I like a bride in boots. I especially like a bride in boots when they're not cowboy boots. Not that I have anything against cowboy boots, I giggled with delight the first time I saw a bride in cowboy boots too, and possibly the second third and fourteenth time, but it's nice to see something a little different once in a while.
. image by Punam Bean
LPC is a wise lady and knew that these homemade heatpacks by Kate of Love You Big would lighten my heart a little. I have a small addiction to heatpacks, heat pads and hot water bottles. I like warm things on my tummy.
Anyone else with anything more that might lighten a slightly heavy heart? Just a little something? Please?
. image via Love You Big.
Why have I not seen Jen and Hooper's wedding before? With its frills and tattoos and New York and spirit of warmth and peace and loveliness. Why? Then again perhaps it has been everywhere and I've been asleep. That has been known to happen.
. image courtesy of Love Me Do Photography and via Escape to New York (Jen's blog)
. image by Melissa, of Melissa's Greetings.
Flowery, stumpy little mugs by Virginia Graham with stripes on the inside and silly little handles you can only fit one finger in.
"Those mugs you put on your blog today are hideous" The Boy will say, but he's wrong, they're fabulous.
. image courtesy of Virginia Graham
Camping is on my mind. We pitched our tent in our office a couple of weeks ago, it became my new favourite place to hide (I like to hide sometimes). Where we buried the bunny is a good place to camp, the Boy used to camp there when he was little and he said he'd take me. There's a river and trees and gigantic slugs bigger than my biggest finger, but the boy says they only come out when it's been raining and we won't go camping until it's dry. I'm choosing to believe him.
. image by ~KIM~
The Boy gave me this card last Christmas. I love it. I have it pinned to my wall.
I don't know if I'm the dog or the twig. Of course, maybe I'm neither, but I suspect differently.
Another year another Chelsea Flower Show missed. Sigh. Boy promises that next year we will not book any weddings the week of the show. I'll believe it when I smell the roses though...
. image by Flora of Some Moments of Pleasures. More here.
I'm not sure I like figs. I'm not sure why I'm not sure I like figs. I'm not sure I've ever had a fig.
I'm sure I like this picture though.
. heart shaped beech chopping board and image by Decorative Country Living
I'm sad this week and I can't summon the energy to think, write or photograph. So I'm going to take this opportunity to share some of the pictures and videos I've been hoarding recently. Little things that inspire me and that will hopefully cheer me up a little.
I hope that they inspire you too. And if you think of anything that might cheer you up when you're down, that makes you smile when you're sad or feel a little inspired when you're feeling blah and the grey clouds are hanging over you please do leave a link below. Thank you my lovelies...
. mobile and image by le petite papillion
On Thursday morning The Bunny died. He got sick on Wedneday evening, by bed time he couldn't walk and by the morning he could barely move at all. We thought he was about five years old, but by the vet's reckoning he was closer to ten. Our daft and childlike bunny became an old man overnight.
The Rabbit's sad, he won't come out of his hutch. The Bunny stole his food, peed on his head, humped him mercilessly and demanded all of the attention but he was a rabbit, which is infinitely better than a human. And he was his friend.
We buried him where the wild things grow. Where bunnies roam free and edible things appear freely out of the ground. He would have liked that.
When we went to use the picnic basket yesterday we discovered that we had left an apple in it after our last trip. Which would explain why it so often had a rabbit sitting on it over the last fortnight. We also discovered that the wicker work had been chewed off one of the handles. The Bunny has left a path of destruction in his wake, a hundred nibbles to remind us of how much he meant to us.
. image by me
When I'm craving naughty food I read recipes. I pore over the pictures, the ingredients becoming the most delicious poetry to me. I read them out loud, with a reverence usually reserved for Wordsworth (or Roald Dahl in my case, A Hand in the Bird being the only poem I know by heart).
This habit bemuses the boy (unless he's hungry, in which case it just annoys him) because he's never met anyone whose cravings are appeased by looking at pictures of crème brûlée and reading litanies to chocolate cake. But it works. When we're in the supermarket and I'm desperate for something naughty, something delicious, something that will leave me feeling utterly bloody awful if I eat it, just standing infront of the chiller cabinet and looking at the triple chocolate explosion with whipped cream makes me feel a little less desperate and then I'm ready to move on to the wholefoods aisle to add a little wheatbran and dried kidney beans to the basket (yum).
I was curious as to whether or not this approach would work with clothes. If in the midst of my vow not to buy stuff I can't live without looking at the things I want, looking but not buying (not even just a little, to try on and then send back) would help.
It doesn't.
These are some of the things I've been lusting after this week. None of them are strictly unaffordable but none of them are things that I need and none of them are things that will help with the Great Escape plan. And strangely enough looking at the pictures just makes me want them more...
I saw my first bumble bee, butterfly and lady bugs this week. I love summer bugs, summer bugs are happy and sunny and they sing little songs. I'm not so keen on winter bugs. Winter bugs are dark and dank and and sometimes a little slimy.
I want to decorate our bathroom with these tiny summer bug tiles from Fired Earth. In the depths of the winter (when the dank, dark bugs are out) they would cheer me up so and remind me that one day the bumble bees will be back.
They're 6.5 x 6.5 cm and hand made in the UK. They cost £20 each. I don't think I can have even one. But never mind, we're renovating our flat to sell it one day in the not too distant future, it's not a forever home. One day, when we have a forever home, I might just buy myself a bumble bee and a butterfly and a lady bug and we just won't eat for a week.
. images courtesy of Fired Earth
I don't like watermelon.
It tastes of nothing
and makes a mess
and it's full of pips that look like big black bugs.
But I like this picture. It makes me want to get together with my favourite girlies, in the sun and dip our toes in the water. Of course we'd have to replace those melon bits with something yummier, a Spanish orange maybe? Or bowls of fresh berries. Ooh! Margaritas! Who's with me?
. image via Cabbages and Roses
In Paris With You
Don't talk to me of love. I've had an earful
And I get tearful when I've downed a drink or two.
I'm one of your talking wounded.
I'm a hostage. I'm maroonded.
But I'm in Paris with you.
Yes I'm angry at the way I've been bamboozled
And resentful at the mess I've been through.
I admit I'm on the rebound
And I don't care where are we bound.
I'm in Paris with you.
Do you mind if we do not go to the Louvre
If we say sod off to sodding Notre Dame,
If we skip the Champs Elysées
And remain here in this sleazy
Old hotel room
Doing this and that
To what and whom
Learning who you are,
Learning what I am.
Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris,
The little bit of Paris in our view.
There's that crack across the ceiling
And the hotel walls are peeling
And I'm in Paris with you.
Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris.
I'm in Paris with the slightest thing you do.
I'm in Paris with your eyes, your mouth,
I'm in Paris with... all points south.
Am I embarrassing you?
I'm in Paris with you.
James Fenton
. image by Alicia Bock
The Boy and I went for my 21st birthday, it was my second time in Paris, I had been when I was 15 and fallen in love, it felt like home. Everywhere I look people are going on holiday (or emmigrating) and I'm jealous. We will be spending a pitiful two hours in Paris in August. Two hours. I'm not sure that the boy will even let me leave Gare du Nord because that that would interfere with us being ready to get on the train at least three days before it arrives (you know, just in case we miss it). Sigh. I think two hours sitting in the train station in Paris is worse than not visiting Paris at all.
(just in case I can convince the boy that it's ok to leave the station, I don't suppose anyone knows of anywhere fabulously Parisienne within spitting distance of Gare du Nord? Somewhere with cake and pastries and hot chocolate? Somewhere close enough not to make my husband apopleptic as the station fades from view? Thanks.)
. sign by and image courtesy of Pimpernel and Partners
who knew you could fit the whole very essence of spring in a ring and wear spring forever more on your finger?
I would like this ring (in silver please) to remind me of spring while I try to get the 8 months of the year that is the Scottish winter without giving up a little.
The bulk of my diet at the moment is made up of this Irish bread that the brother in law's girlfriend gave me the recipe for. I love it. It's a meal in one slice of toast.
It's made with seeds (hemp, pumpkin, poppy, sesame, flax and sunflower), wheat bran, wheat germ, wholewheat flour, plain flour (it doesn't work if you accidentally replace the plain flour with icing sugar. Just sayin), molasses, salt, baking powder and water. Good wholesome Oirish bread with no funny business. And no yeast, which I like as it's something I'm not entirely convinced by (of course I like ketchup and pizza too much to actually give it up, but this eliminating it without really trying thing makes me smile) and I'm too lazy for all that kneeding crap.
It is as heavy as a brick (1.7kg to be precise. Has anyone seen About a Boy? That bit with the bread and the duck springs to mind) and it needs cooked for about three days. And it does funny things to your tummy. And it's as addictive as crack cocaine (which might explain the effect it has on my belly), but I love it. Measuring and pouring and stirring and baking. So good for the soul.
. photos by me
The cat yawned slowly, carefully, revealing a mouth and tongue of astounding pinkness. "Cats don't have names," it said.
"No?" said Coraline.
"No," said the cat. "Now, you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names."
We went to see Coraline last night. It was scary. I haven't jumped so much at the cinema since we found ourselves, somewhat accidentally, watching 28 Weeks Later. I was glad that I had my husband's armpit to hide in. I don't like scary films.
. words and picture from Neil Gaiman's Coraline.
Simplicity, I say,
freedom, I answer,
dreams, I whisper.A life with only things that matter, things I love, things I adore. A life with possessions few, a life that lets me run off into the sunrise when dreams call, run off clutching nothing but one small suitcase and my boy's hand.
. image by Yvette Inufio
Someone sent me an email, it had a link to a bunny on wheels. I liked the bunny one wheels and went looking for more. I found Cassia Beck, she on whose window sill the bunny on wheels lived. Instantly I liked her, I mean - she has a bunny on wheels, which is in itself really quite wonderful. However, she also has a bunny, a real life bunny, that matches my bunny. In fact for a moment (a very silly moment) when I first saw this picture, I thought it was my bunny. It didn't matter that I didn't remember taking the picture or that I don't own such a chair or that this little bunny doesn't look nearly as stinky as my bunny, so alike are they that my little brain short-circuited. And of course when I realised that it wasn't my bunny but was in fact a bun-alike my little brain imploded.
I really really want this picture. But I'm on a 'stuff' hiatus. Yes me, Ms Peonies, lover of the stuff that is not essential is currently not only not buying stuff that is not essential but is actively trying to get rid of stuff that is not essential. I'm crap at the getting rid of bit but the not buying bit is going ok. I haven't bought anything that falls into the 'I really don't need this' category since we were at a fundraiser for the local vet school four weeks ago and I couldn't resist two beautiful cups and a bowl that had been hand made in Jeruselam. But that doesn't count because it was before the stuff hiatus was vowed. Things like this bunny really make me hate being on a mission.
. picture by Cassia Beck and available in her shop, via Under a Pink Moon.
* I wanted to wear such a slinky soft dress to our wedding but I wasn't comfortable with our wedding guests becoming so intimately acquainted with my belly button and being able to count my ribs during the ceremony.
. images courtesy of Alix and Kelly
His face being all I could see.
Looking away because I knew if I kept gazing into his eyes I would never make it through the day.
A blur of first kiss, an enormous hug and more kisses. A huge smile.
Lying awake until 4am, comparing moments remembered, "did you see...." "did you hear...."
My friend's face as she turned in the back row, her mouth a perfect O.
Her little girl's face as she reached out to touch my dress. Oh to be five year's old.
A song, written just for us and sung with a passion and beauty that made my heart swell.
Looking up while we were signing the register and spotting a dear friend who I was desperate to meet for the very first time.
Five aunts, one bridesmaid and a grandmother in the first two rows, all wiping their eyes.
The first pop of a cork from a homemade champagne bottle and the squeal of delight from a drunk auntie.
Rain sprinkling us during the ceremony and a sea of umbrellas materialising above the guests.
One kind uncle who thought to stand up and bring us a brolly, sauntering oh so casually to the front, clad in a leather jacket with one hand in his pocket.
Kissing a small, warm child on the top of the head as she sat on my lap.
Watching those who had never met before talking and celebrating together like old friends.
A shower of rose petals falling down on us from every direction, while we laughed and tried to find our way back up the aisle.
A laughing bridesmaid telling me that she heard gasps when I appeared.
Holding each other at the back of the tent while everyone else ate their dinner around the corner, oblivious to our first dance as husband and wife.
I don't think about our wedding very often, but when I do they're very good thoughts.
I like notes on napkins. It's something about the impermanence of them. No matter how much thought has gone into the note it's still a napkin and the chances of it being to hand when I knock something over (which I do regularly) and being picked up and used without a thought just because it's a napkin and that's what you do with napkins is very high. And then it will be gone, a soggy, ink strewn mess and I will swear and curse and call myself an idiot (which I do regularly) for grabbing a napkin that was more than a napkin to clean up a mess that was just a mess.
I am completely in love with this John Galliano dress as worn by the bride of the wedding du jour. It might just be the prettiest dress I've ever seen.
. photos by Ashley Garmon
pink flowers from a red haired girl...
green lentils with lots of garlic...
a scowling boy with a stripy cushion...
a fuzzy nose on a grumpy rabbit...a wee holiday, in the middle of the week, with scowling boy, small cottage, big bath, sea views, country fields and fishing rod. How decadent, how fun, how utterly in the nick of time.
We'll be away for a few days. See you when we get back.. image by me (click on 'em to go to their flickr pages. If you like.)
A dear and lovely lady sent me a link to this poster for sale in the V&A shop, knowing that I would squeal and giggle and covet. I like bunnies and I like blossom and bunnies pretending to be blossom? Oh my oh my....
