Champagne light....

All images from backstage at Three as Four's Fall/Winter 08 show.

And in a puff of tulle, she vanished....

I saved this picture months and months ago because I love it. I don't particularly like veils but this one is so crazy I'm smitten. I can just see the bride ordering it from a veil maker (veilier? Tulle Artist? Froth Fancier?) "no bigger, I want it bigger. Big I tell you! Big! Huge! Enormous! Yes, now you've got it. Thank you."

The fact that she is fixing the veil in place with hairspray is just too brilliant.


After a long hibernation I'm starting to feel stirrings of interest in weddings again. It's been a while but I think I'm back.


Photograph by Jessica Claire.

Painting the roses red....

"We're painting the roses red, we're painting the roses red! Not pink, not green, not aquamarine! We're painting the roses red!"

Who's been painting my roses red?
WHO'S BEEN PAINTING MY ROSES RED?
Who dares to taint
With vulgar paint
The royal flower bed?
For painting my roses red
Someone will lose his head.


Oh please, your majesty, please! It's all his fault!


Not me, your grace! The ace, the ace!


You?


No, two!


The two, you say?


Not me! The three!


That's enough! Off with their heads!

Images of silk and merino wool scarves from Radici,
Quotes from Alice in Wonderland. The first from the book, the second from the 1951 film.

Spring forward.....

"The idea of British Summer Time (BST), also known as Daylight Saving Time, was first proposed by a keen horse-rider, William Willett, who was incensed at the 'waste' of useful daylight first thing in the morning, during summer. Though the sun had been up for hours during his rides through the local woods in Chislehurst and Petts Wood, people were still asleep in bed.

In 1907 he published a pamphlet called The Waste of Daylight, outlining plans to encourage people out of bed earlier in summer by changing the time on the nation’s clocks. He spent the rest of his life fighting to get acceptance of his time-shifting scheme. He died in 1915 with the Government still refusing to back BST. But the following year, Germany introduced the system. Britain followed in May 1916, and we have been 'changing the clocks' ever since."

Information for the National Maritime Museum. Photo by me.

Today we were here...

I didn't want to come home.

I did though.


Heaven via Knight Frank. Yours for the merest, most modest sum....

A little summer sun dress...

(thank you for all of your kind and comforting comments yesterday. You're lovlies. xx)



Through Lobster and Swan I have just discovered Joules Clothing. And their dresses, which are a riot of summer happiness and English granny chic.

Two months ago I would have been sneaking that first spotty sun dress into my shopping basket immediately because who will miss thirty five pounds? But the new me is trying to be good and has vowed to try really hard to buy organic/fairtrade/friendly to the world clothes from now on. And the new me is broke. So the new me will content herself with gazing longingly at the pictures and imagining that she lives somewhere warm enough to wear a sun dress.

(some of these dresses might be for little people. I also like imagining that the very biggest little person size might just fit me, if I squeeze tight.)

All images courtesy of Joules Clothing.

Distraction and comfort

When you're alone
And life is making you lonely,
You can always go downtown
When you've got worries,
All the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know, downtown

Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go
Downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown, no finer place for sure,
Downtown, everything's waiting for you

You might have noticed that the tone around these parts has been a little woebegone recently. That despite lovely things ahapenning and lovely people abounding, the air has felt a little heavy, a little sorrowful. I've been trying to keep cheerful but you see, my Grandad is sick and I am sad, and try as I might I just can't keep my chin up.

The Boy and I are Up North for the week, staying with my Gran and visiting my Grandad in hospital. Relief at finally being here to hold hands, hug tight, give love, keep company fights with a constant desire to run, to hide, to find somewhere (preferably sunny, with a cocktail and a masseuse) where everything is ok and one of my very favourite people in the world is not in hospital, not dying.

But I don't think that this is one of those situations, unlike say... a bear attack, where running away would actually help (all bets are welcome on who the first person will be to leave a comment telling me that when a bear attacks you would be an idiot to run away, that what in fact you need to do is play dead, shout 'bad bear' or sing Copacabana at the top of your voice because that really scares the crap out of those big furry bastards.)

I can however run away temporarily. There are places, very certain places that help. When we're at home, ikea is my Downtown. The palace to organisational devices instantly distracts me, reassures me and calms my worried soul, assuring me that there is order in the world, that chaos and unpredictability can be banished, if only for the couple of hours it takes to follow the well sign posted path, testing the best sofas, resting in that bouncing chair that The Boy oohs and ahhs over but I tell him is just too damn ugly to ever find a place in our home, opening and closing the drawers and cupboards in those perfectly formed, never used kitchens and uttering a sigh of contentment as the drawers slide silently shut on their magic, cushioned rails.

I buy the same things every time - glass jars in all three sizes, energy saving lightbulbs, cafe style tumblers and a birch photo frame. Sometimes a plant pot. You can never have enough of any of the above.

I don't even like ikea though. Most of their furniture is nothing but offensive to the eyes, as durable as if it were made from weetabix and destined to end up in landfill within five years. The teenage staff with their pest-control blue and yellow outfits and their 'do I havvvvve to?' expressions make me growl with irritation and that all pervasive smell of meatballs and hotdogs has turned my stomach ever since my aunt who's a nurse muttered 'that's exactly what gangrenous flesh smells like' when we were standing in the queue.

And yet when it feels like life is going to overwhelm me, like I'm drowning in a sea of uncertainty and the ability to Just Keep Breathing is starting to slip away, ikea is my life raft. Which does of course indicate that I'm nuts, because who but those people that live in white boxes filled with white shiny furniture and organisational devices hidden behind white lacquered doors on silent hinges is actually calmed by ikea?


However as we are Up North, there is no ikea. The nearest ikea is 166 miles away. Which is probably for the best as we have about 18 of those damn tumblers, the kitchen counters are filled with glass jars, all of the lights are lit and I can't afford any more photo frames. (Oh god. The nearest ikea is 166 miles away and the Boy and I have been discussing moving Up North one day. Would I even be able move 166 miles from ikea? That would make it a seven and a half hour round trip each time I have an anxiety attack. Not including shopping/recovery time. And I don't drive.)

While there may not be a Palace to Organisation, there is my favourite shop in the world, a shop a million times better and the polar opposite to ikea. An antique shop, in the countryside, down a lane lined with fields, filled with sheep, who have just had lambs, who bounce in the air and make me smile. The shop is divided between a church where the furniture, fashion and fireplaces live and three outbuildings filled with china, linen, jewellery, antique cameras, old postcards, countless other intriguing whatsits and swallows nesting in the rafters. And there's a courtyard, littered with a collection of vintage toy trucks and tricycles, rocking horses and tin cars, sitting there as if they were abandoned this morning when the children were called in for lunch. Or to sweep the chimneys, or whatever it was kids did back when toys were made of tin, not plastic.

And this place is my heaven. It too calms me on days like today when it felt like a world that is supposed to be solid was threatening to start crumbling. A slow walk through the mounds of furniture, stacked high but not nearly high enough to reach the vaulted roof of the church, not nearly high enough to touch the beams. Finger tips traced across polished wood, carved stone, cast plaster. Chairs with three legs, burst cushions, escaping springs. Ceramic bed pans and foot warmers and the wardrobe from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, bursting with furs that make my stomach crawl with fascinated revulsion. Lace veils with holes in them, kid gloves that have never been worn. Velvet top hats and army uniforms, bath tubs with cast iron feet and deep deep sinks from gutted farm houses. And on and on it goes, each item with a history, a soul, fragments of the person who owned it embedded in its makeup. And with each thing a reassurance that something remains, something survives, not everything brakes and sometimes, even when it does it is still beautiful, still valued.

All photographs by me.

A box arrives...

A box arrives. 'What's this?' says your boy. 'Who has been sending you flowers?' 'Flowers?!' squeals you, 'someone sent me flowers?!'

Someone indeed has sent you flowers. A riotous bunch of orchids, so beautiful so colourful to sit on your desk and make you smile. Someone has sent you flowers to wish you luck with a new endeavour, to show you they believe in you. They make you smile. You are reminded once more of just how very lovely people are.

(Thank you mummy.)


(You are feeling soppy this week, and a little pathetic. You only use the word mummy when you're feeling pathetic. Or very excited. You promise.)

Pink dress, part II....

Girl + Boy +Dress were so happy that you liked the pink dress, they wanted to answer your questions about said frothy, feathery, ruffley, fruffly delight.

The dress, as British connoisseurs of pretty dresses recognised, is from Reiss. Reiss is my favourite shop, their clothes are simple (even when they're fruffley), beautifully designed and made, elegant and so comfortable. And expensive, let's not forget expensive. I'm currently fantacising about a £55 t-shirt. And convincing myself that spending £55 pounds on a t-shirt is a good idea. You know, an investment and all that. An investment t-shirt. Despite the fact that I've never owned a t-shirt that hasn't developed holes within 6 months. But maybe that's because I've never one that cost more than £20, maybe a £55 t-shirt would be immune to holes? Maybe it's a magic t-shirt? Oh, did I mention that it's white? And I stopped buying white t-shirts 6 years ago beacuse the armpits and cuffs all turned suspicious, non-white colours. But now I'm going to stop talking about armpits and get back to pretty dresses...

The dress was from last year's collection and eagle eyed readers spotted that it was indeed on my Christmas party dress wishlist. It was available in beautiful pale pink and a very luscious and regal rich purple. There was a skirt to match. And there was an elusive black dress with big bird sleeves that I never managed to find in a Reiss store.

There were a tonne of these dresses in the post-Christmas sale (which irked The Boy somewhat, given that he's a god boy scout and bought it early) and I think that is because while a lot of people might look at this crazy lady of a dress and touch it an stroke it and say 'wow' and maybe even try it on, there aren't many who look in the mirror and think 'yes, a thousand ruffles around my bottom is a very good idea, I'll take it.'

So while The Boy didn't quite pick it out all by himself, he did decide to buy it all by himself. As we know I don't really do hints. Well not out loud, that would be undignified. I do however post every pretty little (and big) thing I fall for on my blog, in the vain hope that one day, by magic, it might appear in my eagre little paws. Of recent birthdays, christmases and just beacauses this technique has been proving surprisingly effective, which makes me a Very Lucky Girl.

I have no idea what to wear my new pink dress with (or to for that matter, I have more of a jeans and wooly jumper lifestyle at the moment). My initial thought is to pair it with a black, delicate as tissure paper cardigan from urban outfitters, opaque black tights and some rather snazzy black and white mary janes that are my favourite shoes ever. But is that a little... blah? Does this delightful fruffly creation deserve better than a cardigan and thick black tights?

Opinions please, on two things. One, what should I wear the dress with? Lets forget for the moment that I don't have an occasion and just delight in playing dress up. And two, how much would you spend on a white t-shirt? A really really nice one, with long sleeves and silk trimmings. But it's still white. And a t-shirt. You are wise ladies (and gentlemen? Is there a gentleman there? Even just a little one, at the back somewhere?) and I would love to hear what you think. Thank you.


All photos by Me.

One picture, one poem, one song....

One picture, one poem, one song, one quote, one item of clothing, one place and one disney princess. As requested by the lovely Naturally Nina...

How to choose just one of anything? Any one in the world, when there are so many. No constraints, no requirements, no boundaries. Limitless options, one of a million. Any one.

A little unnerving. When did limitless choices become so scary?




One picture....

(by skinnyimages)

One poem...

My mother gave me the prayer to Saint Theresa.
I added a used tube ticket, kleenex,
several Polo mints (furry), a tampon, pesetas,
a florin. Not wishing to be presumptuous,
not trusting you either, a pack of 3.
I have a pen. There is space for my guardian
angel, she has to fold her wings. Passport.
A key. Anguish, at what I said/didn't say
when once you needed/didn't need me. Anadin.
A credit card. His face the last time,
my impatience, my useless youth.
That empty sack, my heart. A box of matches.

Maura Dooley

One song....

One quote....

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire"

Emily Bronte

One item of clothing...

One place....

One disney princess...

Please play along if you fancy. Other people's decisons in the face of limitless options are fascinating.


Credits - Picture; Skinnyimages, Poem; Maura Dooley via Staying Alive, Song; In the Remote Part by Idlewild, Quote; Emily Bronte from Wuthering Heights, Clothing; By SarahSeven,
Place, courtesy of Papa Stour, Princess; Disney.

Lovely mummies...

Happy mother's day to my lovely mummy, all lovely mummies and all lovely mummies to be.

In Britain that is. I hear that you Americans have a different mother's day. Not to be confusing at all.




Mother and Child, by Picasso.

A little something pretty....

Photos by Tim Evan Cook.

Pink dress....

How lucky to have a boy who buys you a fancy pink dress from your favourite shop for your first married birthday.

And a fancy camera to photograph it with.

How lucky.

Resisting

These incredibly pretty recycled glasses by YAVAglass are doing bad things for my resolution to stop spending money on things I can't afford. I realised recently that I have been shopping under the illusion that if the things I buy are for the house then it doesn't count. And while that has been fun it's not doing anything at all for my bank balance or our ability to buy things we actually need. Like food and heating.

And so I will resist. But it hurts.

Recycled soda bottle glasses by YAVAglass, via Marley and Locker.

Toast

Sometimes, it isn't colour that is needed.

Not vibrant splashes of life joy but quiet, calm beauty. A reassurance that everything will be alright. That there is order in the world.

Toast knows that.

They are very very clever.

All images courtesy of Toast

gifts from fairies.....

Sometimes, when a day has been really rotten, the kind of rotten that makes you want to cry and stamp your feet and perhaps just give up a little, something magical happens, something that makes giving up seem all of a sudden a most unappealing option. For who can give up while they still believe in fairies? And who but a fairy, someone with the most magical of touches, would know that it was today of all days, this week of all the weeks, that you needed a little something to lift your spirits, warm your heart and make you believe again?

Last week, after a day (or was it several?) of things that made me want to scream (some of which might actually have made me scream) a box arrived. And in it was a bunny. And my heart nearly exploded with warmth and amazement and surprise and joy. Because it wasn't my birthday, I hadn't done anything particularly kind or clever or deserving of a bunny, it was a bunny just because. And how often does someone send you a bunny just because? Hardly ever, that's how often. And how often does someone send you a bunny just because on a day that you really really need a bunny just because? A day that the knowledge that people send bunnies just because will pick you up and dust you off and make you smile and forget all about foot stomping and screaming and giving up? Almost never.

Photos by me, bunny by Little Love Blue, magic by Meg.

How do they know?

How do they know?

How do they always know just what I need, just what needs to fall through the letter box?

How do they know that when life is woe and days are grey blue shoes and pink walls and yellow flowers will make it all better, even if just for a few moments?

All images courtesy of Toast

I like little things....

Dearest lovelies, this week I listed some tiny prints in the shop.

Little, diddy, wee, small, diminutive, petite, teeny tiny pictures.

Pick any four (I know that the photo shows three. The Boy says that's confusing. I say that my readers and customers are quite clever enough to figure it out) to have printed at an itsy bitsy three inches tall.

Do with them what you will - peg them to a string, hang them from a ribbon, decorate a tiny space, buy a bijou frame. Put one in an envelope and post it to someone special, pin them to a notice board, buy lots and use them to play snap. The possibilities are mind boggling and any ideas you might have (nice ideas please. thank you) would be most welcome in the comments!

Angels...

In my second year at art school I bought a book. It was on the reduced table at the photographic book shop I used to gravitate towards when I was tired or restless or lonely or just looking for somewhere warm and comforting. I liked the cover, and the name. Angels at the Arno.

The images were unlike any I had ever seen, blurred yet strong, romantic yet slightly sinister, dream like but perhaps just tingeing on the nightmarish. They were the sort of images that had made me want to become a photographer. I had no idea how to create such an picture though. At that point I didn't even own my own camera. I was still borrowing one from the photography department's store room and I barely knew how to use it. I didn't know you could get more than one type of black and white film and I was still using the darkrooms at night so that no one would notice that I spent five times longer in the processing cupboard than was reasonable or hear my cries of frustration as I dropped my negatives on the floor for the sixth time. Any images that managed to survive my technical ineptitude seemed like minor miracles.


The book was by Eric Lindbloom, a photographer who woke up one day and told his wife that they simply must go to Florence. By the end of that day they and their nine year old son were on a train to Italy.


Lindbloom had worked for ten years with a 5x4 view camera. A huge, bulky camera that scared the crap out of me. All knobs and bellows and precision and planning. Tripods and light meters and one piece of film at a time. Image sharpness to make you gasp. When Lindbloom had moved to Holland earlier that year he left behind his Big Scary Camera and took with him a few hand cameras. Among them were three Dianas; small, cheap, plastic cameras designed in the 1960s, so poorly made that their seams needed to be covered up with black tape to stop the light flooding in. They had a fixed shutter speed and three aperture settings - sunny, partly cloudy and very cloudy. In short a world away from the 5x4 camera that could be controlled to the nth degree.

The prologue to Angels at the Arno was my introduction to what are known as toy cameras. Urban Outfitters were yet to start selling them and sx70 was still the cult camera of choice among the cool kids. First I bought a Holga, a Chinese version of the plastic camera that was designed in 1982, intended to provide the masses with a cheap method of recording family life. It was an absolute delight to me. One button. Click. One wheel. click click click. Stop when the number appears in the window. A back held on with gaffer tape and a lens that apparently altered the distance at which the focus fell but which never provided me with any evidence to suggest that turning it made the least bit of difference. Funny looks when using it, in public, a toy camera in an age of zoom and megapixels.

Then one day I finally got a Diana. Ten pounds on ebay. So pretty with its blue edging. So light and so simple. Used, of course. What had it captured? What had it seen?

If only it could talk what stories would it tell? A family. Parents, perhaps children. Sandwiches and wool blankets on the beach. Candles on birthday cakes in the back garden. Chubby, crying babies. Mothers with haircuts and trousers that betray their decade. Caravans in fields, a first holiday abroad, to France perhaps, on a coach, across the channel. A bus trip to a country house, scones and jam in the cafe. The roses on the lawn in full August bloom. A period of family history in black and white one day giving way to the inimitable clouds of colour of the seventies. A new camera bought, more images, automatic so to the back of the drawer faithful Diana goes, then one day a box, that last roll of film sent off to be developed with the vague curiosity of one who has forgotten what's on it. The box placed in an attic, alongside other boxes, containing fragments of a family's history, fleeting moments among the millions that make a history, captured in time.

Later the box is emptied, a camera is discovered. No use to anyone it is placed on ebay. I buy it. I don't know what I will do with it. I can't afford to process film any more and I am losing my will to experiment. But I love it for it captured a history. Not my history, not the history of anyone I know or ever will, but that makes it all the more intriguing. I place it on a shelf where it waits patiently. Waits for me to take the images I dreamt I might all those years ago, when I discoverd the angels of the Arno and I realised it was possible to capture a dream, to capture it and print it and remember it for all eternity.

First image by Eric Lindbloom, from Angels at the Arno. Second image by me.

Diana

I want one. Although it looks more like a pink lady than a Mr Pink to me.







Image via lomography

A little Danish teacup...

My darling mummy bought me a subscription to Country Living magazine for my birthday. Now I'm an old married lady I'm allowed to ask for subscriptions to old lady magazines about chickens and goats and which variety of acer is most resistant to greenfly. Magazines with chutney recipes and competitions for most inventive use of empty jam jars. Magazines where the only clothes are handmade from home grown goat hair, woven by Cornish virgins on the banks of a river at twilight. Or something like that.

What I really love it for is the homes though, the beautiful homes of creative and clever types that are light and airy with gardens filled with roses and studios filled with crisp northern sunlight and furniture scavenged from French flea markets. Kitchens filled with flowers and antique linen, decorated with real art, usually made by the owner. Not an ikea print of Tree Lined European Boulevard or Poppies At Sunset to be seen.

Last month in a feature about women who live and work in one space I fell completely and utterly fell in love with the home and studio of Danish ceramic artist Jette Arendal Winthe. Again, like the Selby house I wrote about earlier this week the walls and floors are the palest neutrals and every single thing from the kitchen cabinets to the bathroom rug is fascinating and beautiful and filled with colour and life. I'd like to

The same sort of passion for colour, for vibrancy and for vintage romance shines out of Jette's ceramics, which I must admit are what first caught my eye in the article ('a flowery tea cup you say? Why I simply must have it. Now.' )

I'd like to live here, and drink from flowery teacups. It would be a quiet yet vibrant life, filled with creativity and travels and a dog in a basket.

Aside from the first picture, all images of the ceramics are courtesy of Jette Arendal Winther.
Other images by Marie Rosenkrantz Gjedsted and are via Country Living Magazine.

Fairies in the garden....

“There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?”

Wise words from dear Meg, who sent me a little email to say that this wedding was a little bit for me as she knew I would love it so.

If any photographs can make you believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden it is Heather's. And if anyone can make you believe that fairies might just exist with their loveliness and kindness and ability to know just what to send you in the post to make you feel like just the luckiest, most touched by magic girl in the world it is Meg. A fairy disguised as a one woman powerhouse (evidence to be presented at a later date your Honour. Once the puter has been fixed.)

Gorgeous gorgeous photos by Heather of One Love Photo.

A puff of delight....

It's been a while since I've posted anything weddingy, because (to be honest) it's been a while since anything weddingy made me smile, truly smile.

But then I came across this Swedish (I think? There are a lot of sentences that look like this - 'Den 'bästa dagen i mitt liv var vår bröllopsdag' which looks kind of Swedish, right?) wedding and I grinned, I truly and utterly grinned. So I thought I'd share....

Doesn't she look like the most delicious cupcake?

I know it makes me some sort of savage, but I love a picture of a wedding dress covered in mud. It shows that the bride cares about more important things on her wedding day than keeping her dress immaculate.





Yum!

Photos by Thomas Ivarsson and via www.folkbladet.nu

a home I like....

As always I'm a little behind in discovering The Selby. The Cool People have known about it forever I'm sure. Once there was a time when even if I wasn't A Cool Person I at least tried to be, fantasised about being and occasionally deluded myself that I might be, if you squinted a little.

I'm not cool. I'm not on top of the trends before they happen, in fact I'm not even aware of the trends until they're taking their last painful gasp of breath and The Cool People are declaring them over. I've stopped caring though. Much like in school when we had to race around the football pitch in gym class, I have grown to take pleasure in coming last.

While everyone else is trying to catch their breath for the next go, I'm still at the furthest goalpost, wondering if that seagull over there is eating a cold chip or a bit of sandwich. Sure I tried running when everyone else started but I soon got bored (ahem, a little hyperventilatey) and realised that torturing myself with something I hated (I do not like competitive exercise, not one little bit) was a waste of time when there were seagulls to watch and sea air to breath and like minded friends to take a leisurely stroll with. I still felt a sense of satisfaction when I got the the finishing line, but I could breath and I wasn't sweaty and those annoying types who wait and expect you to arrive and judge you by how long it took you had gotten bored and wondered off.

Which is what keeping up with trends and blogs and bands and fashion and those obscure films that everyone has been talking about for months and which you finally saw last week but thought was a bit shit reminds me of. And when I come across those things and think 'wow! Isn't that brilliant!', then I realise that everyone else has seen it and heard about it and blogged the pictures I feel a little like that 13 year old who finally wondered across the finish line, felt proud, looked around a bit and realised that everyone else was already back in the changing rooms getting dressed.

Which is how I felt when I found The Selby. A website where beautifully taken photos of impossibly cool people's impossibly fabulous homes in impossibly cool cities like London, Paris, LA and New York are displayed for us slovenly types who always come last in the race to feel depressed over.

I love Abigail and Philip's house in London. My taste in interior design changes monthly, some months I'm a minimalist, some months I love knick knacks, some months I want a country cottage and others an empty loft with lots of windows.

This house is closest to my natural style though; white walls and floors, perfect to show off pretty and colourful and interesting things in a slightly messy, slightly thrown together, very relaxed, very 'it doesn't matter if the banjo's leaning against the fireplace or the bed and no, the glittery Colosseum doens't have a permanent home, just put it wherever.'

(And I won't insult your intelligence by pretending that the bunny didn't win me over. Just a little. It's impossible to be too cool when you've got a bunny.)

All images by and courtesy of The Selby.

Peonies for you!

So I had all these plans for rabbit related methods of picking a winner. We hadn't quite established how we would use the bunnies, I mean they don't move much and they can't count, but still, photos of bunnies choosing a winner were too good to resist.

That however was before I reckoned with the power of organic raspberry beer to make me feel like my stomach is trying to crawl out of my body via my mouth. (Damn vegans with their hippy beer).

So, due to feeling like utter crap I resorted to random.org, because it's random. And easy. And Utterly Unfair Hangover friendly (one beer. One beer? Unfair I tell you.)

Apparently it uses some scientific shit to pick a number. Some truly random method employing atmospheric noise and hot bits and very serious peoples in white coats and black rimmed spectacles. (Shrug. I just liked it because all I had to do was type one number then press a button. So pleasingly simple.)

So without further ado (or pictures of bunnies but one very beautiful picture of random.org) I present you with the winner........

Number 59, aka, Flora who said;

Without doubt and sure the bloggofans will agree, that you most definitely are a photographer!! Who needs art school.It's going to be a rip-roaring success, I knows it.
Boo.. I was gonna say 'Oi gimme the print' but it's been nabbed..
So instead I'm gonna say Oi gimme the print or the bunny gets it!

I feel bad though. I want to send you all a print, each and every lovely one of you who commented. (I'm not going to, but I want to.) Your comments have meant so very much to me this week and I've been so grateful for each one of them, they've made me feel like this shop thing is something I might just be able to do. And I love how many great new blogs I've discovered, it's so nice to meet some of the people who don't usually comment, I do hope that now you've popped your cherry you'll be back to leave some more sweet words behind you.

Ok, now I'm off back to bed.

Loves yous.

Gratuitous Rabbit Shot, because I feel like I cheated you by not using his little fluffy self to choose a winner.

One more day.....

Just a wee post to remind you that there is one day left to leave a comment on The Great Print Giveaway to be in with a chance of winning a print from Peonies and Polaroids: The Shop. 

And to let you know that I have added a new print today....

Meet Persephone....



I love her knobbles, they're so pretty. It turns out that pomegranates are much nicer to look at than to eat.  Food shouldn't be hard work and getting those pretty, sparkly little whatsits out of that gorgeous pink elephant hide makes me want to take a nap.

I was going to add a whole lot more prints today but my darling Boy tried to update my photo editing stuff today and well, he broke it.

I should know by now that when he says 'can we swap puters and I'll update your software?' half an hour later I'll hear a rather pathetic 'Oops.  I made it worse... Um... no you can't use it, I killed it.'

It's a good job he's cute. Very cute.

New Home

Peonies and Polaroids has moved.

We can now be found at www.peoniesandpolaroids.com . Which of course you know, because you are here. With us. At peonies and polaroids dot com. Yes, that's right - we have a Dot and a Com of our very own. Aren't we sophisticated?

We have actually been moved for quite some time but we forgot to tell you. Because we are a little daft.

Welcome.

We don't think you need to update your links as blogger seems quite happy to redirect you, but we're not sure how long this geniality will last, so a little updating might be a good idea.

We thank you for your patience.


Image courtesy of the genius Edward Monkton and via Officedog.

What economic crisis?

Is it sick that I love these? I mean, I know they're hideous and making four thousand pound shoes inspired by one of the most flaming symbols of excessive consumption in the midst of economic meltdown is well, a little tasteless, but they've got boats! And bows! And embroidery! And a they're yellow!

Although they also come in a fabulously over embellished pink...

Images from Grazia via Red Carpet Fashion Awards, Those Extra Four Inches and Handbag.com

***The Great Print Give Away will be open until Saturday 7th, when the girl and her boy, and possibly their bunnies, will devise a method of choosing a winner. So far their ideas have included hats, bingo callers and peanut butter. Please do let them know if you have any better suggestions for picking a victor at random.) ***

Gratitude....

Once there was a girl and she wasn't sure quite what she was in this life - was she a photographer? Was she an Art School Drop Out? Was she a girl completely lost with no hope of finding her way? In the midst of this confusion she started a blog. She left a comment somewhere and one day people saw her blog, 82 people. It was March 5th 2008.

Gradually more and more people came to the little space she had created and how grateful she was for them. They left kind words, their presence assured her that someone, somewhere was interested in what she had to say, in what she had to share. When she was finally brave enough to share her photos they encouraged her, gently (and some not-so-gently) suggesting that perhaps, just maybe she should think of selling them.

Her boy, who one fateful day became her husband, told her he was proud of what she had created which made her melt a little inside. She didn't realise that making her husband proud was so very important to her.

And then, finally, when her confidence had grown bit by tiny bit she decided it was time to stop dreaming, to stop wondering how and why and when and if and to actually try to be a photographer. And she opened a shop. Because such neatness pleased her, the shop would open one year to the day from her first post.

As a sign of her gratitude to those (that would be you) that encouraged her, she decided to give away a print. She worried and she fretted that no one would want her print. Her dearest online friends told her she was an idiot (in the nicest possible way of course) but still she was scared. She felt fifteen years old again, that age when the fear of rejection is felt most strongly and for days she twitched and panicked and fussed and dithered and worked herself into a terrible nervous frenzy and she ended many days lying in bed chewing her lip while her dear and long suffering husband muttered quietly 'you're an idiot Pix, it will be fine. Now go to sleep'.

She told herself that she would consider the endeavour a success if twenty people left comments. Twenty was a modest number yet plenty to make her feel successful. Yes, she would hope for twenty and celebrate on a grand scale (perhaps with a cupcake) should twenty comments materialise.

And so, she scheduled a post. It had to be scheduled you so for on the first anniversary of her blogging endeavour she would be in London. Actually she would be in Chichester, a land of horses and boats and sunshine and all of life's joys and then on a long country road and then she would be in London. Either way, she wouldn't be at home and she wouldn't be able to write her Great Anniversary Post.

The post announced the opening of her shop and offered a free print to one lucky commentator. And so she held her breath. She waited from Monday when she hit publish to Saturday morning when she knew the post would appear in the wide world and once again she fretted and stewed and well you know the rest.

And then a miraculous thing happened. Twenty people commented, and then twenty more. And then a few more after that. And they wrote such sweet things, such kind things, such encouraging things, things that made her doubts fade away just ever so slightly. And her heart swelled while her breath slowed and her twitching abated. And she was happy and grateful and just a little overwhelmed.

And she thanked them from the bottom of her heart, those people who inspired her and encouraged her and offered her their well wishes. Those people who made her realise that she was a photographer, that she is a photographer. She thanked them. She thanked them more than she could say without sounding terribly terribly acceptance speechy. She thanked them in the third person because to do otherwise made her blush. But she did thank them, oh she really did.



*** The Great Print Give Away will be open until Saturday 7th, when the girl and her boy and possibly their bunnies will devise a method of choosing a winner. So far their ideas have included hats, bingo callers and peanut butter.) ***



Image courtesy of Michael Sanders.