Poppies

Most days I commute backwards – I live in the city and drive to the countryside, while all the more conventional workers speed past me in the opposite direction.

Lately I've been driving past these beautiful corn fields, all overrun with poppies, and have been desperate to stop and take photographs. On Saturday, I went back along my commute route and went for a wander through the fields beside the road. We had summer for a day, and I like to take advantage of these things.

I'm delighted with this dress from Mango – I've mentioned before how much I like their recent change of direction and move into a niche I've been desperate for someone to fill for a long time. Their designs are pretty and practical, with clean classic cuts that are cut for the shapely rather than the pre-twenties, as this New York Times article agrees.

My lovely new Thunder in our Hearts tote officially begins its summer service, and announces what I always try to keep in mind when I'm driving along with the rat race on my way to the office.

Goddesses

Lately, I can't seem to escape news and features on Mario Testino. King of celebrity (and royal) portraits, he has a retrospective entitled 'Kate Who?' opening in London in July, and the columns are sagging with the news.

His work is fairly uninteresting to me, but it did remind me about a set of 1930s portraits I found tucked away in a corner of the Guardian a while ago, promoting the considerably less column-worthy exhibition of the work of 1930s photographer Madame Yevonde, on in London until July.

Mrs Richard Hart Davis as Ariel & Lady Anne Rhys as Flora


Mrs Anthony Eden as Clio & Lady Bridgett Poulett as Arethusa


Mrs Brian Guinness as Venus & Margaret, Duchess of Argyll as Helen of Troy

All photographs taken from the Guardian

This exhibition focuses on a series of 1935 photographs in which 1930s society women (the majority known predominantly by their husbands' names) portray Classical heroines in these experimental colour portraits. Here we have Clio, the muse of history, portrayed by Beatrice Beckett, the wife of the future prime minister Anthony Eden, and Margaret, Duchess of Argyll as Helen of Troy (ironically she is best known for her scandalous divorce from her Duke in 1963 after an affair).

The images are in many ways far more interesting than the results of Mario Testino's famous ability to get his subjects to strip off – Madame Yevonde adds layers, and through the veneer of these otherworldly characters, highlights the contrasts between the independent mythical goddesses of old and the 'goddesses' of the early twentieth century.

Book Guilt

Photograph by marcinéma via Book Lovers Never Go to Bed Alone

Foyles bookshop came to Bristol, and I was so excited that I wanted to queue outside for the opening. At work instead on opening day, I waited until the weekend, dragging Ben down into town with me for my intended statement of support for the miserable book trade. I knew what I wanted to buy, and I was going to buy it, at cover price, from a brand new book shop. I work in publishing and I was going to set an example.

I got there. It was beautifully laid out, but not very busy. I browsed and flicked pages and pointed things out, and settled on the books I wanted. Wandering around the shop with them in my hand, I realised gradually that I couldn't go through with it.

By apozapox

By Azrasta

I think I'm ruined for bookshops. Spoiled by Amazon, too used to glorious second-hand bookshops and spoiled by internet undercutting. Even my guilt didn't stop me from buying both of my chosen titles (for the price I would have paid for one in the bookshop), from the Amazon machine. I was reminded of my guilt by this New York Times visual of beautiful cover designs that were discarded along the publishing way – it's a perfect illustration of just how much time and energy goes into every book, and puts my miserly attitude to shame.

One day, I tell myself, when I have the means to do it, I'll go back into one of those new bookshops and I'll put all this right – the problem is, by then there might not be any of them left.

Country Garden

Driving through the countryside, you peer through the green privacy hedges and elbow your boyfriend in the ribs and say 'hey, look at that one', pointing at another beautiful country mansion, set back from the road, covered with large windows and ivy and architectural curiosities. Then you see a village cricket bowler run towards his batsman, watch the ball hit for six and call the score for the benefit of everyone else in the car, interested or otherwise.

Sometimes, if you are lucky, these hidden houses are open to visitors, and you can drive up and explore their gardens all you like. It's an addiction surprisingly simple to cultivate on a hot spring day with little else to do.

This garden wander was the weekend of the wedding – my royal blue velvet blazer adds a touch of unintended regency I think. It was an outfit I wore all around London too when I went to visit this past weekend. In true royal fashion, it's an outfit that likes to be leisurely both in the city and in the countryside.

Details

As I sat on the floor scrubbing the skirting boards, about an hour or so after Ben had looked at me pityingly to say that on his list of things to clean, the skirting boards were quite far down, I realised that I'm definitely quite obsessed by the little details.

I've mentioned my appreciation of clean lines and subtle detailing before, but I hadn't realised the extent to which it ran. Lately, I've been chasing these geometrics and little details around with my camera, and these pictures are the result. I took them in Ben's parents' house a weekend or so ago (an early seventeenth-century house is full of fine details – beams, uneven walls, tiny doors – it has them all).

Aside from my recent detail fanaticism, a few other things I have been enjoying this past week are this man's skill at photographing people (found via his photographs of a riot that happened nearby this weekend) and this website's free stream of the new Fleet Foxes album, which I find a little too much at times, but perfect at others.

Linen

'I don't really mind where we go, I just like old things.' I said, last Sunday, on the warmest day of the year. We went to Hampton Court Castle, a 15th-century castle within its own gardens – a vista around every corner.

This garden, with its high red brick walls was almost everything a Frances Hodgson Burnett girl might wish for – walls too high to see over and wrought-iron gates – all that was missing was the secrets and the mystery, and a bit of overgrowth. The colossal entrance fee did little to help the mystique along, but old couples sat grumpily drawing on benches, and around every hedge was a different conversation to eavesdrop on.

I came across this dress entirely by surprise in a charity shop a week or so ago. It has been so long since I found anything worthwhile that I'd almost given up trying. It's French linen, and has a very pretty line to it. The wide pleats are perfect.

The label tells me that it comes from Cannes, which conjures film festivals and swishing along promenades and harbours with a little dog and stiletto shoes. As I possess neither, I stick to my gentleman's flats and add a headscarf, and pretend anyway.

Year

Last week marked the year anniversary of the beginnings of this blog. I, after a year of trying to be a freelancer and occupying my sudden unusually large amounts of free time with blogging, was up to my elbows in work, and didn't notice. Or rather, I did notice, I was just too busy to do anything to celebrate it.

When I started writing this blog, I had just quit two jobs in two months. The former I had done for nearly three years, the latter, three weeks. I cried both times I gave notice - I'm not awfully good at quitting..

The day after I quit my second job, I spent a whole day reading blogs, being amazed at the ingenuity of them, and poring through their archives like a person obsessed, (Fieldguided, Lulu Letty & Liebemarlene in particular, I recall). I felt terribly guilty about not having achieved anything that day, and decided that the only way to legitimately spend my time reading blogs was to write one myself. Then I'd feel like I was achieving something.

I kind of think, after a year of blog post induced galavants around the countryside, obsessive photograph taking, and time spent finding ever more inspiring blogs to pore through, that I have.