It's the little things

Keeping cosy by the fire...it won't make the headlines, but it'll make you happy

"Whipped-up spray that is rainbow-scattered
And a swallow curving in the sky
Shoes so comfy though they’re worn out and they’re battered
And the taste of apple pie.

So I mustn’t forget
No, I mustn’t forget
To say a great big thank you
I mustn’t forget.  "

~ Estelle White, Autumn Days

The last one. Shit. Knew I should have seen this coming.

I mutter and furrow my soapy brow at my only remaining hair-tie sprawled on the bathroom tiles. Its spring has sprung right out of it, along with its usefulness, purpose and raison d'etre. I'd worn it out, putting it to work with a flippant twist, morning after morning after morning after- oh. And suddenly, it just... wasn't, any more.

What if it hadn't been a spindly old hairband that had snapped into uselessness in an unexpected instant? (...can you see where I'm going with this yet?). What if it had been something else round, ancient and pretty darn essential? Tenuous link, I know, but go with it...what if Mr Harold Camping, of Family Radio, had actually been onto something with reckoning the End-of-the-World-as-we-know-it would happen around dinner-time last Saturday? What if he had seen us stop sniggering as he and his followers floated up to the Big Guy in the Sky, as the chaos began below? And what would you have thought when the streets started to rumble forbodingly beneath your feet?

What memories would have flickered behind your frozen gaze, before the lamplight cracked and was lost to the thundering shadows? 

As the "Autumn Days" assembly hymn used to teach our primary school selves, it's not just the big deals that make our world what it is. Thing's don't have to be rare to be special. So I wanted to make sure I remembered what makes my day, every day.
Yeah, this sounds cheesily twee now, but I'll bet many a dinosaur wished they'd taken time to savour their favourite watering hole/tufty gress/Stegasaurus-steak house, as they spied a meteor suddenly casting its mercilessly speeding shadow over the plains...

It's those lazy morning breakfasts...

...and watching the evenings drawing in

Kicking off the sandals for sunbathing...

...but sloshing through the slush too

Hours well spent celebrating with friends...

...or just keeping a book company.

Eating (pizza)  in...

...or eating (pizza) out.

In fact, there's a lot to love about Italia

...like the view from my room

...and my fly (definitely legally obtained) ride, for spinning about town...

There's always the canal-crossed paradise a train-ride away

But the homeland will always be where the heart is...

...with beautiful views of its own.

Knowing that family, and its furry friends, are important, every day.

I've let the pictures do the talking for me, but to summerise: there's a lot that I have to love. And a lot to look forward to. When the lights go out, I'll know what I've been lucky enough to live.

What will you remember?

(Don't be shy, step right up! Leave me a comment and tell me what you're thinkin'...)

At ease

Looks like they've found a comfy spot. Making themselves at home, the clouds plumped snugly on my rooftop have nestled down to drizzle that bike ride out of my morning...
Well, as I can't beat 'em, I'm joining 'em- I've found a cosy corner of my own, and have built myself a Sunday nest. Books and bits and bobs rustle in curls of duvet, my sleepy vision is blinkered by the XL hoodie bowed over my bed-hair, and juice, cereal and last night’s pudding experiment are an easy amble away. Everything is in order.

What's next? I squint through the half-open shutters to the bleary drench-fest outside. The clouds are doing what they do best, so, as I don't have a pillowcase-size sack of pic-n-mix to inhale in the first five minutes of a film, I'll stick to cooing at shiny prettiness on the Internet instead.
It's a shame I can't do both; firing sugar, spicy new fashion and everything nice at me, all at once...all that's missing is Chemical X, and I'd be the latest edition to the Powerpuff Girls. Although, I think my designer of choice today definitely has the X-factor...I wonder if that would work too...

Christopher Kane

Austrailian Vogue, April 2011- are those Full Moon Party remnants on her arms...?

If it's wrong, he doesn't want to be right... Bringing us the best in bad taste since 2006, Mr Kane and sister Tammy keep fashionistas clawing at his collections every season. Fall and Resort 2011 are as crisply entrancing as always, as well as pushing the limits of textile use with bright, fluid ease. As a general rule, colourful, squidgy liquid-filled plastic and high fashion aren't lucratively combined. But when your graduate collection- brass rings, lace and the brightest fluoro whipped, short and glowing, skin-tight onto his models- is shipped straight to a Harrods shop window, then rules must seem like a bit of a yawn.

It's also a pretty smart business ruse; if your designs boldly skim the brink of wonderful-and-wacky and, well, cheap-and-tacky, then anyone who attempts a Kane copy, without his immaculate skills, fabrics and wit, will undoubtedly topple right over into tastelessness. (His Resort '11 sandals show off Kane's visual intelligence- as the great Tim Blanks of Style.com noted, they're, "maribou-trimmed platforms, ironic bordering on camp, and a joy to behold".)

Resort '11

Resort '11

Fall '11

Fall '11

As a proud owner of one of his Topshop Collection pieces (scooped off the sale rail for £15... I suppose even King Kane can't win them all), I can see the morning fading blissfully unnoticed into afternoon, behind the flicker of catwalk slideshows, eyebrows lifting and furrowing in delighted absorbtion, and the level of cornflakes in my box being, distractedly but surely, nibbled down to dust.

Probably a good thing there's no pic-n-mix in Padova...who would want to be out, in that weather, saving the world in time for tea, when you could be tucked up with hundreds of Kane creations strutting across your laptop?

(Don't be shy, step right up! Leave me a comment and tell me what you're thinkin'...)

On the rocks

"I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand"  ~Leonardo da Vinci

     I don't mind admitting it- times have changed. These days I like my leisure served up steaming on a plate or three (don't be shy with the mayo), followed by the swift gestation of a food baby. Either that, or complete with reciept, snug inside some crisp carrier that I can swing merrily down the high street.
I've always been partial to emptying my purse to fill my wardrobe and my stomach- trading money for treats never stops looking like a good deal. But as I glance back at the past few years unfurled behind me, I wonder- how can it be that I've grown, when I seem to have lost my roots?

     Those roots that scuffed my knees and boots, pinked my cheeks with gusts, rays and showers, shot my skin with sea salt and grass stains, drenched me, bruised me, froze me, tired me, tested me... but never anything less than transfixed me. The Great Outdoors- it always has me paddling, trekking and climbing back for more. Or at least it did...

     Cue the Donkey- to pull me out of bed, into my walking boots and back onto the straight and narrow of meandering open fields. Luckily for me, Donkey generally makes a living out of keeping it rural, and can usually be found hoofing up rockfaces rather than cantering down town. So, waking up to find a nearby cove stroll, my trusty yellow Micra and party-food posing as picnic, all swirling around in the big empty sun-brushed Saturday in front of us, we knew what to do. It went a little something like this:

Waterfalls: washing worries and essay tension away since...well, long before essays existed.

It's probably wrong that this makes me want a waterfall-chilled Diet Coke...

Unadulterated Vitamin D

The blue beyond.

Nice boots them shoes...

 Jigsaw for giants.

Picnic spot... spotted.

Riverside rock basking... I'll get up in five minutes...

...or maybe in ten...

Malham Cove: sunbathers-eye-view

Nature keeps things trendy with a spot of colour-blocking

"Every wall is a door" ~Ralph Waldo (...or a stile...)

Grass criss crossed

In Malham we (National) Trust

And it's home time...

...but not for the last time. Roaming the green stuff with Donkey has planted my feet back on the ground, and while they may soon find themselves back to toppling in vodka-stung stilettos, or patiently padding round sale rails, they've had a walk to remember. Because while times might have changed, mud on my hands and grass between my toes has always made me happy. I'd just forgotten how much.

Prince Charming’s got ‘em on speed dial- Pumpkin Weddings

Blog, interrupted. It's been brewing in the Drafts folder since July. I was banking on it marinating in a meltingly choice, sumptuous manner, although if it's been festering into litter-tray mush, apologies. But if it's got any idea of its content (my work experience with Pumpkin Weddings,. "The Fairy Godmothers of the venue industry!"), it'll be simmering over with rich, frothing swathes of flavoursome career goodness. Let's hope for the best because the Pumpkin team are, to use a more relevant analogy, magic.

 
 Time spent with the Pumpkin Weddings crew is a bargain investment- fish out a couple of working week, or a handful of loose days you've got lying around, and cash them in- you'll bag yourself beautiful venue visits, centrepiece/water-bowl/candelabra/ivy/crystal/favour/flower arranging, lunches a la M&S&LOL, chair cover races, cakes, brides, grooms, good tunes, great gossip and more Twix's than you should have, really, but go on then, if you're offering. They'll even throw in some post-venue vino and the offer of adoption, if you're still on the fence. Which you shouldn't be, because it's time for elevenses, hop down! Don't you want a HobNob?

 
Of course, there are those days when though the love shines bright, nature's having none of it...but no need to cloud over the celebrations- a flick of the Pumpkin wand takes this handy manor house from 0 to Organza in a few hours, earning "oooh!"'s, "aaah!"'s and "It's just how I wanted it!"'s as guests peek in at the windows. And let's be honest, when you can charm the crowd with cakes that creamily blossom and bloom, sparking up smiles and appetites with their vanilla glow, then who cares if it's tipping it down outside?

 

Thank you so much to Em, Paul and the team for having me- I know working with you over Christmas will be a cracker! xxx

"I was 'ere...are you?" - observations on desk graffiti

A view on the walk home from uni...what else are you walking away from?

Dashed and weathered by the tides of pens, pages, coats and elbows, their corners buffed into curved polish, their grains ground up with inks and dents of procrastination past.

The raring expectancies of lives beginning lies in these boards- illustrations of the subconscious, thoughts left too long un-tethered in those fragmented pauses between interest and understanding. Like the murk of an evening skyline, the harder you squint, the more biro constellations rise up through the blotted layers. Some wet black with fresh passion or distraction. Some softer- etches waning and wearing away; void and forgotten like the emotion, long since spent, that carved it there.

There are lessons learnt here, offered to us to make our own- it’s odd, both how often the word ‘time’ pops up, and how much there is etched out in English. A lolling scrawl simply suggests, “Take the Time”, another preaches, “time is something in your hands”, while here is scratched the sullen mumble, “kill the time that’s killing you”. There is an excitable, and as far as I can make out from the Italian, fairly derogatory comment about Gwen Stefani, and a few regulation doodles of penises. Some sketches are cruel, some are merry, some loving, some pondering, some make no sense at all- and why should they?



Except...I’m drawn (no pun intended) to a certain few patches of bleached scribbles- despite their age, and their bolder gel-pen successors, I find myself dwelling on them. Wondering if they hold on, in dull defiance, because they hold true, even now, though their authors long since left these pews behind. Their tattered messages are distant, but held here in purgatory, with dogged insistence. Do they stay loyal, somehow, to a dream never realised, a passion never chased, a love left untold? What do they say that their owner could not?



What have you written? Or, more importantly, do your thoughts live on, spectre-like on some desk gone by- shady reminders of a bottled desire? And don’t you think it’s time you let those laboured lines fade away....



Slightly less insightful graffiti, on the Literature Faculty wall

 (if you're bored, leave me a comment below. because...well, I like them :) )



Dustless Centuries- Padova University

So when I discovered a book I needed was in the Palazzo del Bo, the historical seat of the University, I got all geekily excitable, rooted about for my camera and wrote off the next hour or two as Tourist Time. Built in 1493, the place makes old-school look like a nursery fresh off the blueprints, as you can see:

 Track down your text in these leather-bound miniture files...

 The gateway of ancient intellect with a hint of, "I've only gone and lost my bloody parking ticket, haven't I?"

 As you walk through the main gate, pillars and stone wall carvings await...

 This statue of Palinurus was made in commemoration of the University's role in the Resistance, for which it won the Gold Medal for Valour. Padova 1, Resistance 0.

 The paintings represent birth and development of humanity, culture and science, and the multi-coloured stairs jazz things up a notch.

The main doors of the Palazzo are forboding, but remembering the University motto, "Universa universis patavina libertas (Paduan freedom is universal for everyone), originally chosen to show its independence from the Catholic Church, still seems inviting today. It seems, the gate an eddy of footsteps and chatter, the University of Padova is still raring and relevant, wise but fresh, despite its years. Book in hand, I totter past the carvings solemn gaze. Nothing like centuries of composed strength in the snarling, battling face of adversity to make you get your reading done on time.

(leave me a comment below, if you fancy/are bored. ooh, go on.)

Slow Start

It's a bit ironic really- I'm sat, sub-face-pack, in a beautiful, fashionable country shaped like a boot, while fixated on books/sites about beautiful things, like boots, worn by people packing some serious fashion face.

Don't give me that- you try being doped up on volcanic meringues and deepest-fill jam tarts from down the road, and then attempting wistful insights. Too much of Mama's 'special' home baking is making me just that. When's your Dumbass Day?
So, before we go skipping across the cobbles, tramlines and sheened store floors of Padova, I've got a few screenshots instead of snapshots. The focaccia made me do it.

Will Cotton

Mr Cotton has one of THOSE jobs. One that makes you take one scornful look at your snowballing university debt and dog-eared lecture notes and think, "Someone had to earn their living making delicious mess, big bucks and an renowned name for themselves from crafting big heaps of cake- why the Bicarbonate of Soda wasn't it me?!". Astounded jealousy aside, this man has his cake and sells it, recently to none other than Miss Katy Perry, who hired him to design the set for 'Calfornia Girls' video, and to paint her 'Teenage Dream' album cover.

Elie Saab (http://www.eliesaab.com/)
If a particularly diva-ish strain of the Ancient Greeks ever chanced upon a time machine, they would sashay aboard, tailors in tow, and head straight for the runway of Elie Saab, as they RSVP-ed to those amphitheatre premiers with a smile. Hopefully said time machine would break down enroute, somewhere in or around my kitchen. Stand aside chiffon, it's thigh time.

Marc Quinn

Down a street here, over a canal there, and in no time the Furby and I found ourselves lost in Venice last weekend, something which we didn't have a problem with at all. 'Lost' doesn't seem quite the right word. 'Lost' would imply a certain emptiness, a bland loneliness, and that there weren't bakeries, spritz bars, trinket shops, mask stands, glass stalls, gondolas, balconies, bridges and abounding quaint crumbling gorgeousness absolutely everywhere you look. In fact, I don't think I've ever found so much whilst claiming to be 'lost'.

During our rewardingly aimless wander, what should we find but a painting I've never seen by a forgotten favourite- Marc Quinn. Known to favour kitcsh, riches and risk (he once made a live-size sculpture of his own head, "Self"- using 4.5 litres of his own blood, created Roman-style statues with people with disabilities in place of gods, and designed a golden sculpture of Kate Moss in a pretzel-like yoga pose), it was just a little bit cool to see this intriguing mind set to canvas. Even as a self-confessed Modern Art Anarchist, the Furby was taken by it too.
(Couldn't find the exact painting...but here are some other nice ones. The one that got away was better though, promise.)

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