WillowAllTogether

Cold, so very cold

2012-01-31T08:37:00.001-08:00

Apparently it's going to get down to -9 degrees here this week. It's been snowing a bit today, but not enough to make it worth getting down to that temperature. The only real upside of it being cold here is that it's beautiful. Sure, I have to sleep with 3 blankets, 2 quilts and 2 hot water bottles and I'm still cold. But in the mornings, the whole landscape is transformed.

Here's some photos from the last time it was frozen here, if I survive the weather this week, I'll get some more on here:

I don't know...

2012-01-23T14:08:00.000-08:00

...what this space is for at the moment.

It's quite an unusual thing for me to bring my laptop up to the room with internet connection. It's a little way from my caravan, and not really on the way to anywhere else, so it's too easy for me to just not come up here. Plus, I enjoy reading in my caravan too much to leave it often for the internet.

I started my Morning Pages again today because I had started to get bogged down in insignificant annoyances. I think this post by another caravanlander gives a good idea of what it's like here, and like her I've adored it for the most part. This past week though, I've felt a little of the ways of my old life (gossiping and petty irritations) creep in and take over my thoughts to an extent that I don't like. Suddenly, while churning over some small thing in my bed last night, I realised that getting back into Morning Pages might be just the thing to get myself away from all of that.

Which is my long-winded way of saying that when I needed an outlet, I sought something other than this blog. I don't think that's a bad thing - different writing spaces will suit different parts of my life, and it may be that for now there's not a need for this blog as much as there once was. But I think that I will come back to a place where I'm on here regularly. For now though, it will perhaps be a site for my quiet reflections, and for good photographs of the place I love.

If you want to keep up with the farm, the other Caravanlander's blog is probably better, as she's working hard to keep it well.

Here are those promised photos:

Some pigs! We have 400 here, some pink, some black (British Lops and Berkshires for anyone interested). They're all pretty cute.

This is the litter that I trained to bottlefeed. They're not doing it here, but they were pretty darn good at it.

This is Wilbur, the best/worst pig in the world. He's not very good at being a pig, but he's got a lot of personality.

This is a flower that I saw when it was still light enough to take walks before breakfast.

For some (unknown but surely wonderful) reason, there's a sewing machine mounted on the front fence of caravanland. It looks pretty in the dew.

Back at the Farm

2012-01-04T12:07:00.000-08:00

I'm back at the farm now, and I've brought my laptop with me so I can get back to blogging properly! I've also got my camera here, so for my first post here, I'm just going to put up lots of lovely photos of the place I live:

This is the path down to Caravanland, where I live.

This was my beautiful white trash Christmas tree. It was a plastic promo thing that I painted green and I put the lovely fairy lights on it that my dad brought me when he came.

This was a picture I took of the sunrise not long after I got here.

This is my lovely caravan! It's before I made some renovations to my porch, but it still looks beautiful.

A fragment

2011-12-29T14:35:00.000-08:00

I never remember the endings of things. I try to tell people the stories of my most favourite books or films, and always, where the ending should be, my mind is just blank. I can enjoy these stories over and over again, and be surprised each time by how they play out. On a good day, I think that this is wonderful, and that it is like being a child who finds things out for the first time. But usually, I feel like a crinkled old shell of a person, with a head full of fragments that don't piece together. Who am I that I can't recall a story from start to finish?
Stories of my own life are even worse, I have to rely on my family for them all. My father tells me of the time my brother and I dug for treasure by the window of an ice-cream stall at the beach, and all of the lost change that came out of the sand were our riches for the taking. My brother remembers everything, but keeps the stories to himself. If I ask him whether he remembers the scene in a photograph, he will say yes, but nothing more.

2011-12-29T05:19:00.000-08:00

“Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for. ” ― Banksy

The Beautiful Gift

2011-12-27T12:08:00.001-08:00

I got the most wonderful book today from the Beautiful Girl for my Christmas present, More Things Like This:

It's a lovely McSweeney's book filled with an apparently unnamable art form that combines words and images, like this picture below (made by me):

It's so inspiring and interesting. It's got lots of interviews and discussions of the art form, and some great examples.

Big day - quick post

2011-10-23T00:35:00.000-07:00

I'm dashing about today as I'm leaving this evening for my new job (here). However, yesterday was such a big day that I need to write a quick post about it now, so that it doesn't get lost in all the new job/new home palaver.

The day started with a parade in the centre of town where my dad's army unit got freedom of the city of Manchester. There was a lot of standing about, but it was still quite an impressive event. Here's a picture from the BBC website (taken by Ed Swinden with an amazing lens that I really want).

Then after that I went to a Manchester Literary Festival event, Words on Asylum and Refuge, organised by the beautiful girl for Amnesty International. It was a fantastic event, very moving and interesting. The best part for me was the talk given by Mende Nazer, who you may know a bit about if you saw the film I Am Slave last year (staring my fellow MGCer Wunmi Mosaku). I don't think anything can compete with the effect of seeing her talk about her experiences in person, but I do want to find out more about her, so I will definitely be reading her book, Slave, soon.

Some of mine and the beautiful girl's other friends came to the event, so we went for lunch afterwards, which was lovely. But then I had to dash off to go to the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair. Apparently it's been going on for a few years, but I'd never heard of it before recently. My very thoughtful brother got me a ticket for my birthday, as I'd asked for experiences not objects.

There were lots of amazing things there, which will keep me inspired for a good while. It was quite nice to see that all of the stuff there was out of my price range. Everything was well priced for the work that had gone into it, which I was pleased about. I quite often see crafters pricing their work very cheaply in order to make a sale. But at the fair, there were lots of sales being made, and lots of interest. I've taken a few cards for future birthday requests. The hats in particular were wonderful. I loved these by Sarah Cant, and these by H'atelier, who actually has a shop in Manchester that I have somehow never seen.

It was a very lovely day, and a nice way to round off my very quick trip back home in between jobs. Hopefully, I will have time on the farm to keep up with this blog, and I'll be taking my camera with me in order to capture my time there. Wish me luck.

Adventures in the wild

2011-10-17T03:41:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went on a Rustic Furniture Making course. It's something I'd asked my dad to pay for as my birthday present, due to the fact that I don't want to accumulate more posessions, but I do want to acquire more skills.

It was really good - even just the weekend away in the woods was wonderful, and the other people there were really interesting, but also the chair making was really good. I picked the course because it's something that I had no idea how to do; I had originally thought that I'd go on a craft course, but they were all really pricey for something that I could learn to do myself. This furniture making course was great though, I think I'll be able to use the skills elsewhere.

I've not seated the chair yet, so I'll post a picture once that's done (I'm just ordering the materials now!). You can see some more info on the course here, and these are some of the chairs that are made in a similar fashion to mine:

I will also be looking to do some other courses run through LILI in the future, they're really good value and a great learning environment.

One other interesting thing about the course was that somebody mentioned the Incredible Edible movement, which sounded good, and on looking into it, there's been a group set up in Wilmslow, which is not too far from here. I know that a few local people read this blog, so even though I'll be leaving town next week (heading to a new job at Church Farm) I thought it was worth a mention. The Incredible Edible Wilmslow site also had a link to this amazing tree identifying factsheet, which I will be using in future.

Decisions, decisions

2011-10-12T00:51:00.000-07:00

I want to record today, as it's the moment of a big decision for me.

I'm not 100% certain that I'm doing the right thing, but I was faced with two very different options about how I wanted my life to go from now on, and today is the day that I have to give an answer.

It's been very difficult to come to this decision...well, no, I think that I made the decision quite a while ago, but it's taken me some time to come to accept it.

There will be times when I doubt myself, and I want to be able to look back on this blog entry and try and hold within it some small glint of this feeling, like a diamond chip secreted within tightly cupped hands.

The real moment of clarity came last night, when I was having yet another session of tossing and turning within sheets. I realised that if I took one of the options (what seems like the most sensible option) then I would be taking the road where I would never love what I do. The other option is not nearly as sensible, and it cuts me off from certain future achievements that I think I will miss. However, I think that it leads me down a road where I could end up in a place that I love.

Last night, I also remembered something that I hadn't really understood properly before. There have been many times when I've been doing things and I've not worried even the tiniest bit about the future or where I was going. Those times were when I was doing something that I loved. At those times, it didn't matter where the thing was going, because the present had been so fulfilling. But where I've been recently has been the opposite of that - I've thought about nothing but how to get on and get out.

The sensible option I'm faced with at the moment would be another step on a very similar road, and I'd always be looking around me for something better, and not appreciating even the good things. But with the other option, I think that it might be more difficult and challenging overall, but I can envision long swathes of future where I feel comfortable and happy with where I am in the moment.

Beautiful Photo

2011-10-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

“Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, 1932″ by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

via

The pet

2011-07-17T05:06:00.000-07:00

My hair seems suddenly to have become very long. It is like an unruly pet, perhaps a cat, that is always shedding all over the flat. It takes up too much space in the bed and is always trying to snuggle up to my neck in the night until I am tormented by the heat and itch of it. It tumbles and falls always in the wrong places and seems to be in the way constantly. I pin it up and out of the way and then wonder why I don't just get rid of it if I'm going to do that all the time.

That is such a small thing to think about, but sometimes when everything feels so big and bottomless, I like to focus on tiny things until I know them entirely.

*Edit* I forgot, I wanted to post some pictures here. The subject matter is objectively quite disgusting, but up close it looks beautiful:

Just a short post

2011-07-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

Because it's been a long time, and though I've thought about posting often, I keep coming online to do other things.

Here's a quote I've wanted to share:

'He didn't know what to do, he didn't know how to live. Each new thing he encountered in life impelled him in a direction that fully convinced him of its rightness, but then the next new thing loomed up and impelled him in the opposite direction, which also felt right. There was no controlling narrative: he seemed to himself a purely reactive pinball in a game whose only object was to stay alive for staying alive's sake.'
- Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

Manchester, England, England

2011-07-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

That's the place that I'd rather be. I feel a song coming on...check it out here:

I watched the Great British Railway Journeys tonight, the Manchester to Bury episode. It made me feel so homesick - it even showed my street! I found the episode on YouTube, and I'm putting it here to return to when I need a boost.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Lovely videos

2011-06-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

Well, would you look at this amazing compilation of Harryhausen creatures! It's amazing, almost unbelievable what that man could do:

Thanks to BoingBoing for the link.

Also, this interesting Google+ hack makes me think that it might be worth a look. The worst thing about considering changing site is that everyone's already in one place now. If that's not an object, I could consider it.

Finally, today at work we have mostly been ~~wasting time~~ doing serious digital marketing research with the Hunter Shoots Bear videos:

Cheat sheet

2011-06-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

I am absolutely loving this photography cheat-sheet. I love my camera, but I readily admit that I don't really know how to work it.

It's from Living in the Stills, via My Modern Metropolis:

Jelly shots

2011-06-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

We had jelly shots at a party at the flat a few months ago. Sadly, no photographic evidence of this exists as they went down too easily to last long, but I can say for certain that they weren't a patch on the lovely ones in this video:

I post this super-cool film with the taste of the bitterest grapes in my mouth, because it was made by the ladies at Zeichen Press who have apparently made it their mission to lead the life I wish I had. Damn them.

Attention

2011-06-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

Thought for the day:

I do not have a short attention span, I simply have a wide range of interests and a finite life in which to explore them.

I'm pretty sure that's a positive thing.

Nice Things

2011-06-25T14:57:00.001-07:00

I've been doing some creative things today, as well as catching up on some of my favourite blogs. I came across this lovely list on My Modern Metropolis:

I'll post some images of the things I've been making soon. But for now, here are some pictures from the Silk Mill I visited last weekend in the nearby village of Whitchurch:

Two writing things

2011-06-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

Firstly, the very exciting new website for Kohl publishing. Started by an escapee from my work, and now accepting submissions.

Secondly, this delightful list of literary insults.

That is all.

Printing on fabric

2011-06-18T03:11:00.000-07:00

Thank heavens for this lovely tutorial from Jezze Prints. My darling super-stylish flatmate wants to use one of my linocuts to print onto a t-shirt, but try as I might, I had not been able find a way to get fabric paint to work - it kept coming out blotchy and parts weren't printing at all.

I was looking online to see if perhaps there was a better substance than fabric paint, but the tutorial showed me how to turn the paint into a useable medium. Jezze Prints is apparently an amateur chemist and she figured out that if you add a few grains of salt to the paint it liquefies a little and absorbs nicely into a felt pad.

I've trialled the printing on a piece of scrap fabric and it worked a dream:

I'll do a few more dry runs and then put it onto the t-shirt.

Also, now I've seen Jezze Print's work, I am really in love with her style, her work looks wonderful:

Over 1500 views!!!

2011-06-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

Wow! I just checked in on YouTube to see how my Linocut animation is going and it has over 1500 views. I never would have expected it to do so well within just a couple of weeks.

According to the stats, most of the views are coming from the Craftzine blog, which I love so much. A lot of them have also come from the delightful Yellow Umbrella blog.

I also know that Imaginative Bloom posted it on facebook, for which I'm very grateful.

If you are one of the unlucky few that has yet to see the animation, check it out here:

Life

2011-06-04T04:44:00.000-07:00

The best postsecret. This is exactly how I feel sometimes:

New Evian ad

2011-06-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

I am loving the new Evian advert. It's so cool:

Yellow Umbrella

2011-05-30T23:42:00.000-07:00

This week my linocut animation is featured on the lovely Craft Mondays section of The Yellow Umbrella. It's such a great blog, I'm really happy to have been selected. Check it out.

How-to Linocut animation

2011-05-29T15:53:00.001-07:00

I made a new animation to show the process of creating my linocuts. I wanted to keep it short and sweet, so that it'd be fun to watch.

I hope you like it, if you do, please share it.

Comic covers covered

2011-05-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

I am loving this new blog, which has comic covers redrawn. That's not a great description, it's much better than it sounds. Check it out.

This is my favourite:

(by Chris Hoobler)

Find a gift for a friend

2011-05-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

I don't know how long this has been around for, but I've only just discovered it. There's a tool in Etsy where you can select from you Facebook friends and it will run a search based on the things they like.

It sounds weird, but it's actually really good. I tested it on someone I always struggle to buy for (my little brother) and it came up with some suggestions I never would have thought of.

Give it a go if you're ever short of ideas. Buy Handmade.

(Thanks to Business Insider for the link to the tool.)

It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday

2011-05-27T15:51:00.000-07:00

I cannot get this song out of my head. I think it's because I am just so glad that the week has come to an end.
It's a bank holiday on monday and I want to spend the 3 days doing some sort of project. I've been doing a fair bit of printing lately, and I've had some lovely positive responses from friends.

I think I may try and do another animation. I've been coming across a few really inspirational things recently. Here's one by Peter Lowey from the Annecy Festival that I'm loving:

Also this from Katie Blair:

Stop Motion wonder

2011-05-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

Oh goodness, this is the best thing I've ever seen:

Moleskine Bags in Hyper Stop Motion from Moleskine ® on Vimeo.

Screenprint love

2011-05-25T11:48:00.000-07:00

Oh goodness, this is just the most beautiful thing:

I love it, it has such a delightful style. It's from Etsy here.

Etsy update

2011-05-22T06:49:00.000-07:00

In fact, in a fit of productiveness, I've started work on my felt shop on Etsy and set up the widget for it within this blog.

New Etsy

2011-05-22T06:34:00.000-07:00

One of the many many things that I have perpetually unfulfilled intentions of doing is sorting out my Etsy shop.
In a shocking turn of events (especially to myself), I have in fact finally got around to setting up a new shop for my printed items, there's just a couple of cards in there at the moment, so I'll be building it up over the next few weeks. I haven't yet sorted out my felt shop, but I will do that next.
You'll be able to see a few items from the shop in the window on the right of this blog, and I'm going to try and get back into updating my blog by putting in some details of my linocutting and printing work.
Here's a photo of some of my new cards:

Sing out your joy

2011-04-11T12:54:00.001-07:00

I have been absent from here, but not missing from the world of writing. I've decided that it's time to do The Artist's Way, having finally reached that stage where I could tell exactly how rubbish my writing was before I'd even put pen to paper. It is really good, but it requires about 900 words every morning and then possibly some tasks later. If I'm feeling good, there's also some creative writing.
It doesn't really leave much over for this blog, which is sort of a shame, but I'm appreciating the writing I'm doing, so I don't feel it as a lack. I will return to this at some point I'm sure, and perhaps I'll put some Artist's Way updates on here. I will be adding some writing pieces to Eating Your Own Heart, I think, so perhaps that's one way to check my progress for any interested parties.

One more video

2011-03-20T04:23:00.000-07:00

This is a couple of years old, but I just came across it and I love it:

Also, we had the party this weekend and it was awesome! I'm off to London today to meet my dad, his girlfriend and my brother for dinner. I think I might go in early and get to a gallery, though that depends on how much energy I can muster.

Nuclear Boy has a Stomach Ache

2011-03-20T03:52:00.000-07:00

This video is genius in every way. A friend of mine who lives in Japan sent it to me. I feel much better about the situation in Fukushima now:

New animation

2011-03-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

Me and my flatmate are having a party next week and we wanted to have a cool invitation for it, so I made this.

I've had to alter the ending for this version as I didn't really think that it'd be a great idea to have my address on here. It's only the very end that's changed though, and hopefully it's still fun to watch.

2011-03-09T03:17:00.000-08:00

I'm reading Half of a Yellow Sun at the moment. It's a fantastic book - very understated and genuine, and most of all personal. The Nigerian-Biafran war was something I only knew the vaguest of details about, and as I got into the book, the sensation of being drawn into this huge historical event was at once both wonderful and awful.
It's the same feeling I had when I read Birds Without Wings a couple of years ago. These novels present you with something which was the absolute centre of the world for people in that time and place, and allows you to engage with it on that level. I love that in a way - it makes me feel as though I'm gaining something from being out in these important parts of the world, at least mentally. But it also makes me feel as though there is an infinity of things like this - events which are so important and about which I know so little (and can do so little about), and I feel helpless from knowing that.

There's a quote in Half of a Yellow Sun that describes that feeling - of being overwhelmed by the reality of the world and shocked that you don't collapse from the weight of that awful knowledge. It's so perfectly formed:

"It frightened him that he slept well at nights, that he was still calmed by the scent of orange leaves and the turquoise stillness of the sea..."

Women, women everywhere

2011-03-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

I (being the bad woman that I am) hadn't known that today was International Women's Day, and yet I still ended up visiting an exhibition of Mary Kelly projects at the Whitworth.

The pieces were hugely varied, but almost all of them incorporated the narratives of women themselves somehow in the art. The piece below was what really drew me in to the exhibition, it's a greenhouse with short testimonials from different women cut into the glass. You can walk inside and experience the anonymous words of a variety of women - they all somehow relate to the experience of being a woman and/or feminism, but they're all incredibly varied. The setting is very engaging and I felt very connected to the testimonials through the art work.

It's been a while since I went to an exhibition that really challenged me, and I felt a fantastic rush of thoughts and ideas as I walked around it, which was wonderful.

I don't want to go into too much detail here of my own experience of the exhibition, since a) it's obviously very subjective, and related to my own issues with my identity as a woman, but mainly because b) I really think it's worth going to the exhibition (any exhibition really) without too many preconceptions, so that you can engage with it on the personal level that's necessary for it to really speak to you and your ideas and values.

I will say that one of my favourite things about it was that it was very intellectual while at the same time being very emotive, which is, to me, one of the rarest, most special of states to be able to capture. I would really recommend the exhibition - it's there till 12th of June.

2011-03-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

I don't own any Apple products, I dislike their focus on branding and their products seem more of a symbol of that brand than anything useful in the long term. However, I do find Steve Jobs an interesting person, and he comes across as particularly genuine in the video below (via Nathan Bransford). It's the sort of speech that you hear and rather than feeling as though it's trying to tell you something, you get a sense that it's crystallising within you something that you've felt elements of for a long time.

I think this video may only be something that feels particularly relevant to me at this point in time, and perhaps anyone else watching it won't feel the same connection. That in itself is interesting I suppose. If you are watching it and you think it's in any way striking a chord, keep on with the whole thing, it's good.

Reading

2011-03-06T16:27:00.000-08:00

OK, one more lovely thing found while enjoying the internet too much (also from My Modern Metropolis), I'm going to bed now:

Water Sculpture

2011-03-06T15:19:00.000-08:00

Would you look at this. It is incredible - Water Sculpture by Shinichi Maruyama, via My Modern Metropolis:

Water Sculpture from Shinichi Maruyama on Vimeo.

World book night

2011-03-05T14:46:00.000-08:00

This is phenomenal, I'm so in love with it (check out the website of one of the creators for more amazing stuff):

Happy World Book Night.

Via

Finished animation

2011-03-05T04:39:00.000-08:00

Here's the animation I was working on. I made it as a welcome home for my dad, who came back yesterday from a tour of duty. I was a bit concerned that I wouldn't be able to post it here (the army can be a bit weird about this sort of thing), but he's said it's OK.

I made it using Windows Movie Maker, which was all I had. It was really great for software that was already there on my computer, but it got a bit cumbersome towards the end of the project as it's not really designed to make animations from hundreds of photos.

There's a bit in this where the conversion to a movie file has corrupted, and I considered changing the point at which the music transitions. But in the end, it just felt like a lot of work to open it and make the changes then re-export it to a movie file, and I'm really pleased with it as it is.

It was quite easy to make and a lot of fun, so I'd recommend it to anyone who fancies it.

Check it out:

Experiment

2011-02-26T16:35:00.000-08:00

This was a bit of an experiment. I was really inspired by the stop motion animations below and wanted to give it a go. I've got a project in mind, but I wanted to get an idea of what was possible before I launched into it. Here's a mock-up of the opening.

It's not quite in focus, but I've figured out a better way to do the writing for next time. I'm glad I've started with a test as this is almost 70 frames and they were all very quick to do. I would have hated to get to the end of a section I'd worked really hard on only to find it hadn't turned out well.

The main issue with making this was the logistics. I don't have a tripod so my camera was tied to my bed frame for this, and I am very clumsy so I kept moving things by mistake. I'm not sure that's too big a problem as I really want a purposefully rough and jumpy look.

I have started work on making the 'set' elements for the animation, so hopefully I'll have something concrete to put on here soon of it.

New template

2011-02-25T15:25:00.000-08:00

I think this might be temporary. I wanted to change the background to a photo of my own, but I couldn't find one that was exactly right - I think the one I had in mind is on my dad's computer. This one is lovely for now though.

Origins and new things

2011-02-25T14:03:00.000-08:00

I work in the sort of place where a lot of 20 somethings who don't know what they actually want to do seem to gather. In some ways it's like being at university, especially in the way that everyone is so like you that you sometimes struggle to get out of yourself in any way.
Someone there passed the address of their blog on to me and it was a nice reminder that there are different people at work.
When I get onto a new blog, I always like to see their first post to find out where they started. With this one, I noticed that it started just a few days before mine, which feels nicely symmetrical. I don't tend to have many friends who blog, so it's a new experience to peer into someone's thoughts in this way, and it's pleasing to know that it doesn't feel intrusive at all. If you want more from the author, here's some music.

I'm reposting a link I found on the blog to an interesting article in which several authors give their rules of writing. It looks like there could be some things in there that trigger inspiration. I have quite a free weekend so I'm hoping to get some writing done. In a way though, I don't feel like I need to get into anything too urgently. I know how much better my writing flows when I'm away and mentally I'm already there.

Here are some graffiti photos I took in Germany last year that I just downloaded from my camera:

I took other photos as well, of a more standard kind. I'll post those soon I should think, but these stood out as my favourites since I took them all while exploring back streets by myself and I can really remember the free feeling of these places.

Finally, something fun and innocent.

Last Days of the Arctic

2011-02-22T09:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks Silvie for this, it's beautiful:

by Rax

Weekending

2011-02-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

It's felt like a very long weekend (in a nice way). For the second week, I've spent my sunday working in the British Heart Foundation shop, which is a surprisingly nice thing to do. It's quite relaxing in itself and it's a good drive to do other productive things on the day, rather than waste it watching TV. I did get the second series of Dexter today on the way back from the shop though, I can't resist it.

I have finally taken the months worth of photos off my camera. Though I love the large memory that it has, it does make me very lazy about downloading pictures from it. Here are a few of my favourites:

Visiting Countries

2011-02-13T00:28:00.001-08:00

One final post and then I'm off to do things with my day other than stay in bed.

I was just playing with the stats section of blogger, which they've updated a lot since last time I looked, and the countries that people read this blog from struck me as pretty amazing. Here's the list, ordered by number of page views:

United Kingdom
United States
Russia
France
South Korea
Germany
Canada
Netherlands
Brazil
Australia

They all have enough page views to denote repeat visits, and I've had visits from South Korea and Russia in the past week! That's pretty amazing to me as I have always thought that either nobody was reading this or it was just a couple of good friends.
I've never even been to half the countries on this list. It's such a lovely idea that I'm in them in this small intangible way. It gives me a very pleasant feeling of being connected to the rest of the world, and I hope I can keep that sensation with me for at least the rest of the day.

Good friends, good food

2011-02-13T00:07:00.001-08:00

I had the lovely experience of visiting the London Street Brasserie again yesterday. The food there is unbelievably delicious and they have a wonderful set menu that is more than reasonable in price. Every ingredient there is exactly what you'd want it to be - fresh and full of flavour, and they are combined in delightful ways. I normally tell people that I don't like seafood because I dislike it so much when it's done badly, but at the London Street Brasserie I confidently order things I would never normally eat, knowing that they'll do it well. If you are ever in Reading, you must visit it.

I was there with two of my very best friends from university. One of whom I now work with and one who lives on the other side of the world. It was a lovely combination, and I felt like I was my true self for all the time we spent together. It was the sort of lunch that I feel should be the standard, but instead it was a little jewel set amongst the rocks of too much work and too many other stresses, and I will treasure it.

2011-02-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

Already I have something that I've forgotten to post:

It's a video created by the same person who did the animation a little bit further down this page. This new one was for work. It's really lovely and I want to learn how to do this sort of animation. She's explained the process to me and aside from not being able to draw, I think it's something I could do.

Moved house!

2011-02-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

Finally I have the internet! I had to move house to get it, but it was worth it...that's not actually the reason I moved, but it is a real benefit. I'm now living with a really lovely girl from work, right in the centre of town. I've not been here long, but it is such a lovely place.
I'll be back blogging from now on. I feel like I'm so out of practice that it'll take me a good while to get back into it, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Personal and Direct

2010-11-26T08:06:00.000-08:00

I still have no internet at home so I guess that's it for a while. I think that might be a good thing anyway, as everything has suddenly become too complicated and my mind is not reaching out in interesting or productive ways.

To anyone who reads this that I owe a letter or a phone call to, or anyone who feels I'm being distant - I'm sorry. What I'm doing at the moment, it feels like all I have the energy for. I don't have anything else. I feel like I cannot maintain smiles long enough to be polite, and I can't see the point sometimes in holding back my feelings. I think I'll be out of this someday, so for now I'm just going to hide away and hope that I don't ruin friendships by saying the wrong things or by not being there enough for people.

To anyone who loves me (in any capacity of that word) - please take care of me. I am grateful, even though I'm terrible at showing you that.

New place

2010-09-06T06:16:00.000-07:00

New place with no internet.

I have returned to writing in an actual paper diary for a while. It is quite satisfying in a way, as I don't have to consider who might be reading it, and I can be mopey and whiny if I need to be (which is the worst thing in a blog). But there's no way to hyperlink in a paper diary, and I could not embed into it this beautiful video made by someone I work with (whom I have stalked after hearing that she had a blog, I hope that she does not mind):

In Review

2010-08-26T04:58:00.001-07:00

Nothing here for a while. I've been too busy...sometimes with good things, but often with work. I have been thinking a lot about what to put here, and in my head I was compiling a list all week of good things and bad things, that I'd planned to make into a post. But somehow, I cannot bring myself to write them down now, or work them into something whole and cohesive. The feeling of what I had wanted to say, combined with how I feel now, is conveyed quite well in this song, so yet another thank-you to the Beautiful Girl for it. I have already listened to it about 5 times today, it is so good:

Any fool can get into college. Only a select few can say the same about Amanda Jones.

2010-08-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

Thankyou to J for the link to this blog, it will cheer up my working hours no end.

Also, I'm loving Some Kind of Wonderful. John Hughes is my personal God, no boys are ever as charming and no girls are ever as beautiful as he makes them.

Keith Nelson: You can't tell a book by its cover.
Watts: No, but you can tell how much it's gonna cost you.
Keith Nelson: Wow, I never knew you were so deep.
Watts: You want shallow, call Amanda Jones.

Sometimes

2010-08-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

It's so easy sometimes to not tell people how you feel. I am trying to be open and honest with people who mean something to me.

There are definitely people I can't talk to about these things, which makes me feel awful, but as often as possible I am trying my hardest to tell people how much I care about them.

I think I would like to find a way to be honest with everyone, but it is so difficult for me to risk being hurt by people. I want to be better than that.

Goodnight money

2010-08-15T03:40:00.000-07:00

For unimportant reasons, I was reading the Wiki page for Goodnight Moon, which is not a book I ever remember having as a child. It contained a link to an article about the little 9 year old boy who'd been left the royalties from the book (and many others written by Margaret Wise Brown). The article is one of those pleasingly clear and well-researched ones that make you genuinely interested in a topic which sounds quite boring on the surface. Thankyou Joshua Prager.

Ok, so yes, this is my third post of the day...

2010-08-14T13:28:00.000-07:00

Today, aside from apparently being on the internet a lot, I went to get some cheap back-to-school rubbers from Smiths and came back to carve some stamps from them. I really like the bird and twig - it's two separate stamps, neither of which came out that well under the pressure of trying to line them up on an envelope.

I also bought a bigger piece of lino to carve something larger from, but I prefer working with the rubbers for now as they're a little easier to carve and more forgiving.

Time lapse

2010-08-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

Thankyou to the wonderful Steve Alvarez for having this on your blog, it made me smile within seconds and I watched it three times through back to back:

Printing

2010-08-14T05:35:00.000-07:00

Oh, this is such a beautiful blog. I think I want to be a printer.

We were at John Rylands last Christmas and they had a demonstration of a huge old printing press. We all got to use it to make really beautiful pictures.

I think the process is just so great, even for the simple single-picture things like in the video below:

I love this video, it's interesting even aside from the subject matter, it's really old but it has a sort of pre-powerpoint section which made me smile:

The type of letterpress that I'm really interested in is this, with all the lovely coins and furniture etc:

I really really want to work here:

Or maybe here, where they even cast their own type:

PS

2010-08-12T13:25:00.000-07:00

For anyone who isn't cool enough to know already (where have you been?), this is a lino-cutter. In fact, this is pretty much the one I have:

These are the sorts of things you can make with one:

I am aware that the hole in my plan is my inability to draw, but I will just have to get my talented and generous friends (you know who you are) to doodle things for me to trace and cut out into a stamp.

Adventuring

2010-08-12T11:13:00.001-07:00

So it turns out that what I really needed was a day trip. I went to Oxford today - ostensibly for work, and feel so much better for it.

It wasn't really the Oxfordness of it, as much as it was the change and the inspiration.

I went to a craft shop and got some stuff I've been wanting for a while - a lino-cutting tool and some ink. I need to spend some real time on this to get the hang of different techniques, but I did a first bit of experimentation today:

I'm not convinced the ink is right, but it will do to get started with. I really love having a new craft to get buried in, I have quite a lot of ideas about what sort of thing I want to use this for, so I'm sure I'll have more pictures on this soon.

I also got what is probably the best ring in the history of the universe:

I thought about deleting all of this, but veracity prevailed

2010-08-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

I read the entire of Wallflower last night, and this evening I went to see Inception. I think this may all be too much for someone who already has a lot of confusing things swirling round their head.

I have been left feeling like I am on the brink of figuring something out, while simultaneously knowing that the feeling is a sham and I that do not know anything at all.

I did realise one thing today...or rather, it crystallised in my mind even though I've understood it in some way for a while...all of my confusion and feelings of uncertainty boil down to my need to control everything....It's weird that I've known that for so long, but today I had a feeling that something in my brain went Eureka. I don't really understand the feeling, but I can trace a lot of it back to a good talk with the beautiful girl recently, who is the exact opposite and exact twin of me at the same time. She is my mirror, in every sense of the word.

I need to keep working this over, but I feel like something good came together in my mind and I can put it to use.

On a more clearly positive note, I looked in the mirror tonight and realised that in spite of everything, I almost always find myself to be beautiful. I wonder if everybody feels this way? I don't think I mean this in a conceited way, I am certainly very negative about other aspects of myself, but I want to really hold on to the good feeling of almost always being able to look at my face and find it beautiful.

Here is something, more real and external - all day in work I have been singing this. It is inappropriate, but I love it so much right now, almost as much as I actually love stationary and lists:

I wonder if I should be less honest on here?

And in that moment, I swear we were infinite

2010-08-10T12:19:00.001-07:00

I have been sort of wanting to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower for quite a while, but I thought I'd left it too late to really appreciate it. However, the beautiful girl read it recently and I ordered it from Amazon on her recommendation. It arrived yesterday, which turned out to be just in time.
I got home today with this crushed and worried feeling built up inside me. It comes from lots of things, and it's been lingering for a while, but today while walking home from work the whole mess of it started to spill out and I felt kindof out of control.
I didn't really want to indulge the feeling (as it would have been so easy to do), and lose a whole evening to turning the same stressful issues over and over again in my mind. So I ran a bath and pulled out Wallflower to try and get carried away by it.
As the beautiful girl warned me, there are places where it seems a little tough to take and unbelievable. But honestly, it's wonderful. It takes me back so clearly to those feelings I'd forgotten of learning about life for the first time. I can actually feel the infinity Charlie writes about, I had let it get so distant from me and I hate that.
I hate that I'm so far away from the honesty he has. I remember being 16 and telling a boy that I liked him, even though I knew he didn't feel the same way, just because I thought it would be worth it to give him the good feeling of knowing that somebody thought of him that way.
I would never be so open these days. I feel like all I have is a jealously guarded handful of scrounged together happiness, and I'd fight to the death before I'd consider giving any of it away.
If I was 16 now and looking at my grown-up self I'd be so unhappy.

I think I've made too many compromises and protected myself too much. I think I want to find a way back from that, to feel a moment where I would swear that I was infinite.

Bat flight experiment

2010-08-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

This is just an experiment to try making a jumpy animation of bat flight from some warping in photoshop. I like it for a starting point. It looks a lot better than I thought I'd be able to make it.

Cartoon me

2010-08-07T09:19:00.000-07:00

More photoshop playing. I've not been up to much else today, just trying to figure things out and making a couple of pictures for people.

My first adventures in Photoshop

2010-08-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to learn Photoshop, and a friend set me a challenge so I could have a purpose to my playing. He said I had to meet a President.

It's definitely not great from a realism perspective, but I still like it. I figured out a lot of tools while doing it, my next challenge is to find out how to blend the quality of images.

Photos

2010-08-04T10:57:00.000-07:00

No new photographs for a while, how rubbish of me. Here are a couple from Easter, when we went for a walk in some woods...I do have pictures of the people I went with, but they didn't look as good as wood and fungus:

(hmmmm, quality ruined by the enlargement, meh.)

Sweet Blue Babies

2010-08-04T10:06:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much to Max for this recommendation. I did get this edition as well, but mine has a different cover with lovely marbled paper. It arrived in the post today.

The language of it is wonderful - so clear and honest.

This paragraph stands out to me today from Consorting with Angels

I was tired of being a woman,
tired of the spoons and the pots,
tired of my mouth and my breasts,
tired of the cosmetics and the silks.
There were still men who sat at my table,
circled around the bowl I offered up.
The bowl was filled with purple grapes
and the flies hovered in for the scent
and even my father came in with his white bone.
But I was tired of the gender of things.

Success

2010-08-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

No more house viewings necessary, I found a great place today, with a man who is going to be in the Olympics - which must be good.

To celebrate, here is another picture of me and my lovely brother, who is being kind enough to help me move. I think we're in Amsterdam here, a year or two ago. I am the one on the right, moving faster than the speed of light.

In other news...there is no other news. But here is a link to something someone reminded me of recently. It is truly wonderful, and must be seen to be believed.

Something Happy

2010-08-01T14:38:00.001-07:00

As an antidote to the feeling of my previous post, here is one of my all time favourite photos. It is of me and my brother, and the world's bubbliest bath:

(wonder if I can still pull off an all-bubble outfit?)

On the theme of photography, read this (thanks Simon for the link)

Growing Up is hard to do

2010-08-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

I have about twenty million house viewings this week. I know they're all going to be the same - a small room in a not too nice part of town because that's all I can afford. But then what would I do with more anyway? Move in the imaginary boyfriend and the never-to-be-conceived kids?

I came on here to write something interesting and at a sort of distance from my real life, but nothing comes to mind. I don't really need to complain, I'm just in that sort of mood at this moment in time. I'm trying to get back into writing and struggling with it.

Last night was nice - a spur of the moment movie and takeout at a friend's house in town. That sort of thing makes life pretty good. I just feel like I'm not quite doing enough with myself at the moment.

I'll try harder.

Old Spice / New Spice

2010-07-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Nathan for these truly wonderful links. I thought I loved the old spice guy, but new spice is just so much better. Watch the top video first and then the parody below.

Dreams

2010-07-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

I have laughed and talked so much this weekend that I have lost my voice. It has been wonderful.

Just when I was starting to feel that Sunday sadness in my belly, I came across this magical book by Dallas Clayton. Below is a little example of its loveliness. You can read it for free here.

2010-07-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

If I had a car I would drive away from here and keep driving. Not because I don't like this place, and not because I have anywhere else to be, but because the movement of escape is the only thing that feels just right to me.

This is why I don't have a car.

Castles in the Sky

2010-07-21T11:47:00.001-07:00

I dreamed of this years ago. Somebody took the dream from my head and put it in the sky.

Writing and Hair

2010-07-18T07:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks to The Rejectionist for this cool site - it analyses your writing and tells you who you're most comparable to. I got Margaret Atwood, which is a nice compliment, but looking at Tea Berry-Blue's research into the site, it would appear that the person responsible for the coding may not be lovely sort of person you might hope.

Apart from generally procrastinating on the internet and watching 9-5 today, I have also finished One Day by David Nicholls (it's not without fault, but I did cry buckets at the end, which was exactly what I needed), and dyed my hair a shade of red that made the water I rinsed with look like a river of blood. Not sure that last part was the best idea ever, since I have to give a presentation at a very important sales conference with work in a couple of weeks. I need to look important and respectable in a way that blood-red hair may not quite enable me to do. I'm hoping that if I team it with a lovely green vintage dress, I will look charming and memorable, which is about the best I can ever hope for.

Later, I will be baking cookies for a party at work and doing some more crafting. All in all a lovely weekend, but it is conspicuously missing any time spent writing. I cannot even consider writing anything without shuddering with revulsion at the thought of my output. I think I may have to ease my way back into this with a resurrection of a fiction journal.

More Crafting

2010-07-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

I have previously made a purple cupcake purse using this tutorial, found via Whip-up.

It started to look very tatty after rattling around in the bottom of my messy bag for over a year, so I made a new one. It's a little bit more grown up...maybe 25 is too old to be making cupcake purses, or maybe I just needed a change:

This is the first crafting I've done since moving down here. I couldn't bring any of my craft supplies with me, and I've been feeling a little lost without them. Luckily when I was down in Devon recently with my HLP we found a lovely little craft shop, where I got the heart ribbon (amongst other things). Then today I went to investigate the only craft shop in this one-horse town and found it was actually far better than I thought it was going to be. Sure, it's nowhere near as good as my favourite places back home, but it is still really good. I got everything else needed for the purse, including the lovely button there.

Anonymous

2010-07-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

Loving this.

Favourites:

Dear Bacardi,
Up yours!
Sincerely, Who am I kidding, I'll be back

Dear girlfriend,
Please forgive me. I just bought a ring. I'm afraid to give it to you, because I know eventually you will die, which will break my heart.
Sincerely, sir.

Dear Scooby Doo,
Please don't ever go away. You are the best dog I've never had.
Sincerely, Basking In Nostalgia.

Dear all of my friends,
Please stop getting married and having babies..we are in our 20's!
Sincerely, Single lady that is glad that at least I can get drunk and slutty at your wedding.

Rejectionist joy

2010-07-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

Today was Wednesday, but it felt so far from Friday that it might have well as been Monday. Check out the Rejectionist for a way to let the Monday feeling out.

I'm going to take a bath, with every nice smelling bubbly soothing pink thing I can find thrown in. If only someone would rub my feet, I think I could get back to feeling alive again.

Also, I just found this today, and I keep switching between loving and hating it. Either way I'm really impressed with it, why don't I have the marketing budget to get Snoop?

OP

2010-07-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

I have lots of things to write about - so many lovely things have happened recently. But later, OK? Just not right now, if that's alright.

For now:

"To write one's first novel is not just to learn how to tell one's own story as if it were someone else's. It is at the same time to become a person who can imagine a novel from start to finish in a balanced way, who can express this dream in words and sentences." Orhan Pamuk, intro to Paris Review Interviews 2.

I am in no way that person.

I bet those golden tickets make the chocolate taste terrible

2010-06-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

The original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is on, and it is just such a spectacular film. Why did anyone ever think it would be a good idea to remake it? The film is truly magical.

Anyway, I was coming here to get down all the details of this weekend. It has been the loveliest time. My dad and his girlfriend came down to visit me. It's a four hour drive, so it's a lot for them to do just for two days, but it was such a great time that it felt like a full holiday.

They came in time for lunch yesterday, we had a picnic in the park at the end of my street, and since it was the hottest day of the year, we were all melting after a while. We went back to their hotel for a swim, which felt so refreshing. We went out for dinner and had huge burgers before coming back to mine to watch a film. Today we went for a walk through a big park near here, and played badminton there. Then we had another picnic for lunch in the park down the street from my house and played frisbee (badly on my part). In the park you can hire a row-boat, so we did that while a brass band played at the edge of the lake.

It was a perfect weekend. Well, I did get sunburned, right through my factor 50, but it was still worth it.

It seems to be the time for seeing my favourite people at the moment. On Wednesday, my shower-partner returned from Hong Kong and we had sushi and cocktails. Tomorrow the boy is coming here. Then next weekend I'm off to Devon for a few days with my almost-twin. I just need to see the beautiful girl soon and it will be complete.

On a different note, is this not the most awful statistic you've ever heard?:
"There are 72 million children out of school across the world. That's more than all the children that are in primary school across Europe, USA, Canada, Australia combined."

How can that be possible? Join 1 Goal if you want to see something done about this.

New ways of looking

2010-06-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

I really like this video. I think it's very effective - there are lots of things that it's easier to put to the back of my mind rather then really look at. But this made me look:

If It's Hip, It's Here

2010-06-24T13:24:00.000-07:00

This is not the usual sort of blog I like - it's very specific, based on design. But it's definitely worth a look, there are some stunning images on it.

Subway Signs

2010-06-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

Home

2010-06-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

I wish I were home right now. I've just read this and I want to escape to the wild surrounds to go swimming.
I'm going to have to go back soon and do some wild swimming.

Today, I'm loving this photo essay, especially the 4th photo down.

Peggy

2010-06-20T05:58:00.001-07:00

Also, take me home and let home be this life and a place where I can wear these wonderful glasses:

Royal Ascot

2010-06-20T05:36:00.000-07:00

I went to Royal Ascot yesterday, it was a very lovely day trip. I went with a group of people from work, and though it was very nice, I think next time I'll go back with a few friends or family members. There isn't really much to do apart from bet (which I do incredibly badly) and watch the races. It really is all about the socialising.

Oddly, one of the most amazing parts was going to the toilets. I went (foolishly) after the Queens Jubilee race, as did every other woman at Ascot. The toilets were down a little path, and there were hundreds of cubicles in one giant tent-room. All of the ladies there crammed into the tent, chattering with their friends, with their little feathered hats and head-gear bobbing. It was like being a battery-farmed chicken. It had that odd sensation of being something totally new - something that I've never experienced before. I love that feeling.

Additionally, I did make all of £3.60 on a horse that came in 3rd, all of my other bets lost as though they were doing it to spite me. And I managed to get very sunburned.

Smiling in the shadows in the sand

2010-06-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

Is this the best photo of all time?

I think it might be. It is the exact feeling of Summer, and being young and carefree, of loving and being loved.

Today

2010-06-17T14:45:00.000-07:00

I miss everybody today.

Don't be sad, I mean that in the sweetest way.

100 posts

2010-06-16T14:54:00.000-07:00

To celebrate turning 100 (in post terms), I've changed my whole layout. It was triggered by wanting to have a wider main post section so that my images could be bigger, and the template I had didnt allow that. Also, I've been making minor changes for a while, that haven't really satisfied what I want this to look like....And clearly, books, books, books.

Happiness

2010-06-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling happy at the moment, and I just want to go with that and express it in a way that will hopefully stand out from the tangle of despondent and confused posts on here.

I've been loving this today (via):

And also, I have to reblog this (via someone sweet and anonymous), it made me smile...and want a pug that I will name Puglet:

Yet more art

2010-06-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend, The National Gallery. I always, always forget how much I love this place. I got there early so that it was nice and quiet. I had no purpose in mind, just a quick scout around to see if something caught my eye.
Straight off I was in a room full of Canalettos. He was one of the first artists I truly fell in love with when I was in Italy. He has such particular lines and he entirely captures the feeling of being in Venice.

Then on through the 1700-1900 rooms, full of all of most the wonderful things you'd ever want to see on a Saturday morning. A whole room of Rubens made the visit perfect.

The evening was football, which I actually enjoyed, though I think it was more the company than anything else.

Homesick

2010-06-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

The word for what I feel is homesick, but really what I miss is something that no longer exists. I want to be this little girl who doesn't even know what it means to be afraid and who cannot even imagine falling without being picked straight up.

Meetings

2010-06-10T14:16:00.001-07:00

Today, work was nothing but meetings. Even though they're part of my job and things were discussed or information was disseminated in the meetings that needed to be so, I still felt like I was wasting time I could have spent doing real work.
A good thing that came out of one of the meetings was that I found out about the publication of this book. I feel it will be too popular for me to rustle up a copy from somewhere at work, and I'm sure someone would notice if I got the warehouse to deliver me a book that's totally unrelated to my job. Maybe I will have to purchase it, with actual money...perhaps I should just set up an account with work - let them hold back some of my wages to be spent on books, rather than going through the dance of them putting it into my account, me withdrawing it, and then giving it straight back to them. It's like being at Blackwells all over again. I think the book trade is bad for me.

Mindfuck

2010-06-09T16:30:00.000-07:00

I am loving this right now. So much of it is getting hearted.

Anxiety Girl

2010-06-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of me, miraculously drawn by someone I've never met:

Dreaming of being a Functional Freak

2010-06-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the Rejectionist, I have found my Ten Commandments, as given to humanity by the incredible John Waters (excerpted from here). I really cannot choose which one I like the best, which I guess is the way it should be with Commandments. I shall dedicate my life to following them all equally.

F&L

2010-06-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

This has been a week of free phone calls. I've had long talks with lots of the people I love, and I don't feel so bad about being far away. I think I'm understanding the benefit of breaking out on your own, even if you love the things you're breaking away from....of course, I'm cheating in my breaking away - the is a fraction of my old life that I've brought into the new, but in a different way from before.

I think I'm just starting to feel entirely in control of things. Staying in the same place you grew up in and living with the same people you always have done - it lets you divest some of the responsibility for your life and actions to them. It's not a bad thing, but it takes going away for you to find out how all of those parts of yourself work properly.

Also, down here, I'm near to the heaven that is Ben's Cookies.

I ate about a million of them this weekend (real number more life three and a half), and even now I'm wishing I had brought some back from London with me.

The museum for this week was the British Museum. I mostly went for the Enlightenment gallery, because the collection culture of the time still interests me so much. I also went through the Egyptian, Asian and African galleries, and mainly just felt curious about what all that stuff is doing in the British Museum rather than museums in the countries to which it actually belongs. Particularly that applies to the Egyptian stuff, there are these huge room-filling sculptures which used to guard temple gates - they are amazing but so out of place trapped in the controlled environment of the museum. I can certainly see that there would have been an argument for that sort of thing before air travel and the internet, but now I'm not so sure.

One thing that was really interesting there was in the Enlightenment room, it was in the section on collections. There were several examples of the plumage of Birds of Paradise, and next to them was this:

Europeans first became aware of birds of paradise in the sixteenth century, after merchants returned from Indonesia with prepared specimens known as 'trade skins'. These skins were made to display the birds' fabulous plumes, and had the feet and wings cut off. As a result some Europeans thought that the birds did not have feet and spent their lives floating through the air, drinking dew and never touching the earth until their death. It was because of this that they were called birds of paradise. One species was even named Paradisea apoda, meaning 'the footless bird of paradise'.