Things I love

This was an exercise in true boredom one Saturday afternoon when it was raining outside and I was feeling hopelessly anti-social. I know it’s bad to love “things” but I just can’t help myself!

And as is only fitting to my caring sharing personality, feel free to respond with a list or a link to your own list of things you can’t help but want to squish so tight to you that they become part of your skin.

I’ve always loved mix tapes; I used to make them straight from the radio – listening intently to the top 40 on a Sunday afternoon. Then as I got older they were a way of reaching out to friends, giving them a little of me to go home and listen to in the quiet of their own space. The songs always carefully chosen, always meaning something. I am very “High Fidelity” about mix tapes – gotta love that book/film if only for the man’s commitment to the tunes. Great stuff.

Knitting is a love that I had when I was a child and I used to watch my Mum knit. Surprisingly when I returned to knitting about 25 years after my mum first showed me the basics I remembered what to do…love that. Plus it sounds a bit wankerish but I also love the fact that it is a skill which links me to my Mum, my Nan, to all my female relatives reaching back in time. I like that when I knit, I knit knowing it’s been passed on and is being continued.

Robots!Cool. The cuter the better.

I am a huge fan of the whole peanuts gang, but particularly Charlie Brown. Wikipedia states that he is “a loveable loser, a child possessed of endless determination and hope, but who is ultimately dominated by his insecurities and a “permanent case of bad luck,” and often taken advantage of by his peers. He also has a sense of reality about him, usually making sarcastic jibes or using quick-witted remarks to point out the often ridiculous actions of some of the other characters”. I think I like him cause he reminds me of me. Oh the vanity, but it’s good to know I’m not alone 🙂

No explanation needed for Lindor...heaven in a little foil covered chocolate ball. And the box and foil is red. Bonus.

My bike – the tank that it is. Pashley Sovereign Princess. Gorgeous and practical…more so as I have lovely panniers on my bike too so can hulk loads about with me 🙂

Books, books and more books. The more books the better, let me drown in them, float in them. I’m inherently nosey and books allow me to live a million lives in just this single existence I get to have. Nothing comes close to a good book…well not many things!

Presents are the best – I enjoy giving them and receiving them. Surprises are the very best and I always like it when I have no clue what I’m getting.

On a comic book theme, these gorgeous rogues are amongst my favourites. Calvin and Hobbes were introduced to me by my oldest sister when I was about ten and I’ve loved them ever since. Their books are always full of quotes for every occasion and one I always love is this:

“Some days even my lucky rocketship underpants won’t help.”

That always makes me smile on the worst of days.

Now this pic has 3 things in it I love. First of all I love my bed, well beds in general. If I won the lottery I’d have a bed as big as a room and as elastic as a trampoline. Next is the picture above the bed; painted by Godfrey. I was his lodger and when I left I swapped my futon for this painting because I love it. It reminds me of my Grampa and Nana, as they always had daffodils in their garden, and my Grampa used to love them. Plus I love daffodils and all things to do with Spring. Finally the knitted bedspread is from my Nan’s house, and I inherited it when she died – it links me to her, to my childhood and reminds me I can always get better at knitting and crochet!

I dunno what it is about birds that I love; I think it might be when they fly that I love them because I’ve always wanted to fly. I like the shape of them, and like them as designs on t-shirts and jewellery. Love the sound of a wood pigeon as reminds me of being at my Grandparents caravan when I was a kid. Not so keen on them when they swoop too close, or try and steal my chips at the seaside though. Every love has its limits.

Fairy lights – cause they look magical, and I hate main room lights – lamps all the way!

I love the fact that I now know how to make patterns on knitted fabric – hearts a-go-go.

I’m a big fan of Burlesque (= nudity with pretty costumes. Cool!) and curves. I think I harbor a secret desire to be a burlesque dancer or maybe just a 1920’s music hall wench.

I’ve had to wear glasses since I was about 4; before that I was forced to wear an eye patch to try and correct the fact that one of my eyes just didn’t want to work. Big mistake; did nothing to improve my vision but everything to contribute to me frequently falling over. Despite that history, I love glasses and have taken to wearing them pretty much wearing them full time (I’ve flirted with contact lenses but I just love my face fashion).

Photography. Man Ray, Ansell Adams, Flikr, lomographs, camera phones, fish eye, it’s all good. Click away.

Meakin pottery! My Mum always says I should have been born in the ’60’s. Well, I can’t have that but I can have 1960’s coffee sets.

I love a good skull. I also like rainbows, though it’s a muted one in this pic. In general I like weird things like skulls, robots etc to be cute-ified and made to look pretty.

Gotta love a good cardy – keeps ya warm, helps ya look sharp (ish).

I want to live by the seaside, and one of my earliest memories is of Skegness with my family. Fish and chips, candy floss, crabbing, caravans, battery run black and white tv, afternoons spent on rowing boats. Classic.

I’m a big fan of helium balloons – the way they just float away until they’re just a tiny spec of colour. You can also make someone’s hair static, play football or keep-up with them and my dad used to hate them, as he’d swallowed one as a child when he’d sucked instead of blown. Hence blowing them up was an act of defiance and I used to love them for that alone.

Perhaps my favourite book of all time – The Great Gatsby. Concise and moving. I generally love F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing anyway – Tender is the Night is another amazing work, but just leaves me in floods of tears.

Female writers – just a selection of my favourites, from top left: Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker, Sylvia Plath, Iris Murdoch and Stevie Smith. Their words are often more real to me than life; they speak of things that can be too complicated to articulate for myself, yet they bring a promise of one day being able to express just a smatter of what they convey. Beautiful.