Sit with me. I feel oddly lonely this morning. As if the rest of the world is busy and I have forgotten how. So watch me while I pace the floor. Change the cd. Help me choose something less devastating than Edith Piaf. (God knows she could drive a woman to drink). Then take me in your arms and spin me around the wooden floor and let’s pretend it’s a ballroom. Lets spin around and around until we are dizzy and your heel gets caught in my skirt and we collapse on the floor, laughing till I cry and you have no choice but to make me a cup of tea and tell me a terrible joke. It is the sun I think that’s done it. It curtails me. Confuses me. Seems to promise much of I know not what and upends the certainty that comes with cosying up on the greyest of days. For one feels obliged to get outside. To do something. To be someone and have ones day in the sun. Where there is usually the freedom of the car, much talk of petrol strikes is making frugality a necessity and I am hoarding jealously the half tank of petrol I currently have. Afraid that emergency lurks waiting and I will be stranded. Afraid that those of us who do not guard what we have will come unstuck. Too lazy (too sensible) to go wait in mile long garage queues. And so I push my toes into twinkly ballet shoes and walk around to the post office to buy a home-made coffee cake I will probably never unwrap and make small talk with a woman the nastiest piece of me despises. I am billions of parts of a whole and not all of them are kind. Some are hungry for I know not what. So I cook. Without an apron. (Bad housekeeper, bad housekeeper!! Somebody come whip me.) Today cheese biscuits that I eat standing up, straight from the oven, squashed with warm Stilton and drizzled with the oil from a jar of sun dried tomatoes. For a breakfast of sorts. Wiping floury hands onto my nubby brown jumper, burning my tongue and forgetting to care because some days this house feels like a prison and small acts of domestic treachery are all I have to sustain me. Dear me. Melodrama suits me a little too well doesn’t it? So lets drown it in words. In another world. Let’s read my friend. I want to exist in comfortable silence… You take my armchair and I will lie on the floor, a bed of floral cushions beneath me, bare feet wriggling in lime mohair. There is a time and a place for contemplation and perhaps it is best taken in candlelight. Despite the sun raging outside, this little room of mine is as dark as night time, so watch me as I walk around the room creating molten yellow bursts of light from honey coloured candles that will gently disguising the air of neglect dusting every surface. Those flowers are dead. Breathe deeply regardless. Keep a notebook beside you and write down the thoughts somebody else’s imagination sparks. Circumnavigate their dreams and steal the sentences that best translate that which you have never been able to put into words. (Don’t you sometimes find words leading you on a merry little dance?). Hoard sentences and sigh over pauses that tighten the black belt you wear around your heart. When it gets too much we will stop. Yes. When we feel ourselves drowning we have to call time on the books that bite. Stand up and let’s go back to what we were doing. This was just a pause in our ordinary existence and it is over now. There are kittens to be fed and plants to be watered. I will show you to the door. Press a grateful kiss on your cheek and watch you wander up the lane. The sun is shining. You will make hay while I burn bergamot and wish this unexpected melancholy far, far away. The sun is shining Sweetheart.
Create your own Brocante Life Book, plan Christmas, set up routines and rituals or live life the BrocanteHome way with my guided workbooks and planners.
Hello Housekeepers! Wanna climb on the back of a pretty pony and come for a spin around the carousel with me? Of course you do! Though it’s been so long I do believe I may have forgotten quite how to get saddled…
"We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?" –Marianne Williamson Other Things To Do At BrocanteHome Browse the Bookstore Discover a curated list of books to enhance and support life…
Lavender Words… For a heavenly, sensory treat, put the book you are planning on reading next, into a bag with a scented pillow, or spray the pages lightly with a gently fragranced linen spray, and tuck away until you are ready to…
Every evening after the gentle trauma of trying to teach Finley to read with the muddily business that is phonics, I bath him, dress him in flannel pyjamas, and we get snuggled up in his dimly lit cosy bedroom to begin all…
The Etiquette of the Greeting Classic Culinary Arts, classic American culinary arts recipes and techniques, such as Classic Culinary Arts Old Fashioned Milk Paint Lovely, lovely milk paint. Inspire.Co. Amy Powers beautiful studio space. To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing…
Hello Darlings, August is quite the perfect time to go for a ride on the Carousel don’t you think, and as it’s been such a long time since the last one, this ride is jam packed with lovely inspiration… So might I…
And if that wouldn't bring a smile to my face then nothing would… but it did and now I'm wandering around singing. Job done! Thank you darling.x My recent post Sit With Me
For added humor value, imagine me (8 months pregnant) dancing in your living room, lip-synching to it…and this one.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9nE2spOw_o How's that for some *vintage*, baby? 😀
Good job with the Katrina and the Waves. That's always a good one! That makes me happy when I'm sad, and happier when I'm not. My recent post Red Letter Day
Soooo . . . do you ever pop on over to Paris on a whim? Or points even nearer? Want to come make a little visit? I'll be there in just a few days . . . it's a girlfriend trip . . . just thinking . . . it could be good for what ails you . . . 🙂
Isn't it interesting how these phases wax and wane, throughout the years? I haven't found you on-line much lately, and I am scouring the internet for inspiration to finally finish Spring cleaning (I started out well, but lost steam)—and likely, once I am burned out (again) by the internet, you'll be back with a vengeance, lol!!! We're never in the groove at the same time~must be the time difference! Hugs, Katherine
I'm a bad housekeeper. I hardly ever wear an apron, and I have three hanging in the kitchen right now. I've got a LOAD of things to do today, two hours to do them in before my darling Paul comes home and what am I doing? Reading your ever-so-delightful (even when they're sad…) entries. Alison, you make my day! And my housekeeping is SO MUCH NICER when thoughts of you drift up from the back of my mind, bestirring themselves and me into a much better place. Now I can back to work. Yay! I feel SO much better, and I was feeling pretty good to begin with. You're a peach, and I mean that with raspberries and whipped cream! My recent post Red Letter Day
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Alright, I've got something for you, darling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKh0dLIuIu8
And if that wouldn't bring a smile to my face then nothing would… but it did and now I'm wandering around singing. Job done! Thank you darling.x
My recent post Sit With Me
For added humor value, imagine me (8 months pregnant) dancing in your living room, lip-synching to it…and this one.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9nE2spOw_o
How's that for some *vintage*, baby? 😀
Good job with the Katrina and the Waves. That's always a good one! That makes me happy when I'm sad, and happier when I'm not.
My recent post Red Letter Day
Soooo . . . do you ever pop on over to Paris on a whim? Or points even nearer? Want to come make a little visit? I'll be there in just a few days . . . it's a girlfriend trip . . . just thinking . . . it could be good for what ails you . . . 🙂
Isn't it interesting how these phases wax and wane, throughout the years? I haven't found you on-line much lately, and I am scouring the internet for inspiration to finally finish Spring cleaning (I started out well, but lost steam)—and likely, once I am burned out (again) by the internet, you'll be back with a vengeance, lol!!! We're never in the groove at the same time~must be the time difference! Hugs,
Katherine
Oh Alison-if you only knew how my heart is completely in sync with yours today. I so hope tomorrow brings you some peace-and some smiles.
I'm a bad housekeeper. I hardly ever wear an apron, and I have three hanging in the kitchen right now. I've got a LOAD of things to do today, two hours to do them in before my darling Paul comes home and what am I doing? Reading your ever-so-delightful (even when they're sad…) entries. Alison, you make my day! And my housekeeping is SO MUCH NICER when thoughts of you drift up from the back of my mind, bestirring themselves and me into a much better place.
Now I can back to work. Yay! I feel SO much better, and I was feeling pretty good to begin with. You're a peach, and I mean that with raspberries and whipped cream!
My recent post Red Letter Day