Finally

Allow no shadow of regret to cloud you, 

No absurd grief to overcast your days. 

Never renounce love-songs, or lawns, or kisses 

Until your clay lies mixed with elder clay. 

- The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

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A year of twists and turns and beautiful surprises. It has taken me to many wild places - cotswolds, south downs, scotland, peak district - and inspired me to do many things, like writing, running & travelling solo, which have brought me enormous joy and audacity through the peaks and troughs. My darling family and friends have continuously been here to share lovely moments which made them multiple times better. To share picnics on the punt, long walks, noise and silence. To share books to read and music to listen and even better, hopes and dreams.

This is a year of introspection, a year when I finally feel having grown fully at peace with myself. Doing things at a balanced pace. Knowing that there's a right time for everything (Ecclesiastes 3). This is also a year when I received full communion in the Catholic church, witnessed by many old and new friends. The gift of faith has filled me with gratitude and strength ever since.

Finally, this is a year when I found love. A love that constantly gives and receives, a soul that understands the poetry before it is even spoken. I cannot wait to see how things will unfold for us in the next year :)

Thank you 2013 for the love & magic.

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Wild Places

here

“The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.”

- Katherine Mansfield

&

"Do you think there will be beer in Scotland? I can only imagine us putting down peaty-tasting whiskey while rain drives down outside & the sea is shrouded with mist. How well we shall get to know the antlered stag in the hall! The picture of Glencoe on the stairs! the crossed claymores in the bar!"

- Philip Larkin, Letters to Monica 

I cannot wait to leave the metropolis already - ditch the dress and don the boots. Matching hats, gloves and socks. Walk on the soil, make fire, feed ourselves with big pot of steeled cut oats with jersey cream. Whisky, lots of it to keep warm. Watch out for wildlife that cross our ways, talk, walk, silence, smoke, stars. 

Wilderness inspiration: Vanessa Jackman in Scotland, thinking about Christmas, the Lone Wolf Weekend by Kinfolk, Hard Leisure Walks of Snowdonia

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