tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51645151562676962892024-03-21T06:45:21.149+00:00it'stooearlyforthatdressKatiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-48177265677895575412009-02-17T09:02:00.004+00:002009-02-17T09:15:00.749+00:00Dreaming<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ak8k-M3o0hQFNEiDE8It5DWtdr0VETaEVmWk88jcOoinock9JzOEsA0zDJDdpCXla_n5-tCBUnt8Em0i1Tj9uJAKtvj1emRPjn0FzufZQf3YMm7d_RbTMQhqWSSy0lyCLf5WGFDEaH1e/s1600-h/fran.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Ak8k-M3o0hQFNEiDE8It5DWtdr0VETaEVmWk88jcOoinock9JzOEsA0zDJDdpCXla_n5-tCBUnt8Em0i1Tj9uJAKtvj1emRPjn0FzufZQf3YMm7d_RbTMQhqWSSy0lyCLf5WGFDEaH1e/s320/fran.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303692008139418274" /></a><br />My pal (pictured) and I took the day off yesterday to swan round Notting Hill and eat cake. Everything feels like a film-set there: girls cycling around with bunches of flowers in their bicycle baskets, the candy-coloured houses, second-hand bookshops and boutiques of organic cotton, overpriced babygros. If there were more students and odd people it would be a mini Brighton. <br /><br />The Oxfam bookshop in particular is brilliant. I found a great 70s craft book- while today's are all about beautiful photography and teaching you how to cast-on, this one was properly hardcore - welding, stained-glass making, carving a 'torso' out of a lump of tree with a chainsaw. And all in grainy black-and-white step-by-step.<br /><br />Oh and the houses. Huge sweeps of wedding-cakey white stucco and rainbow-painted mewses. My friend and I decided she would run an esoteric record store and I would run a shop selling ribbons and cake and we could live there and write zines. One day...Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-17124425391913885232009-02-10T09:37:00.003+00:002009-02-10T11:52:34.202+00:00ConversationsTwo men on the bus on Sunday night, late twenties, sartorially challenged, munching their slack-jawed way through bags of crisps and bottles of Lucozade. One has a carrier bag full of cans of Grolsch. They are discussing the ladies they are going to woo this evening:<br /><br />Man 1: Harriet's going to be there<br />Man 2: What's she like?<br />Man 1: Rank. Big tits.<br />Man 2: You going to do her?<br />Man 1: Yeah probably<br /><br />Lucky Harriet!<br /><br />Second conversation - in a lift with two staffers on one of the nation's favourite women's magazines. One says to the other: "Is the models size 00?". They then launched into a conversation about how which of them is a size eight and which a six.<br /><br />What is this country coming to, etc...Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-24700474186072490412009-02-02T09:13:00.002+00:002009-02-02T09:19:03.118+00:00And another thing...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiETOqyjQNSZ9V731jbeLFELexK7iGxp5q2BcyuI5aGpipdgKdn9oFZpW1bgvvNKSyCL3oGRl59y6TNs6qtERP-UAzCiJjDGWRk1eH31JkFguyvW4XxTyyeNiYeLVZH9Hd5-iu6ZmgR93Vz/s1600-h/subscribe_feb.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 136px; height: 172px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiETOqyjQNSZ9V731jbeLFELexK7iGxp5q2BcyuI5aGpipdgKdn9oFZpW1bgvvNKSyCL3oGRl59y6TNs6qtERP-UAzCiJjDGWRk1eH31JkFguyvW4XxTyyeNiYeLVZH9Hd5-iu6ZmgR93Vz/s320/subscribe_feb.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298127053693938418" /></a><br />I am in Bust! Check out page 38 xKatiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-27322369164765314432009-02-02T09:02:00.002+00:002009-02-02T09:12:02.644+00:00Snow!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSBm-52XSd4IfYCLEy-zLRcx7iQsICKRHg_e7VaG-YxWySb05xpkauSH9n7sFKTUQ_SNRxvmlhCyP7rM-X-BjV1i8_y54wXN__fxgvt0NqcQCu8Og6NhVL_LgO2U-gUKFM0mXg72RI5wsJ/s1600-h/51tFzBUaElL._SL500_AA240_.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSBm-52XSd4IfYCLEy-zLRcx7iQsICKRHg_e7VaG-YxWySb05xpkauSH9n7sFKTUQ_SNRxvmlhCyP7rM-X-BjV1i8_y54wXN__fxgvt0NqcQCu8Og6NhVL_LgO2U-gUKFM0mXg72RI5wsJ/s320/51tFzBUaElL._SL500_AA240_.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298125263583670418" /></a><br />Snow snow snow! Snow snow snow snow snow!!<br /><br />Quite amused by the inhabitants of Clapham South, which was closed this morning, marching around in the snow, blonde highlights and rugby collars wilting, bellowing into their mobile phones about how "one snowflake and the British transport system grinds to a halt...!" I however have made it to work- am quite enjoying the anarchy and chaos. London is quiet, slow, misty, from up here in the rooftops every chimney and cornice is padded with white. <br /><br />For a break from the tempests outside, I have been reading (well, devoured in two days) Love Me by Gemma Weekes. I rarely buy a book straight from the reviews - am too cheap to fork out on a hardback usually - but I am glad I did. The lurid and cheap-looking cover goes to show you should never buy a book by its etc as it is gloriously evocative of grubby Hackney and steaming, sexy New York, sticky-sweet with hip hop music, Caribbean food, rum, sex, carnival colours, lust and desire.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-28926102026682578282009-01-26T08:58:00.005+00:002009-01-27T09:12:38.395+00:00Hampstead Heath<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYY5QSkJb5MmeOEgl6gPnFw7-4rRpMMyvliy_xnu0r3dm6ChM29racHFT885LqY5mupRKs9KA5wlJRY4-hwt8IsyOklhkuuQxtWi_sNR8XESpbPKPBbuNzpPr_QNpRSbhrTdZ7YnzM06dY/s1600-h/mist.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYY5QSkJb5MmeOEgl6gPnFw7-4rRpMMyvliy_xnu0r3dm6ChM29racHFT885LqY5mupRKs9KA5wlJRY4-hwt8IsyOklhkuuQxtWi_sNR8XESpbPKPBbuNzpPr_QNpRSbhrTdZ7YnzM06dY/s320/mist.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5295898880406636530" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6F63XSPK6BiSI1Z8AsX9xogh0a4arIhAioqMEJJS_GL7OktMce9CwJ_gao826eIUorkwp4q0ca0ws0tIkPiDKvMpf9ssnImeql7c-4cr1s-OldpKPk9D6I2qbJyfWI3hbKjurWwo1oT55/s1600-h/moretrees.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6F63XSPK6BiSI1Z8AsX9xogh0a4arIhAioqMEJJS_GL7OktMce9CwJ_gao826eIUorkwp4q0ca0ws0tIkPiDKvMpf9ssnImeql7c-4cr1s-OldpKPk9D6I2qbJyfWI3hbKjurWwo1oT55/s320/moretrees.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5295898839856228146" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvufd0SHi5aamXOpzEP18ZumNIg82LEgFqt7lmpSAZMPPSPIyrxorNltwI6eiWJDXNMbsuAzktw7IpjI6qtp0AczH8dUPIb2xnlD3ymr7MI74x1kMCne8YWLu4KazQ949f9StKoy6F1VYa/s1600-h/trees.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvufd0SHi5aamXOpzEP18ZumNIg82LEgFqt7lmpSAZMPPSPIyrxorNltwI6eiWJDXNMbsuAzktw7IpjI6qtp0AczH8dUPIb2xnlD3ymr7MI74x1kMCne8YWLu4KazQ949f9StKoy6F1VYa/s320/trees.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5295898782507666642" /></a><br /><br /><br />Went to Hampstead Heath on my own yesterday, getting off the tube to a soft, constant rain; after plodding rather miserably through some suburban-looking cul-de-sacs, I walked out onto the heath. It's the strangest place: a cultivated bit of countryside, dropped into the city, where for a moment there is silence, shiny blackbirds picking through leaves, trees with acid-green moss streaked with rain, and you could be in the middle of any rural shire. Only the occasional distant siren suggests that there is something beyond the mud and fields. Then, walk up a small hill and the towers of the city rise out of the mists like some settlement from Oz.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-71476619079989297062009-01-21T17:54:00.003+00:002009-01-21T18:15:37.881+00:00Reading the city<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwI_Go02xRZPFvZRKfIBLNlzi8aUdpe01lhFxCy7Nkg4EK-ZVlTMpz8rWzLHUw1pXqsojW0xuchF9p9sCAMdLAw3A4wEPROfiWChEPHk4J1hweowhRUQgdPwJLq5CEOsp4ce-dLvQd-wQ/s1600-h/LondonSign.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 211px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwI_Go02xRZPFvZRKfIBLNlzi8aUdpe01lhFxCy7Nkg4EK-ZVlTMpz8rWzLHUw1pXqsojW0xuchF9p9sCAMdLAw3A4wEPROfiWChEPHk4J1hweowhRUQgdPwJLq5CEOsp4ce-dLvQd-wQ/s320/LondonSign.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293812097092202034" /></a><br />London is a shouting city.<br /><br />Being a country girl at heart (although if anyone thinks being a teenager in the depths of the countryside, with one bus a week, and miles of fields between you and, well, anything is romantic they have been seriously misinformed) my eyes sometimes ache for green fields and a night sky so clear and black it's as though you are standing at the edge of space.<br /><br />Every possible surface in London screams to be read. Adverts exhort you to indulge in razors, in books, in 3-for-2s, in 'genuine pre-ops'. Signs inform you where to sit, where to park, where not to chain your bicycle, what to recycle, to turn left, to not enter here or there. Restaurants and bars beckon you in, warning notices keep you out. Even the people are blazoned with brands and logos. There are a thousand road signs whispering of Victorian commerce and ancient byways.<br /><br />Words are my thing, I get anxious without a bedside book or even a cereal packet to read in the mornings, and a stop-start bus or broken tube is inhuman enough with your face wedged against someone else's shoulder and their handbag in your spine without a book to carry you away. But sometimes, there are too many words.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-85751592088737744432009-01-12T18:00:00.002+00:002009-01-12T18:06:05.332+00:00Plans and projectsIn tune with the new year, I am planning a new venture to overturn the world of handbag-crazy women's magazines forever, but as usual I don't want to say too much in case I jinx it. In any case, a web nerd is squirrelling away right now and people (real people, not just me using pseudonyms) are writing things for me.<br /><br />I was inspired over the weekend by <a href="http://www.knockback.co.uk/">this magazine</a> . Please buy a copy or at least donate - no just buy a copy. It's really well written and funny, and advertising free, and so reliant on people with taste and morals, like you.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-4996736844016527662009-01-09T10:03:00.003+00:002009-01-09T10:22:50.989+00:00Ahem<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYrA5A0cABdsVYtQLQxha-8dIUrpzeJjzoMd39RwGGOUpoECWol21G5OLpOJBeWPZg_QNzLgZYkyV1hNrW4SmheR0vzo_yqMkgRB9b32BbTlLo3FCvRKSaACeifVnoZ79e_LKOrDq1TSl/s1600-h/6a00d10a7cbf928bfa00fad69334ae0004-500pi.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYrA5A0cABdsVYtQLQxha-8dIUrpzeJjzoMd39RwGGOUpoECWol21G5OLpOJBeWPZg_QNzLgZYkyV1hNrW4SmheR0vzo_yqMkgRB9b32BbTlLo3FCvRKSaACeifVnoZ79e_LKOrDq1TSl/s320/6a00d10a7cbf928bfa00fad69334ae0004-500pi.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289237100894764338" /></a><br />... so I have come back. Apologies to my readers, all two of you or none of you probably by now, but have been distracted by various things, notably work, and Christmas, and generally being a bit lazy and insecure about posting anything I have written up on the world wide web.<br /><br />But new year, new start, and one of my many and varied resolutions is to 'write more', so back to the blogface it is. <br /><br />One of the things I have been mentally blogging about is Twilight. I went to see the film on Tuesday, having read the book in about two train journeys, and then crowbarring myself away from the follow-up in order to delve into Mr Obama's The Audacity of Hope. The books are addictive in the same way a giant tin of Christmas biscuits is: you know you should stop at one or two, and you know they're bad for you, but somehow you can't stop... <br /><br />The film was overdramatic and silly (witness Edward's look of nausea, including hand clamped over mouth, when he first meets Bella), but as well as being unintentionally funny, is also witty in its own right, and if lacking the tension, violence and gore a horror fan might expect, compellingly unfurls the relationship between E&B. And the lush, rain-soaked and yet forbidding landscape is austerely beautiful.<br /><br />Plus it produced in me the uncomfortable feeling of being 17, or rather looking back at myself at 17; the gawkiness, the thrilling highs and devastating lows of believing you are in love with someone at that age, the cliques and rituals of school - even the boredom of school. I can't remember the last time I read a book, or saw a film, which included homework and chemistry lessons.<br /><br />And although Mr Pattinson isn't quite the handsome dangerous vampire of my imagination (ahem), I found his hexagonal pale little face and bulky adolescence affecting and believable. And Bella less irritating than she could have been. But then, I'm just jealousKatiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-91964034834212260502008-12-01T09:31:00.003+00:002008-12-01T09:46:43.654+00:00Ribbons and thingsI haven't posted about any crafty activity for a while, mainly because I haven't done any, but am getting stuck into Christmas present making at the moment. My little room is gloomy and cold, but there is something so absorbing about sitting and making things with my hands, that carries me away into my imagination, or whatever the radio is burbling on about. <br /><br />I also found the most amazing haberdashery in Portobello yesterday, I can't remember the name, but it was a proper old-fashioned place. I had a nice little daydream about living in some pink-painted Chelsea mews, and spending all my money on ribbon.<br /><br />I have also been thinking, unfortunately, about Georgina Baillie (of the Sachs-gate affair) who seems to be creeping into Metro-style gossip pages with worrying regularity. I don't want her to be famous, simply because she wants so much to be - she was even in the Guardian over the weekend, choosing her books of the year. She chose, and I can't work out whether this is with a sense of irony, or a lack of self-awareness of quite bintish proportions, Russell Brand's My Booky Wook, helpfully pointing out his suspect treatment of women. <br /><br />Against my will, I do quite like the fact that she is quite unashamedly goth though. I also went to Camden over the weekend, and was disappointed that the place where I used to go as a chain-bedecked teenager is just a tourist-thronged market of mass-production stripey tights and slogan T-shirts. Apart from Georgina, where have all the goths gone?!Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-5775310666351591002008-11-25T09:38:00.002+00:002008-11-25T09:51:14.416+00:00This is England<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBlN29JVbjf0hGQedT1coxF3sMohgRJdiCgE1hvptBrPdun03Hfcc8mBKU6K_0pz1g9VQ1eMBMIvtcqGedfb1Zkwotl0NSiKVwBS53jYM8wErp_0XD2H-eI0wA_11fshY3mQL_8LXNrqEt/s1600-h/this-is-england-4.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBlN29JVbjf0hGQedT1coxF3sMohgRJdiCgE1hvptBrPdun03Hfcc8mBKU6K_0pz1g9VQ1eMBMIvtcqGedfb1Zkwotl0NSiKVwBS53jYM8wErp_0XD2H-eI0wA_11fshY3mQL_8LXNrqEt/s320/this-is-england-4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272530492698760354" /></a><br /><br />I watched the aforementioned film last night. As anyone who knows me, knows, any film that doesn't have a montaged dance-training scene doesn't usually come onto my radar, but I had read good reviews and thought I should educate myself. <br /><br />I found it really disturbing, not so much because of the violence, although it was brutal and often unexpected, but because of its vision of an England that exist(ed) on the periphery of 'normal' society. The skinheads are disenfranchised, anarchic, chaotic, but also seductively stylish and loyal (up to a point). I was a child during the Thatcher era, and so have never really understood the extreme emotions, the hatred and rage, that her actions stirred up. My knowledge of the Eighties is more of a second-hand, nostalgic one, similar to the (ironic) use of 'Tainted Love' blaring out of a radio at one point- New Romantics, kids dressing up like Boy George, a mum with enormous glasses and perm like my mum had when I was a child. <br /><br />It was also touching and spikily humorous and affectionate, and left me thinking about the nature of masculinity and sexuality and identity and integrity, and of art's capacity to be politically more effective than any number of dry treatises or speeches.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-70772785653819636052008-11-13T16:58:00.002+00:002008-11-13T17:01:29.152+00:00Meep<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPhnVCaEF476SA1FA2ClIC80_h74Els4TRVM2aD1Muk67MLlQiM6lhDWi1Knn6KAFNQck09vwXntSegY37tFWfhiWfcSNvGBdNinfxhnyKD-lz9DFdTM2aeHAYGw9AOzZfkdS7U1aBFWqQ/s1600-h/2956585118_f17999b9c6.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPhnVCaEF476SA1FA2ClIC80_h74Els4TRVM2aD1Muk67MLlQiM6lhDWi1Knn6KAFNQck09vwXntSegY37tFWfhiWfcSNvGBdNinfxhnyKD-lz9DFdTM2aeHAYGw9AOzZfkdS7U1aBFWqQ/s320/2956585118_f17999b9c6.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5268187907857661074" /></a><br />Ok, this is not a proper post, but <a href="http://ittybittykittycommittee.blogspot.com/">this</a> blog is possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen...Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-22636542039607295402008-11-10T11:37:00.004+00:002008-11-10T11:50:28.798+00:00Rainy daysWhat is this appalling weather all about? Saying that, I am tucked up inside, intermittently lurking on Craftster and knitting yet another scarf. I made a mistake about five inches in, but have kept going in a stoic, I-don't-care sort of way, even though it is as niggly and annoying as the pub sign outside my flat which promises 'complimentary champagne'. I have an urge to perform some kind of nerdy stealth graffiti on it.<br />Have been at my mum's for most of the weekend. She lives in the middle of nowhere, and so I have spent a very pleasant, calming time doing country-ish things like gathering apples from the garden, star-gazing with binoculars and painting the stairs a very Cotswoldy shade of pale. There's something about taking time off work that seems to make it acceptable to eat cake after every meal and to regard stroking the cat as half an hour's worth of constructive activity. It would probably drive me mad in the end, but I find the idea of living in the depths of the country very inspiring creatively. Perhaps because London at the moment feels all wet concrete and people in identical black coats and the monotony of Tube adverts, but everything in the country feels more tactile and real: onions in a brown bowl, the pink dawn filling a curtainless window, nights so black and silent.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-34826147312550766782008-10-28T18:17:00.002+00:002008-10-28T18:28:08.474+00:00Michele Roberts<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZINRMkMPIP7oE8K8MjqD1bzXfH0VKVjmkErzMBUZHiBjrqRJpjyTzOSgziX-g-eotA9wGhpakr0A4ElHb4znUYblMp7YOLDdYu8D8Haw05c3DS3zayQ0mmNMl19wdY6UhJ3WQ2veLYlMq/s1600-h/41WZK31GX4L._SS500_.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZINRMkMPIP7oE8K8MjqD1bzXfH0VKVjmkErzMBUZHiBjrqRJpjyTzOSgziX-g-eotA9wGhpakr0A4ElHb4znUYblMp7YOLDdYu8D8Haw05c3DS3zayQ0mmNMl19wdY6UhJ3WQ2veLYlMq/s320/41WZK31GX4L._SS500_.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262271027379278978" /></a><br /><br />This is the book I am reading at the moment. I'm down to the last 20 or so pages actually, and trying to eke it out. Roberts has probably handbagged Margaret Atwood down to second place in my favourite authors ever list. I just love the way she writes, particularly her descriptive passages: "The trees are turning bronze and rusty at their tips and the sun hangs low and heavy like a yellow plum". Very apposite for the time of year, as autumn clings on with its fingertips before the big, scary, middle-of-the-night blackness clamps down around 5 o'clock.<br /><br />I am, admittedly, an ardent Virago-type reader (although have been trying to educate myself in manly, recent writing with some Philip Roth). But there is something so earnest and truthful about the way Roberts writes, that the strident '80s feminism doesn't feel too anachronistic, although it does bring you up short to realise that the struggles she saw were going on even 20 years ago.<br /><br />On that note I am going to some sort of anarchic cross-stitch event this evening. Someone at work rather sweetly said 'Even nice girls are radical sometimes', which I think would be an excellent T-shirt slogan. And there are going to be cup cakes (thought: who has decided cup cakes are cool and trendy, is it some kind of ironic 50s revivalism? What next - macaroons?)Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-31264070657978926352008-10-20T14:07:00.005+01:002008-10-20T14:31:56.067+01:00I went to see the Francis Bacon exhibition at Tate Britain yesterday. It was quite strange afterwards strolling around the Pre-Raphaelites and their crowd-pleasing, glamorous paintings - after seeing Bacon's images of pain and torment and despair, human bodies reduced to ripped meat. It came to mind: where can art go, after this? It made me think of Adorno professing that there could be no poetry after Auschwitz. It was also a savage depiction of masculinity, particularly the screaming men in suits. And all the bestial twisted teeth and jaws, the rawness of human emotion - a contrast to the day-trippers with their handbags and headphones, wandering around. I thought, what would reduce you, with your iPod and trendy jeans, to a figure from one of these paintings?<br /><br />Literally one whole person requested to read my Rockabilly Rave feature (thanks Mike!) so if you want to actually have a copy in your hand, and see me in all my pink-haired glory, head to Borders . . . and y'know it would be nice not to just read it on the stand as I -er- never do, of course, as the Nude people produce the magazine without making any profit, and it is such a beautifully produced work of (he)art.<br /><br />And another thing, what is with all the anti-Madonna rage? Alongside all the gleeful schadenfreude about the Ritchies' divorce, and I doubt she needs my feeble support, the press was vitriolically anti-Madonna. Guy Richie received some flack about his Mockney-twattishness, but most of the commentary was on how her success was too much for him to deal with, with some wags wondering which was "the husband". How is it in this day and age that a woman still can't be more successful than her partner without being called a "ball-breaker" etc etc rant . . .Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-36485609891585908232008-10-13T18:24:00.003+01:002008-10-13T18:33:22.228+01:00ExcitingExciting news. My Rockabilly Rave feature has <a href="http://www.nudemagazine.co.uk/">finally</a> come out, although I haven't laid eyes on a copy of Nude yet. Plus my favourite magazine in the world has at last got back to me about a feature idea, but I daren't mention it in case of jinxing possibilities. I also have an interview <a href="http://www.knittinginstitute.co.uk/">here</a> - check out that massive coverline! <br /><br />And at last I have moved into my new place. It's not perfect-the floor in my room slopes uncannily and the landlords didn't exactly clean it before we moved in-but at last I have somewhere to put my books on a shelf and 'stuff' somewhere that isn't boxes. I also have a desk, which may not sound that monumental, but after several years of balancing laptops on knees, possibly frying any future Allens, or using my sewing machine in the living room, and annoying anyone watching TV, it feels very satisfying.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-76981080590933983902008-10-06T09:10:00.003+01:002008-10-06T09:20:49.180+01:00Kinky bootsSo I have some new boots. The lady at the vintage fair swore they were Edwardian, and although they are in suspiciously good nick I am determined to believe her. They remind me of my days of (re)reading Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, and I quite fancy wearing stays and a picture hat with them. I can pretend I live in more innocent times when putting your skirts 'down' and your hair 'up' were the signifiers of moving from childhood to womanhood (and hence, presumably) on the marriage market, and when all Anne wanted was a pair of leg o'mutton sleeves (you can imagine the confusion that cast in my nine-year-old mind). I also bought a royal blue frock, although I am a little concerned that it looks a bit - medical.<br /><br />Enough about my shopping, these were spontaneous and very naughty purchases in the week I am supposed to be paying extortionate amounts of rent and deposit (denial is a wonderful thing). It was supposed to cheer me up in a weekend of being constantly damp and blown about. Perhaps I am shallow, but it does a bit.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-11821075436178851832008-10-01T09:01:00.003+01:002008-10-01T09:19:50.636+01:00Lovely Dawn<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZKMdgLbW6tppBHRp7e27fGPnDQY3JsAzkUmZ4wifEdNgmPF5wbXsIlQfHSkVzLp_dlkZTH23VgEg2c8V9m1iruZJlONi4tKbfTttTK8VWv652Yzq-bCjj7pLx0k_NVNP5yXx3y0O_Ki7v/s1600-h/DawnPorter.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZKMdgLbW6tppBHRp7e27fGPnDQY3JsAzkUmZ4wifEdNgmPF5wbXsIlQfHSkVzLp_dlkZTH23VgEg2c8V9m1iruZJlONi4tKbfTttTK8VWv652Yzq-bCjj7pLx0k_NVNP5yXx3y0O_Ki7v/s320/DawnPorter.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5252097005275610914" /></a><br />Things are happening on the home front. Met up with potential new housemate last night and he seemed very sweet in a wholesome way. Let's hope he doesn't have some kind of secret crack habit.<br /><br />I also watched Dawn Porter: Free Love on Channel 4. I think I have a bit of a crush on her (especially after the episode where she careened around London in an open-top bus, naked, to promote real women's figures in the media, as opposed to lollipop strumpets (more parentheses, what a great name for a band)). She's just so pretty, and normal, and yet completely full of neuroses. And look at her lovely pink bike and earmuffs in the photo, sigh. <br /><br />It was a bit of a shame that despite her earnest exploration of the alternate ways of loving in various free love camps and homes, the people she met were all long-haired, of some kind of Teutonic descent, and a bit Eighties. There were a lot of intarsia rainbow jumpers.<br /><br />Speaking of intarsia, am going to track down the SnB group tonight, and hopefully not sit next to the rather alarming lady, who to my tremulous 'Is this Stitch n Bitch?' replied: 'Yes. Can you knit?' 'Yes' 'Good. That helps.'Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-985428131079693132008-09-23T08:52:00.005+01:002008-09-23T08:59:47.523+01:00This girlI have totally fallen in love with <a href="http://theblackapple.typepad.com/inside_a_black_apple/">this girl</a>. I love the spooky fairy tale things she makes and paints, but most of all I want her clothes, and her house, and to look like her. I am amazed by people who find the time to create such beautiful things. Saying that I got back to the temp flat last night (after finding my first new SnB group!) and for a few panicky minutes couldn't make the TV work. Yes I could have sat and read, or done something creative, but there was something about the panorama of highrises and silent scudding planes that gave me the creeps, and I had to fill some time with garish adverts and a murder mystery. Or I'm lazy, you could look at it that way.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-694228233646486642008-09-21T16:13:00.003+01:002008-09-21T16:26:30.112+01:00Can you tell what it is yet?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92ALUrqGxT801zRmUB9QedLi9bao3UD7T3uagCb1EsoalVi2muB-FgV_2h5CZJEBWygF1s1sYsM6QqM13k7-dd0yjY_uvDYTAZBOiUfg4zCobKa0SJMlspy80UTuvxsd7OTReZ_7zMW5y/s1600-h/P9210202.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh92ALUrqGxT801zRmUB9QedLi9bao3UD7T3uagCb1EsoalVi2muB-FgV_2h5CZJEBWygF1s1sYsM6QqM13k7-dd0yjY_uvDYTAZBOiUfg4zCobKa0SJMlspy80UTuvxsd7OTReZ_7zMW5y/s320/P9210202.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5248493274004964242" /></a><br /><br />So I finally stopped dithering about with much-folded print-outs of things that I was 'definitely' going to turn into a tattoo and actually did it. I chose a retro, Sailor Jerry-style swallow, symbolic of all sorts of things, and despite being ridiculously (<span style="font-style:italic;">shakin</span>g) nervous all Saturday, it wasn't half as bad as I thought it was going to be. With my arm rather ostentatiously bound up in clingfilm I felt a bit like a patient and perfectly at liberty to spend the rest of the weekend eating to 'build up my strength'.<br /><br />It's been a perfect Brightony weekend too, involving my favourite cafe the Mock Turtle (which has proper china cups and saucers and cakes the size of your head) and sitting in the Pavilion gardens, where I spotted not one but two people reading books about Buddhism and a lot of perfect children in stripey babygros, probably fed on organic carrots and named Daisy.<br /><br />Eeek, as I type I keep catching glimpses of my tattoo. It's very there. And despite being officially grown-up now, I am still slightly concerned that my mum is going to kill me.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-23253945937654264222008-09-18T08:52:00.005+01:002008-09-18T09:55:39.516+01:00Malta sunshine...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoJwHhQ5RhlDH1gv_jG_C1YyhW0NZKr30cYbple-5fdZxxFxaVPSX-1f-BbP_F8x6HQIwISQ2kkEPL6jXbJOZ4v73qvOQ7e7_IJP-u76-gbW0YdS6pM-MVGf48R3UziR3nt5S98BxmzmNz/s1600-h/haberdashery.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoJwHhQ5RhlDH1gv_jG_C1YyhW0NZKr30cYbple-5fdZxxFxaVPSX-1f-BbP_F8x6HQIwISQ2kkEPL6jXbJOZ4v73qvOQ7e7_IJP-u76-gbW0YdS6pM-MVGf48R3UziR3nt5S98BxmzmNz/s320/haberdashery.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5247279797890941410" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkM4EWEslQKSslV9XmItOA1_nEDJWpm3FbO3pHl-NqY6ASut0OSInfozL9kGZmRHotvlvsKuUHTKUKC6hc-B4L4cx060Qe6lO860eQMNz0ACy6INFxnYm7xlVUxxNtM3_K1kGH6HphgjY6/s1600-h/flowers.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkM4EWEslQKSslV9XmItOA1_nEDJWpm3FbO3pHl-NqY6ASut0OSInfozL9kGZmRHotvlvsKuUHTKUKC6hc-B4L4cx060Qe6lO860eQMNz0ACy6INFxnYm7xlVUxxNtM3_K1kGH6HphgjY6/s320/flowers.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5247279795318030242" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEharPbnKn7kNu9fyjmRYE5Vy0g5zM-wninH-hAIBMTtFAcu-L8ftchA4QUyJKcFdoMBRmSnILYiW1ExqTC2i33SQk2HxZ2PRMjks9xlnnXm2EoGsyyS-lmdktD0nFb544ZbUgTgupCHnOwF/s1600-h/stone.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEharPbnKn7kNu9fyjmRYE5Vy0g5zM-wninH-hAIBMTtFAcu-L8ftchA4QUyJKcFdoMBRmSnILYiW1ExqTC2i33SQk2HxZ2PRMjks9xlnnXm2EoGsyyS-lmdktD0nFb544ZbUgTgupCHnOwF/s320/stone.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5247279799410364482" /></a><br /><br />-sigh-<br /><br />I loved the little old-fashioned haberdashery shop in Valletta, with its racks of old lace and ribbons and beads deep in the shady interior (I didn't venture in, it was staffed by some rather formidable older ladies). Deep in the twisty lanes of Victoria, the main town on companion island Gozo, I spotted a tailor's shop, which comprised an old man bent over his treadle sewing machine, surrounded by suits and frocks.<br /><br />The stones are part of the city wall in Mdina, which kept the aristocracy safe during the sieges in the Middle Ages. What I found most touching was that ordinary folk hid there during the bombardments of World War II, and carved their names and dates into the stone.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-1581562263977063292008-09-18T08:52:00.002+01:002008-09-18T09:15:21.106+01:00Back againA man sat next to me on the bus this morning, and I barely had a chance to acknowledge his handknit grey cable jumper than he whipped out (steady) some giant circular needles and continued something complicated-looking in acid green. He was not your 'average'-looking knitter, being big and burly with long red dreadlocks and fisherman's beard, which somehow made it all the more pleasing. I wanted to introduce myself as a fellow knitter, but felt too shy - if only there was some kind of secret symbol or handshake. <br /><br />So yes, I am now in London, no more trains. It hasn't quite sunk in yet, I am still waking up at 6, only now I am having jumbled dreams about Brighton and work and school and (last night) being massively pregnant and eating chocolate cake. I am staying temporarily in a flat in Hackney, so getting used to sirens and sodium lighting keeping me awake rather than seagulls and the lumbering circuits of the Number 5. The other side of the flat overlooks a canal, so at least I get the rather bucolic conversations of ducks and moorhens to make me feel more at home.<br /><br />It's strange getting home in time for Coronation Street, it's strange not seeing the sea at the end of my road. I am pretending not to be nervous when I get off the bus in Hackney and it's dark. My stuff is all in heaps of boxes in my old flat. I am a gypsy again.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-13693305111158693302008-09-04T09:43:00.003+01:002008-09-04T09:52:06.489+01:00Sir CliffSo, I met Cliff Richard last night. When I say 'met', I mean was in the same room as, and had my photo taken with (near) him. I was genuinely, non-ironically, a bit excited about it but thinking about it now I feel a bit sorry for him. 50 years or whatever of having your photo taken with complete strangers just because you're told to, being paraded around and having false conversations. He also reminded me a bit of my dad.<br /><br />Despite my red carpet evening (Cilla Black was there too, of course) it was a relief to head home and find my housemate having a rehearsal of his folk band. Only a few more days of accordians and trumpets blaring into the small hours.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-44408872974317114132008-08-27T13:50:00.005+01:002008-08-27T14:31:56.187+01:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoG7wJK7-EQ0gefj26eREz8IVd1UfUBRxwj792gj8XVBI8w-a26d0eTLvR0yPltuMw0s61J99hDv2636sgScymcBc3DuMJIXUIIVq9iNkQtdpMs1P7lPjMZNoS5Gxritl9zPsD_qNPvoDP/s1600-h/tree3.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoG7wJK7-EQ0gefj26eREz8IVd1UfUBRxwj792gj8XVBI8w-a26d0eTLvR0yPltuMw0s61J99hDv2636sgScymcBc3DuMJIXUIIVq9iNkQtdpMs1P7lPjMZNoS5Gxritl9zPsD_qNPvoDP/s320/tree3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5239180082905197426" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWlRDjPEZYyA0zytPBnvSpfPVUih8FCA2-nz1oaMB_4BwvxQ6YrrE-RSZIJESuKI2K9nlLS2VPbMMlSaruaHI28C28HW1ghryIPuBxO33mY3RXxd_T4jzN2U7Ysl34EMn3XbZT23dEZng4/s1600-h/tree2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWlRDjPEZYyA0zytPBnvSpfPVUih8FCA2-nz1oaMB_4BwvxQ6YrrE-RSZIJESuKI2K9nlLS2VPbMMlSaruaHI28C28HW1ghryIPuBxO33mY3RXxd_T4jzN2U7Ysl34EMn3XbZT23dEZng4/s320/tree2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5239180031556901570" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXheOQXKJVneRZNSIeT5mmOyYbUWqLp7RslOx3p75R4o1XTplqsBZeVjooINmsbpjjj5i7EP36WqDXk2vUKJic_st0HnWMN1gT0d1zYcAPUDLOg40ynuuXkDHEo7Zk2KsSrGINEVUsA0Kr/s1600-h/tree.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXheOQXKJVneRZNSIeT5mmOyYbUWqLp7RslOx3p75R4o1XTplqsBZeVjooINmsbpjjj5i7EP36WqDXk2vUKJic_st0HnWMN1gT0d1zYcAPUDLOg40ynuuXkDHEo7Zk2KsSrGINEVUsA0Kr/s320/tree.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5239179967508083986" /></a><br />Here are some photos from Wakehurst Place in Sussex, which I went to with my mother on Monday. A lot of the park is intensely crowded with trees and plants, and there was quite a menacing, prehistoric atmosphere in the valleys, with the gnarled roots of trees splaying across paths, densely packed ferns and the parrot-coloured rhododendrons and fox-gloves. There was a hesitant sense that perhaps an age-old faerie might any minute appear among the leaves, or, more likely an English bank-holiday-er tramping out in sensible fleece and boots. There is some kind of stolid style-blindness about English tourists that impels them all to wear beige or navy, the women strapping leather handbags across the sturdiest of anoraks.<br /><br />Anyway, there is definitely a hint of autumn in the air now, the scent of bonfires and the occasional leaf crunching underfoot reminiscent of that back-to-school feeling.Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-77849039579852753962008-08-19T09:20:00.005+01:002008-08-19T09:27:15.083+01:00Adoorable<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4Um25AAP0eN2tTyYdPZxaO8VSUZa7iooMyTN_7yMidT1ango-TdTnc6QRukSequvvyVjBxn1aQpr4NI4w-zvUWqo4peNAVlUULgGm7XaItBGvpA-8cOwIovU_toAuhY6mZj0YWRavzcr/s1600-h/door3..jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4Um25AAP0eN2tTyYdPZxaO8VSUZa7iooMyTN_7yMidT1ango-TdTnc6QRukSequvvyVjBxn1aQpr4NI4w-zvUWqo4peNAVlUULgGm7XaItBGvpA-8cOwIovU_toAuhY6mZj0YWRavzcr/s320/door3..jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236142510416465010" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL1Ibc03EO2FpntMygqD-DcUoBQjW6w5OgJYZ-vz-u4kza3072s8SaXAgvL6lxMI2EYVf1ty0Eei2KzNusEyxapvsjl81DXZfBO_G30hFhW9Fn-sdpBL5R-VDO1vM-118T4HdNE73mE1wf/s1600-h/door2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL1Ibc03EO2FpntMygqD-DcUoBQjW6w5OgJYZ-vz-u4kza3072s8SaXAgvL6lxMI2EYVf1ty0Eei2KzNusEyxapvsjl81DXZfBO_G30hFhW9Fn-sdpBL5R-VDO1vM-118T4HdNE73mE1wf/s320/door2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236142416855395186" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKwHbQAlPx2HcYMgQyHLqFRC30S9USBExgEvxWbkDnMpTVBVWnk1urO9w1xmVpcfDZKyQ9CqDlN1U3c4ijogg_N8qmXI3L4rgDKrpy5fW_SF5qhOAhHDFr4gDZxg_n4mpXh2INy-s0FekD/s1600-h/door1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKwHbQAlPx2HcYMgQyHLqFRC30S9USBExgEvxWbkDnMpTVBVWnk1urO9w1xmVpcfDZKyQ9CqDlN1U3c4ijogg_N8qmXI3L4rgDKrpy5fW_SF5qhOAhHDFr4gDZxg_n4mpXh2INy-s0FekD/s320/door1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236142279190431026" /></a><br />Here are some photos from my weekend, proving that my house obsession is getting out of control. Perhaps it's just because the number of weeks I have left in Brighton are rapidly diminishing, and I don't actually have another home to go to, or perhaps I am just a house perve, getting hot and bothered over pink front doors and bookshelves.<br /><br />It also looks deceptively sunny in the photos, but the weather has since turned to that very British climate of grey and blustery. I actually prefer it being a bit miserable. When it's unnaturally hot and sunny every day, it starts to feel similar to being in a relationship with someone way out of your league: yes you're smiling all the time, but there's a sneaking suspicion it is going to end, and you never know what to wear. <br /><br />That's just me anyway. I am secretly buoyed by the fact that I am going on holiday soon :)Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164515156267696289.post-80457560112259634802008-08-11T11:20:00.002+01:002008-08-11T11:24:32.588+01:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKDJS6HQIKhcWVnjCDlHulA9NI1fNWUF7y4RBtmc9aiO6fam3Xigi2ciiEqeUK-5QV-t2f9M5tkCoHWYmcHwGmvSX2YHOpozQPaNHg-lNc6r-Al2rmeAH2Kw9Sht56X7hIn74j_MweUylt/s1600-h/KM.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKDJS6HQIKhcWVnjCDlHulA9NI1fNWUF7y4RBtmc9aiO6fam3Xigi2ciiEqeUK-5QV-t2f9M5tkCoHWYmcHwGmvSX2YHOpozQPaNHg-lNc6r-Al2rmeAH2Kw9Sht56X7hIn74j_MweUylt/s320/KM.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233204015384919554" /></a><br />I just realised what a gloomy post that last one was, so here is a bit of good news. An interview by me is in this month's Knitting. . .Katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17135507600782797095noreply@blogger.com