Happy Monday!

Well followers, I am officially back on the roads! (Well, sort of.) I've got the swish new car, just need to get the job now, then a place to live, then I can get insurance! Feeling VERY positive this week, friends! Also, my iPod headphones have officially bitten the dust, so as I got paid my little bonus this month, I treated myself to a pair I've had my eye on for over a year. They were a bit pricey, but I know they'll last. I've got through about 6 pairs of the cheap ones in the last couple of years so it makes more sense to just get a decent pair that will last. Anyway, here they are! I cannot wait to wear them!

Cheltenham

Here's Michael Hofmann's poem, 'Cheltenham.' I've recently discovered I'd annotated it in one of my books and forgotten how much I like it, so thought I'd share. Enjoy!

The nouveau oil building

spoils the old water town, spook town, old folks' town.

My old parents, like something out of le Carre,

shuffle round the double Georgian square

tracing figures of eight, endless figures of eight,

defected ice-dance trainers or frozen old spooks,

patinage, badinage,

reminiscence with silences.

Then a family event if ever there was one:

my mother reads my translation of my father,

who hasn't read aloud since his "event".

Darkness falls outside. Inside too.

Ted Hughes is in the small audience,

and afterwards asks my father,

whether he ever, like an Innuit,

dreamed of his own defeat and death.

My father, who's heard some questions, but never anything

like this, doesn't know Ted Hughes,

perhaps hears "idiot", gives an indignant no

in his miraculously clear English.

More laps of the marred green,

the pink sky silts down, a November afternoon

by the clock, his last in England.

The days brutally short; a grumpy early night.

Sunday

Exhausted is not the word, friends! This week has been so jam packed and flown by so quickly it is insane. I literally don't have a minute to spare for the next 6 days I honestly don't know how I'm going to cope. I don't want to say 'I just wish it was this time next week' because all the things I have planned this week are so exciting I want to stop and savour them, but I'm going to be knackered nonetheless. I will no doubt find some spare time on Friday to do a post about how everything went, but don't feel neglected if I don't post until then, but I'm going to be SO busy this week I need to even schedule my sleep! Off to pick up my new car tomorrow. HOORAY! I'm so excited. Its such a typical 'girls' car as well. Plus I've never seen anyone driving one in the colour I'm getting so that's an added novelty!


Im still ploughing through Tess Of The D'Urbervilles (it's not as great as it was at the beginning) but I'm determined to finish it over the next few weeks so I can do my review on it. So I think it's time for a cup of redbush tea and settling down with Thomas Hardy. I wish I was drinking one of these but never mind...


Hope your weekends were as exciting as mine!


F xo

Your Daily Dose Of The Doctor

PS22 Chorus

PS22 chorus are an acapella choir / vocal group in America of little kids who I absolutely LOVE. I subscribe to their youtube channel and love all their videos. Check this girl out, she's bloody fierce!

So...

For once in my life all aspects are looking pretty damn positive! Interview next week with a great company, might be getting a new car and there's a boy who thinks I am wonderful. I feel like I'm going to break into song! Full of nervous excitement. It's about bloody time I had some good luck, don't you think? So in honour of my good mood, I am dancing around to this song...

Love and Light

Monday, Monday

After a lovely weekend filled with fun and friends, it's back to work today. And it's raining. I don't let rain bother me much because I always tend to think that if we didn't have rain, then nothing would grow or be nourished. You can't have the sun without the rain!

Cupcakes!

Yesterday Lowri and I made some cupcakes. Check them out, they are so yum!

I Can't Stop Listening To

Such a beautiful song and it really resonates with me. I just love Taylor Swift, she's such a great story teller and a beautiful soul. Excuse the annoying video - it's a special edition album song so there is no official music video.

Want Of The Week

This week my want of the week is from Truffle Shuffle - one of my favourite websites. Their t-shirts are always so quirky and fit really well. I already have an Iron Man and a Marvel one but this one is definitely my want of the week. It's £20 (which sadly I can't justify.) Charlie Chalk was one of my favourite programmes when I was a kid and I still occasionally sing the theme tune. If anyone wants to take pity on me and buy it, that would be more than okay.

TGIF

I've just realised I haven't done a TGIF post for ages! So here is what I am grateful for this week...


1. My lovely Mummy for coming to visit me and cheer me up when I was ill.


2. My lovely friend Karla for spending most of the week with me and making me laugh. Also for getting us all in to Alton Towers for free tomorrow.


3. My new Topshop dress which has cheered me up immensely.


4. My friend Lowri who is coming to visit me tomorrow night. I haven't seen her for 3 years! So excited.


What are you grateful for this week? xo

Your Daily Dose Of The Doctor

New Dress

My lovely Mummy treated me to a new dress from Topshop this week to cheer me up as I've been ill. (And because I have a hot date in two weeks and needed something to wear!) So thank you Mummy, I love my new dress!

Crab

This is one of my favourite poems by Sharon Olds. It's so full of nostalgia and imagery from her childhood and has a really strong sense of place. I really love how it instantly pulls you into the moment and the use of colour. I hope you like it too!

When I eat crab, slide the rosy rubbery claw across my tongue I think of my mother. She'd drive down to the edge of the Bay, tiny woman in a huge car, she'd ask the crab-man to crack it for her. She'd stand and wait as the pliers broke those chalky homes, wild- red and knobby, those cartilage wrists, the thin orange roof of the back. I'd come home, and find her at the table crisply unhousing the parts, laying the fierce shell on one side, the soft body on the other. She gave us lots, because we loved it so much, so there was always enough, a mound of crab like a cross between breast-milk and meat. The back even had the shape of a perfect ruined breast, upright flakes white as the flesh of a chrysanthemum, but the best part was the claw, she'd slide it out so slowly the tip was unbroken, scarlet bulb of the feeler—it was such a kick to easily eat that weapon, wreck its delicate hooked pulp between palate and tongue. She loved to feed us and all she gave us was fresh, she was willing to grasp shell, membrane, stem, to go close to dirt and salt to feed us, the way she had gone near our father himself to give us life. I look back and see us dripping at the table, feeding, her row of pink eaters, the platter of flawless limp claws, I look back further and see her in the kitchen, shelling flesh, her small hands curled—she is like a fish-hawk, wild, tearing the meat deftly, living out her life of fear and desire.

Moto GP

Hello followers! I'm writing this from my bed of sickness. Been sent home from work today as I'm very poorly. I know, rubbish right? So I'm going to take a moment to have a rant about the Moto GP race from Le Mans yesterday. First off - I was utterly disgusted at the way that Casey Stoner behaved throughout. His attitude is getting progressively more and more shitty and he needs to grow up and stop acting like a petulant child. I am also annoyed at the fact that Marco Simoncelli (the one I've got my eye on this year and potential world champion) was given a ride through penalty for 'knocking' Dani Pedrosa off his bike. In my eyes it definitely wasn't Simoncelli's fault and no way should he have had to ride through the pit lane. It sucks because had this have not happened, Simoncelli would have definitely secured a podium. He did well though and finished the race at a respectable 8th. I suppose the silver lining is that Valentino Rossi secured his first podium of the season and was VERY happy about it. Here's a picture of Marco during happier times.

Its not like me to be gushy...

...but I have met a boy. And he is lovely.

So I made a cake...

After being sent a recipe from the lovely Katie Hilton I decided to make a Reeses Peanut Butter Cups cake this weekend. Check the final product! Its super delicious and yum.

Want of the week

So, I stumbled across this on the internet today and have come to the conclusion that I need it in my life ASAP.

Thor

So, I went to see Thor last night and IT. WAS. AWESOME. I love all of the Marvel movies and thought that it was approached in a really clever way. It still had elements of the original comic book story but was brought up to date with a modern twist and intertwining storylines which I thought was amazing. It also helped that Chris Hemsworth is a total babe. Can't wait for him to reprise as Thor next year in The Avengers. I just know it's going to be AWESOME.

Also...

If you have time, please check out the blog of the lovely Katie Hilton who is very talented and clever (and not to mention interesting.) If you like baking, you will definitely enjoy looking at all the lovely things she makes!

Mayday!

I can't believe it's May already. Just where exactly has this year gone? It doesn't seem a year since I was submitting my dissertation in at Uni and felt as though I had so much freedom and so many things to accomplish. I still feel like that a year on, except without the freedom. Hopefully this will change sometime over the next month or so. I've been doing some serious thinking and need to make some big decisions over the coming weeks. Let's just hope it all goes my way for a change and something good actually happens. At the moment I feel as though the last twelve months have been a complete waste of time and I've achieved none of the things I set out to achieve. But you live and learn I suppose. It was an experience, and I've had some fun. But there have definitely been more downs than ups so I think I'm well overdue for a dose of good luck.

Your Daily Dose of The Doctor

One day, he will realise I am the girl of his dreams...