In the country

It is one of my favourite songs by Blur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2BBfv9WK_w thugh Albarn definitely is better looking nowadays than at this time. Or maybe it is just his earring that irritates me like all male jewellery.

So when we got an invitation from Simon's sister to be whisked off for a weekend in her coutryhouse in Borders (it is a part of Scotland full of beautifull hills and ravines, dotted with sheep and an occassional castle or a ruined abbey here and there - provided many a spectacular view) in a jolly company of her 4 black labradores we immediately jumped on the occassion.

We had faboulus two days - the hostess is a great cook, her husband kept us steadily supplied with delicious drinks and doggies with their endless need of cuddles kept us happy and entertained. However to utter surprise of our hosts, even without much alcohol we had a solid, blissfull 12 hours sleep, blaming it on a clean air, egyptian cotton sheets, total darkness at night and no sounds from neighbours, traffic or partying pubgoers. Just choose the explanation you prefer.

I am missing having a dog.

P.S. Well, I really like this one too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riE-GI0PxnE&feature=related So nineties! They are much better live though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfjOmE81yDc&feature=related

Weird - I have an alter ego!

I have to confess - I have a dirty pleasure in reading fashion blogs. Some are visually better then others and my favourite one is definitely The Sartorialist who I came across about four years ago when he was not famous in la blogosphere (or a blogscape as Bryan Appleyard calls it) at all and I have been visiting his website ever since.

What was my surprise today when I came across his picture from a Patrik Ervell fashion show in NY and spotted...MYSELF! Well, not quite as I am sitting in Edinburgh instead of flanning in New York during the Fashion Week but still - I stared blinking with unbelief into my computer screen with thousands of thoughts thuding through my brain like big white elephants:

- someone looks like me (hairstyle, smile, gesture, clothes even (note my love for big scarfs!))

- has a life I could be having (fashionable? interesting? creative? full of passion? with a fascinating job?)

- looks good in big glasses (I have big glasses but I would rather wear lenses)

Merde! I better start to arrange these job interviews asap!

image by Scott Schuman via www.style.com

Lost in transit

We had to buy couple of things at B&Q at some point of our stay in Edinburgh. A friend advised how to get there but she knew only a car route. A trip in search of B&Q headquaters opened a whole new world of Edinburgh's suburbs to me.

We ended up in complete boondocks - on a wrong side of the motorway and on foot (as we usually travel by bus as our living in the city center aka 5 mins from college and all other city distractions, requires only a comfy pair of shoes).

In addition to that - the shop did not stock what we were looking for.

This spooky place looked like Kielce circa 1982! Luckily a bus stop was just accross the road - we hopped on it and happily returned into the core of the city.

Visiting artist

Scotland acquired marshmallow tits, oops Titians, and ECA's students decided to commemorate it in their own attempt at painting:

Happy Bday Charles!

Another Aquarius is celebrating his b day today, between our two b days - if Charles Darwin could have make it he would have been blowing 200 candles on his birthday cake!

Tha Natural History Museum in London is hosting the largest exhibion about work of this gentalman of science (well, word 'scinetist' was rarely used in Darwin's times so he was simply described as natrualist) who went down to Galapagos on board of HMS Beagle without any expensive, complicated equipment modern scientist seem to desperately require. The Museum also recently moved his statue into a proud place of their Central Hall where the Victorian gentelman botanist as The Sunday Times Magazine called him, replaced Richard Owen, the great 19th century biologist who was main critic of Darwin's scientific idea (and also the one who coined the term 'dinosaur') .

Darwin came to Edinburgh at 16 to follow his father's and brother's steps in medicine. He lodged in Lothian Street for two years when he found the lectures dull and tedious and afterwitnessing an operation performed on a child (imagine no anaesthetics, flood of blood and inhuman screaming) he was apalled and dumped his studies in terror. In Edinburgh he befriended a black man named John Edmonstone who taught him taxidermy and strenghtened Darwin's abolitionism opinions supported by scientist's fanatically anti-slavery family. Edinburgh at the time was a home to many black people, often former slaves who followed the plantation managers to Scotland. Some of them willing to make black people another species...

However I would like to write about Darwin not only as the man who, in Richard Dawkin's words made it intellectually respectable to be an atheist but also the one who almost did not make it with his On origin of species!

Not only was he haunted by a severe anxiety and intellectual torment all his life but he also almost have not published his revolutionary work. He gathered the evidence for the book that changed people's minds 150 years ago but foolishly he did not publish it fast enough. Now his work is being searched for plagiarism by a special software to see if he picked a pocket of a certain Alfred Russel Wallace who released his essay with a very simmilar idea a year before Darwin.

I am keeping my fingers crossed for Charles - he was after all a true British gentelman.

Celebrations

I have officially embraced another decade of my life today. I still do not feel like somebody in their 30ties and hopefully do not look like one but getting older will now have to be something that I have to put up with. Even red lipstick is ageing me now beyond belief so I will have to adapt so that not to look like an off duty transvestite who forgotten to wipe all the make up off.

I will have to think soon about a baby, a mortgage, a wedding (not especially in that order), ageing parents and new competitors whose hot breaths I feel constantly on my back.

We did not have time to celebrate today and I am not sure if I could survive a bash a la maniere katemossienne so today's post is illustrated with a picture of bangers and mash + posh afternoon tea at a Broughton Street cafe we had the other day.

Also a million thanks to my friends who bothered to call/send emails/texts - I love you all and thank you very much that you were able to stand me throughout all those years. I am wishing us all many more to come!

Cold

We have not managed to escape a traditional winter cold - first me, then Simon - therefore lack of updates. On top of all that we were really busy, working hard, sleeping not enough and it all took it's toll. We are slowly recovering. Very slowly. We are going to be better just on time to celebrate our birthdays (and Darwin's one between ours!) this week and deal with another studio photoshoot.

I know how upset I am with people that suddently stop posting so I will try to roll out of bed and post regularly again.

However I really liked being down with that cold - Liska provided me with a nice, uncomplicated book, very well written and easy to read which was not bothering my coughing head too much - I finally had time to read some of the tearsheets from the Sunday newspapers which were gathered in a big, sloping pile by the bed. One does not feel like getting out ouf nice, warm bed when it is dark and wet outside (as snow does not last here) and so cosy in the flat.

Winter diseaster

It has been the coldest winter in Britain for 18 years. The Met Office warns that there is going to be a DECADE of freezing winters to come because Earth is going through a "cooling" cycle. When my father was a boss at the road maintanance company they were usually running out of funding for gritt at this time of the year - there is apparently not enough salt in Britain to cover frozen roads. The owner of our favourite cafe accross the road has a stitched forhead as he slipped on an icy pavement and banged his head against the frozen ground. I am dreading the gas heating bill which is due next month...