"On the page where he had written the previous day, he found a little wild pansy he could not remember having placed there. It set him dreaming. It should be possible to make a little herbarium of experiences he said to himself. A flower, a sprig of this, some moss, could become as precious as relics if they reminded one of the great events of the inner life, moments of great emotion or perception. People remember the risks and dangers of picking certain specimens. Huge vistas of the world unfold before us as before: yet they only reflect time in the external world. How different would be the vision of the soul's unfolding." (from Marianne by George Sand)

I loved this excerpt, it reminds me of my notebooks filled with feathers, leaves and flowers. Though it also makes me realise how carried away I get with beautiful language as isn't the external world just a reflection of our inner world? Certainly we don't take enough time to reflect on that though.

Hello,

It's World Book Day and Heaven is a Library :-)













“When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.” - Virgina Woolf

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
― Jorge Luis Borges”

x

Hello hello,

Sorry, I'm pretty much in hibernation. My new job keeps me very busy! My computer broke ages ago and so I used my mums to update things on here but it broke too! So I'm not very internet connected at the moment. She might get hers fixed though. Then I will try to write something proper. Or maybe I will get a new one before too long but I must admit I am quite enjoying the freedom. Remember what life was like before the internet?!

Thank you so much for all the nice messages and hopefully I'll get back to you guys properly in the new year.

Love and have a beautiful next few weeks whatever you do x

Playing the piano, eating cake, collecting sea shells, playing chess with my cat, reading James Joyce and anthropomorphising grasshoppers on my days off. And yoga every day but I don't have any pictures of that! Feeling madly in love with Bach's Goldberg Variations (especially played by Gould in '81! I know that may divide opinions :-))
















And I'll have this mysterious set shot by Dwam in review next year :-)

That's enough of that for now :-) x

Somebody made these from the new SG film

Midnight tea for one. It really was midnight when we shot this, I think we finished at about 3am. Real live goosebumps. Gosh it was cold. I think Cherry did an incredible job with the photography. She's really miraculous with a camera. And many other things too!



Thank you for the nice comments! I have a sore shoulder, I think actually a repetitive strain injury so I"m trying to stay off the computer as much as I can. Thus even fewer replies than usual so apologies for that.

There have been rainbows. There has been about three days of sun for the whole of June and July but mostly rain, so I've been doing lots of reading, baking, painting, saving insects from puddles. I am grateful to be starting a new job tomorrow. I'm so glad to have finished my contract at the museum, that job was so disappointing. What is supposed to be a cultural institution feels like an intellectual and cultural black hole. I'm going to be doing something closer to my first job after university which was nursing on a stroke rehabilitation ward. My new job will be working with people with Alzheimer's, doing art and music and going for walks or whatever people want to do. I'm really looking forward to starting. I know it won't be easy but it will be quite different from the previous hospital job as I won't have to do night shifts and I won't have to do so much of the physically demanding work that job involved. I hope I can do something really good and imaginative with it and help people feel better, to rest their minds and enjoy their lives more. My little brother has been accepted to Cambridge University to do a masters in Mathematics, I'm so excited for him and so proud. He found out the same day that I got my new job so surely this has to be a good time coming up for everyone. I really hope he loves it and learns so many amazing things.



Sycamore seeds



I'm a bit sad that I've been wearing my winter cardigan nearly every day this summer. Today was beautiful though so maybe August will be nice. Talking about the weather. Bad habit.

Because I'm in between my last and my new job I've had a bit more free time than usual and I've been baking cakes about ever 2 or 3 days and it's so nice. It's been like having summer holidays from school or something.





These were all almond cakes with things like blueberries and peaches or apricots and raspberries. So nice!


Chocolate and beetroot brownies, which sounds strange but tastes delicious. These are all gluten free and dairy free :-)

Any day it hasn't been raining too heavily I've been out in the garden and I've been happily watching all the different insects that try to drown themselves in my tea cup or walk across the pages of the book I'm reading. I have a great love of antennae and watching tiny creatures rub their legs together or clean antennae and wings. I realised a strange habit of mine while looking through old pictures -




A Bee sat on my mug for ages.

We found this bee on the outside of a window ledge completely soaked and bedraggled. I think it had been drowning in a puddle and someone had fished it out with a bit of paper and put him on the window. I took it home and put it on a towel and gave it some honey and after about half an hour of drying its wings, rubbing its body with its little legs, running them together and doing cool things with its antennae it managed to take flight and flew out the living room window onto a pink flower via the pear tree. I loved it eating honey with its strange little proboscis from my hand. Maybe it would have been fine anyway as they are of course designed to deal with bad weather but it ate so much honey so quickly that I think it must have been quite exhausted.

I realised how great woodlice are too. I think I was always still slightly freaked of them but on watching them closely and holding them I rid myself of that feeling and now I find them delightful. That often happens with people too.








Sometimes drawing things that look like things, as an exercise or to prove I can do it. But I prefer to draw things that are less decipherable.







I found a place to go and draw from a life model once a week so I've been doing that. It's the first time I've drawn from the figure since I was doing my Fine Art degree so it's been really nice to do that again. It's made me think about some interesting things about the human body but I'll save that for another journal.

Then I've just been doing lots of watercolours of moths or automatic anatomical things where I let the brush and paint do what they want. I really enjoy that.









Reading <3

I just finished my second reading of To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I must write a proper journal about her writing soon. I don't often read book more than once because there are so many others that I want to read but you really do get so much out of a second or third reading. I was thinking that it might actually be better to read The Brothers Karamazov 10 times than 100 other books?!



(I'm not actually reading Finnegan's Wake just yet, I bought it for my father because he's been having a year of Ulysses and all things Joycean and this copy was so beautiful. One day though!)



We found this reading stand in the room full of stuff. I'm so happy with it. I get so achey in all the weird positions I read in while trying to hold up heavy books. It's quite a funny archaic seeming object but I love it.

More Painting








And I must thank you all for the amazing, lovely comments on my member review set. I really appreciate that you still leave comments on my sets after far too many sets >.< I'm actually a bit embarrassed about how many sets I have now, it seems really silly. But I enjoy making them and of course it's extremely helpful having them bought. I have a few more sets waiting but I'm not sure if I'll shoot any more after that, it can only go on for so long right? I have about 4 waiting though so don't worry (if you were thinking of worrying ;-))! I often wish I could replace the bad early sets with my new ones! Anyway, I love what P_mod did with this set. It's always so great to work with him. Did you notice the hidden black and white pictures that he took on his Hasselblad?





Do you know what would make me really happy though? If these other amazing sets would see the front page. I'd love it if you would go and leave a comment on them <3 I even make a little cameo in this one of Dwam. I got to be Titania in her Midsummer Night's Dream. How lucky I am.



See a Midsummer Night's Dream here!


Sioo - Robots Race


Succette - Inspiration


Key - The Lady in the House of Love

Of course there are a hundred more but I'll try to add a few with each journal. One these ones are live ;-)

Phew. I need to go and sleep now. Night night x

I have loads of things in my head that I would like to write about but finding the time to sit down and do it properly is tricky right now. Lots of very busy things going on in life like helping out with family things, learning to drive, trying to look after myself, commitments and responsibilities flooding me. So I'll just write quickly to say that tomorrow I will have a new set in member review and I hope you will like it.

Here is a sneaky peek -




And if you look closely to the set you will find something hidden :-)

Sorry I haven't been very responsive lately, I now have 1810 messages and that's even after replying to a ton! Thank you for all the lovely comments though. I hope everyone is well and I'll try to find time to write something soon x

Prospero:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158


Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28


Oh Shakespeare.

Today would have been the 100th birthday of Alan Turing. I can only imagine the amazing work he would have done had he not died prematurely. If you aren't familiar with him he was a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist. He worked at Bletchley Park during WWII and devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. The horrific treatment he encountered on account of his homosexuality (which was shockingly illegal until 1967 in the UK) reminds me that human understanding really has evolved but of course it must do so much further. Go and read a little about his work today and be inspired :-)



Interesting article I read today stating his death may not have been suicide - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092 "In a way we have in modern times been recreating the narrative of Turing's life, and we have recreated him as an unhappy young man who committed suicide. But the evidence is not there. "The exact circumstances of Turing's death will probably always be unclear," Prof Copeland concludes."Perhaps we should just shrug our shoulders, and focus on Turing's life and extraordinary work."*

*I must add, this does not mean, shrug your shoulders at his wrong treatment, it is only saying that as the case was so poorly carried out and evidence now lost, we may never know, so in such a case look at what we do have. I think it's also interesting that it shows a different side of his character, maybe he would not want to be seen as a tragic figure? Ok, on with reading about morphogenesis and practicing your cryptanalysis everyone. Off you go.