Goodness it's been a while. But I've decided to make myself have a breather and accept that Paradise Lost is not going to get read in the next hour or so. So important to take time over these things is it not? I actually had some other present posts lined up, but to stop this blog being too 'Look at my new things!' I'll intersperse them with these pics. I've been meaning to scan these in for a while, they're from a Polaroid 300 (Basically a Fujifilm Instax mini) which my mother won and I promptly adopted. I'm still working out how to guess the light properly, but I still love these shots. And they make rather nice tags for personalised presents, if I do say so myself, which is why I only ended up with four to scan in here...
Christchurch Meadows Oxford on the left, though it was not that dark! And blackberrying on the right in Cheltenham
Also, again if anyone is in the London area THIS FRIDAY then do please come along to the Centre of Possible Studies for the Fabelist IMPRINT festival, it's going to be an incredible day, and hopefully my beautiful camera will be there too, as I've just had 50 more instant film sheets delivered. Waiting is overrated.Have a lovely week everyone..hopefully there'll be a new post soon, I have some very exciting things to share!
More often than not I seem to accidentally pick this bench. And it always brings a smile to my face, for an obvious reason; someone in the long distant past (No-one I know i'd like to add) has carved my name on the arm. And so many a memory of shopping days, dates, people-watching sessions, waiting for rendevouz etc have been peppered with some comment about my supposed vandalism. All very amusing of course, but it fixes this place and all the varying experiences I've had around it together in my mind. Me and a group of friends were even interviewed on it once. I think we talked about vampires...And every time this little thing, six scratches on a bench, has been noticed and noted, filed away in the brain. So what if the shopping trip was a failure. I had 'my' bench, my Christmas coffee (my first of the holidays, a Toffee Nut latte, and very good it was too) stollen from Huffkins in my bag, my cape and a lovely walk through the crisp wintery sun home ahead of me, to be greeted with some excellent news from my genius little brother. I won't go into it, but so very proud of him, even more so than usual...
I thought I'd accompany this with some more suprisingly sunny winter days, these from Oxford
Trees on Brasenose Lane, and into Radcliffe Square
And some light of a different kind, a few blurry shots from the Christmas Lights switch on a fair few weeks ago, again in Oxford.
Goodness me, what a poor blogger I've been. Even the stress of essays I don't understand, and having an INCREDIBLE evening to write about doesn't seem to have spurred me to my post-world, so major apologies about that. About 2 and a half weeks ago now (crikey) I travelled back homewards with some lovely friends, to the beautifully familiar (and just plain beautiful) Gloucester Cathedral to see Laura Marling! It was just the most gorgeous evening, it's really the perfect location for a gig like that; all ancient, echoey, substantial yet somehow delicate, powerful and tranquil. Sort of like LM's music I suppose. Old songs were lent a new feeling with her more mature voice (and the addition of whistling in Night Terror is a stroke of genius...is there anything this woman can't do?!) and the whole experience pulled me firmly in love with her new album as well. There were tears shed, i won't lie. Plus I was introduced (literally) to a new-to-me band, The Leisure Society. Musical excellence all round! One of my friends wrote a far more eloquent review than I could ever struggle through here, so please do read THIS
In other news....well, nothing I'm doing currently could live up to this, but I have our college Hallowe'en party tomorrow (later today if one was to be pedantic) and the baking extraordinaire behind this blog recently made the mammoth task of carving a pumpkin that's been sat around looking shifty for a while. I've already been introduced to the wonders of Rumkin (that's rum and raisin pumpkin...you heard it here first, though I can claim no credit aside from providing the rum) and am mentally planning an epic day of costume hunting and Hallowe'en themed baking; pumpkin pie (also relevant for my Mrs Lovett costume!) as well as dark-like-my-soul brownies, pumpkin cupcakes,flapjacks and cookies, toffee apples. I can't wait! Shall try and share some of this with you, but for now have an excellent friday and weekend....
Also, found this video of my absolute favourite song from the gig, thank you youtube and oWILo!
So it isn't really summer anymore, but I'm still on vacation till october so the 'Summer Adventures' series will continue. But the increasingly autumnal feel in the air does justify me posting these two pieces from the woods of Rococo Gardens. Firstly an adorably rustic set of chairs, bench and Noughts and Crosses set that we happened upon completely without ceremony in the middle of their Bluebell Woodland Walk
And a bit further on was my favourite sculpture in the whole Gardens, 'Conkers' by Pete Higgs. It doesn't really need much explaining and brought a huge smile to everyone who passed it. Definitely an ambassador for a great autumn tradition and a fantastic piece of art to boot.
Best. Conker.Match. Ever.
This week seems to have flown away with me, and I can't think of what I've been doing!Last saturday was a fantastic day out at the Organic Food Fair in Bristol (although sadly I didn't take any pictures as I was too busy eating the samples) topped off with lunch at the Pieminster Cafe and a possible sighting of Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall. Me and Sarah maintain it was definitely hiscurly back of the head and as no one else we know was there to disprove it, it was him. With that, working a few days a week ,seeing my brother's play again and stewing piles and piles of apples (you know it's autumn when...) I think that's my week done!
Sometimes even an English student needs a reminder that she does actually like books. For me this respite from the stress of studying them mostly comes with a reminder of just how beautiful visually works of literature can be, and how lovely bookshops are (especially, needless to say, second hand and independent ones.) For a long time, Moss Books in Cheltenham has been one of my favourite places. It’s a wonderful, haphazard, crazy mound of books masquerading as a shop, and has a particular little corner which I just love. There’s a little stool there, and I have frequently just tucked myself away among the old books that are stored in that one corner, and whiled away far more time than was strictly necessary…[apologies for the fairly poor quality of these photos, by camera was having an off day]
However, there may be a rival to my affections. A few days ago, taking advantage of a brief respite in workload, we visited the bookshop-café Albion Beatnik in Jericho (the artsy bit of Oxford.) There’s a strong focus on the Beat generation here (hence the name) but also some contemporary stuff, and a substantial second hand section. Basically whatever the owner finds interesting, and all put together in a lovingly well thought out shop, with experimental jazz in the corner putting me very much in mind of the music for Funny Face’s café dance scene. In fact there was an atmosphere of quite genuine intellectual bohemia there (possibly aided by the gorgeously dressed girl studying on one of the tables and a man on a sofa pronouncing Marxist theory.) Plus, and more importantly, it has an impressive array of tea and choice of teacups. And they wrapped our purchases in paper parcels. Only future visits can tell whether this hub of book lover-y with its Prufrock quotes on the door and paper roses can replace my original love for ‘my’ corner of Moss Books, which means I shall have to return to both, inevitably spending more money on their wares. What a pity.
Tiny tiny books...
And just to make this post even longer (and multimedia) a friend showed me this lovely little book related stopmotion video a few weeks ago, which just cries out to be put here;
I have to admit, I am ever so slightly concerned about doing this post for fear of doing an injustice…which is extraordinarily silly, because it’s the one thing so far I was certain I wanted to blog about, and then was given the perfect excuse to do so. Last Friday me and three lovely friends went the launch of Olive’s new first floor, and it was just a really beautifully thought out evening. I’d managed to stop myself from going in and seeing the floor before its official launch and so was even more struck by it all.Whoever does the shop design and styling there is a genius, everything is always put together so well so that every item is shown off to its absolute best, nothing’s overtly showy-off but also nothing’s hidden away; all understated, inventive and dangerously tempting.
And Friday night was no exception to that. There were the usual nibbles and drinks but all done as classily as could be expected, with a little quirk (especially loved the absolutely giant balloons.)
note the unfortunately hidden boxes
And on top of that the staff have the perfect balance of looking amazing, being subtly present and really genuine in their interest; rather than overbearing which always makes me nervous! There was a best dressed competition, which was thoroughly deserved by the gorgeous winner (there was a photographer there so hopefully I’ll find a link to someone who covered the event a tad better than me.) But everybody there was upsettingly well dressed, and it one of those very frequent times when I wished I was more confident and so could have spoken to and photographed people, it was such a gold mine of outfit inspiration. Alas, such is my social awkwardness that cunningly people-less photos will have to do.
And of course, I couldn’t go and not finally buy something from there, especially with the discount (It’s not massively expensive and so worth it, but shopping guilt is rife with me) so am now the proud owner of these gorgeous deep red shorts – which one day I’ll be brave enough to team with a silk shirt and bow tie or ribbon. Sigh.
This cream cotton dress was also gorgeous, it has a little lace collar on it and was the perfect length, but i had to leave it unfortunately. Maybe another day. Plus i really should have turned the shorts round.
And speaking of who is a gentlemen, as I was yesterday, Olive are starting to stock Mr Natty’s products ever so soon, which although I do not have a flowing moustache or beard I am still tempted by. May have to buy them ironically for my smooth-faced male friends just for the vintage style packaging and ‘tally-ho’ attitude
