SPRING-WISHING AND A CHANGE OF SCENERY

I'm craving an English spring and I am posting these photos to prove it. This sunshine-and-green-grass-deprived English lass is currently stuck inside on a cold, soggy day being inundated by weather warnings and reports of imminent freezing rain and snow storms. It is the 11th of April. Snow storms. 11th of April. Snow. April. SnowAprilSnAprowhdfgsjdhgfks ERROR: LUDICROUS CONCEPT NOT FOUND.

I took these pictures at the end of March three years ago, at the village pond by my house in England. It was mating week for the frogs and if I remember correctly I'd taken a walk up to the pond a couple of days before to find giant splashes everywhere and the deafening sounds of froggie mating calls. I'd come back with my camera to see if I could capture some of the craziness (I'd never seen anything like it), but even just a couple of days later the pond was much quieter. I wasn't alone, however: several local school children had come armed with nets and buckets and wellies to go a'frog catching. I got rather snap-happy and, upon discovering these pictures in my photo library this morning, I'm really quite grateful to have this documentation of a beautiful spring day in Hertfordshire. Can you feel that gentle breeze? Can you smell the damp grass? Can you tell I'm going slightly stir-crazy in this never-ending Canadian winter?!?!

I need a change of scenery, and although I'd like it in the form of springtime and I'd like it now, I found out in the last few days that I'll be getting a very literal change of scenery in a few weeks. On Monday I was offered a paid summer internship as a Production Assistant for the Works International Art Festival in Edmonton, Alberta. I had to make a quick decision, and after much discussion and worrying and investigating and help from family and friends, I took a deep breath and said 'Yes' to start on the 3rd of May. Why not? I am not a risk-taker in many respects, and sometimes that probably stops me living.  As anxious as I am to be going off and living on my own in a place I've never been to start my first ever full-time job, I have to see that this is probably a risk worth taking. The past 2.5 years have pushed me unwillingly outside of my comfort zone a lot, so perhaps this is an opportunity for me to take control: I'm outside of my comfort zone again, but this time I stepped out through my own choice. In the first few weeks of being 20 I've been given a chance to really stretch my wings and see what I'm capable of and, despite the nerves and worry and panic of it all, I'm grateful.

Soon I'll be Kitt the Britt moving away from the home away from home. I haven't quite wrapped my head around it all yet - that will come soon enough when I get the mother-daughter crash course in domestic management I'm sure - but I'm excited, if not a little anxious. Maybe the best way to describe my feelings is 'anxcited'.

Well, I wanted a change of scenery, non?

Kitty x

WORDS OF ART

Drum roll, please! This is my first official post listed under the heading 'Bibliofiles'. Every now and then, I plan on doing a wee bit of book-blogging - letting you know about what I'm reading, what I've bought, the books that make my world go round etc etc etc. Basically, I'm addicted to books and I intend to impose my obsession upon my blog readers, so if you're not a book lover then prepare to be converted!

This past week has been more book-centred than usual, now I think about it. Catching up with set readings for my classes doesn't really count in my book (excuse the pun, couldn't resist), but in my free time I've been reading Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. The film version with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet is one of my all time favourites, so reading the book again is just like catching up with old friends. I always find that books mean something different to me every time I read them, simply because my life experience is ever-growing and the more you live, the more you understand.

I also had the amazing opportunity to visit the Rare Books section of my University Library. I went with my Print-making class last wednesday and was completely in my element: a lot of books + a lot of history + a lot of beautiful prints and calligraphy = sweet, sweet bliss. The books were stored in huge, moveable shelves deep in the basement, the kind you see in those documentaries about family history archives. Walking down one of those narrow aisles was like walking into homesickness for me - it smelt of age and England and history and so many things I've grown up to treasure.

As if looking at beautiful books wasn't enough, in class my Print-making instructor taught us how to make our own books. We made four different kinds, folding and stitching them ourselves. Maybe I should have a 'Bibliofiles' feature on a step by step set of instructions for book-making. They aren't too difficult to assemble and there is something rather satisfying about leafing through the pages of your own little book.

Then this past Saturday, to complete my week of words, I headed over to the bookshop Chapters and had a good old browse. I spent a long time down the vintage fashion aisle - oh, the dresses! the hair! the  shoes! - but I left with a beautiful bright red copy of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and some of his short stories. I've already read both of the novels, but I've grown up raiding my Dad's library and I've realized I need to build up my own, beginning with the classics.

Both Jane Eyre and The Great Gatsby were so beautifully bound that I was inspired to gather together some of the most lovely books in my collection. These included Austen's Emma, Dickens's David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities, Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and Alcott's Little Women. If you particularly like a book and want to know who publishes that edition, leave a comment below!

If there's anything I love more than a book, it's a beautiful book.

I hope you all enjoy these lovely objects as much as I do!

Kitty x