Rest time.

The presents are wrapped, the tree is sparkling, the snow has fallen and routes have been planned. It is time to go for the holidays. We leave tomorrow morning for family in the north. We're staying with my Mum and spending Christmas day at my Grandparents. I still can't call it my Gran's, even though.

Today, instead of packing we walked by a river. We leaned over stable walls as snow fluff fell around us and plumes of horse breath warmed our noses. For a moment I believed we were living in a Christmas card.

I made my first snow angel today. The Boy and I made our first snowman together. I think this means that we're married.

I'm going now, for a day, a few days, maybe more. Maybe a week.

May you have a week of love and family and friendship and snow that tickles your nose and lands on your eyelashes, obscuring your vision, just for a moment, as you gaze upwards at the heavens and dream your dreams.

. Ralph and Alice, by Violetcreme

New York - Amber and Fernando

I've had some really fantastic advice over the last few weeks about our trip to New York, (not least the inimitable Amber's .... Any apartment anywhere will be fucking amazing because you are in new York fucking city and it is the coolest city in the world. You've gotta love Amber.)

But I really had to share this email that Ellie, aka Miss Domm sent me, because I love love love it. It is her friend Fernando's top list of Things To Do In New York and I thought you might love it too....

Best Bowl of Eel
St Mark's is one of my favorite streets in Manhattan. It's where midtown starts to turn into downtown, midway between NYU and Tompkins Square Park. There's all kinds of quirky shops there: karaoke bars, head shops, comic book stores. The best reason to go is Kenka, which is a Japanese restaurant that serves great traditional cuisine (no sushi, though) and the cheapest pitcher of beer in town. Kenka's sign isn't in English, though, so to find the restaurant you have to look for the statue of the bear/raccoon god with the red eyes next to the candy floss machine. I'm serious. Once you're drunk and full of boiled eel, take your candy floss and go down to the West end of the street to have some shots at The Continental, the best bar in the neighborhood. They will probably be projecting a Dennis Hopper movie onto the back wall.

Best Middle Eastern Food
For me this is a tie between two places: Yaffa Cafe and Moustache's. Yaffa is on St Mark's near Kenka and has a lot of seating including an outdoor patio (but if they're going in the winter that doesn't help much). Moustache's is on the West side in the Village and has the best pita bread on the planet. Moustache's is really tiny so if you want a seat on a weekend night it pays to get there early.

Best Famous Museum in a City Full of Famous Museums
There's tons of famous museums in New York but you honestly can't do justice to all of them - if you can only pick one I recommend the Met. They just renovated their Greek & Roman sculpture galleries and their Islamic art wing was being renovated when I left - I think it might be done now. You can combine it easily with a walk through Central Park and a visit to other neighboring museums like The Guggenheim.

Best Not-Famous Museum in a City Full of Famous Museums
PS1 in Long Island City is a contemporary art museum that is housed in the former Queens Public School 1. It's a great space and the exhibits change regularly - it's always really challenging art and a great time.

Best Not-Famous Museum in a City Full of Famous Museums (if you don't like contemporary art)
The Neue Gallerie (on the Upper East Side over by the Gug) is run by The Ronald Lauder Foundation. It is full of Klimts. Like dozens and dozens. If you like Klimt, you have to go there. It's also quite small and you can do the whole gallery in an hour or two.

Best Sushi (in the world)
Ginger on 1st Ave and 10th Street is the best sushi place on the planet Earth and everyone should go there once. There is no more inventive sushi menu anywhere. I don't often get homesick for New York but when I do it's Ginger that I'm thinking about usually.

Best Neighborhood to Avoid
The Meatpacking District. It's full of far too many pretentious-likes and you'll pay $20 for a warm glass of Schlitz. It my humble opinion, this is not worth your time.

Best Bar
The Back Room on the Lower East Side has no sign outside, you just need to walk on the West side of Norfolk Street until you see a huge black guy standing by himself outside of an abandoned-looking building. That's the bouncer - ask him if you can go into The Back Room. The Back Room is set up like a speakeasy and they serve cocktails in teacups. It is totally great. Dress nice.

Best Plants or What-have-you
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is really lovely and if you go out during the day you can spend the evening going to cool Brooklyn bars like Matchless and Pete's Candy Store and hobnob with the hipsters.

Best Reason to go to Staten Island
This is a trick. There is no reason to go to Staten Island.



. image by Jen_Mo

Girl dislikes Tuesdays

I don't really like Tuesdays. I do kind of like Mondays though, there's only so much weekend I can take before I start feeling guilty about all that work I'm not doing. But by Tuesdays I'm bored of working again and ready for it to be the weekend. But the great misery of a Tuesday is that the weekend is So Far Away.

So I put on my happy playlist and ever since watching Celia and Joe's honeymoon slideshow (over and over and over again) this song has been at the top of my happy list... It kind of works.

Updates on the Christmas/cookies/cows situation:

Cows: I'm so relieved that y'all moo at cows too. Some of you asked who these weirdos who don't moo at cows are and let's just say peoplewithnogoddamnimagination and leave it at that.

Bertha: you most certainly can have a picture, once she's a little less nekkid. A situation that is getting no closer to being remedied, despite your plentiful suggestions. For those who pointed out that garlands and things that wrap are the way to go I would like to make it clear that Bertha is Very Fat and any garland I made would have to be 9 meters long just to go ffrom top to bottom in a fairly mean little spiral. NINE METERS people. You obviouly missed the part in my request (or maybe I missed it) where I point out how bloody lazy I am and request that your suggestions require next to no time or effort. To which I tried making some origami decorations last night. Yeah, origami's an asshole. Celia warned me and she says she would never lie to me but it's just folding paper right? Any idiot who can make a paper frog can make a paper tree decoration, right? And I can do it while watching One Tree Hill, right? Wrong.

Origami = asshole. And so Bertha remains unclothed.



Cookies: well there's little to say here 'xcept they're all gone. Maybe I'll share some recipes and photos with you later though.





* points if you can tell me which lovely lady blogger I nicked the title from. Without clicking the link darlings, without.

the littlest update...

Thank you so much everyone who's bought a box set from my little shop or who has posted about said box sets on their blogs, I loves you.



I just wanted to let you know that they are almost all gone. There are two Palace of Illusions, two Sepias and one Island Green left. After that no more until the new year, when I hope to get some brand new sets of images printed up as well as the ones that have been for sale over the last few weeks.

cookies, christmas, cows

Hello poor neglected blog.

I think that two posts in one week might be a new low for me. Yay for achievements.

I'm completely bewildered by it being eleven days until Christmas. ELEVEN DAYS PEOPLE. How did that happen? Despite buying our very first Christmas tree yesterday (and watching Elf, which we both found more than a little disturbing. Anyone else?) I don't feel that festive. I think I need to get down to making some decorations for our poor, slightly naked tree. She is sitting in our living room atop a table (rabbits + trees = frenzied trips to bunny A&E. And a nibbled tree) covered in lights but very little else. Which looks great in the dark when the lights are on, but during the day? We've pretty much just got a tree in our living room. A huge tree. Enormous. Well, not that tall actually, about five and a half feet, seven once you take the table into account. But I kid you not, that tree is at least five feet across. It's almost completely spherical.

I have paper and fabric and glue (idontlikeglue) but no ideas. HELP ME. What can I make?

(I really just want to go and buy these but I feel bad enough after spending So Much Money on the tree and we'd need roughly 100 of them to make Big Bertha (that's what she's called, our tree) look like anything other than someone who picked out a very nice pair of earrings in the morning but forgot to put any clothes on)


And for no other reason than because I like it, a picture of a cow.



Actually, now that I remember. I was at a cookie exchange on Saturday (Best Idea Ever) and the subject of cows came up. In particular the subject of mooing at cows. Now apparently not everyone does this. Neither, apparently, do very many people bark at dogs, baa at sheep or quack at ducks. Who knew?


And with that I will wish you a happy Monday.


. Belted Galloway by Grass Doe

yellow shoes...

"Later, I saw these beautiful, yellow maryjanes and decided to treat myself. The sales girl looked at me like I was crazy as I stood there in front of the mirror, giantly pregnant and teetering in 3 1/2 in heels. “They’ll be fun to wear after baby comes?” she said with a smile. “After? They’ll be fun to wear now.” I said back.

I gave up sushi, raw cookie dough, and red wine when I got pregnant - but I’m not giving up my pretty shoes, thankyouverymuch."

Words and photo from Stay Forever Sunday

I have a confession to make. I tend to stop reading your blogs when you get pregnant

There are some exceptions of course and Stay Forever Sunday is one of them. I love a pregnant blogger that retains the wit, style and intelligence they possessed before pregnancy and who doesn't feel the need to update me on their stomach growth weekly (with pictures!), enlighten me as to what foods are making them vomit today and ohsweetmotherofgod show me every last ikea purchase for their spare room turned nursery. Unless it's a room I'm going to want to live in baby or not, I'm going to struggle to care. Sorry.

I don't really know what my point is here. I think it's just that I want those shoes. In which case I should have probably just said that rather than invoking the wrath of The Baby Blogger. What can I say. I'm feeling a little esb today.

New York - art

I know a lot of you already suggested various galleries in my Tourist Stuff post (which leads me to believe that I'm not making my footnotes big enough, but whatever) but as darling P said


I don't count museums as tourist attractions because art is for everyone



(which is exactly why they get a separate post). So, tell me do. What are your favourite galleries/ art places in New York?

Big ones with Rembrandts and small ones with weird shit. Fancy ones with entrance fees and dingy ones down side streets. Traditional ones with paintings and and not so traditional ones with more weird shit. I will visit any of them. Alone it must be said. Boy does not like lingering and I do not like feeling rushed.



. richter / turner by Jen Bandini (aka escapetonewyork)

(Again. I tried looking for other New York pictures, honestly. But hers are the best.)

sweet mother of baby rabbits...

Sharon Montrose is killing me with teeny weeny ickle baby bubby wabbits...

She currently has a promotion on, a buy three get one free sort of a thing. Which is perfect as THERE ARE THREE MORE BUNNEEEEEEEEZ.....

I love this one best though. He looks so worried. In fact his expression is not dissimilar to the one I've been wearing for about a fortnight now. I call it my IthinktheskymightbefallingistheskyfallingIthinkitsfalling face.


. image by Sharon Montrose. Info via East Side Bride. Who's more of a porcupine girl herself (surprised? Didn't think so.)

New York - a little Friday crazy

Just because not everyone clicked through (yes, I know these things). And for those who did, I thought it was imperative that you see The Crazy in a little more detail.

This is my favourite picture of me and my husband that has ever been taken. May 2005, Empire State Building, New York City.

Big huge thank yous to everyone who has emailed me with New York suggestions. I love them all and I'm sorry if I haven't replied to thank you properly yet, I'm kind of treading water just now and not an awful lot but getting through the days is getting done. Sigh. Soon though my chickens, soon.

New York - tourist stuff

If you were going to do one tourist thing* in New York, what would it be?**

When Boy and I went to NYC back in foreverago, we had no money. We had enough for food (cheap food) and our beds at the YMCA and next to nothing extra. But we were in New York for the first time and we were young and silly and we felt that we just had to do something New Yorky. Given our lack of funds we had to pick our tourist attractions wisely. Which we didn't. We went to the Empire State Building and it was a lot like being poked in the eye with a sharp stick. Repeatedly.

On the plus side we did get to take this picture, which almost makes it worth it.




* no galleries. I have a gallery/art post coming.

** anyone who tells me that they're too cool to partake in tourist attractions gets poked with the aforementioned pointy stick







. the circle line, by Jen Bandini. Read her review of it here.

December 1st...

Every few months a small brown envelope drops through my letterbox and something lurches in my chest. Something like sadness, something like regret, something an awful lot like loss. I know what those envelopes mean. Their size, their deceptive lightness, the small piece of sellotape across the back that stops their news from sneaking out before it reaches its intended. I know that when I open it the words 'we regret to inform you... passed away... hospice... many of you knew her... for those that would like to attend... details will follow.' will escape from that envelope and permeate my heart, like a malignant cloud, and will follow me wherever I may go to try to excape.

Most of the time the names don't mean much to me, just another client of the charity I used to work for. Sometimes they ring a bell, a story I heard, an anecdote shared comes back to me. And twice those names have belonged to the mothers of children I used to work with, mothers who would open the door to me weekly and allow me to take their daughters by the hand and spend an afternoon with them in the cinema, at the zoo, in toy shops while they took the small chance they were given to have a rest. Daughters who are now parentless.

If an envelope were to drop through my door every time someone, somewhere dies from Aids I would receive over 5000 a day. If an envelope dropped through my door for every child everywhere that was orphaned to aids I would be the proud owner of over 20 million envelopes. As it is I just have my own small collection. Around a dozen names in my desk drawer, lost to a disease that is entirely preventable.


December 1st. World Aids Day. If nothing else, remember.

New York* - purchasing

Whenever I mention shopping in New York the Boy rolls his eyes and gives me that look. That look that says we can't afford the trip, never mind any shopping. And I give him that look that says phooey.

Having said that I don't really like spending money. I do however like looking at pretty things in pretty places. I like browsing and lingering and touching and dreaming then putting back and feeling relieved that there are still some pennies in my piggy bank and that guilt, anxiety and poverty (the natural consequences of buying things) remain neatly folded in my purse, tucked away with all of those shiny plastic cards.

What are your favourite shops in New York? Your favourite places to browse and touch and wander and dream.

. images of various New York boutiques via Wunderbloc



* I know I said it would be a week. I was wrong. New York fortnight? month? whatever, continues and will do so for as long as I have questions that you wonderful lovelies keep answering. I will be posting some other bits and bobs among my travel dreams this week too though.

New York - baked goods

We all know I'm only in it for the baked goods.
Tell me where to get the baked goods.
I need the baked goods.
Baked Goods.
Yum.

* bread, buns, cake, donut, muffin, bagel, baklava, pastry, cheesecake, cupcake. I don't care. I want them all. I NEED them all.


. vesuvio bakery, bt tomefran

New York - dinner

cheap, fun, easy, relaxed, delicious.

OR

decadent, once-in-a-trip-to-New-York-put-on-your-glad-rags, delicious.

OR

something in between, delicious.



. padron pizza by Brian W Ferry

New York - luncheon

So breakfast was lovely, eggs perfectly poached and served with the freshest toasted sourdough and freshly roasted black coffee.

And then you shopped, or galleried or maybe you took some photographs of people and streets and all the life of the city, either way it was a perfect New York morning.

Now you're hungry. It's lunch time. You need to rest after the morning and refuel for the afternoon ahead. Where do you go? What do you eat?


. Corner Cafe (in the West Village) by the Cheshire Smile.

New York - breakfast

When the boy and I stayed in New York four years ago we stayed at the YMCA (hello cheapesrt accommodation in town). The best bit about this was the breakfast voucher (closely followed by the communal showers).

Every day we went to a diner on the corner, clutching our laminated vouchers entitling us to truly obscene quantities of French toast or pancakes (American, not European. It has recently come to my attention that when I say 'pancakes' Americans think of those firm foam pads that are essentially a sponge for maple syrup whereas Europeans know that I'm talking about crepes; wafer thin, perfectly mottled, rollable pancakes topped with fresh lemon juice and crunchy sugar. But I digress...)

This was great for the first three days while we revelled in whole jugs of syrup and endless coffee refills but on the fourth day I felt bloated at the mere sight of that breakfast voucher and turned to the boy who was also clutching kind of desperately at his stomach and asked him if we could just go somewhere and find some fruit.

So. Breakfast. American with white flour, sugar and fried goods or European with yoghurt, fruit, croissants, butter, jam and easy on the syrup. Porridge with cinnamon and raisins, toast with marmalade and tea. Eggs poached, fried, boiled. With toast soldiers or with a side of brioche.

Where in the city of New York can I find a perfect breakfast? Anywhere, any style, any price. I love me some breakfast.


*eggs. by The Cheshire Smile.

New York - details

I realise I skipped a few of the more elementary details about our trip. So here we go:


when: mid April

how long: 28 days

where: New York City baby. Specifics as yet unknown

why: work. The most wonderful wedding of the most fabulous woman to the most lovely of men.

New York - where?

Decision one. Where do we stay?

We're planning on renting an apartment. We just don't know where. Our requirements are as follows:

• fairly quiet (so those three hundred empty apartments for rent above Times Square are out for starters)

• somewhere were real people live (see above)

• with real food shops (again with the not having millions of money we can't afford to eat out for every meal and anyway, we like cooking)

• and nice cafes. Ones with baked goods.
  

• That is generally just quite nice to walk around. We like just wandering and it would be nice to just wander straight from our house. (aka, somewhere pretty)
  

• close to a subway station, for ease of just wondering in other places

What have I missed? What would you require? Where would you suggest we stay? There seems to be a general divide between the young, hip, cheap and slightly ugly neighbourhoods and the prettier, middle aged, trendy and more expensive locales.

For your amusement I offer you the exchange below, between me (P) and friends A and B via twitter and email (I paraphrase here and there) ....


P: Where should we stay in NY? What's Greenpoint like? We've found a cute little appartment there.

A: Fuck Greenpoint. It's full of hipsters and kind of ugly. B will probably suggest you stay there though. Park Slope is much nicer.

B: Fuck Park Slope, it's full of STROLLERS. How middle aged are you? Ignore A. Srsly. And hipster = cheaper

P: My head hurts.



. April, by Jen Bandini of Escape to New York

New York New York

If you've been reading p&p for a while you will know that in April Boy and I are off to New York for a month. If you've been reading for even longer you will know just how bloody excited this makes me. And if you know me just a little bit you will know that I'm freaking the hell out at the thought of planning such a huge and thrilling adventure.

So I need your help blog babies, internet chickens, lovely friends.

This week will be New York week here*. I will be asking you questions, lots of questions. Looking for your tips and your advice and your help with planning what will hopefully be a wonderful month. A month of pretending that we live in the best city in the world, a month of living and eating and photographing and adventures big and small.


* I've tried writing to a theme for a week before. I suck at it. I have no self discipline and as soon as I tell myself I'm going to do something the desire to do something entirely different overwhelms me. So apologies if I wander off course a little.


. u.s.a by Brian W Ferry, one of my favourite photographers

Phew.

Well that sucked.

A lesson for you my blog babies, if you have your own domain MAKE SURE YOU RENEW IT IN TIME. Also, make sure that emails regarding said domain are sent to an address that you actually use, so that you know when the damn thing is about to expire.

Anyway, I'm back. Peonies and Polaroid DOT COM.

Now I need a drink. Would it be wrong to have a wee tequila with my porridge?

A whoopsie

due to my flakiness and google's assholeness you might have noticed that my blog is gone and in its place is some smug bitch with a backpack and links to a whole lot of florists. I'm assured that this isn't permanent and in the meantime Peonies and Polaroids is back at www.peoniesandpolaroids.blogspot.com and a New York week will be going ahead as planned tomorrow (look at me, all keeping calm and carrying on. Now I'm off tp bang my head against the wall before collapsing in a heap to sob into my pillow and plot the death of backpack girl. Because that's what an evening spent wrangling with google will do to you)

And the winner is.....

number 98

aka emily b

as picked by random.org

Yay for Emily!

Thank you for all of your comments, I can't believe so many of you entered! And thank you to you lovely soles who didn't enter but just skipped straight to etsy and gave me your money, I love you muchly. As of today there are only two blossom sets left so if you have your eye on one of them you had better skedaddle. I will be getting more made but what with the ordering of more boxes and prints and the giant nap I'm planning on taking over the weekend it might take a while. So...

Roll up, roll up and get 'em while they're hot!

Next week is hopefully going to be New York week on P&P. I need your help American chicens, New York chickens and New York loving chickens. Help with planning and dreaming and searching and finding. It depends how long that nap is though.

. letters and numbers by dailypoetics. I searched for a 98, there isn't one.

Stuck

from: Boy
to : Girl
subject: stuck

Ever feel stuck* pixie ?

xx



He knows me so well. He also calls me pixie, which if you didn't know, you do now.

* it's a video, it makes noise. Be warned.

. photo courtesy of sodahead.com via writelikecrazy

Small spaces

These pictures, along with this article, made vivid by memories of this holiday, combined with 1000 square feet of cold, rubble-strewn rooms have me longing for the smallest and cosiest of spaces to live in. Spaces where each object and each belonging is chosen with care for space is the commodity you have the least of. Spaces where relationships are closer, clutter is less and decisions are fewer.



* image of Elodie's apartment, by Elodie and via decor8

miniatures and giveaways

Boxed sets of miniature prints are for sale here.
(finally)

You all are too sweet with your kind words about these little boxes, I loves you. As a thank you (and kind of as an apology for being a shitty blogger recently and hardly ever returning your comments which I love and which make my day, every day) I would like to offer one of these sets to one of you readers.

Just leave a comment below, maybe tell me which of the five sets is your favourite and someone will be picked at random on Friday.

projects in miniature

Dearest ones, thank you so very much for your comments on my projects and dreams post, I can't tell you how hugely overwhelmed I was by your wisdom and your sense of humour. (If you didn't read the comments {why don't you read the comments? The comments are the best bit} please go and read them right now. Especially if you're battling with your own projects and dreams)


You kill me. Even more than weddings with ostriches.

I'm planning on sharing some of those projects and dreams with you, big projects, big dreams. But it turns out that it's kind of hard to write about that stuff (who knew?) so it might take me a little while. In the meantime here is a little project I've been working on. Well I say little, but it's been a while coming together. Let's call it relatively little, like relative to trying to rebuild a house or start a business.

These five different sets of mini prints will be on sale here from next week and here (holyshitmypicturesareinaREALshop!) from whenever they arrive in Los Alamos. There will be a pink one and a green one and a sea one and a sepia one and my very very favourite Coney Island one.

Four prints, wrapped in glassine bags, nestled in boxes made from recycled card, curled up with silk ribbon and provided with four tiny clothes pegs for doing this with (but prettier, what with the lack of bulldog clips and the prints that match).

Come back next week for a wee giveaway of one of these sets and just maybe, some dreams and projects shared.


I never say this but have a lovely weekend my chickens.

X.

With this wedding she is killing me...

Of course we knew it would be gorgeous, but this gorgeous? Celia is surely trying to kill us dead with beauty and love and ostriches and stuff.

* Photos of Celia and Jo's wedding by Cathryn Farnsworth and via East Side Bride

.

Lest we forget.




* Poppy and bud by Esoule

Projects and Dreams

Most of my life just now seems to be projects and dreams. Projects presentsand dreams of projects future. But that's what being 24 is all about right? Projects and dreaming. Making things happen and dreaming of the things that you hope will happen. But sometimes you just want the things to be happened, the dreams to not be dreams any more and to be done with all that waiting and planning and wondering which of your 102 disparate dreams of the future is the right dream. But that's not how it works when you're 24 and you have 102 dreams and you are trying to make things happen and amongst it all you're not really sure what you want to happen. And so you muddle on. And you thank whomever it is you thank when you're thankful that you have someone beside you to hold your dreams in their hands, to keep the others safe while you play with each one in turn, rolling it over and looking at it from this way and that and wondering if just maybe it's the right one.

Similar but different

I love The Guardian:

"Pygmy hedgehogs were last year's must-have pet. They are similar to a hamster in that they are nocturnal, enjoy exercise wheels and live for three to five years. They are different because they are carnivorous - and prickly"

Prickly? Who knew?

* The Guardian's Top Ten Miniature Pets. I'll take a pig, a goat, a mule, in fact I'll have one of each. You can keep the seahorse though. Eugh.


* Booful pygmy hog by Scott's View of the World



(Did you know that baby hedgehogs are called piglets? Thanks Countryfile.)

meanwhile elsewhere

a small collection of things from the internet that I wanted to blog about but didn't...

• I still want a dog. This photo by Wendy Bevan makes me a little desperate

• This one doesn't help either
  

• Darling Amanda visited me, it was lovely*

• what I am dreaming our home will look like one day. Or should that be 'our house'?

• A small trip round Europe that will make your heart melt

• A reminder

• My Mum offered me her wedding dress when we got married, I think she was joking. Jamie Lea wore her Mum's wedding dress though and I just love the picture of the two of them side by side.
  

*I was a little nervous and talked too much, knocked things over in shops and fell off a pavement. She was kind enough not to mention any of that.


. image by Wendy Bevan

Something kind of fantastic

'We're different, we all are. Him especially. But there's something kind of fantastic about that, isn't there?' *

When I found myself sitting on The Boy, sobbing into his neck because we didn't have the right flour to make pastry and thus life was just impossible, it was pretty clear that I needed to get out. It was also clear, judging from the level of the screaming hab jab that was going on, that it would take something really really good to make this horrible situation better.

'How about we go out for dinner? Mono should be quiet on a Monday, we can sit in a booth and eat veggie burgers.'

'no' I muttered, shaking my head which was still hiding in his jumper

'Cake. We could go for cake'

I didn't even bother saying no this time, just shook my head again and sniffed loudly.

'Um...' he said, starting to sound a little desperate. 'What about Fantastic Mr Fox'

My ears pricked.

I am in big love with Fantastic Mr Fox. This film is the love child of Ocean's Eleven and Wallace and Gromit adopted and raised by The Royal Tenenbaums. Fantastic, in other words. We went to see it on Monday when I was in the midst of the aforementioned rather major meltdown and I'm quite certain that there is nothing else in this world that could have calmed and cured me like those weird little animated mammals.



Sorry I've been gone. I'm struggling with, um, sanity issues. Which strangely my puter seems to exasperate something rotten. So I've been hiding from it. Avoidance (and animation) is the best medicine.


*words of the truly fantastic Mrs Fox.

Perpetuality

My first thought when I came across these pictures was what kind of crazyassed genius is this? My second thought, once I'd figured out just what I was looking at, was fuck yeah! I want one!

This perennial calendar from Little Brown Pen is too clever for words. It overwhelms me with cleverness. And beauty and talent and and and wow. I mean, it last forever. How often do you find a calendar that last forever? Almost never is how. It is made up of lots of little photos of Paris and you can buy your little piece of clever here. Or here.

Oh, and um, no. There won't be Peonies and Polaroids calendars this year. I thought about it, I even decided that it might be quite a good idea and then I tried to do it and well, I cried and I stamped my feet and I snapped at my husband and it was horrible. Maybe next year. This year there will however be Peonies and Polaroids gift set type things, which I'm very excited about. Peonies and Polaroids Gift Set Type Things only provoked lip chewing and hang wringing and a few what-am-I-doing-no-one-is-going-to-buy-these's which is a lot better than the aforementioned calendar situation.

If you're going to buy a sheep...

"If you're going to buy a sheep buy a good sheep"




These words strike me as Very Important to Remember.

words: farmer Adam Hanson on last night's Countryfile, which we have taken to watching with our dinner of a Sunday evening.

picture: a Very Good Sheep at this year's Royal Highland Show. An award winning sheep no less.

grudging participation

I hope those of you (weirdos) who do love halloween have fun this eve.

. image courtesy of Belle and Boo

(much as I hate dressing up I would really love to dress up the rabbit. Purely for the look of wrath I know such an indignity would evoke on his furry little face)

pumpkins and ghosties and ghouls

I don't like Halloween. I know that this along with the fact that I don't love Autumn makes me a hopelessly grumpy old bastard but I don't care. Normally I hide at halloween. I turn down invitations, refuse to entertain the notion of dressing up and turn all the lights off in case the neighbour's kids see that we're in and turn up on our doorstep expecting sweets in exchange for doing bugger all besides donning a flammable polyester 'costume' that will be in the bin come tomorrow mornin. Bah humbug.

This halloween I won't hide though, I won't hide because one of my very favouritest ladies is coming to town from way way over the ocean and we will meet and we will cake and we will chat and we will coffee and we will explore my favourite city which doesn't need silly old halloween because it is proper spooky and scary and there are ghosties down every alleyway and ancient haunted graveyards on every corner.


* photograph by the Husband, who captures Embra's spookiness better than anyone I know

Snippets

A few small pieces from my life of late.

A noticeboard that hangs above my desk to inspire. There are, perhaps, an embarrassing number of pictures of my boy but fuck it, I love him.

Jeans, rediscovered. I had forgotten how at home I feel in clothes that are just far too big. With holes in. Whenever I wear them people ask me if they're my husband's. Which is silly. One, he's almost a foot taller than me. Two, he does not have a 26inch waist.

One arts degree, which packs up most neatly into two bin bags and an invoice for quite a lot of student loan.

A new bag. Not just any new bag but the first handbag I have ever owned. Seriously. I've had school bags and I've had shopping bags and I've had quite a few bags that came free with magazines. For years these have served me well but it was time to grow up. Now I have a bag with a zip. And pockets.

My last cup. I try not to moan but every morning I want to hit the Boy as he sits there over breakfast with his perfect French press coffee. Bastard.

I know it doesn't look like an improvement but trust me, it is.

Clever LPC was right, I didn't need a month to throw out all of our junk. I did need three weekends without weddings to tackle the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, sitting room and hallway, to get rid of shit like this that has been hiding in forgotten drawers for a year or three. Now only the office is left. If only I could rouse myself to actually go inside it at the weekends.

Instead, I'd much rather go out and buy cake and figs.


(addendum, bag is from Matt and Nat, swallow jacket is from Topshop and is positively ancient, mug is from Emma Bridgewater)