under the broad umbrella of 'silver lining'.

falling asleep to poirot

I look and feel quite alot like Snorlax right now.

they sold me a dream of christmas

Unbelievably, it's Christmas Eve - I've just come back from playing the organ at church to an indifferent seasonal congregation who didn't sing, and I'm listening to I Believe In Father Christmas by Greg Lake (actually one of my all time favourite songs?). I took these photos around the house a couple of days ago, mainly of the decorations that go up every year without fail.

Nikon N60 - 35mm Fujifilm Superia

Everything will be rather sad tomorrow though I think. My grandma sadly passed away this morning, after an 8-month battle with breast cancer. I'm glad she's no longer in pain. This will be the first Christmas Day spent without her ever though, and it will be very strange without her presence.

Glenys Warren
1932-2009

DEATH IS THE LEAST WE HAVE TO FEAR

Scars - Your Attention Please

From the album Author! Author!, words from the poem of the same name by Peter Porter.

questions over coffee

Kat in her garden - Feb 2009 - Nikon N60 35mm

I have experienced the snow in three different cities in two days:

• The snow in Edinburgh yesterday fell fast on the Royal Mile and was the kind that sticks to your hair and refuses to melt.
  
• This morning in York everything was crunchy white crystals, and there were confused ducks sitting in drifts and protesting loudly, their legs obscured.
  
• My train journey to Kings Cross was at times arduous and slow, but it was vastly more beautiful than usual - I felt like I was in Switzerland when the windows were completely obscured by heavy, billowing clouds of flakes.
  
• London and Beckenham were thinly veiled with a melting blanket of snow, that I doubt will last until Christmas day.

We should never stop enjoying snowfall is the point I think I was trying to make here.

telegram ma'am

Here are some useful tips for surviving the winter, from the lovely Maranda (her etsy is here). I bought this at a zine fair I attended recently at the Art House in Southampton, and I re-read it today. I've not been at my best recently, and there are some really good ideas for keeping positive in the dark winter months. Home from university now, hoping to get better for going back in January. Click for bigness.

I want to say, "Screw it!" to everyone and everything.

Polly.

dr gradus ad parnassum

I really miss the piano. I don't miss that particular Haydn monster, rather the ability to leaf through the pages of one of the multitude of books usually found on the stand, and play to my hearts content. Or at least until my brother or dad hear the piano and are reminded that they would also like to play. Finding and playing a piano here is not something easily done unless you're studying music. The keys to coveted practice rooms are not given out to any old junkie pianist wanting a fix unfortunately. My hands are actually getting twitchy.


Amazing performance. Russian Dance from Stravinsky's Petrushka ballet.

what if you don't have a secret?

Girl, Interrupted

120mm

I got a Diana F+ for my birthday. It's so toy-like it hardly feels like a real camera, but I'm hoping to get some good shots. It'll be my first foray into the world of lomography....

"We three Fossils," she said in a church voice

I re-read Ballet Shoes again today - I wanted something undemanding, though as it turned out I went on a huge nostalgia trip that took in a watching of the BBC adaptation that was aired a couple of years ago on Christmas day and reading every webpage I could find on Noel Streatfield, the author, and the illustrator Ruth Gervis. It also made me long for my ballet shoes. The copy I have is about 30 years old, and was bought by my mum, who loves Noel Streatfield's Gemma series. Ballet Shoes is the first book I remember being read to me, and has been an enduring favourite since. Though it's a children's book, it served as my introduction to Shakespeare (Pauline and Petrova appear in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Richard the Third), and to the world of ballet beyond that of my classes as a 5 year old where 'good toes, naughty toes' was the limit of my knowledge. Petrova, dark-haired and boyish, was my preferred Fossil out of the three. Trend I've noticed: all my favourite heroines have the same hair as me. It was the only book from my childhood I brought with me to university, though I think next time I go home I'll retrieve Toots And The Upside Down House...

The BBC did a really good job with making it for tv; the 30s costumes were great, and Emma Watson even toned down her eyebrows for the role of Pauline.

I celebrated my 19th birthday on the 5th of November (remember, remember), but have felt no more mature since the event, as evidenced by my reading of a children's book instead of my set course novel for this week!

existing in a world of darkness

I only see pictures of daylight.

Photos from fwystudios.com

our bruised arms hung up for monuments

a handbook for feminists and revolutionaries

It's 05:38AM, and it's been that time for about 3 weeks. This time my excuse is an essay; it's due in 12 hours, and I'm taking my own alarmingly leisurely time over it's completion, for reasons I can't quite comprehend at the moment. This is the tail end of my allotted 'break time', during which I've mindlessly meandered around the internet and sipped at a disgusting can of Relentless every couple of minutes because I'm too much of a wimp to drink the required amount of coffee...

I apologise for the terrible quality of these photos, taken using ancient Kodak digital...

Halloween was memorable, in that I can't quite remember it all. We stumbled between Archers and our flat at least twice, each time having gathered more people and more pointlessly appropriated traffic signs, until I couldn't be bothered any more and just cooked myself a pizza. I think. I certainly ate one, anyway. Everyone floated back in on the chilly breeze of the early hours and made a joint effort of trashing the kitchen before retiring for the evening, and that was the end of another October.

i thrive best hermit style

...with a beard and a pipe.

05:05

04:21

05:17

These are all wildly different in style, but I feel they're united in general feeling and purpose by other things. In each of them there are moments where it doesn't require the listener to focus on an individual aspect to the sound but rather let the whole wash over them.

sonnet 73

My close and extended family on my mum's side make at least two pilgramages to Tywyn in Wales every year (though none of us have ever lived there) and have done for nigh on sixty years. I was just looking through these photos I took during the autumn holidays in 2008 and missing the traditional October half-term activities of wildly wind-swept beach walks, hikes up Bird Rock, traversing floods, carving pumpkins, playing quidditch (don't ask) and attending the bonfire and fireworks at Rhydyronen. Right now my family are in Tywyn as usual, enjoying all of the above, while I'm here in Southampton translating Anglo-Saxon poetry. Badly. However I'll not be disheartened, pumpkin shopping is on the cards for tomorrow and I need to plan my Halloween costume!

1-6 taken using Ricoh X10/Fujifilm Superia 400 35mm
7 with digital Kodak DX6490