Oh my god, I just discovered vignette for android! And now I want to take lots of photos, of everything, all the time!
(as you can see the office is still in a state of “we just moved in”)
Life is interesting. Men in suits at Nokia World 2011 and Cardiff Central at 5 in the morning.
Haworth, 2005. I went out on my own, on a bus trip organised by some foreign students association in Manchester. It was winter, I hid in a tea room where the tables all had plastic table cloths and the staff weren’t very attentive. I did some interviews in the Bronte parsonage and the guide told me that “sensitive people” can start feeling spooked in the house. And sometimes Japanese tourists start fainting. I went out on the moors and felt happier than I had in weeks. When I came back to Manchester all I could think about was moving out to a tiny cottage on the moors, drinking lots of tea and writing books. I wrote this in my journal when I came back. I was 20.
The Brontë parsonage was a bleak stone house, next to the church and the graveyard. The study on the second floor overlooked toppled over gravestones and the scrawny trees trying to shield the dead from the living. There were crows everywhere and the church bells rang in unison with their croaking. I saw the sofa where Emily died, I stood in the room for a while and tried to ignore all the Chinese and Spanish tourists reading the guide books out loud. The sofa was green, the room was red, one of the museum guides told me people start crying in that room. She told me “sensitive” people can’t stay in there for too long. I felt emotional, I felt calm, I tried to imagine the sisters sitting in the candle light in that very room writing their books. I walked around the house and noticed that Emily’s bedroom was the smallest one, the walls were white and the window overlooked the church tower and its clock. I don’t think she spent a lot of time in there.I interviewed the museum guides and asked them about the moors. One of them told me not to go out there because it was getting dark and could be dangerous. I went anyway.
The guide, who I thought would be a bureaucratic unimaginative sort of old man told me Emily was connected to something transcendental, that she was a true mystic. This man was fantastic, he spoke about the sisters with such passion, he spoke about the moors and the house like he believed they were living beings.
The sun was setting over the moors and the graveyard and the wind was cold. I walked up a cobbled stone path and got a glimpse of the wilderness. Being out there was like standing next to the ocean feeling connected with something bigger. I ignored the cold wind and almost managed to ignore all the big dogs running around everywhere without leashes. I wanted to not care about the bus leaving and everything else and just walk out into the wilderness, into history.
Today I took the train to Trehafod and went down a fake mine, which was pretty dark and claustrophobic anyway. I read about mining disasters and felt quite sad. Hard to imagine those pretty hills were at one point covered in dark ash.
Slowly eating my way through all the nice cafes in Cardiff. Mmmm.. cake!
The lovespoon was given to a young woman by her suitor. It was important for the girl’s father to see that the young man was capable of providing for the family and woodworking.
Sailors would often carve lovespoons during their long journeys, which is why anchors would often be incorporated into the carvings.
Certain symbols came to have specific meanings: a horseshoe for luck, a cross for faith, bells for marriage, hearts for love, a wheel supporting a loved one and a lock for security, among others. Caged balls indicated the number of children hoped for. Other difficult carvings, such as chains, were as much a demonstration of the carver’s skill as a symbolic meaning.
” —I just found out about lovespoons. I think they’re pretty cool. (via Wikipedia)
Spent a very interesting morning and early afternoon in Aberdare and Hirwaun talking to miners. Towns still struggeling after the industry disappeared in the 80s and 90s. Still around 50 percent unemployment around the mine I visited. The miners are trying to bring jobs back on their own terms. Very inspiring and heart-warming.
Pretty Welsh countryside and the promenad in Aberystwyth.
Taken earlier today in Aberystwyth. The restaurant pub that will raise your blood pressure.
