A Late Happy Christmas

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! Sorry for such a dearth of posting-the end of term was as hectic as it always is, plus I upped and left for skiing straight after leaving school...so without a laptop I was utterly unable to do anything home-related alone, especially blogging.

Had a wonderful time in Switzerland-the snow was so beautiful and luckily the resort wasn't too busy. I love the mountains. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I can safely say that whenever we leave I feel that little ache in my chest you get when you see a really beautiful editorial or listen to a piece of music that touches your mood exactly. Ok, forget pretentious, I sound barking mad. Ah, psh, it's all the turkey/chocolate/stilton playing tricks on my mind.

Anyway, today we still have presents left to open, a reluctant dog to walk and a veritable bounty of food to keep eating. But tomorrow the dreaded mocks revision must begin...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH...stressed, moi? Never...Anyway I will try to keep blogging during the holidays, building up posts for next year (how weird does that sound?! Also-2010...strange to be moving away from the whole 'two-thousand-and-' thing).

Enjoy the rest of your holidays!

Chloe Bello by David Bellemere

You know how people say something is 'achingly beautiful'. I never really got that until I saw these photos. I swear, I felt something inside of me go when I saw the last one. Stunningly beautiful.

Advent Four

Advent Three

Advent Two

(google.com; altamiranyc.blogspot.com)

Advent One

To get you (and me) in the christmas mood!

Rachel McAdams

I cannot express how much I love this woman.

Blake Lively-Eleanor Parker

Ever since I first saw this shoot with Blake Lively for American Vogue it's been nagging at my mind (and seeing as this was a spring cover-I think-that's a long time). The other day I finally realised who all the shots reminded me of: Eleanor Parker in The Sound of Music (one of THE most legend films of all time). Finding the answer to a really annoying, trivial question is possibly one of the most satisfying things in the world-like when you see an actor in a film who you recognise, but can't work out what other films they've been in. And then 5 hours later in bed you realise where you've seen them before, but you can't enlighten anyone else about your genius brainwave because they're all in bed. It is a mark of my incredible loser-ness that I often turn my light on and write a little note to myself so that I'll remember to brag about it to people the next morning...but anyway...Blake and Eleanor juxtapositioned here as a mark of my geniosity.

Hot Metal

I only bought Pop recently as I have been attempting in vain to stock up money for Christmas. FAIL. There are so many lovely editorials in the magazine, which will no doubt find their way on here eventually, but this morning I was having another flick through and was struck (again) by the strong sense of beauty and grace these photos convey, especially the second one. It's one of those photographs which tell a multitude of stories. Usually I disagree with the phrase 'a picture paints a thousand words', because although yes, one picture can convey an awful lot more than one word can, even a sentence or two read by a hundred people will evoke a hundred different interpretations, whereas with visual representations everyone has the same thing shoved down their throats. (You can see why my favourite subjects are ones which include long essay-writing, and why I dropped art as soon as I possibly could). But I find myself transfixed by said second photo-is she mourning? Contemplating? Slumped with defeat and yet radiating determination by the strong set of her neck? Or merely just striking an interesting pose which will best display her rather lovely jewellery collection? I guess we'll never know.

Pastel Pink

I took these in our front garden at the end of the holidays. I can almost feel the sun on my face when I look at them. Aaah, I miss summer!