{backgrounds}

Here's a little bit about my background, and where my love for beautiful homes and making things stems from. My great great grandparents were painters, and they didn't contain their work to the canvas. It flowed out of the frame and all over their home, creating a bright and stimulating place to raise a family of lovers, friends and children. I think their work - which was in the homes of my mother, grandmother and great-grandmothers - filtered into my creative subconcious from an early age, and only much later did I begin to see the parallels. They even created theatre costumes! Their home, Charleston Farmhouse, is now open to the public and is well worth a visit or three.

These photographs were taken by Alan MacSweeney and they are my favorite taken of the house so far

{her melodious lay}

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

Act IV, scene VII of Hamlet.

After coming across this post by Abundance, I decided to search through my files for images inspired by Ophelia's watery end. There is something about her absolute vulnerability; her peace, her tragedy, and the stagnant delicacy of her stillness. Her body floats in the deep black of some bottomless body of water, slowly sinking back into a fathomless mystery. For me, these photos are beautiful, poetic, and ultimately terrible.

merci *beaucoup*

Just wanted to say thank you to the lovely Anne-Christine of Le Divan Fumoir Bohemien for posting my dress on her delightful blog. I puffed out my chest with pride when I saw it, because Le Divan was one of the very first blogs that I truly fell for about four years ago. I had just started my studies in costume while I was living in Rome, and our school had such a tiny library that blogland was a dream come true! I trawled through all the archives and found so many wonderful images and stories to play with, and many have inspired my moodboards and ideas. In fact, several of the textiles posts made their way into the costume that has been posted, including the heart-breakingly beautiful works of Rosalind Wyatt. So not only a big thank you for posting my humble dress, but also for having unwittingly inspired me all these years. Un bisou!

expired in a {cloud}

For two days in March, the Thames Tunnel was opened to pedestrians for the last time in the foreseeable future. A friend happened to have one spare, so along I went and discovered the 8th wonder of the world for myself.

One of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's first major engineering projects, the tunnel was designed to link London's biggest docks so that cargo could be carried back and forth by cart, instead of by boat. However it was mainly used by pedestrians, and later, in attempts to revise it's notorious reputation as a hide-out for thieves and vagabonds, it saw many Victorian fairs and entertainments. As described by an American traveller in 1851:

And thus you go down — down — to the bottom of the shaft eighty feet... Arrived at the bottom, you find yourself in... a round room, with marble floor, fifty feet in diameter. There are alcoves near the walls in which are all sorts of contrivances to get your money, from Egyptian necromancers and fortune-tellers to dancing monkeys. The room is lighted with gas, and is brilliant.

During it's construction, there were many a flood. One such killed six workers, and Isambard himself was carried along down the tunnel and spat out the shaft at the other end! But perhaps the most tragic and poetic image that I took from my visit to the tunnel was the story of the songbirds. Hung in cages, they would trill and sing at the forefront of the work. If ever they fell silent the workers would attempt an escape, knowing that most likely the birdie had expired in a cloud of methane. These would catch alight from the gas lamps and form a bloom of fire that would chase them down the tunnel and up the shaft. The workers encountered the forces of water, fire, earth and air, little songbirds bordering the unknown.

my valentine's note

"Did you know that St. Valentine is also the saint of epilepsy, the plague and beekeeping?" asked Julia.

"Um, no."

As it turns out, our Valentine was a patron of many important things such as fainting and travelers, the above, and of course love, young people and the betrothed. Really, his link to romance was pressed upon him many hundreds of years after his death, but still the legends insist that he sent a love note to his jailer's daughter on the eve of his execution signed "from your Valentine." The good old romantics of the 19th c. exchanged pretty hand-written notes, before card making became popular. See below:

We three housemates had a lovely morning - English breakfast at Tom's, then an enthusiastic perusal of the market. Now here's the good bit; there I was, browsing away at a nice man's stall, inspecting mustache curling tongs and matching mirror, an old bright red spud gun, antique monopoly counters and much much more, when there, shining and beckoning lay a miniature molten gold-glazed tea set and tray. Perfect. Intact, with each lid in place.

"The glaze really does have gold in it," said the man, and I choose to believe him, though I must say, the amount of times I've heard "I know it's an original. If I could prove it, it'd cost yer four hundred quid, but as it is you can have it for a fiver" is unbelievable, not to mention small labels with "real gold" followed by "maybe" beneath in brackets and tiny font.

"My mother had a habit of asking 'But is it Limoges?'" (my favorite quote of the week) said a fellow stall keeper. Quite right too, but anyone can see that this set is fit for a queen faerie sprite. So I wrapped my midas wares in spare coffee napkins, and took it home to gaze at it in rapture.

"I would actually DIE OF ECSTASY if I tracked down a life-size version" I exclaimed with passion. The plot thickens. This time, Gabriel, Ian and I ventured out to the far flung and somewhat more peculiar regions that begin after the bridge towards the Golbourne Road. And there, shimmering like a beacon, calling like a heavenly golden siren, the stuff of angels, was my very own life-size magical MOLTEN GOLD TEA SET.

That's right, my most random dream came true, and all for a tenner. Six coffee cups and saucers, a cream jug, a sugar pot and a coffee jug too. They will forever more remind me of Valentine's Day and love and epilepsy and the plague, not to mention wishes and pink roses.

Laurel and I later headed out to see the very funny and clever 'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour', written by Tom Stoppard and Andre Previn at the National Theatre. It was really extraordinary, set in a Soviet asylum and staged around a full orchestra. It was hilarious, violent and sinister all in one blow, with music, dancing and solid acting. We also had surprisingly good seats which helped.

Afterwards, we headed outside onto one of the many balconies and up above us, projected onto a vast facet of the theatre was a final scene from "Shakespeare in Love", also written by Stoppard. We headed up onto the roof to find a multitude of huddling couples wrapped in blankets, transfixed by the enormous heads of Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow. So SO much more romantic than a constipated dinner for two, AND it was blissfully FREE of charge. It felt very British somehow and wonderful to watch it on the South Bank, the Thames at our backs and the sites of many of Shakespeare's galavanting escapades a mere minute away.

languages of *love*

The Five Languages of Love

Unhappiness in relationships, according to Dr. Gary Chapman, is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. Sometimes we don't understand our partner's requirements, or even our own. We all have a "love tank" that needs to be filled in order for us to express love to others, but there are different means by which our tank can be filled, and there are different ways that we can express love to others.

Complete set of results

Physical Touch:		12
Quality Time:		7
Words of Affirmation:		6
Acts of Service:		4
Receiving Gifts:		1

Take the quiz