sisters & sparrows » places

dormir

fran — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:39:47 +0000

Sooo… tired… Saturday night was my friends annual Corndon Cottage birthday sleepover. I’ve had the privilege of going twice now and OH MY it is SO gorgeous… This little tiny cottage with no electricity, just gaslights and wood-burners, and a dormitory with loads of ancient sagging mattresses and lumpy pillows, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I don’t know who it actually belongs to, but it’s lent out to scouts and groups like that. It was the most beautiful, beautiful night, completely clear, and we had a bonfire and the stars were massive and piercingly bright. And I was with a big bunch of fantastic, hilarious, and dear dear friends.

So I started going to sleep at, what, five in the morning?

For some reason, these pictures seem just… heaven, at the moment:

{all images via we heart it – sorry, lazy I know}

plans

fran — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:02:53 +0000

Well – everything is beginning to take shape… University and all. Edinburgh said a resounding NO to the two courses I applied for there (both of which, by the way, I was overqualified for) but Warwick said yes. I’m kind of chuffed because Warwick is known for being cutting edge and interesting – employers love you if you’ve got a degree there – and I was so worried that I’d really messed up in the interview. So, I’m beginning to be excited! I’ll have to work my socks off to get there though. And there’s one down-side to the whole thing: the campus is a concrete hole, in the middle of nowhere. I’m going to be spending three years in an environment which is totally visually uninspiring, surrounded by students the whole time. Oh well! I can cope! Nearby is Warwick, of course, and that has a lovely castle – and Stratford is about half an hour away – brilliant! Warwick’s links with RSC are good, so I’d get to watch top plays for a fiver.

Here is today’s inspiration – because it was fantastically, beautifully sunny and Springish:

These are all by Yvette Inufio. Gorgeous, aren’t they?

gangs

fran — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:26:43 +0000

I love love love these sexy black-and-white photos by Bruce Davidson:

They’re documenting a Brooklyn gang in the late ’50s. Very cool indeed, in my humble opinion.

in another time, i visited a sparkling city

fran — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:09:02 +0000

Oh I want to travel the world. Starting with Paris. I miss it.

holidaying

fran — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:06:35 +0000

This year, in summer, 12 of my friends and me are going to Split in Croatia. It is going to be a kind of last celebration, a last gathering before we all go our separate ways. We’ve got two apartments and we’ll be by the sea in a city full of culture and it will be hot and sunny and it will be BRILLIANT.

And I am going to take a FORTUNE’S worth of polaroids!

white stuff

fran — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:36:53 +0000

SNOW snow snow snow!!!! For the first time in YEARS we are having proper snow that is actually MORE THAN ONE CENTIMETRE deep! It is SO beautiful I love it. It was virtually impossible to concentrate in lessons today. We had a snow fight in the quarry as soon as college was over (to be fair, as soon as we couldn’t feel our fingers we went for coffee) and it was amazing to see Shrewsbury so beautiful. My town looks pretty good in black and white. Kind of like Audrey Hepburn… I guess black and white does everyone and everything a few favours.

Also the snow is perfect, that squeaky, sparkly stuff that packs really well. Fantastic!!

The quarry, in case you wondered, is our town park. It runs down to the river and has these lovely tall trees. Where the actual old quarry used to be is now a lovely garden with bright and pretty flowers and ducks and a lake. I love it. Anyway, the picture above is a very old lantern slide from this site.

cities of the world

fran — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:46:18 +0000

I LOVE these drawings by Martine Rupert so so much. I really do. They’re just so intricate and personal and … well… cool!

I’d love to commission one. But of where? It would be such a dilemma for me… If you were asking Martine to make you one of these pictures, where would you choose? And why?

Incidentally I’m loving this poem by Walt Whitman:

I see the cities of the earth, and make myself a
part of them,
I am a real Londoner, Parisian, Viennese,
I am a habitan of St. Petersburgh, Berlin, Constantinople,
I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne,
I am of Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick,

I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons,
Brussels, Berne, Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin,
Florence,
I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw — or north-
ward in Christiana or Stockholm — or in
some street in Iceland,
I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them
again.

questions, questions…

fran — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:49:41 +0000

{images by Eva Lindh}

After reading Miel et Cannelle’s fascinating interview post, I thought I’d volunteer! She’s given me the most loveliest questions ever and I’m so excited about this post. Now I want some of you bloggers who read fishing for beautiful to pick up the gauntlet, ok? Here are the rules:

1. If you want to participate, leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.” (And your e-mail address, please.)
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Here are the questions A sent me:

1. You’re blog tells us all about your incredible style, but not much about you! What are you studying in school? What do you hope to do career wise? What put you on that path?

Well for a start, many thanks for saying I have incredible style! I’m not sure if it really counts in the Real World, since what I blog about and what I actually wear/buy/own is somewhat different.

At the moment I’m in the upper sixth, so studying for A Levels (and it’s foul. Really foul). My subjects are English Literature, History and French. Literature is my thing, I think. I absolutely love reading and – perhaps most of all – discussing my ideas and thoughts with others. I love Elizabeth I, love Marie-Antoinette, love Paris, love croissants. My french accent is pretty darn good but I’m awful at grammar. My essays are hit and miss: sometimes they’re brilliant (if I do say so myself) and sometimes they are truly awful.

Career wise, I have no clue. Maybe editing? Publishing? MI6? Who knows! But I think i’d really want to be a mother, a grandmother. That would be a great career for me.

2. You haven’t been blogging for too long now – what made you start a blog? What keeps you blogging?

I started blogging because I was just too inspired to keep it all in anymore. Because I couldn’t tell anyone I knew about the clothes, or the art, the photography that I liked (they just couldn’t be interested). I was driven to it. Also I’d been reading blogs for quite a while, and I loved the way bloggers write; they’re so warm and witty. It seemed like there was a lot of friendship and sharing going on and I wanted a piece of it.

And I keep blogging because I haven’t yet stopped finding beautiful things. Will I ever?

3. We’re in a time of economic turmoil.. great. If somebody gave you 100$ to spend purely on a luxury, what would it be?

This is a difficult one! 100$… I think it would have to be something I could share with a few favourite friends. Spending 100$ on myself would seem a bit indulgent. The best things are the things that can be shared. So maybe a really fantastic meal, with loads of super exotic delicacies. Maybe a lovely relaxing spa treatment. Or hiring a great car and driving to the top of a hill with wonderful views and cracking open champagne and eating strawberries on a red checked rug. That’d be good.

4. If you could invite 5 bloggers to dinner, who would they be and why?

I’d invite Garance Doré, because she seems to me so quintessentially Parisian in every way: it would be lovely to hear the french accent and absorb her Paris glow. I think she’d have some brilliant stories to tell about the things she’s done and the people she’s met. I’d invite Agathe from Style Bytes, even though she doesn’t blog anymore, just because I miss her updates and I feel like I need to catch up with her. She has the most amazing sense of style, so I’d love some of her hints and tips! I’d invite Kathryn from Snippet and Ink because she’d have so many romantic, feelgood tales to tell. I’d invite Peonies and Polaroids because I would be able to pester her to tell me all about her home, Scotland, where I hope to live next year (later this year! agh!). And I’d invite A from Miel et Cannelle. We could discuss philosophy and moan about essays and swap stories about our travels.

5. What is one of the best meals you’ve eaten? Where, why, and what was it?

Ok, this really is impossible. I might be able to narrow it down to two maybe, or three.

One of them is in Thailand, on a wooden pier looking out to sea, at sunset. It was a fish restaurant in Hua Hin, 2005. I had seabass. While we were eating, a boy came round selling offerings of rosebuds and jasmine buds. I bought one and put it in my hair with an orchid.

Another is Poland. We were travelling between a seaside town, Łeba, and Krakow, and we stopped off at a little farm overnight. We were the only ones staying there. We had lovely, homemade Polish food for tea – pierogi, i think, and barszcz (that’s dumplings and beetroot soup to you and me) – accompanied by the farmer playing his accordion for background music. When we complimented him on the food and the playing he brought his daughter out to play flute, and then sent his wife outside. She was ages, and we were wondering where she’d got to when she came back with fresh, frothy, warm milk for us.

The last is Italy – eating just inside the walls of a medieval town, outside, fresh pasta, fresh everything, free limoncello. Down the road the town band was practising for a festa later in the week. Fantastic!

Thanks A for your challenging and fun questions!

If any of you guys fancy answering some get in touch and I’ll try to pick really good ones.

snow

fran — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:46:30 +0000

What a wonderful, eerie photograph. From here. I’d LOVE to go to Moscow – or any part of Russia – and am very jealous of anyone who already has.

Although it had been promised, we haven’t yet had any proper snow in this corner of England. I’d like some. Instead it’s been icy and slippy but rather beautiful.

liverpuddle

fran — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:07:11 +0000

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.