Joyful

My favourite friends and I gathered in Paris last weekend for the best re-connection ever - a day of cycling around the boulevards, stopping to sip a chocolat chaud and watch the passers by, while catching up and indulging in a bit of mutual adoration.

These girls are my sisters and our friendships have evolved over the years into solid, reliable and bankable certainties. As a result, the weekends when we take stock together are always meaningful and restorative. Joyous indeed.

Another little distraction

I arrived home from college with great intentions of sitting at my desk and just 'cracking on' with my dissertation proposal... after all, it is early afternoon, I have the house to myself and a lovely cup of tea by my side. But look! What about the magical glow of the autumn leaves warming me through the window? And what about that lovely smell of bonfire from the garden next door? Why immerse myself in critical literature when there is so much to just. soak. up?

It has been a busy week, and instead of soldiering on I want to sit, take stock and procrastinate. What is so bad about that?

Birdwatching

A week or so ago while wading through the crowds at the Freshers Fair I was given a flyer from a group called Things with Wings. I had immediately been drawn to the stand because of a spindly display of little bird cut-outs hanging from some twigs in a jar. The group itself professes to like birds, and people who like birds. Not immediately convinced that I was quite what they were after, I took the flyer and scurried off past the hoards of sports teams trying (unsuccessfully) to rope me into their gangs.

Now the frenzy has passed however, this flyer is still around and it has got me thinking about why I was so drawn to that display. I like pretty things, I know that, and I love anything drawn from nature that is visually creative, but this combination of delicate twigs, jewel-like colours and good humour just seemed to chime somewhere and I want to use this inspiration for someting.

Anyhow, in the past few days I have been blog-browsing, and have come across Bridbird - an Irish girl relocated to Melbourne specialising in BEAUTIFUL bird-based prints and textiles. She has inspired me some more, and so I have begun to draw some bits and bobs. I should really be working. This is more fun.

Ticking along

October isn't disappointing me yet... Saturday morning was spent breathing in the chilled autumnal air, feeling the dew on my skin and soaking up the warm sun breaking through the mist. It was one of those mornings that is so beautiful that it makes you want to be a part of the landscape.

We were cat sitting for my parents and the task involves tending to chickens and plants as well as our beloved pusscats first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I think that there is something so wonderful about that sort of routine. My love of routine is sometimes extreme but in my mind totally rational - I feel at peace when my life moves to a steady rhythm, preferably with the seasons and so a life in the country which requires getting up and carrying out daily chores makes perfect sense. Besides, who would want to miss a morning like that?

Autumn days are upon us

No, this is it. Forget lazy summer evenings, forget the first daffs of spring - AUTUMN is where it's at. By far my favourite time of year, and this week, in the shire, it is beautiful! I would like to be out of doors for the whole of October - wearing my hat and scarf, digging the garden and listening to the birds...perhaps stopping once in a while for a hot chocolate around a camp fire.... bliss!

Another crazy few weeks have passed, and it is scary how infrequently I am finding the time to step outside to notice the changing seasons. My hasty cycle rides up and down the road to college are not enough to really soak up every last drop of autumn. What I really want to do is to go foraging for conkers and golden leaves to make a little autumn display in my living room.... watch this space...

Magical

We spent an afternoon punting on the Isis in Oxford on Sunday, passing by the botanical gardens, Christchurch Meadow and the fields beyond, strewn with picnic rugs and literary types enjoying the late summer sun. This view, was so totally magical that I can almost imagine the wings attached to this dainty figure in the tree! It is the stuff of J M Barrie or the Flower Fairies! So, for a brief moment, a blissful summer arrived in Oxford....I won't dwell on the fact that it left as swiftly as it arrived....Instead, here is further proof of the weather that was...

Pretty things make my world go round

Oh how I long for a such serene place to study!

I am about to start my teacher training course, in fact, today has been my last day of the seemingly endless summer that I have allowed myself, and as it has been raining and raining and raining, I have spent most of it reading Living Etc and sorting lever-arch files on a shelf in our living room. It is at times like these that I weaken, and wish that I had followed the more lucrative path of a lawyer or doctor - submitted myself to the trials of training in order to be rewarded with the financial gain. Perhaps then I would have been able to have made it to a beautiful little cottage by now, with room for a separate study and living space?! Alas, I chose to drift, for my sanity's sake I suppose, through a few creative and charitable jobs before settling on a (hopefully-to-be) rewarding teaching career, minus a mortgage!

I am extremely excited about this next move, and know that it is the right step, but while I train I must be satisfied with our lovely house in Oxford which we share with an old friend, who puts up with us wonderfully, and console myself with dreams of our future home. Despite spacial limitations however, I am enjoying creating a space to work, and have managed to sort a couple of spaces to shuffle around when the boys in my life are out doing other things. God bless interiors magazines for inspiring my dreams in the process!

A xx