on our first date of christmas...

...my true love made a tree!

Arnold and I might not have time to squeeze in the Twelve Dates of Christmas this year, but I love the idea nonetheless.

After weeks and weeks of me talking about the "rustic" Christmas tree I wanted to build, we finally did and - if I do say so myself - I think she's quite, quite beautiful.

It's coming by so soon... (Too soon?)

unexpected

One of my best friends got married a couple of weeks ago, and it was so, so wonderful to be there. (And to be there with friends and with my own love-he makes a very good date to silly dance with).

What touched me most about the day, though, was not--as I had before expected--the adoration between the couple (and let me just say: that was huge), but the warmth and the compassion and care between everyone else. The mutuality of it: the idea that we were coming together to support a prospering love. I really, really loved that--I have always really, really loved that about weddings. There was something about this one, though, that heightened it.

Oh, I hope they have a wonderful life. They deserve it--and eachother--for being so strong.

it's so soon!

A couple of weekends ago, I got myself down to London to celebrate with friends. As per usual, we drank a lot of tea; ate a lot of cake; and (especially, oh, especially in my case) obsessed a lot over vintage china. (The Soho Secret Tearooms really is further inspiration for that one-day bakery dream. There will be more on that later--there will always be more on that later).

This trip wasn't just about tea, though. It was more about celebrating the impending marriage of a very good friend. (This week: the wedding's this week! And I couldn't be more excited).

It sure was a beautiful day!

i'd like to, please

Hope #21.

Go to dinner dances.

I'd like to take the hand of my love and dance again. Because nights like those serve my old-time soul so perfectly.

(I'd Like To, Please posts are inspired by Someday Hopes. The picture--oh, it's wonderful!--is from here).

the weekend

I like taking evening walks with Arnold.

I like it when the breeze hits just so and our footsteps become more silly movement than actual walking. (You know, like fighting tickles and running from dinosaurs).

He's fun to be around, that one.

And so is the sun. (But my, is this English weather hot right now--hotter, apparently, than in The Bahamas!)

The weekend was full of it. That, and parties with friends--and watching this again--and me being a little bit grumpy. (The people around me are getting used to that--but I am, I am trying).

What did you do this weekend?

*That photo is taken with Instagram--a sure sure sign that I got an iPhone.

i'd like to, please

Hope #18.

Ride a carousel.

I haven't in such a long time. So I'd like to take my love to one and, clad in woollen coats and mittens, spin and sway and turn in the winter haze.

It'd make me feel a little girl again---well, moreso.

(My I'd Like To, Please posts are inspired by this hopeful, hopeful blog. And the picture---which features the carousel in Montmartre---is from We Heart It).

the sun sets, the sea laps the shore

Tonight Arnold and I walked along the beach, then watched the sun set---and in that moment, on a slanted rock and in a chilled breeze, I asked over and over again to please, not let this end. And I didn't mean the sun---no, not the way it hid its upper lip of fuchsia and ochre and bronze---I meant everything: the unity, the simplicity and the absolute assurance. Because in lives so often swathed in uncertainty (and I do not mean that melodramatically---we all, after all, are uncertain about something)---tonight was what I needed---what I craved---what I hungered for.* Because tonight, in conversations on living and believing and seeing, there was absolute contentment. But more than that? Conviction---conviction in the choices we had made and the people we were---and are---becoming. And for a second, too, all tangible worry---worry about those dreams I pile up and those hopes I place on us---faded, under the shadow of a fading sun and on the scurf of an ebbing tide.

Tonight was a night to be grateful for---then to remember, over and over again.

(And no, I can't lie. Posting things like this makes me a little uncomfortable---because these things, things made up of such heart, I do not want to jinx. Because no, I never, ever want this---us---to end).

*Laura (one half of Someday Hopes---the blog I so often praise in my I'd Like To, Please posts) is one very wise lady. Please check out her post today---it is insightful and it is inspiring and it, most of all, is honest. We all need a little more of that---a little more of those calls to wake us up. And boy, was my evening---and then that post---just that.

the weekend

This weekend was proof that falling in love with your best friend really is the most wonderful thing.

Running through fields, being wrestled to the ground (to evade an imaginary crisis), tickling, sitting in the sun, spying on Nessie, watching kids' films, being silly when we're tired, going out to lunch (when we really can't afford to), trying on hats and taking photographs.

Yes, falling in love with your best friend is a really wonderful thing.

*I also went to the library. It took me a lot of courage (and getting over my pride) to announce to the assistant that I actually might have maybe sort of lost my library card. That's right, the one I have had since I was about six---the one that I was so young to have that my mum, in fact, signed it. But it's okay---because if I do find it, she said I could keep it for sentimentality---and probably posterity. And then she handed me a brand new one---a blue one---and didn't charge. I think she could tell that this was quite a big deal. I take my libraries---and my books, in case you didn't already know, very seriously.

new cities

Today Arnold and I went for a child-like stroll through a new city.

And we learned that Ely---apart from it's cathedral, which really is colossal, and architecturally, quite a beauty---doesn't have that much to show for itself.

And maybe I ate a little badly---alright, alright, quite a lot badly---and squinted too much in the sun.

But it was such a wonderful day. It was the company that mattered---and from that, I really felt myself again.

Blue skies all over again, too. I am already falling in love with April.

everything will be okay

"It will all be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."

(Found via SwissMiss).

night at the museum

Arnold took this picture many, many weeks ago when we were in London.

We spent the night after actually inside the museum, gawping at statues and grabbing dinner in their posh cafeteria.

I was so tired so frequently on that trip---partly why I am quite the nightmare traveller, something I need to change (and quickly)---but I do miss it. Arnold is by far the best companion to go to places with. And I hope, more than anything, that I get to spend the rest of my life doing just that with him.

oh, it is love!*

Valentine's Day was a picnic, a walk and a pretending-to-be-grown-up dinner.**

But do you know what else?

It was also wonderful.

*Oh, it is love! It gets stuck in my head far too often.

**We don't cook proper meals, really---I guess that comes from living separately in our parents' houses. But really, pancakes and bacon for dinner (followed by maple-marinaded sausages) has never tasted so good.

is there...

...anything lovelier than this little anecdote?

heights

"I cannot express it; but surely you and every body have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn into a mighty stranger. I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath - a source of little visible delight, but necessary. I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure any more than I am always a pleasure to myself - but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again." Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte.

Stumbling across passages like this reminds me why I read at all.

Because it articulates, more eloquently than I ever, ever can, the things I am afraid of---especially those entangled within love.

And is it a little weird that of all the characters I have ever read, I identify most with Cathy, the crazy woman?...

a little sum

One plus one equals everything.

This is a sum I am sure to remember for the rest of my life.

*My unconscious typed 'for the rest of my love'. Go figure, Freud, go figure.

valentine's cards---a little early

I think these Valentine's Cards are wonderful!

All courtesy of Modcloth.

on christmas

I love Christmas.

Yesterday my (all-above-the-age-of-twenty) family and I spent the day in our pyjamas. We gave, we received, we relaxed. Then we giggled at a tipsy game of Balderdash and curled into bed.

I was unable to spend it, in physicality, with my love, but knowing that I am spending this, a third Christmas, with him is wonderful enough. (Having said that, I will always, always look forward to the day when we spend it together, becoming the tying ribbon between two families.)

My family and I have never had a Boxing Day tradition, so today I will spend it tidying the bedroom I have lately neglected. I have new Penguin postcards I want to stick on my wall and books I need to arrange; I have a doll's house I need to place by the wall (thank-you, my love, for the part of a girl's childhood I never received) and clothes, un-ironed, I need to put away. They don't feel like the most festive of tasks, but today, I really couldn't be happier doing them.

These few days are made up of contentment and happiness--and yet there is a swirl of emotion (of reflection, nostalgia and of not taking things for granted) that is dancing, delicately, upon the surface.

(Christmas could not be Christmas without cake. Home-made, iced by hand).

I sure hope you have had a wonderful Christmas wherever you are and throughout whatever pursuits are filling your days.

shelving

I could not agree more with this little cartoon, and yet-- I am pretty much convinced I have already found mine.

on the weekend

I am so far behind on work right now it is not even funny.

And yet I have had a lovely weekend, spending it with: my love, Harry Potter*, a carousel, a wonderful dinner, like-minded friends, boardgames, afternoon tea, cheesy movies, family, a beautiful lady. Sometimes, just sometimes, it is nice to let the work slip and slide away**.

Who did you spend your weekend with?

This is beautiful, by the way.

(Found here).

*Usually such an anti-fan, this film is truly good.

**I may be regretting it now. I may be freaking out.

guilty

So maybe I haven't done enough work this weekend or started on the hand-made Christmas presents I said I would and maybe I haven't exercised, properly, in a long, long time.*

But do you know what? Today I stole an hour to sit down with my step-dad and it felt like the best thing in the world. We talked about the war (himself a child of it, a survivor of The Blitz) and about the practical jokes he played on his staff at the bank. It made me happy, as well as sad, at the realisation that whilst I see him every day and help him in the tiniest of ways, I do not speak to him enough; I do not show him the love he deserves or mimic the kindness he offers.

I have many people to thank in the world and he, along with my mother, and with my love, deserves the greatest of it.

*This I cannot excuse. And maybe I say it too often, but this week I will.