It’s time for a picture of flowers.  I love the fresh and joyous colours of this one by Sara Norris:

Now, a while ago the rather wonderful tigermilk gave me an award.  What a lovely surprise!

Here is is:

And these are the rules attached:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.

2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which you think are fabulous.

3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.

4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

So without further ado, these are my ten, my fabulous ten.  

a vintage sunday 
tender letters 
gris-bleu 
cannelle et vanille
starflower and indigo 
the unicorn diaries 
black eiffel 
unruly things 
tiny.k 
camilla engman

They are all blogs that I should definitely check more often than I do.  So should you all!

Hope you gorgeous folk are having a great weekend!

I’m terribly sorry, cherubs, that I haven’t posted the last few days.  The thing is, I haven’t been doing much else either.  In fact I’ve pretty much been in bed.  On wednesday, I came down with one of those head-splitting, ear-bursting, neck-aching, glands-up, strangling, sore-throat, back-aching fevers.  So I haven’t been to work and I haven’t done any school work, and I haven’t blogged. 

On wednesday night I didn’t get a wink of sleep.  Instead I had lots of delusional awake-dreams that I was the Seer of Brennin, and I had to send a vitally important mind-message to the High Priestess, and there were visible waves of pain radiating from my eyes which triggered a massive lightning storm.  It was a very stressful dream, due, I think, to the potent mixture of the book I was reading (a stupid but very entertaining fantasy book from my childhood, which I had left at a particularly tense moment) and the actual head-pounding pain I was in.

So that leaves me at the end of the half-term, still feeling pretty rough, with nothing achieved, nothing accomplished, no money and a heck of a lot to do.  And to worry about.  If the blog slips down the list of priorities – and I don’t want it to, but it probably will – I’m sorry.  Bear with me.

Hello my lovelies!  I’m back!  Thanks so much to Rach and Sophie who both did a fantastic job.  In fact, I’m kind of thinking that they put me to shame a bit.  I hope you guys won’t mind me being back!

Did you all have a lovely Valentine’s day?  I recieved one lovely card, and I’ve got an inkling as to where it came from.  I went to the cinema with my sister, too.  We stood in for each others’ stubbornly non-existant dates – a bit of a tradition between us.  

Did you do anything uber-romantic?  Did you get any cards or gifts from mystery admirers?  I want to hear your stories, alright? 

{photos via polyvore}

Now, I’ve got a rather obscene amount of  homework to do at the moment.  This consists of:

• An Essay on Hamlet -

‘Polonius is nothing more than a self-serving, meddling fool whom the audience dislikes.’

‘Polonius is a complex character who tries to balance his duties as a caring father and loyal advisor to the king.’

What evidence is there in the text to support these views?  How do you think Shakespeare presents Polonius?

• A History Coursework on the British Empire.  I have done two sections and now need to answer this one;

To what extent are ‘New Imperialism’ and the Diamond Jubilee evidence of a new, more confident phase in the empire’s history?

How much of a turning-point in the strength of the empire was the Boer War?

How much support was there across British society and the political parties for these ideas?

• A French Coursework, for which I set myself a stupidly difficult question, 500 words of which must be submitted by this time next week -

Examiner les thèmes de l’amour et la jalousie dans Bonjour Tristesse par Françoise Sagan et Miss Harriet par Guy de Maupassant, et les différences entre les approches des histoires.    

• Preparation for my French oral, which will be about Marie Antoinette – la derniere reine de la France – looking not only at her place in history but her relevance to today’s culture and fashion trends
• Reading First World War literature for a massive synoptic exam and thinking about how I can compare and contrast the ones I have read
• Swatting up on literary criticism
• Learning quotes from Hamlet and the Lyrical Ballads
• Learning French verb conjugations (which, despite having studied French for like 7 years, I STILL DON’T GET)

I will try to be good and keep up with the blog, but if i’m not around here so much in the next week or so, that’s why.  Sorry. 

A note for you:

Be sure to check in here tomorrow!  Because there’s going to be a very cool surprise on Fishing for Beautiful.

Why does smoking so often look so sexy and sophisticated?

As Garance said recently, ‘I find it terribly chic to smoke… So unpolitically correct, so frenchy, so like a film noir, so Gainsbourg, so so… so Vogue Paris!’

If only it wasn’t so bad for you too. 

{images from here, here, here and here}

Today I tidied my room (and believe me, it was worse than it has ever been.  I had to JUMP to get to the bed, and the door wouldn’t fully close) and then sang a two-and-a-half-hour concert.  

At this very moment, this is my life’s aim:

Have a lovely Sunday.

I’ve finally (finally!) had an offer from one of my universities – Liverpool.  I’m pretty chuffed.  The grades they want are average too so it’s nice to have a fallback.  And a great fallback too: I really love the city.

If you went to look at letters to crushes, and loved it – as a few of you have said – you might be interested to know they now have a sister site, letters from the crushed.  Of course, if you can cope with reading it without breaking your own heart too much, there are some lovely moving letters there. 

I really wish that ‘letters from the crushed’ wasn’t necessary, though.

I need this NOW.

I mean sleep, not a baby.  (I’d like one of those too, but maybe in a good few years time!)  But really, I’d love to be able to sleep as soundly as a baby.  They always look so different, so completely at peace.  It’s amazing. 

Beautiful photo, n’est-ce pas?

From here.