My Pocket

champagne tents and phone booths

I hope you had a pleasant Saturday. We needed to go off and do something other than what we usually do and so we went to a place called the Grange not too far from here. It's a grand old (17th century) building with Greek pillars and all but you won't get a good look at it because I generally find buildings boring and this one especially, so no photos. Besides, there were far more interesting things surrounding it. Tonight there is an opera performance so all over the grounds were party tents for groups of five to sip champagne in the interval.

Beyond the immaculate lawns a phone booth was standing in the barley - the British are funny like that.

After the Grange we went to Abbotstone Down, a wood with footpaths and open meadows, where we had lunch in the grass.

The best part of the day was getting here and there though - riding on the back of D's vespa. I love zipping along the lanes and watching the fields and woods fly by, feeling the warm breeze and the movement.

catching up

Happy June to you!

I feel lucky in that the warm sunny weather we had in April gave me a chance to have my summer holidays then, in those precious weeks inbetween my college years, and now that the May weather has been blustery and rather cold I've not had a chance to complain anyway with assignments to write. I always love this time of year though, remembering the last days of school as a kid before the summer break that began in the first week of June, lilacs flowering and the fresh green everywhere, whispering promises of free time adventures.

I feel like I've got some catching up to do, so here are the things I would have blogged about had there been the time:

Goodbye old friend...

Hello new sewing machine!

I've been so happy with my old Singer handcranked machine that for a long time I saw no need to have a modern one. It's handled making bags, mending clothes, hemming, sewing stage costumes for the school play, the curtains for the school concert (oh the mileage of black fabric!) and outfits for the dancers, but my imagination gradually started nagging me about the things my friend just can't do. So now I have two.

First thing to make I think will be something with the fabric with spots, perhaps with the green linen I bought a while ago. I've really got a thing for green lately, and always for linen. The fabrics above are from Superbuzzy by the way.

I found this linen skirt in the charity shop and I love wearing it as an apron. Digging my hands deep into the pockets.

I've been exploring taking self portraits of myself lately. For a long time I've just abhorred having my picture taken and the only progress I've made is to allow people to do it on the condition that I don't have to see it afterwards. A good friend that I trust inspired me to look into it though and I want to try it for a while to see what might happen. It is different if I'm the one taking my picture as the control is with me and I can be alone with it, so it's not quite the same as the real thing, but it's a good start for me. Also, deciding to put the photos on flickr makes it more of a challenge. My aims with this endeavour are:

- to feel more comfortable, if not relaxed, in front of the camera
- to get used to what I look like to other people, something I haven't wanted to face
- to let go somewhat of the importance my appearance has to me
- to challenge the image I have of myself in my head, something similar to what I'm doing with this blog
- to show who I am to other people, something I dread and again want to do with this blog

Last thing is - these bracelets:

I'm thoroughly enjoying exploring what it means to be a woman, something that takes a bit of courage for a tomboy like me. Bracelets is the latest thing and those colourful little beads have been the sunshine of my day since I got them on our Isle of Wight camping holiday. The bigger bead bracelet was a gift from a very good friend who visited from the States the last couple of weeks.

Well, that's quite enough for now... Enjoy your summer days!