After shopping

I love buying clothes. Ohh yess.
This is the highlight of this evening's excursion:














Shorts and vests! Clothes for the speedily approaching summer, for the long evenings and the golden sunsets and golden tans and the love and the friendship (isn't it easier to be nicer and sweeter and more forgiving in the sun?). I can dig out that white dress (not the wine-stained one, that will not be dug out ever again) and the sun hat and legitimately read *fiction* all day under trees. On blankets. Checked ones that also serve you during picnics, with lemonade (mixed with wine, if it's dinner) and strawberries and white bread sandwiches. And it's all perfectly fine if you have two ice-cream cones in one day. Or if you get accidentally get drunk outside. Or you intentionally get semi-naked with your friends because no-one really cares, and never really did but you were more self-conscious in the murky light of February.

Also: "The Met Office said it was "odds-on for a barbecue summer" with warmer than average temperatures and near or below-average rainfall."
Brap.

Lucy
xxx

Mittwoch

'It would have saved me a great deal of anxiety to hear - from eminent monotheists in all three faiths - that instead of waiting for God to descend from on high, I should deliberately create a sense of him for myself. Other Rabbis, priests and Sufis would have taken to me to task for assuming that God was - in any sense - a reality 'out there'; they would have warned me not to expect to experience him as an objective fact that could be discovered by the ordinary rational process. They would have told me that in an important sense God was a product of the creative imagination ... A few highly respected monotheists would have told me quietly and firmly that God did not really exist - and yet that 'he' was the most important reality in the world.'

~~


Wahey! The Rome workbook of doom is handed in and gone forever (until I get the marks back, eek)! Throughout was a constant reminder of how studious I used to be, how hardworking and motivated I was in A Levels, how now I'm so easily distracted by tiny snippets of life. I remember the days when I had 3 or 4 essays a week, and now one little project has thrown me into disarray and panic for just over a fortnight. But still, no need for any more dwelling on the person I used to be (however much I want to invite her over and make her do some work for me) because it is DONE and I am FREE for a week or so.
And I made it to my nine o'clock, yay.

Friday with others

And I'm starting to get a little bit paranoid about this new interest I have in churches. Forget the aesthetic interest because, well, that's my degree and is always there and is a pleasant part of life. I'm worried that I'm searching for something in religion, and that's why I'm rationalising it, twisting it all into an academic curiosity, to stop myself worrying about my true intentions. I have no doubt that there is an intellectual side to this thing, but I can't help worrying [and yes, it's worrying!] that because of everything: because of the insecurity and inferiority borne of the same reason I ended my relationship in January, because of the fear and instability I feel after what we all did, because of basically all my copious weaknesses and new, improved trust issues, I'll turn round a few months down the line, after a couple of church visits become a couple more and a couple more, after discussions with my religious friends become shared views, I'll turn round and believe in God. And I am an *expert* at explaining away why everyone else gets curious and ends up in church, and know *exactly* what I'd say to myself if I was my friend. Lucy is looking for someone who will love her unconditionally, Lucy is looking for certainty and everlastingness. Lucy is looking for community, for understanding, for someone who knows how she feels. Lucy is looking for honesty. Lucy is looking for how to live her life, and how to fix her heart. But it's always nigh on impossible to listen to yourself.

There are two ways to look at this. This is God's voice talking to me and telling me what I need, or it's my own voice talking to me and telling me what I need. You decide. The first idea is, IMHO, a cop-out, because undoubtedly it will offer me all of the things I need in abundance (ha, if I am mentally and neurologically capable of making the leap :P) but without me actually having to address any of the causes (and the causes are on the most part unknown). The second idea is a very practised route, and has often had me turning tighter and tighter and ever more painful circles. But, it's pretty much the truth.

So, in a garbled conclusion to match a garbled post, I feel extremely open and exposed right now. Very very happy - contrary to the tone of this post! - but sort of edgy. Basically, I can see myself going one of the two ways after years of ignosticism and on-off pagan philosophy. I can go the same way the bit of me that wants to be an astronomer is going, or go along with the part of me that wants to be a nun. (Oh and I'm fully aware I'm probably thinking too hard, but this thinking thing is going well right now: today my German teacher said she'd vote for me if I was a politician :P) So basically, it's whoever convinces me first *laughs*.

It's still not a religious crisis, either. It's a fear that it may become just that :P


SO. Now that's over, more from real life as opposed to the life of my head. GORGEOUS weather from the sunniest campus in the UK, very little work but it will get done (always does). I've also had one of the most fun-packed and good-feeling weeks of my university life so far, so thanks guys :) - you know who you all are. Travel agent, beach and pub night tomorrow! Happy, sunny days!

Love, Lucy
xxx

On Britishness

About to go for cocktails (swanky, eh? I'm a lady now :P), but wanted to make a few comments on what is now being commonly called the 'Swedish Vampire Film' (but is actually 'Let the Right One In' OR to those who prefer the original title: 'Låt den rätte komma in'.).

Number 1 comment is: I am British. When you get a shot of the vampire's genitals (or lack of), the gasps were widespread and audible, and we all looked at each other wide-eyed and horrified. We all laughed about this afterwards because how stiff-upper-lip do you want to be? Bless our little, English hearts.

Number 2 comment is: I now know where we Birmingham folk got our word for yes from :P

Number 3 comment is: I was more than acceptably excited when words I recognised from various German dregs and the tiny bits of Dutch I've learnt popped up. Ungefahr! (Spelling in Swedish unknown) Happiness abounded.

Number 4 comment is: Needed more scenery shots, because the shots they *did* do made me do a little 'eee' inside. Beautiful, beautiful shots of snowy trees glistening in the sun.

Number 5 comment is: Tastefully done, guys and gals! I like it. (/British mode..)

P.S. Am touched by the enthusiasm for the church idea, people! Watch this space, all of you ;) need some denomination-jumping.

Lots of love, Lucy
xxx

Someday, on something other than flowers

Hey!

So, various things. Firstly, I have a number of new ambitions in my life:

1. To become an astronomer. OK, so this is wildly unrealistic and after researching I found out I need Maths and Physics (*wide eyes*) and am less than apt at both of those. Still, I watched a documentary on C.S. Lewis, Narnia and the planets (WATCH. Or read Planet Narnia. It fascinated me, since everyone [OK, so a couple of you :P] always dismisses Narnia on the whole 'Oh but it's some ridiculous, thinly-veiled Biblical writing, and poor writing at that' thing. Michael Ward and I laugh at you.) and it has inspired me to at least pretend one day I'll look at planets :P
2. To become an archivist. Much more likely, too! I went to the Special Collection at Sussex Library today for some Art History thing or other, and was absolutely fascinated by everything in there. Honestly, holding the handwritten notes of a man observing a British Union party meeting in wartime Britain made me shiver. And the Woman's Own records from 1945! Haha, they're hilarious, poignant, familiar, nostalgic. Didn't help my new housewife curiosity much, either. Oh! And they have the correspondence of VIRGINIA WOOLF. Why did I not know this?! Why am I not there now?!
   
3. To go to church. In the shower today I realised that I have never actually been to a proper service. Like, I've been to Christmas school carol singing and flute playing and Easter blah blahs (yeah, and that is a technical term :P), but I realised this whole institution upon which my youth was based has made such a poor surface impression but is still ingrained in there somewhere. I was thinking about those days when we all actually did believe the aura surrounding it, like when I got that little red Gideon's Bible and nearly died when I heard Spencer had ripped the pages out of his and threw it in the street. I wrote my name in it too, and read it. But now I realise I wouldn't have a clue how a church 'worked' inside, how it feels to be in a congregation, how it feels to be preached to! As soon as I was old enough I was pretty much out of there, embracing high school, neo-paganism and teen culture (and Teen Culture :P) in that order. So my newest, and easiest, ambition is to actually step foot inside a church and witness that which is still clouded in superstition and primary school awkwardness, and not do what I always do in churches: revert to that skinny, gangly girl in shirtsleeves and a pinafore playing flute in a hall so cold it hurt my lips. Observation! Education!
   

And regarding the whole church thing, I'm thoroughly curious right now about ideas of being 'Born Again'. Conversion. I'm pretty on the fence with the religion thing (see this) but am currently fascinated with how people are 'saved' etc. etc. Most crucially I'm interested in the idea of a 'Proverbs 31 Woman', which fits into my new attraction to the simple life. I can totally understand why women love the idea of caring for others, of being a good wife and mother, even of being subservient (diffusion of responsibility, anyone?), but am yet to be fully convinced by why this movement - obvious in its reaction against modern consumerism and McDonald's culture - is so fundamentally and importantly 'Christ-like', and why this is such a pre-requisite when one could just have a list of similar rules without involving religion. So I'm doing what anyone with an impressionable mind crying for answers would do: read blogs :P
Have no fear, certain members of my friendship group! I am tempering this curiosity with a healthy dose of atheist blogs for that essential balance, like Daylight Atheism. Oh, and reading a book on American New Age spiritualism for a bit of variety :P
It's not a spiritual crisis, either. Nothing that exciting.

Wow, this post is becoming a beast. Lastly, I'm settling back into uni life well :) Nights like yesterday, sitting on the bus with Kate, Georgie, Anneka and Laura, making each other yawn and laughing about things that aren't funny today, remind me of why I love it here.

I haven't proof-read this, either, because I've been reading all day and have sore eyes. Bear with me :)

All my love, Lucy
xxx

18th April 2009

I am back at uni! And to get settled in, I have already eaten a yoghurt, watched a documentary (I now want to be an astronomer) and had a nap. I had a hilarious dream during my nap which goes as follows:

• I was at a VERY futuristic university / college thing that was all multi-coloured and modern and the animals there were Pokemon.
  
• Josie was there, but I was continually confused in the dream as to whether she was a student or just visiting. It was induction day.
  
• There was also a boy who clearly fancied me and I didn't fancy back, but did everything I said so I led him on. Bitch.
• I had a strange one-to-one lesson/worship session on how to be a Baptist and got examined on my hymn singing abilities.
• I was embarrassed about this lesson (I chose it) and didn't want anyone to find out I was now a Christian :S
• I read everyone's blogs on the stairs, and found that Sanna had a new girlfriend called Alicia, Josie was at college (which I laughed at, cause I could see her through the slats in the stairs holding a bra :S) and was annoyed at Andy 'cause he hadn't blogged for too long.

Pokemon college ftw.
Now to forage in the undergrowth for food!

BB, Lucy
xxx

Friday Afternoon

It's amazing how something that was the cause of procrastination last week suddenly becomes a form of procrastination this week. I don't like packing :)

Also! If you are female and I know you well enough to guess at your fashion sense, I have made y'all a Polyvore. Sorry to the guys I'm friends with, it's not as though I don't know you, it's just that I haven't a clue what any of you would wear :)
Go see:
Clicky!

P.S. This site tends to lag a bit in updating itself, so if you can't find yours in that Collection search around my profile a bit :) your name will be in the title. xxx

Why not?

Have spent *all day* sitting on my bed eating sausage rolls, so here is a quiz to pass a bit more time:

75 things you’ve probably never been asked.

1. First thing you wash in the shower? Hair.

2. What colour is your favorite hoodie? I don't own a hoodie. Grey.

3. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? If we both survive next term.

4.Do you plan outfits? I plan them about 2 minutes before I'm going somewhere.

5. How are you feeling RIGHT now? Headachey because I've spent too long in front of a screen, in need of victuals.

6. What's the closest thing to you that's red? A tin containing letters Lou wrote to Daniel Brooks at the dawn of time.

7. Do you say aim or a-i-m? I don't.

8. Tell me about the last dream you remember having? Oh it was the horrible one. Well here goes:

I had crash-landed on a desert island with a group of male children and some older people (think Lord of the Flies). The island really, really was desert, covered in sand and red rocks and was totally barren (think Dune, or Doctor Who Easter Special). We worked really, really hard and with the help of irrigation etc. we managed to start growing stuff on a tiny little farm (think Mr. Perry's Geography lessons, Year 9). Soon - time had skipped - the whole island was lush and green (think Lost). We'd even built a school and showers and little houses (think a mixture between Shipwrecked, the Others' village and Comic Relief). Then, an alien spaceship containing green, female vampires landed on our island, killed everyone except a small group of us and burnt the whole island back to desert, covering it with the blood of their victims. They chased us round the housing area we'd built (think 28 Days Later, or I Am Legend) until we stumbled into a laboratory of evil scientists who we thought were going to turn us in, but actually helped us, despite being vampires themselves.

9. Did you meet anybody new today? No. I met no-one today.

10. What are you craving right now? Lamb.

11. Do you floss? No.

12. What comes to mind when I say cabbage? Cabbage, unsurprisingly.

13. When was the last time you talked on aim? Never.

14. Are you emotional? Isn't everyone, unless they are robots? Yes, I feel emotion.

15. Would you dance to the taco song? If it involved tacos.

16. Have you ever counted to 1,000? What. No :S

17. Do you bite into your ice cream or just lick it? Lick, obv. Biting hurts the old teeth.

18. Do you like your hair? No. It needs washing.

19. Do you like yourself? Yus.

20. Do you know a celebrity? No but Lou probably does.

21. Do you like cottage cheese? No it reminds me of vomit.

22. What are you listening to right now? Nothing.

23. How many countries have you visited? Including England? 9?

24. Is your mum strict? Pahahaha. No.

25. Would you go sky diving? No. Lou should though. She should also get a blog.

26. Would you go out to eat with George W. Bush? If he paid.

27. Would you throw potatoes at him? Ha! No.

28. Is there anything sparkly in the room you’re in? Only my wit.

29. Have you ever been in a castle? Yeah man. I love them!

30. Do you rent movies often? I did last summer, but not recently. Too poor.

31. Who sits behind you in your math class? I haven't done Maths since it was legal to drop it. The last person to sit behind me was very probably Kelly S? Who sent Neiko out.

32. Have you made a prank phone call? Probably.

33. Do you own a gun? Only my wit.

34. Can you count backwards from 74? HA. I'd like to say yes.

35. Who are you going to be with tonight? Andy, Lou, Katy.

36. Brown or white eggs? Neither. Eww.

37. Do you own something from Hot Topic? No.

38. Ever been on a train? Regularly. Like, at least once a month. Beautiful things.

39. Ever been in love? Oui.

40. Do you have a cell-phone? Yes but it's dying like my camera. But not as terminally.

41. Are you too forgiving? Wahah no.

42. Do you use chap stick? Vaseline ftw

43. What is your best friend doing tomorrow? Ask her.

44. Can you use chop sticks? I like to think so. I can, but need to practise.

45. Ever have cream puffs? I laughed LONG and HARD at Andy's answer, so will reproduce it here. Rough tough cream puff. (Did you know that...? :P)

46. Have you ever seen The Butterfly Effect? No. I've seen about 0.5 films in my life.

47. What was the last question you asked? 'Is that for book club?'

48. What was the last CD you bought? I can't remember :S

49. Boys or girls? Gender stereotyping.

50. What is your bus number for school? 'School bus', 202, 007.

51. Is your hair curly? Nope.

52. Last time you cried? Can't remember :S a while ago, perhaps.

53. Ever walked into a wall? No. I once saw a boy run into a glass door.

54. Do looks matter? No, not IMO.

55. Have you ever bought anything from Pac Sun? This reminded me of Sun Lollies. Mm.

56. Have you ever slapped someone? Probably. I'm a rebel.

57. Favourite time of the year? The time I don't have to alter spelling in quizzes.

58. Favourite colour? Orangen.

59. Are you sarcastic? Can be. But it's really, really funny so it's OK.

60. Do you have any tattoos? NO because my mother has been feeding me on a diet of pure lies.

61. The last person you held hands with? Dom? But don't get the wrong idea. He's also the last person I punched in the face.

62. Do you sleep with the TV on? No. Unless I am helluva drunk

63. Where was your default picture taken at? Umm Belushi's mebbe

64. Do you hate or dislike more than 3 people? Nein.

65. Do you like your life right now? Lacking in productivity.

66. How often do you talk on the phone? Not very often. It is not my preferred mode of communication.

67. What is your favourite animal? Cow

68. What was the most recent thing you bought? Hmm Pizza Hut buffet.

69. Do you have good vision? PAHA no.

70. Can you hula hoop? Yes.

71. Could you ever forgive a cheater? Oh it depends on the circumstances. I they cheated at Cluedo, obviously not.

72. Do you have a job? Ha no chance. Spongey sponge sponge.

73. Can you handle the truth? Hmm I like the truth. Doesn't mean I'm amazing at handling it.

74. What are you wearing? Jeans, black jumper.

75. Have you ever crawled through a window? I'll say no, and then someone will remind me of something embarrassing which did involve a window. I don't think so though.

Wednesday Evening

Today has officially been a successful day (if success = productivity):

• I finally started studying! I like to fool myself into thinking I work better under pressure so as to make myself feel better about the lack of work I constantly seem to do. Unfortunately that isn't the case :( so after a lot of new-found self-discipline, I bit the bullet and brought out the books. And that evil, elusive German exercise has been conquered - mwahaha!
  
• I also made a cake (yet to be tasted) and am about to make dinner for me and Matthew.
• I got up to date with Great British Menu, watched the Doctor Who Easter Special (I realise this sounds suspiciously like procrastination, but funnily enough, it was firmly there on the To-Do list in my head) and am off to catch up with Leah, Leah, Kelly and Josie tonight. Yay :D
• I am currently in the middle of Spring Clean '09, and mustmustmust restart this tomorrow at the latest, else it will not get done before I go back to Sussex and I will leave a horrible, worse-before-it-gets-better room for me to visit during termtime.
• I uploaded my Rome photos!:

Tuesday Evening

So I'm back from London, and from Pizza Hut in the Bullring. What to write about first? The weather (good), the people (nice), the events (fun)?

Easter Sunday I travelled to Dominic's for his Peggle tournament/gathering. I still feel slightly guilty about it all to be honest..I was mildly hungover and much more than mildly travel-weary and I don't know, I was overwhelmed? It was good, and happy, and the atmosphere was - as always - welcoming and warm, but my brain was dull at the edges and my mind concerned with the minor things it could give itself solely up to. I think I was craving silence (church would have probably done me good after all), conversation, a slower pace, and however much I am in love with London and all the people I have met who call it home, it never offers me a 'slower pace' :P BUT saying all this and sounding thoroughly melancholy, I did have a great time, I did love seeing everyone and I even loved coming last :P just wanted to apologise for my possible lack of enthusiasm.

Ah but it was looking good. The sun yesterday as we traipsed a circle right round London made everything seem new, even the places tourists don't usually feel the need to visit glowed and sparkled and dusted themselves with blossom. Beautiful city! I am unsure whether I am in love with it, or just in love with the idea of it: the romance, and these moments where the sun filters through branches, and the secret glimpses you get of secret places from the Overground window..I saw an antique-looking, wrought iron garden table and chairs almost buried in an overgrown patch of bluebells and was struck by the photographic potential (and by the way it'd either go to harsh colours or sepia after an hour on my computer: cliché :P). Unfortunately my camera is DEAD in every way, and has broken my heart by being so.

Ugh I have done no work, either. Not even a scribble. This is not in any way good at all, and makes me feel slightly nauseous when I think about it :S

BB, Lucy
xxx

EDIT: Oh! And I forgot our Mediterranean-esque evening and how easily the conversation flowed, and how I finally managed to open up. Ooh and we saw 'Religulous', and may talk more on that later.

Saturday, perhaps?

Aha! It is time for a spring clean in my room, and by that I mean a complete overhaul of all the nooks and crannies I ferret things away to. I have found some things I've been wanting to stumble across for a long time (my calligraphy pens/inks), some things that brought old and hilarious memories back (like the letters Lou and I used to write to each other), and some things that have made me actually cringe (old diaries? letters to people that were never intended to be read? teen poems!?). Covered in dust, too, but happy.

I'm also in love with this weather, and am conscious of wasting it away by living my holiday inside my house. Bad, bad Lucy.

Tonight is roast dinner and Doctor Who and friends :) What a fractured post!

Thursday Night

So, I think it's about time for this elusive 'proper blog'.

This evening I have contented myself, fully and wholly, with 'Garden Plants and Flowers Through The Year' and with trying to identify the stick-like flowering shrub in Croome Park (I now believe it was a young magnolia, duh). It is this happiness when confronted with early pinkness in an otherwise rain-dulled garden, or the satisfaction from time spent in the kitchen or behind a paintbrush and/or pen, that forms the basis of this 'proper blog'. I don't understand why this is suddenly such an issue: I am happy doing these things. I am happy cooking or painting or writing, and I love flowers, and this has always been so. So why the tumult now? Why the doubt? It seems that until recently I liked cooking only for myself and for my independence: I liked eating what I wanted, and being able to survive sans parents and all those other teenage girl desires. I used to draw my own angst, big bold abstract ideas with sunsets and drowning men and doves of peace chased by swastikas. And the flowers? It was a continuation of family knowledge, something I was doing for my nan who missed her beautiful garden.
But how true was all this? I find myself wanting to cook for other people, wanting to hold my own version of those gorgeous London dinner parties purely for the day spent in the kitchen and providing for my prospective guests. I now paint landscapes again, flowers and fruit. And they're more than just family symbols, too. I want something to grow under my fingers, whether in the flesh or in flat colour.

Maybe I'm growing up. Perhaps the old versions of these hobbies were expressing my adolescent selfishness: I'll cook for ME, I'll paint MY feelings and I'll fall in love with tulips for MY family. And I guess that would be a lovely, easy explanation: welcome, Lucy, to adulthood! Always the over-thinker, though, I can't accept that so simply. I have spent so, so long saying I hate all domesticity. I don't want children, apparently, I don't want to get married, I want to work for me and me alone. I wouldn't mind living alone. I'm going to get rich, get powerful and hire household help. And goodness, I have stuck to this for my entire life! The ideal, feminist lifestyle! Strong and single and still happy. I feel as though I'm lying to myself about that now, and have already accepted that in my future, I will most probably have children. And enjoy it, and get happiness from them and love them and be a better mother than I would give myself credit for right now. And isn't that a horrible feeling? The realisation that I am not this bolshy, contrary girl any more. I am independent (I should like to think so, anyhow) and I believe I am strong, but can I still be a 'feminist' as before with this new desire to bake cakes and set tables and sit and do watercolour roses all day? Can I still be as before, be myself, with this new leaning to domesticity and care (since when have I felt the need to care?!)? It feels often as though the rug has been pulled out from underneath my feet.

And, and - as if the world was trying to tell me something - within the space of a few days I have found the aforementioned book about garden plants, decided to re-read The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, and now -today! today! of all days, when I've spent the week secretly hmming over whether I should perservere with this bolshy, stiletto thing even if it feels so much falser now - a favourite blogger of mine posted a link to something I have never seen before: The Simple Woman's Daybook. If I ever wanted a sign.. *rolls eyes*

Well, only time will tell if this is just a fad to fit into the current Victorian phase (and I know full well that all that silliness is only a passing fling), or whether I really am discovering a maternal instinct somewhere deep in this coal-like heart. :P I think I'm going to ride it as far as it goes, and will take advantage of a peaceful-by-tradition weekend for indulging my fancies, and bake. Aha! I also found incense sticks in the bowels of my room - lovely, lovely!


This would have been in my diary, written with pen and paper and for my eyes only. See how it's missed? I did, however, go to Croome Park today with Josie, who was as lovely and hilarious as ever and buoyed my mood as only she can do. I am looking forward to the weekend: the return of Katy, the possible night out on Saturday, the gathering on Easter Sunday for pizza and computer games. What a peaceful time.

BB, Lucy
xxx

Wednesday Procrastination

God I am addicted to this website.







In other news, I have answered... four and a half German questions out of a possible fifty. I'm in bed and haven't got changed yet. I Hoovered the living room and swept the hallway; I fed Martha and Sophie; I ate a hot cross bun (how Eastery!) and a sausage roll; I arranged various social events and I fed my cravings (see above).
I have a reinvigorated sense of peace.

BB, Lucy
xxx

Monday

Dear me, I'd completely forgotten how productive a good bit of procrastination is! I read one German exercise (it was good, too) and then decided it was time to break for lunch. 'Lunch' ended up being a cheese and salt 'n' vinegar crisp sandwich, orange juice and many other things. Like Polyvore, for example, and iTunes playlists and writingwritingwriting lots and lots. [Enter Tom, new character.]

' "And to think any woman would kill to look like me!" She pouted and posed in the mirror, hand on hip and full of comic exaggeration. "And to think any woman would kill at all." '

BB, Lucy
xxx

Sunday Mark Three!

Someone has taken the batteries out of my GameBoy. Fucking bastards.

I miss my diary. Boo!

Oh oh oh and following inspiration (because a picture dedicated to someone with an *excellent* name caught my attention!), I made a Polyvore for that silliness in the blog below:

Sunday Mark Two

OMG. Since when was Great British Menu back and no-one thought to mention this!?

Sunday

This post has the potential to become incredibly long and winding: I am in a writing mood and there is much to write about.

Wasn't it all very romantic? This holiday of ours that came suddenly and ended suddenly (but the middle seems to stretch out endlessly now, looking back) and took place under blue skies and golden dusks. I promised to write it all out in more than one sentence, but as per usual I can only think to talk about the minutiae, or the impressions so big they're just blurry colours and emotions. Like the first night in which I was so desperate to be perfect I snapped the fragile-as-glass situation we were already slipping over. That evening is awash with the panic of the twilight in which *I couldn't see* as well as with the panic of ruining it all so soon. But coming back to our room straight out of that realm of my brain where all these things I pride myself on are made, slipping into bed and it was all OK. (What a space! The furniture and the carpet you sink into and the chair I completely romanticized in that silly phone photo, and the bed. I said to myself one time that I was going to make a patchwork quilt like that.)

But I'm breaking my promise and talking about unimportant things. We went to a cheese factory, and talked to an old man about the beauty of nature and God (he was right, of course, and the landscape just outside our bed and breakfast was all English and attractive. It made me think that if I was ever going to lose myself and have some lost teenage summer romance, it would be with a Pre-Raphaelite girl with thick thick hair and flowing skirts. It'd be painful, too, and upsetting and turbulent and everything a good satisfying love affair should be. Inspirational. And she wouldn't know, and if she did she'd let me down gently [because everything she would do will be gentle, and fit perfectly in the stream picture that was outside the place we stayed last week]. She would be intelligent in a womanly way - know how to do all the things I'm half-hearted with like sewing and/or flower arranging - and full of quotations and little pieces of advice and bunches of forget-me-nots. She'd know the Latin name for them, too. She is also imagined and built around one view of one tiny piece of land in one tiny corner of Britain, and a manifestation of this silliness made by sunshine and lovely happiness and Fiona Apple.)

Anything else? We walked (miles! and I got stuck on top of a fence by a railway - remind you of anything? :P) and ate lots of different food, lots of biscuits and muffins. I started these stupid palpitations again that are Nothing To Worry About, but are extremely annoying and make me stressed. I got a cough, too, a chest one dammit. We went on about a thousand trains, and although we were being silly at the time, when you said 'We've learnt stuff about each other, but also about ourselves' on the Tube yesterday you were actually being truthful. I learnt that I am more fragile than I like to think, that I'm in love with my own imagination in a sort of bad and self-obsessed way (see above :P), that I am happiest when we walk and talk about books or psychology or religion. I learnt that you're worse in the evening, that you're best at lunchtime and that you can forgive even my most difficult and volatile moods. It was educational, and wonderful. Thank you :)

I had this snippet in my head all week too:
'It's not about the smile you wear, but the way we make out.'
This song is truly the obsession of the moment.

Oh! and I almost forgot coming back to London. I felt another little bit of love for that silly addictive place this morning, standing on Dominic's front path in the sunshine. It was also lovely to see people last night and be almost entirely immersed in the quick quick chatter that flits so unapologetically from one topic to the next. Clever and passionate people! My slow little brain could not keep up, and thus my voice often went unheard or didn't come out at all. It was surprisingly comfortable, though, and a happy and welcoming time.

And I actually think that might be it. We saw 'The Tempest' and 'Young Victoria', too. Happy times! (And Josie's party tonight! Even more happiness abounds!)

BB, Lucy
xxx