From the Homefront

So it seems I may be starting to emerge from the pits of despair.  I haven't been around an awful lot lately due to feeling, well, absolutely deathly dreadful, not to put to fine a point on it.  

Under careful monitoring I have been slowly reintroduced to medication which seems to have started to  take effect and I am at long last starting to feel human again.  I'm not yet fully back to the old me, but then who knows if that will ever happen again.  We change and learn and grow.  But I'm taking baby steps, as it were, which will do for now.

Among the 'normal' activities I have resumed of late have been putting on make up, dying my hair and buying clothes... and actually bothering to photograph myself wearing them.  All bargains of course, like this cardigan which was £2.50 from the charity shop.  I think its quite reminiscent of the 1940's in style and colour.  Not that you can see the colour in any depth in these rubbishy iphone pics taken in my kitchen after dark

Speaking of my kitchen, I have also gone into declutter overdrive which has meant a cull of nearly half of all my vintage crockery and knick knacks.  All boxed up and taken to the charity shop.   Here are my stripped down kitchen shelves

I do love a tidy kitchen, don't you?

Not much else going on really, other than major household renovations which have meant the mister and I sleeping on the sofabed for the last 4 nights.  It'll all be worth it in the end.  At least that's what I keep telling myself.

xxx

Different colours made of tears

I recently spent some time in the sprawling New Galloway countryside.

Just down the road from our deserted rustic cottage was a 17th century church 

Spooky dancing children on these crumbling tombstones

The weather was wet and overcast for most of the week

It was the perfect place to contemplate the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the major life changes ahead

I love tombstones that look like sacrificial tables

5 months in I am weary, tearful and distinctly lacking in glow.  Impending motherhood this time around has manifested itself as an all out attack on my equilibrium.

But this part of Scotland at this time of year presented a welcome break and an ideal environment for gathering one's thoughts and spending treasured time with loved ones.  Photographs couldn't do justice to the miles and miles of unkempt and unspoilt countryside and vast rugged landscapes.  Pretty it certainly isn't, but it is so wild and beautiful

Octoberfest

It's October.  My favourite month of the year.  Autumn is here and my thoughts have turned to dark nights and graveyards, abandoned old buildings and foggy landscapes, Victoriana and pre-Raphaelites, skulls and faeries

All images found here

Murder Ballad

Here are some pictures of me from last week

  

Being all moody and evasive

And pretending to be Nick Cave's muse

Maybe I could end up dead in one of his songs

Oozing life onto the sticky floor of a saloon bar somewhere in the deep south 

At best :)

After all I am a buxom wench with fake red hair

Hmm...

Actually, nah.  Too much else to do!

But it's good to let your mind wander sometimes

Dress & necklace - charity shop

Cardi & brooch - high street

Boots - Ebay

Anyway, here are some of my favourite images found recently around the web

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Do we see a theme emerging here? ;)

Hope you're all enjoying your week

xxx

Black Dogs & Englishmen

Today has been wet and cold.  Hardly conducive to being creative or even at all active.  I thought I best do a post of some sort before I lose my mojo again.

Sorry these shots are so grainy but it weirdly sums up my mood these past weeks!  So what's been happening in my life?

Source

Well, I've been off work for the last 3 weeks, since being signed off after a routine GP appointment.  It's quite normal to go to the GP to ask for a dermatology referral and end up in floods of tears when asked simply "have you been under any stress lately?", right?  I mean we've all done it! 

I felt a right berk I tell ya, but there's no denying the break has been a tonic.  The feeling of being able to just relax and breathe normally for one.  Not to mention the horrid yacky skin condition that has been plaguing me for the last 8 months and depriving me of the joy of make up has mysteriously cleared up. Go figure

With my free time, I've gotten rid of a shed load of stuff on Ebay, Freecycle and donated to charity shops, so my house actually feels quite spacious.  Also, it's default state has become one of 'almost tidy' as opposed to 'freshly ransacked'

Among other things keeping me sane, I have been rewatching 'A Bit of Fry & Laurie', spurred on by these images I found on Tumblr

 

 

 They made me spurt cherry coke through my nose

I'm currently watching the grand Mr Fry presenting the BAFTA's as it happens

Here's something from the good old days