a gold dust glow (on possibility).

So, you might've noticed that I’ve changed things about a little (design-wise) on the blog. A small tour: look up! I now have links at the top of the page. Look to your right: there are little social media buttons which you can click on. Scroll back to the top: the messy looking fake-shadow header is gone! I think it looks a bit more like a proper blog now. (What do you think?)

On the subject of change, here’s something I’ve noticed recently: it is possible. Change, I mean. Change is possible. Here’s how I know it: 

I used to hate ginger* and now I don’t.

After years of feeling queasy at the thought, I’ve started enjoying ginger beer... and Three Ginger Tea has risen up the ranks to become my favourite herbal tea (as I described it recently in a letter: ‘it’s very warming and leaves a tingle like gold dust at the back of your throat’).

Other things I used to hate and now don’t include: mushrooms, uncooked tomatoes, coriander, and red onions**. I now love all of these things (deeply. In a moment of unchecked sincerity, I recently told my brother: ‘I’m really passionate about mushrooms’. He laughed quite a lot. I suppose it was sort of an odd thing to say in retrospect). These changes are encouraging. They give me hope.

If my taste-buds can change their opinions on coriander – moving from a place of disgust (‘it tastes like sick’) to one of near-fervour (‘we must have it with EVERYTHING’***) – then maybe other parts of me can change. 

Like: my inability to hear alarms in the morning or the way my first instinct is usually to hide from/pretend not to notice people I’ve been hoping to speak to when I see them on the street (o! shyness, you wily fiend). Things like: my phobia of insects, or the issues I have finding shoes that fit, or the way I fall in love with impossible notions, or my habit of leaving things to the last minute. Maybe. We’ll see...

(NB. My feelings towards marmite will never change. Gross black salty concoction.)

(Pictures snapped on my iPhone. Notes:

*I’m talking about ginger, as in ginger-the-foodstuff, not ‘carbonated drinks’ or ‘individuals with red hair and freckles’.

**I still don’t really like raw red onions, but this has more to do with the way they linger powerfully on the breath post-eating than their actual flavour.

***Everything especially includes: chilli con carne, fajitas, and chicken and mushroom curry.)