November...

...started and ended with a wedding.

...was rainy.

...meant time spent with friends.

...brought adventures - like this one.

...got me excited about Christmas and shopping and buying gifts.

...saw me wearing my new boots almost every day.

...introduced me to new ideas and plans for the future.


November was GOOD. So I'm off to enjoy the last few hours of it with T. See you all in December.

A Lovely Weekend II

We spent last weekend with my parents and sisters. It was lovely, two (and a bit) days full of catching up and laughter.

We visited a garden near them where I was able to take a few photos of gorgeous autumn-ness...


Someone asked recently how I get my photos arranged like this. I use Picasa which is a basic photo editing programme made by Google. You can download it free here. When the photos are in the programme, you can select certain ones to make into collages.


It was a totally chilled out weekend, and so nice to just sit and talk for ages. This weekend will be a whirlwind of activity - a Saturday of stag/hen days, followed by a wedding on Sunday.

To all my lovely American readers (and anyone else celebrating), Happy Thanksgiving!

A Happy List

~ A weekend with my parents and sisters starting tonight. ~

~ Wearing boots and jeans. ~

~ Lunchtime walks and eating outside, even when it's cold. ~

~ Christmas shopping and planning. ~


~ Black and white. ~

Learning

Elysa at Gen Pink posted the Learn Something Every Day website recently. I love it - the random facts, the colours and the drawings.


Given that I'm currently spending my days at a primary school, I especially love the last one. That is why my head sometimes feels like it's spinning.

Starry Sky-ed Marquee

A few words to describe the wedding at the weekend...

~ beautiful ~ sparkling ~ pink ~ quiet ~
~ holy ~ moving ~ emotional ~ funny ~ unique ~ heartfelt ~
~ blue ~ well-organised ~ joyful ~ thankful ~ sunny ~ light ~
~ loud ~ story-ful* ~ musical ~


*not a real word but I think weddings should totally be about the stories - the past, the journey, the stories that are to come.

Blue Door and Other Good Things

I spent today in a nursery with three- and four-year olds talking about fireworks. It was good times. They get so happy and excited about little things. So here is a list of happy things...

...new boots, a lovely wedding, warm slippers and tea after a cold walk home, a letter on the doormat, happy friends, exciting plans, cuddling with T, fish and chips, a blue door snapped through the car window, my lovely smart little sisters, thoughtful texts, the idea of hot crumpets with butter, looking forward to Christmas, home-made chocolates, gloves and scarves, small pots of jam, and early morning sunshine.

Away in Conwy

{This weekend we're going to a wedding. But I've been totally slack this week and not shared my photos from last weekend of pretty Welsh countryside. So here you go...}

Last Friday T's mum picked us up at lunchtime and we began the journey up to Conwy in North Wales. We were celebrating his grandma's 80th birthday, and the whole family were gathering for the weekend. By the time we got there it was dark and raining.


We had a meal together, and then went to bed. In the morning we woke to beautiful views of the countryside - hills, sheep, valleys. Gorgeous.


Breakfast in the conservatory, and then we headed off to look round Conwy. We visited the castle...




The view from the castle walls over the bay was beautiful...


So we went down into the town for a closer look...




{Clockwise from top left - seagull, lights in the high street, a tiny geocache, a bizarre tree}

We don't really know what the tree was about - I'm guessing it had been a harvest celebration. It was decorated with fruit and pasta. It was very strange but I kind of liked its quirkyness. We split up for shopping and T and I walked back to the inn. It was only a few miles and the views were beautiful.



We spent the evening in dinner and merriment until too tired to continue the party.


And on Sunday we came home for an evening of snuggling up on the sofa.

Book Review: Beijing Coma

I borrowed Beijing Coma by Ma Jian from T's mum. She'd asked for it for her birthday after a trip to China.

The book's two narrative strands centre around Dai Wei, a young chinese man. In one he is growing up, at school and university, in the years, months and days leading up to and including the Tiananmen Square protests. In the other he is in a waking coma after being shot in the protests. His mother cares for him and friends visit and bring news of a changing China as they move on with their own lives.

The thing that struck me most was how trapped Dai Wei is - he describes his body as a "fleshy grave". The split plot emphasises even more the drastic change in his life - the juxtaposition of him as a passionate, active young man with a girlfriend and grand plans for his future, and the completely helpless man, a mind trapped in a body it can't control.

The protests plot didn't completely grip me - I was constantly confused by the many many characters constantly being introduced and I found the time scale quite unclear. I'm still not sure if the protests lasted weeks or days. I found some of the detail to be unnecessarily graphic, which made me want to put the book down. I think I struggled with the book because I like to see some humour or beauty of happiness in a story. I didn't get much of that from Beijing Coma, and I found a lot of the characters quite cold, it was hard to identify with them or get emotionally invested in the book. However, it has piqued my interest. I've seen a huge gap in my knowledge here and I'd like to find out more.

Not one I'd rush to recommend to a friend, I did have to push myself to keep going with it, but it was well written.

London Calling

Last night a group of students and "real people" jumped on a train and headed up to London. It was dark before we even met up, so by the time we got to the Eye the city was glittering with all the lights. I'd never been on it before, and I enjoyed it even more because I got to try out my camera on the sparkling landscape...






I don't really like London, but last night? It was beautiful.

Autumn Goals Update

1) Add all my favourite summer photos to the digital photo frame.

2) Take a photo every day of September and post it here. I'm not nearly disciplined enough to do Project365 but I might just manage a month.

3) Make something new in the bread maker machine.

4) Sew the pretty new buttons onto my winter coat.

5) Finish the wedding scrapbook. Start honeymoon ones or put the photos in an album at least. I have put the honeymoon photos in an album! And I've started putting our wedding cards into an album.


6) Send surprise post to three people. I did this! And it was so much fun. Here are three of my parcels ready to go. And I also sent some extras. It was lovely to surprise people.


7) An arty project.

8) A blog redesign.

Last night we went to a play called Origins and Lemons. It was a very lighthearted take on Genesis chapters 1-11. It was nice to do something different in the evening. And tonight we're off to London to go on the London Eye - something different again!

Oct-over

I feel like we're on a downward slope to Christmas. Since we got back from summer holidays it seems that the days, weeks, months are rushing by faster and faster. Seven weeks until our Christmas holiday fortnight starts. We are booked up all weekends but one for the rest of the year. Time is whizzing by. Soon we'll be starting to send out Christmas hampers at Besom. So - a look back at October...


This weekend we were in North Wales celebrating T's grandma's 80th birthday. Photos coming up this week, but here's a preview...


Also coming this week we have a play, a trip to London, home group, friends staying the weekend and a wedding. I think November will try to rush by even faster than October.