The Month of April

Something new, something for me and maybe you. As blogging is a kind of diary I thought I'd quite like to record some of the things that have happened in the month.

Visited one of My Best Girls new abode in Hampstead. A place I've never lived but have missed when no friends lived there. so glad she's returned.
Baked Strawberry Cheesecake Muffins from The Hummingbird
Drinks in The Dove - too cold to sit outside.
Easter - lots of family and chocolates.
Hair, legs, nails getting ready for holiday. Love The Cowshed.
Ate at Canteen, Bakers Street. Good but because of the friends we went with. Very little atmosphere there on this Friday evening.
Marrakech Marrakech Marrakech.
Finished Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser, The Return Victoria Hislop (great by the pool but not worth lugging home again), Nocturnes by Kashio Isaguro, Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote, Vogue,
Stuck on the wrong side of That Volcano.
A Family 80th Birthday party in the sun - glorious!
Chris Offili at Tate Britain with my parents. My mother loved it, my father not so sure.
An offer accepted on our flat.

Admiration

So the last day of April and our last Enchanted April quote.
'It had been funny and delightful, that little interlude of admiration... How warm, though, things like admiration and appreciation made one feel, how capable of really deserving them, how different, how glowing... She still buzzed, she still tingled, just at the remembrance. What fun it had been, having an admirer even for that little while. No wonder people liked admirers. They seemed in some strange way, to make one come alive. Although it was all over she still glowed with it and felt more exhilarated, more optimistic.' Elizabeth von Arnim The Enchanted April

Some beautiful Italian villas to gaze upon, to relax, to make one tingle and glow, to come alive...

To wake from a restful, peaceful sleep with a day ahead of nothing...

Oh to eat a leisurely breakfast with a warm breeze through the doors...

To walk through these cool arches. Whose feet have walked here before me?

To rest in the shade.

To swim in the pool. admire the landscape.

DayDream... Admire...

kitchen and bedroom arch garden pool

Wishing you an Enchanted May too.

Election Thursday Three

'In love, unlike politics, caution is not usually a virtue.' Nelson Mandela Long Walk to Freedom

It's short and sweet but I felt we had to have one from Nelson Mandela. Would we like our politicians to throw a little caution to the wind? Or only if it will be to my advantage. Would we risk it for others?

Reading

The oldest Blessing is reading. And is reading well. She's able to say which books she likes and wishes to read again. She read a book to me when we saw her last. I hope it's the first of many. I know that Twin, Nana and I wish her a lifetime of... Enjoyment. Escaping. Thinking. Day Dreaming. Imagining. Learning. And so much more.
'When we first read, we have won our freedom from adults: they no longer control what we learn, what we feel.' J. Jordan Vogue October 1996.

Dearest Blessing - I wish you a library and life time full of books. Check out the chandelier too.

Today Twin sent me a photo of Blessing at the hair dressers reading her first Hello magazine. For isn't that what reading is also all about? Magazines... Blogs....

Welcome To The World

Maybe you remember me talking about my lovely colleague? Well her lovely baby has arrived and so this quote from Salman Rushdie is one of my favourite ones to put in a new birth card.

'What had been (at the beginning) no bigger than a full stop had expanded into a comma, a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter; now it was bursting into more complex developments, becoming, one might say, a book - perhaps an encylopaedia - even a whole language...' Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children

Sunrise over London

I believed...

'I believed that one day I would find a young man with whom I could talk far into the night without tiring; talking on and on we would come to realise that we saw things in the same way, that we felt the same emotions. So love would be born, a love based on friendship, on respect...' Susanna Tamaro Follow Your Heart

I'd always imagined this place of talking being bed but then I saw this picture and decided here would be a great place too. Its outside, but there's a fire. It's late in the evening. There are two glasses of wine, and nobody about. It's perhaps at the end of a day on holiday, when the conversations you start today really can continue tomorrow. There is no need to think what the time is. Time can wait. Is on your side.

Happy Talking x

Would you care to join me?

I'm having a tulip moment...

fresh tulips, white tulips, vase, mixed colours, dying tulips, glass vase

Election Thursday 2

A short one today but it brings a wry smile to my face when I read it and then look at the date - the start of a new millenium.
'It would be nice if the poor were to get even half the money that is spent studying them.'
Bill Vaughan The Observer 2nd January 2000

Beauty

'Beauty made you love, and love made you beautiful.' Elizabeth von Arnim The Enchanted April
Some beautiful pictures for today.

An early morning sunrise

Sissinghurst - a childhood favourite.

Claridges all set up for dining, drinking, being with friends and family.

Beautiful flowers in the hallway. 'Welcome, we're pleased you're here' they say.

How could we not have 'Beauty'?
A simple empty beach. Who knows where. But then does it matter?
For me, the most beautiful model.

What's beautiful for you?

Sunrise, Sissinghurst, Claridges, flowers, wedding dress, sea and sand, Christy Turlington

Marrakech Express

The fireplace in one of the nooks around the pool.

Sunlight slithering through the souk.

Eating in Jemaa El Fna

Yves Saint Laurent's Majorelle Gardens.

Our poolside view. Oh my it was lovely.

And then this happened....
and suddenly this quote is appropriate.

When I stored it I didn't imagine it would ever be used for this purpose.
'You have a long voyage, and a strange country, before you; but many men will have both, to the end of time. The winds you are going to tempt, have wafted thousands upon thousands to fortune, and brought thousands upon thousands hapily back.' Charles Dickens David Copperfield

We're thankful to have made it home relatively swiftly, very safely and in good spirits. My were we pleased to see my father's smiling face at Dover at 3am.

Marrakech

No posts for the next week because...
I'm relaxing at the fantastic Jardins de la Koutoubia

Wearing my new bikini poolside.Re-reading a favourite book in a brand new leather binding

and a new one too.

With a view of Koutoubia Mosque. Shopping in the souk Eating, at least for one night, in Djema al Fna

And, at least another night somewhere a little more fancy.

When an outfit like this would be day dreamily perfect.
Sipping on mint tea and a cocktail or two...

I'd like to wear a maxi dress. How lovely would this look with a cropped denim jacket and silver sandals? Alas they just don't suit me - not tall enough and too much of a bust!

Hoping to visit Majorelle Gardens, owned by Yves Saint Laurent.

In my day dreams wearing these beautiful sandals for all that sightseeing.

Unseen Quilts

So, in my mind I was going to the V&A Quilt exhbition yesterday and today I would post another Quilt Quote and my thoughts/favourite quilt from it. However with the time I'd left myself and the length of the queue to buy tickets I didn't make it. So here is a Quilt Quote anyway.

'How had she made him? She did not know. She had patched him together, working in the dark. She had made a quilt out of pieces of silk, scraps of velvet, and now that she held it up to the light the stitches showed up large and crude, and they cut across everything.' Monica Ali Brick Lane

@

I hope you're working in the sunlight at the moment.

Election Thursday 1

So, the elections have been formally announced and in four weeks time we vote. Are you interested in the upcoming elections? Do you see yourself as political? Looking through my quote book I've stored quite a few about, not necessarily politics, but about nations, democracy, how we get along in society and what society means. So for the next four Thursdays the quotes will be slightly different. This first one is where good oratory feeds into poetry and sometimes prose. If the message doesn't agree with you I hope you like the rhythm.

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected Prime Minister, I warn you...

I warn you that you will have pain – when heating and relief depend on payment.

I warn you that you will have ignorance – when talents are untended and wits wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right.

I warn you that you will have poverty – when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won't pay in an economy that can't pay.

I warn you that you will be cold – when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don't notice and the poor cannot afford.

I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light...

If Margaret Thatcher wins

I warn you not to be ordinary

I warn you not to be young

I warn you not to fall ill

I warn you not to get old.

Neil Kinnock Election Speech Bridgend 1983

7th April 2010

Dearest, If you're reading this, these are for you...
'When loved ones die, you have to live on their behalf. See things as though with their eyes. Remember how they used to say things, and use those words oneself. Be thankful that you can do things that they cannot, and also feel the sadness of it.' Louis de Bernieres Captain Correlli's Mandolin

'When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose them all at once; you lose them in pieces over a long time - the way the mail stops coming, and their scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in their closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of them that are gone. Just when the day comes - when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that they're gone forever - there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.' John Irving A prayer for Owen Meany

All love to you and know that I am here x

Blossom

So the blossom has finally arrived and I can post this. I've been waiting. I think you've been waiting too. 'every tree appeared to be entirely covered with a waving mass of pink or mauve tissue paper.' Nancy Mitford The Pursuit of Love I like to walk under blossom trees. To look up and see blue sky and the twinkling gold gem of sunlight glistening through. There are certain streets where I know the blossom will be. I stalk them waiting for the first glimpse. I want masses of blossom. Maybe more than one tree. Just in case I can't get my fix some blossom inspiration so it can pervade the whole of life. A clutch for when a coat is still needed but one wants to feel spring like. Welcome to our cherry blossom flat. Where blossom is everywhere. Even the mundane like the door mat. A wall of blossom in the bedroom, or the bathroom. To gaze at contemplate. A lifting of spirits. For days when there's no blossom. Or perhaps I should resist these and stop searching for more images. Store the picture of blossom in my memory. Is blossom so special because it's temporary? We can't catch it. Keep it for ourselves. It needs to stay on the trees. And then stay in our minds until spring time comes once more.

Happy Easter

That first mouthful of mini eggs, for how can just one be popped into the mouth? They were made for delicate mouthfuls. How delicious it tastes. Oh how I heart them...

We're off to Twin's for Easter. If we were hosting I should like to decorate the table like this.

With love this Easter Sunday

Gethsemane

I like the rhythm of the church calender reading familiar passages stirs me to return to a pattern of reflection. To start a fresh with finding time to contemplate. I'm hoping to go to a Good Friday service today. A time to reflect, pause for thought and pray.
'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.'
Matthew 26 v.39
Whenever I read this it reminds and challenges me to realign my perspective. Not my will but yours. It's just as important that it's to family, friends, colleagues, strangers as it is to God, or whoever our bigger being is. I'm getting better at thinking about 'your will', or perhaps 'our will' with Warmth. I will always be working at finding time to pause in my day to day, week to week life and listen and put your will first. Just when I reach the place I was aiming for I will discover a higher place. And yet, isn't that what makes our world so wonderful?

The Enchanted April

Have you read this novel? Oh it is Enchanting. It's uplifting and brimming with life. It gives one hope that things will get better. It's about the strength of female friendships and how we so often wish for someone elses life and all along they're wishing for our life. The passage below doesn't necessarily show this but it reflects how we sometimes feel after a relationship has finished. It struck a note with me when I read it. It took a long time to meet Warmth and find that love. Looking through my books of quotations so many are about relationships ending, or maybe not even getting off the ground but they represent my thoughts and hopes, at that stage in life. And the glory of this book? The bigger picture of although these relationships may end life can still be enchanting whoever we share it with, and sometimes it's the surprises in life which bring the greatest moments of happiness.

'How passionately she longed to be important to somebody again – not important on platforms, not important as an asset in an organisation, but privately important, just to one other person, quite privately, nobody else to know or notice. It didn't seem much to ask in a world so crowded with people, just to have one of them, only one out of all the millions to oneself. Somebody who needed one, who thought of one, who was eager to come to one – oh, oh how dreadfully one wanted to be precious.' Elizabeth von Armin The Enchanted Apri

I have a few more favourite passages to post from this truly enchanting book but this is where I'd like to be sitting reading it now.