orders.

Lady with the happy wrinkles: "I’ll have a plain scone, honey. And an earl grey tea."

Man with the red tie: "I’ll have nearly the same. I’ll have a fruit scone. And -- I’ll just take some of your house tea."

~ In work the other week 

♥

'House tea.' I thought that was quite a cute thing to say.

(Picture from: Emma Block.)

subtle.

William Strunk, Jr in The Elements of Style writes this:

'Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.'

I completely agree. I’m trying to get better at this, at chipping away at unnecessary thoughts, words, commas. Writing that is cluttered with too many obscure words and phrases feels a bit self indulgent to me. I think the best writing is hardly noticeable, it honours the ideas it gives form to.

I finished reading The Remains of the Day last week. It is an excellent book, very engaging, and I think it is because Ishiguro writes like this: with quietness. The most powerful moment in the book happens in a single sentence near the end of the story. It is perfect, but I would have missed it – a skipped beat in my heart – if the rest of the novel hadn’t been so muted. Really beautiful.

♥

(Picture from: here.)

I think I'll be six now forever and ever.

(Blowing bubbles on my 20^th birthday.)

Hello gentle ladies and men. Please accept my apologies for my lack of updating. I have been working a lot, holidaying, volunteering with 3 year-olds, and trying to shift a never-ending cold (excuse me while I go blow my nose). I have a lot to write. In the meantime though, I’ll leave you with a short conversation that happened while I was serving a bald man and his friend coffee yesterday.

♥

Bald man: "Sorry for asking, hen, but are you old enough to work here."

Me: "Yes. I’m actually twenty."

Bald man’s (cheeky) friend: "Twenty? What... inches?"

Oh how very hilarious.

♥

I can just about guarantee you that every day I go into work, a customer will tell me how young I look or ask if I’m still in high school. I like to shock them with the truth: ‘No no, I’m in university. Going into third year. I'm twenty actually.' (Bam!)

(...if I'm honest
though,
I can't
quite
believe it myself.)

What ho!

I’m just home from a week’s holiday to jolly England. It was splendid, and quite sunny – warm enough for carrying our coats about (rather than actually wearing them). There was one wet day though. A very wet day. Thunder and lightning and rain bouncing off the ground sort of wet. It happened to be the day that we had picked for an open-top bus tour of Bath.

This picture was taken while we all huddled under the shelter of ‘the Assembly Halls’, mustering up the courage to brave the rains. These boys had given up trying to shield themselves. There was no point - they couldn't get any wetter. Water dripping off their noses, shoulders hunched, feet dragging, amused (but slightly pathetic) expressions on their faces. Poor things. We also looked rather similar by the time we got back to the car. It was quite exciting though. There is something of the sublime about being caught in a rain shower.

♥

I called my Grandpa this afternoon, and was telling him a bit about the holiday.

‘We went to London one day and saw the Lion King, and another day we went to Bath and ---‘

‘Did you get wet?’ He asked. A husky chuckling tumbled into my ear through the receiver. (This sort of humour is rooted deep in the bones of all the male members of this famliy.)

‘Yes. Very funny. We did get wet in Bath.’