April

 

Hello April

I have been working on yet another project, this one is "on my kitchen table today' and these are some of the flowers I have used in March. I have been using the templates in Lightroom and one is a magazine style one for Squarespace - thought I would try it here. I have been busy in my garden, just buying seed packets and sprinkling the seeds into the soil in the hope that in a few weeks I will have sooo many cut flowers. I have the tiniest garden but I make sure it is bursting with colour in the summer so I can pick flowers every day to put on my table. I have a few tulips on the cusp of opening which again is very exciting.

I have paused my A-Z of authors. I got to N and struggled, it was Vladimir Nabokov that finished me, I decided not to read Lolita - too much of that going on in real life! and tried another one of his novels that just made me decide to have a break and because I am actually half way through the project, I thought it was a perfect place to stop. I haven't got any amazing novels to recommend since I last wrote about books but I am hoping to have some soon as I am reading one at the moment which has potential. 

I have been watching probably a bit too much tv lately but I want to be Michelle Pfeiffer living in Montana, oh my goodness The Madison is good! forget her botox, just watch it for that beautiful scenery and some seriously sharp and witty dialogue, very clever dialogue. Also, Jason Bateman is my favourite actor and he is in a very good quirky show called DTF st Louis and also Rooster with Steve Caroll and the guy from Ted Lasso who is brilliant as an English professor, its really good. Also the Pitt has just landed here and I watched 11 episodes on a very very long flight back from Sydney so I was very happy to finish the last episodes of series 1 on land. I'm going to put it out there and say that it will never replace Greys anatomy for me, what do you think? 

I am also trying the new wordle, same man that invented it, he has a new game parseword - it's taking a while to get the hang of it and like wordle, is only once a day. I'm hoping it won't set everyone off again with all that bragging etc that put me off wordle but I do think at this stage in life it's just so important to keep trying things to keep our brains ticking over. I met someone the other day who said she has never read a newspaper and only gets her news from tik tok - so sad. 

Thats all for now. Any thoughts on any of the above do please let me know in the comments. 

March

I keep staring at this page wondering what I am going to write about! It is hard to keep up with blogging, you get caught up in that thing of swiping and not spending enough time on one thing and I need to stop and focus again and think about what I have been up to .

Seeing - I have got back into culture and have been going to various art galleries here in London where there is so much choice. I went to see Lucien Freud  and absolutely loved every minute of it, I thought I had seen enough of his work but this exhibition was more about his early drawings and the attention to detail just captivated me. If it comes to your part of the world I would so recommend going to see it.

I also went to see Tracey Emin with my daughter. I remember so vividly seeing her unmade bed all those years ago but we didn't enjoy this exhibition - so much anger and it was just too confrontational plus the writing was so tiny and it was busy so we just couldn't read anything! sadly London does like to cram these exhibitions full of people so it's hard to read captions at the best of times. I know that art should cause controversy but this was all a bit too much. 

Tasting - I have given up chocolate and croissants for lent and I do miss chocolate but I am eating healthily and had to have soup today because it was so cold but I am looking forward to lots of salads as the weather warms up. 

Feeling - I feel settled in the UK finally. It took at trip back to Sydney for me to realise that this is my home and I like living here. I miss all my friends but here is where I belong. I think that where your physical home is makes a huge difference and I love pottering in my house. I had become completely paranoid about making friends here and each outing ended in disappointment if I came home without a contact but now I realise it just doesn't matter. I know that friendships will come, I have connections and interactions every day with people when I am out walking Max and that's enough. I am a homebody and an introvert and I realise now that nothing is going to change that and I don't need to move back to Sydney, London is doing just fine.

Hearing - the birds in the morning and soon the clocks with go forward and the dawn chorus will start. We are going to jazz on friday night, I love jazz, any jazz really and my husband isn't that keen but I have persuaded him. 

Smelling - the daffodils are out and the blossom on the trees is lining our streets in full bloom and at night the scents fills the air, spring perfume everywhere. Here are some pictures I took lately of spring either out and about or on my kitchen table where I love to display flowers each day either snuck into my pocket on a dog walk (it is illegal to pick flowers from a park or someone's garden here!). 

Sydney

 I have just spent three weeks in Sydney where I caught up with friends, enjoyed the sun and the sights and reacquainted myself with everything I had missed over the last two years. It was exhausting, and I came away with a large amount of photographs and great memories and a croaky voice from too much talking. I hadn't realised how much I needed to go back to Sydney to be able to come back to England and move forward. I'm not sure if that makes sense but I needed to say goodbye to move on and I feel ready to really start life here, to stop thinking the grass is always greener and anyway, enough wittering! here are some of the many photos I took.

Sunbathers at Fairy Bower pool in Manly