He loved three things, alive

He loved three things, alive:
white peacocks, songs at eve,
and antique maps of America.
Hated when children cried,
and raspberry jam with tea,
and feminine hysteria.
…and he had married me.

~ Anna Akhmatova

I read some awful reviews today of The Delicious Miss Dahl, on BBC2, but I loved it as a lifestyle programme. She was better at picking poems than ingredients, and this one I just loved.

Rediscovery

I've rediscovered a lost pleasure: the dark humour of asofterworld.com. Below is their strip that I first saw on the back of the Guardian newspaper g2 when I was still at university. Definitely one to check out.

Being good at life

The boyf says I should do worthwhile things with my time, like blogging and running, so I decided to combine the two tonight and take photos of Regent's Park whilst running around it. Below is the gorgeous springtime on this beautiful sunny Tuesday afternoon, hampered only by the fact that iPhoto crashed during my upload and deleted half of them!

I love these birds - I think they are herons - lined up on the water's edge, surveying all the people walking past on the opposite bank. I think they've got the right idea, having a chill out by the lake whilst I lumber past sweatily!

The only surviving photo of blossom. Believe me, I took many, but maybe I'm not meant to save my beauty running moments.

Bridge over the lake.

Fallen in love with the city again

I took this photo whilst walking home yesterday evening with John after a gorgeous dinner at dim sum, one of our fave quick eats. At the moment the sun seems endless, as if it will be like this until September. I didn't get any photos of the sky without aeroplanes after the old volcano problem but I've now realised how many of our "clouds" are actually vapour trails. Weird.

Another star for the list and the next book hot on its heels

So, Milan Kundera's A Book of Laughter and Forgetting is pretty mental. I really enjoyed it, and the form of variations helped to keep the pace exciting, however after the end I was left with a single feeling: "What?" Following a bit of research (I googled a few book reviews) it turns out I wasn't meant to understand it... in fact, quite the opposite. In some places, I may have understood it a little too much (is Tamina a metaphor for Checkoslovakia? I don't really know enough about Checkoslovakia to make this claim, but I certainly noticed some similarities...maybe just me).

Next on the list, competing with The Wire (John and I started watching on Saturday and are already on Episode 5, but not as impressed yet with it as the Sopranos... I've been told it's a "grower") is this year's Booker winner, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, sent to me in the first class post by my Mum and pictured here with the beautiful coral nail varnish that I painted my toenails with yesterday evening whilst savouring the first page...

iPad and felines - a match made in heaven

Now, it is a personal crusade of mine to prove that cats are much maligned... people (wrongly) think that they aren't useful but instead are insular and generally snooty. Coincidentally these are also popular stereotypes that have been attributed to Apple products or their users.

But now, strangely enough, cats and mac users are beginning to unite over a common ground: the iPad, Apple's touch screen "thing." Hopefully this will bring about a wonderful revolution in which dogs are no longer allowed in parks - where I would like to have a quiet hummus picnic minus dog slobber once in a while - and cats will roam the earth bestowing their obvious genius onto the human race by showing us all what EXACTLY iPads are useful for.

If only Google Animal Translator hadn't been an April Fool.

I love the bit at about 1.29 where he looks at the camera as if to say: "What kind of rubbish app is this? Bring back the snake one!"

Next on the reading list is...

After getting slightly bored of Madame Bovary for the second time in my life, I am going to start reading Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. It was given to me a few months ago as a leaving FSG present by Becky and Christine, and has been hovering enticingly on my bookshelf ever since. What is more, at a family lunch on Easter Sunday, Katy, who I have not seen for over a year, recommended it after being given it by Mum (and technically me) one Christmas. She's now studying English Literature at Manchester University, which is like having a licence to read books, and I am insanely jealous.

A metrosexual at work

John takes a break from cleaning to drink some delicious wine.

Flowers

These are the first things that I have ever actually grown from scratch. On a chilly day in November we planted the bulbs and then, 5 months later, they turn out to be still alive! Success!

skiing