f l o r a

Introducing some cheer to the front room, and small glimpses of it in the garden too.

big fat yellow attack

I love ticking things off lists, and I like feeling as though I can stick at something until it's just done. I get this partly from my mum, who always had lists, and my grand-dad, who was famous for making strips out of sliced up tea-bag boxes and keeping them in his breast pocket in case anyone needed to draw one up. Ta-da! He could hand you a fresh strip and a pencil and you could start getting somewhere. I love the feeling of drawing a neat inked line through a listed task. In the drawing up of a list it's the happy peace of having things done that I look forward to -- the sleep of the just.

It happens that I've had a big task on my to do list for a couple of years now. And it's one that contains lots of what I care most about, and one that I've assembled piles of work for. But... it turns out that drawing the line through the task isn't always possible. I've always known it isn't easy, but this week I'm learning to accept that it isn't always even possible. I've put the task aside, backed down, bowed out, thrown the in the towel -- call it whatever, I'm not putting a line through it.

This makes me sad and disappointed. But it's also given me a better perspective. I feel like I'm looking outside again. Feeling a bit freer and hopefully healthier. I feel a bit more motivated. And although I'm suffering a bit from feeling that I can't sleep the sleep of the just, it's true that I did sleep last night, which is a lot better than I've been managing for the last few months.

Not sure what happens next, but I'll wait and see. I have some plans for shorter pieces of writing, and I want to have a proper holiday. And do some pleasure reading, and get out my lovely new piece of sewing machine kit (a very kind birthday present from my mum). And remember that we only live once, and that I'd like my health back properly. Work needs to be put back into its work-shaped box, instead of metastasising all over my life, and other things need to be enjoyed without guilt. What was I thinking?!

p.s. my lomography post was laughably over confident -- turns out I'm worse than ever with the camera. The film I was supposed to be collecting 'wasn't worth developing' according to the people at snappy snaps... And the memory card reader is still buggered.

l o m o

This has been one of those weeks where things regularly go wrong, or are challenging. When you feel that things are somehow just crossed in the stars. Things don't fit, or drop down drains, or never end. And now my computer has decided to stop being able to read the memory card from my camera. Sigh. I have been so tired this week, I've actually felt jet lagged.

So without my photos accessible, I've resorted to posting these images that I (finally, after two and a half years) had developed from my Diana camera. Inspired (and helped on the phone) by dear friend, Sara, I have, at last, got the hang of it. The photos are pretty terrible, it has to be admitted. I have an uncanny ability to get things out of focus. And out of frame. And badly composed. Etc. Etc. But these are a few that aren't quite so bad, or perhaps more accurately, which I find have some charm despite being as bad as all the others. I'm picking up another film tomorrow, so maybe I will have got more of a grip. But quite possibly not. Still, these are the pictures from Autumn 2010. 

I like the double exposure ones, especially where doglet's co-carer appears decked with flowers. The strange pink and cream patterns are cats dancing on a tablecloth. And there's something I like very much about the murky light around the lovely minotaur. Let's see how things develop..

s u n

We've been feeling cautiously optimistic here as the sun has come out to play alarmingly regularly. Walks by the river and by Loch Lomond have been gorgeous. How long will it last?