one hundred and nineteen

old, but good:

I like the length of the dresses. Perhaps the time of the miniskirt has passed (I've been in them since 16).

one hundred and eighteen

I'm going to Paris in three weeks (for the first time). Eeeeee!

one hundred and seventeen

I had a big post planned, about gender brainwashing and how and where gendered rules are made and reinforced; instead, I watched Masterchef (it's not even very good! argh.)

So in the meantime, here are some shoes I really, really want.

They are vegan, and handmade from recycled cotton and tyres. The company claims to be sweat-shop free and worker driven. Also, cats.

I made a promise at the start of the year to stop buying from high street shops (and to not buy anything first-hand if I could avoid it). Footwear is difficult for me: I have big feet and charity shops have an abundance of size 6 shoes and little else. So these are probably perfect, except i probably can't afford them. Sigh.

one hundred and sixteen

Another to add to the songs that make you want to pick up a book list:

First love, Emmy the Great

 

in other news, today i look like this:

one hundred and fifteen

The Museum of London has made me want to buy an iphone.

They've launched an app, StreetMuseum, which guides users to various points in London where, via the iphone screen, historical images of the city appear.

Like this.

 

The word palimpsest describes a manuscript page from which text has been scraped off, so that it can be used again. These images are reverse palimpsests, then: the past refound and layered again on the surface.

one hundred and fourteen

The first, and so far only, time was when I was seventeen.

I stood in the hallway outside my classics classroom, feeling sick and alone, trying to remember when exactly my period was meant to have started. Had it been just over four weeks since the last, or five? I never thought much about it. My nausea was only nerves - had to only be nerves.

Until then, I had not realised what a joy it was to bleed.

I have never wanted children - even less when still a child. Never been able to imagine myself a mother, nuturing a little being that was part-me and not-me at all.

But I saw pictures of him when young, and he told me things he had made and done. And I wondered what our children would look like, what my son's hand would feel like in mine.

'and i would have liked to,
to have something above you
to have something to hold
and know i could choose to let it grow'

(Emmy the Great, We almost had a baby)

one hundred and thirteen

'Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow,

The small raine down can raine.

Cryst, if my love were in my armes

And I in my bedde again!'

Some things don't change, no matter how many hundreds of years go by.

one hundred and twelve

On Friday evening Hannah and I curled up in The Vintage Emporium Cafe (possibly for several hours longer than we initially intended).

Anyone seen Up?

The cafe's dog - I didn't ask his name.

It's a really lovely place. The staff are friendly (even if they didn't let me buy an avocado they had balanced on some scales by the till); they have soya milk (yay!) and some beautiful looking cakes and pastries (probably not so vegan, alas); and the place is packed full of intriguing little bits and pieces, books and even a scrabble board.


If you are in the Brick Lane area, do go and while away a few hours there.

On the train home I ate (still warm) bagels from Beigel Bake. Yum.

one hundred and eleven

Tungsten (W, atomic number 74). Also known as Wolfram. Derived from the German wolf rahm ('wolf soot') which is in turn derived from the Latin Lupi Spuma ('wolf's froth') - a reference to the large amount of tin consumed by the mineral during extraction.

Darmstadtium (Ds, atomic number 110). A superheavy metal that decays after a fraction of a thousandth of a second.

Strontium (Sr, atomic number 38). Used in flares and fireworks, and more recently in the treatment and prevention of osteoporosis.

Iron (Fe, atomic number 26).

Thulium (Tm, atomic number 69). Named for Thule, an ancient name for a northern region (possibly Norway, Sweden, Iceland or Greenland). The term ultima Thule in medieval geographies denotes any distant place located beyond the "borders of the known world".

All from The Periodic Table Printmaking Project.

one hundred and ten

'The most worrying side to world events is if Gaddafi and Berlusconi both depart, there'll be hardly any world leaders left to offer Tony and Cherie Blair a free holiday.'

I adore Mark Steel.

(Read the whole article. Or all of his columns for the Independent.)

one hundred and nine

I now have hair the colours of a peacock, of an iridescent beetle.

one hundred and eight

Stratford-upon-Avon

Outside Shakespeare's birthplace. We walked past just as the sun was setting, making the windows glitter and gleam.

We sat by the river Avon and drank strawberry cider (well, I tried some of Jen's and made a face something like this. I am not a cider fan).

Not Stratford-upon-Avon

There is a very small clump of woodland roundabout where I live, so we wondered there one lazy, sleep-deprived Sunday (after staying up the night before watching Neverwhere until silly hours).

Victorian explorers; it felt especially appropriate as our walk took us to the old house of W. S. Gilbert.

I was held up for half an hour when my train was cancelled (lack of a driver). Fast trains often rush through this station, not-stopping, on their way to the north, creating waves of turbulent air and a slight ringing as the wheels speed on the metal of the tracks. I was so scared of them as a child, and I still automatically stick my fingers in my ears and tense up when one passes.