In London, the weather would affect me negatively. I react strongly to light...

...If it is cloudy and raining, there are clouds and rain in my soul.

-Jerzy Kosinski

How true this is! Sometimes, there really is nothing more depressing than a cold, grey January in England. The chill deep in your bones that makes you shiver even under your thick layers every time you step outside... the constant grey drizzle... the utter blankness of the sky... the way it gets dark at 4pm. Ugh! I'm like a sunflower, my sweets - I miss the sunshine so much. I need some warmth on my skin again.

What I wouldn't give to be somewhere like this right now...

I long to dip my feet into a warm ocean, as gloriously blue as the sky above...

...Take a dip with the turtles and a shower from an elephant's trunk...

...Recline on a lounger or a lilo, bobbing on the gentlest of waves, reading my favourite works of fiction...

...Languish in a luxurious bath on a bright July morning...

...and perhaps visit a little cafe on Santorini for a mid-morning cocktail...

*Sigh!* Wouldn't that just be heaven?

My longings are even more frustrated by my friends, currently surfing on the beach and living in a gorgeous bowered garden in Taghazout...

...or swinging off ropes into waterfalls in Thailand, a la Swiss Family Robinson...

Since I cannot join them, I've been lulling myself to sleep with these gorgeous visualisations: a paradise island massage on the beach, or a tropical relaxation, are particularly summer-y!

"I wish we could spend July by the sea, browning ourselves and feeling water-weighted hair flow behind us from a dive. I wish our gravest concerns were the summer gnats. I wish we were hungry for hot dogs and dopes, and it would be nice to smell the starch of summer linens and the faint odour of talc in blistering summer bath houses… We could lie in long citoneuse beams of the five o’clock sun on the plage at Juan-Les-Pins and hear the sound of the drum and piano being scooped out to sea be the waves."

-Zelda Fitzgerald

Love, sunhats and freckles xxx

What we want is never simple. We move among the things we thought we wanted...

...a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names -
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache...

-Linda Pastan

Just saw this movie at a free preview, and it was spectacular. An utterly modern love story that was so strikingly true-to-life and natural, it frightened me. It broke my heart - but in a beautiful way, with a very Before Sunset-ish open ending...

"There is a question I have been wanting to understand the answer to, but have been feeling that I simply can’t ask. Eventually I just ask it anyway:

'Do you think there was a part of you that imagined the two of you would somehow end up together?'

Immediately, I wish that I hadn’t. The look on her face - a kind of juddering visceral alarm at what has been said… I don’t wish to see that look many more times in my life. 'That would make me way too sad to answer,” she says quickly, and I hurriedly begin another question, about something completely different, hoping that if I say it fast enough these new words will chase the old words away from where they are hanging in the air between us, and maybe she will let me pretend that it was something I never said.

'No, no,' she says, and I can see the tears forming, and I think she means that she doesn’t want to answer any more questions about anything. I mutter some kind of apology under my breath.

But, even now, I’m wrong about everything. Mostly she is just trying to stop my new question. She has something to tell me.

'No,' she says. 'I said it would make me too sad to answer but it’s also…' - and she nods even as her voice breaks once more with tears - '…one of my favorite things to imagine.' And through the tears, a beaming, almost beatific smile stretches room-wide across her face. 'It’s actually one of my favorite places to visit.'

-Michelle Williams, about Heath Ledger

Really, really want to see this, too...

Love, daisy chains and wedding dresses xxx

PS. New post [on forever blowing bubbles!] is up on Wedding Design Anarchy - I love you more than I can say for all of your kind comments, which the bosses have noticed!!

If you ever have children, tell them they must always be drunk...

"...Drunk on love, drunk on poetry, drunk on wine, it doesn’t matter. This world is too goddamn painful to waste a second of your existence sober."

-Ben Hale

"I'm still here, chief!"

Please accept my sincere apologies for my absence of late. Life has been chock-a-block full these days - reading up on why the Virgin Mary is comparable to contemporary porn stars [to do with the evacuation of humanity and objectification by the male subject, apparently...!], baking cakes with The Boy, doing a LOT of yoga, and dancing the night away in my down time!

But I am taking a break from thesis reading for a breakfast Buck's Fizz [well, it's a shame not to waste the remainder of last night's cava...!] and a toast to a life of Sparkles & Crumbs! What makes such a life? Small pleasures every day in the short term, and grand hopes for the future!

Yesterday I attempted to bake The Boy some cupcakes, but I forgot to get any cupcake cases, so each one ended up having a very wide, crispy top layer... I chopped them up and turned them into little cake/biscuit bombs, slathered in pink icing, but they still weren't exactly a work of art...

In a funny way, my little CB-bombs perfectly embody ME! A mess of a daydream, bursting with enthusiasm, with extra icing right at the centre! And, yes, they are certainly quite a sight scruffier than an amazing creation by, say, Amanda Cupcake [IF ONLY I could bake like this!!] - but they still tasted pretty sweet! And they are certainly unique!!

Which dessert perfectly epitomises YOU, beloved??

Love, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and waffles xxx

PS. My latest post for Wedding Design Anarchy is up - this time, paper wedding dresses!

Though I often looked for one, I finally had to admit that there could be no cure for Paris

Bonjour, my beloved rose macaroons!

First of all, a GINORMOUS 'MERCI' and a big kiss for all your kind comments and support for my first posts as an 'official' wedding writer! I do hope you'll keep reading, because it truly is a Sparkles & Crumbs kind of site. Chic Weddings' philosophy is: "Never forget who you are and what you love" - go crazy and be creative, glamorous and extravagant! Well, thought I, I can certainly get behind that!

Now, to show my gratitude, I just had to share this with all my UK-based readers:

3 nights in Paris - including a Eurostar return journey - for £129!

What a deal!

But make haste, my darlings - the offer ends in 4 days!

The Boy has refused to take three days off for a romantic getaway during term-time, so I shall continue to daydream in vain of the bright lights of gay Paree... *sigh!*

One day we're gonna live
In Paris
I promise
I'm on it

When I'm bringing in the money
I promise
I'm on it

I'm gonna take you out to Club Showcase
We're gonna live it up
I promise

Just hold on a little more

And every night we'll watch the stars
They'll be out for us
They'll be out for us

And every night, the city lights

They'll be out for us

They'll be out for us

One day
We're gonna live in Paris

I promise

I'm on it

I'll find you that French boy,
You'll find me that French girl
I promise
I'm on it

So go and pack your bags
For the long haul
We're gonna lose ourselves

I promise

This time next year will be forevermore

And every night we'll watch the stars
They'll be out for us
They'll be out for us
And every night, the city lights
They'll be out for us
They'll be out for us

~

Go live your Parisian adventure, ma cherie - and tell us all about it!

Love, the Left Bank and Laduree xxx