well, kinda…emily mews and the department of mysteries has abandoned ship, and gone to a different blog site

so here you are: http://emilymews.blogspot.com/

happy new year, my dears!

oooh, it’s that time of year again! it’s christmas eve eve…the season is upon us! i am sporadically very festive and jolly and then quite nonchalant…or ambivalent…or something. i am in a tres good mood however, as i have my laptop back, after breaking my charger and having to wait for one to be delivered so my “life as a personality girl” experiment was not going according to plan…

so here, to get in the festive type mood, are some things i love about christmas…

christmas cake, marzipan, yule log, mince pies, gingerbread, turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing…yom yom yom!

people who you haven’t seen all year round come out of the wood work, you get to buy gifts for those you love, you eat large amounts of food with them! it’s all good, really!

there is magic in the air! strangers will wish you merry christmas in shops and doctors surgeries and the same old christmas songs that have been played for the last 20 years tinkle away in the background.

there are repeats of the snowman, miracle on 34th street and other wonderfully schmaltzy yet ever so slightly melancholy films and programmes. all because christmas was most important when you were a child in an already seemingly safe and happy environment and this was a time of year that was all about you! people are keen to get back to those more innocent times, but the melancholy shines through because we all know it is so difficult to get back to that fairytale christmas time…

it was very picturesque and beautiful in dylan thomas land, and i wandered around with the sound track of the edge of love in my head, in floral dresses and woolly tights pretending to be vera phillips…we were about ten minutes walk away from dylan thomas’s home, the boathouse, and his writing shed overlooking the loverly beachy views. the writing shed was a bit creepy to be honest, but in a good way- it has hardly been touched since dylan died, and i have no doubt they added the little touches like the tie draped over the chair, and a jacket on a stool, but it really helps to contextualise that dylan thomas actually lived, and wrote and was there.

i also met dylan thomas’s cat, bernard! well, a cat called bernard that lives in his house…

overall, i had a wonderful time wandering about with the lovely stephen, all bundled up against the cold. we ate fish and chips by a medieval castle looking out on the sea, and saw all the lovely animals at folly farm. will add pictures when they get developed!

laugharne caste (http://www.parsonspickles.co.uk/)

so now i feel a little too relaaaaxed, but very inspired, especially by the wonderful words of dylan thomas and by a certain vintage french children’s book i picked up in an antique book shop…blogs to come soon!

i spend a lot of time on various blogs. a LOT of time. or if i am not on them, i am fantasising about the beautifully bohemian lifestyles of  the lovely ladies whose blogs i frequent. Rhiannon of http://liebemarlene.blogspot.com/, Selina of http://flyingsaucer.typepad.com/, Mila of http://mila-loveology.blogspot.com/ to name but a few… how do they find the time to have such fantastically artistic careers, go on such beautiful outings and put together such stunning ensembles on a daily basis? this fills me with awe, with jealousy and with curiousity…could i live like one of these “personality girls”, as they are now known?

“We all love fashion, but use it to express our individuality rather than to fit in; we are artistically inclined and place high value in aesthetics, while maintaining that inner happiness is essential; and lastly, we all write about everyday events through the prism of our own experiences.”- Xenia of Doe Deere, http://www.doedeereblogazine.com/articles/category/blogging

well, this is just what i am attempting to do over the coming weeks, within my means! criteria or commonly found features on such ladies’ blogs are features of fashion, art and design, culture, music, literature, films, trends, “how to” features, themed photo shoots, daily outfits, adventures and craft projects, nostalgia and many other delights. i will be having a bash at some of these things to get a taster of how it feels to live the life of a personality girl!

this image is for a week long mini brief at uni (along with the other three projects we have no the go, i might add ) that related to the periodic table of elements. we were each assigned an element to illustrate and should spend no more than 8 hours from research to finished outcome. the image should be 12cm by 12cm, and use only black, white and the colour of the background of the element on the periodic table.

the element i was assigned was curium, a silvery metallic substance created by bombarding plutonium with alpha particles. it was discovered by marie curie and her husband, pierre, hence the name “curium’. although this seemed like quite an interesting element, it was quite difficult to get any visual mileage out of it due to the fact its only apparent use is in radioisotope thermoelectric generators which are not exactly household objects. i decided instead to go with the old adage “curiosity killed the cat”, modifying it to “curium killed the cat” as this radioactive substance would certainly damage an inquisitive feline.

so thar you go!

he is the librarian that sorts out my thoughts…

and he is the best! there he is!

i hadn’t posted in a while, so here is a snake preview (i know that is wrong, but it amused me to much to change) of my wee book, bertie and sad cat. enjoy!

doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?