The Language Magpie (S is for...)

The word in question in this edition of the language magpie isn't technically a real word. It was coined by John Koenig of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a compendium of words for emotions we may all feel at one time or another, but which currently do not have a naming word attached to them. One of my favourites, and one that I was reminded of a couple of weeks ago is Sonder.

Sonder is defined by Koenig as:

"The realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own"

I had this realisation, and a moment of overwhelming sonder after looking around an antique shop in Norwich a couple of weeks ago. Amongst the glass bottles, suitcases, books and 60s curtains there was a huge box of photographs and postcards. There were holiday snaps, wedding photos, dodgy family groups, picnics and beach scenes; hundreds of snippets of peoples lives packed into a box and on sale for 50p each.

I'm completely fascinated by who all these people are and, even more than that, how their memories ended up muddled up with those of strangers in a box rather than cherished in a family album. That little thatched cottage was obviously important enough for one of those precious 24 (or sometime 25 if you were lucky!) shots on a 35mm roll of film, so how did it end up here?

There's a particular image which I keep thinking about (and I kind of wish I'd bought) It's the one you can see in the photo above of the middle aged couple at what appears to be a wedding. Assuming I'm right, and the photo was indeed taken while the guests were waiting for the arrival of the bride, I wonder how the couple in photo were related to the newlyweds. It looks like it might have been taken in the 80s, which is when my parents got married. I wonder if the couple had children, if they did they'd be about my age. I wonder if I know them? I mean, the chances are pretty slim, the photo might have been taken anywhere in the country but you never know. All we know for sure is what's been captured in that frame, but those two people, and all those other people sitting around them were children once, the went to school and got told off and dreamt of what they'd be when they grew up. They got jobs and bought houses and shopped for lawnmowers and bread and wedding outfits. And even more mind-bending is that their lives continued after this photo...they danced at the reception, they got taxis home, sent their films off to be processed then looked fondly at the photos when they popped through the letter box, maybe they even framed some of them. I wonder if they're still alive. It's a strange and morbid thing to think about, but I wonder if that's how their photo ended up in a box...

This feeling happens quite often when I'm on the bus, I'm usually focused on just getting home, planning dinner and getting under a blanket (which I've been, not very ecologically, putting in the tumble dryer for a few minutes - heaven!) Sometimes though, a little snippet of conversation will catch my attention and I'll remember that all these people are heading home too, to their families, or pets, or just to their own thoughts. I recently heard a man reassuring his wife that he would be fine, that there was an M&S readymade lasagne in the fridge and he hadn't eaten all of the meals she'd left for him yet so she could stay away for another night and he'd be just fine! There's a woman I see quite often who's been knitting something red for the last few weeks, and two students, one who is clearly totally in love with the other (who unfortunately seems to have no interest!) It's weird to imagine that these people have lives after they leave the bus, that life isn't like playing a computer game where once you've walked out of a scene it dissolves away behind you and only the moment you're currently in exists. It's a bit like that old philosophy question, if a tree falls in the woods and there's nobody to hear it, does it still make a sound? My husband would try to answer this scientifically with some technical response about sound waves and the inner ear, but really - does anything really happen if theres nobody there to notice? This is making me want to re-read Sophie's World, which if you haven't read - you really must!

I've found a couple more 'words' in Koenigs dictionary that resonate with patterns of behaviour or emotions I have too:

Jouska - hypothetical converstations that you compulsively play out in your head.

Ambedo - a kind of melancholic trance in which you become absorbed in sensory details, briefly soaking in the experience of being alive, and act that is done purely for it's own sake.

Anemoia - nostalgia for a time you've never known.

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Currently Coveting - Wednesday Wishlist

It feels like a very long while since I've written a wish list! With the addition of The Language Magpie on alternate Wednesdays, then my complete failure to notice the passing of Wednesday last week I suppose it has been quite a while really. 

This week calls for a general round up of bits and pieces I've spotted over the last few weeks. So, without further ado, here are five bits of beauty I am currently coveting: 

1. Leon Happy Salads - Jane Baxter and John Vincent 

I have long been a fan of Leon, and vividly remember the day I fell in love with the cookbooks, both from a foodie perspective and also from the point of view of someone who adores the way a book feels, smells and is photographed and designed (Also, if you include stickers in your book I'll pretty much snatch it our of your hand) 

A Little Free Library (The Joy of Books)

As per the norm, I was browsing Pinterest a while ago and stumbled upon this image of a 'Little Free Library.' At the time I didn't click through to find out more, I just pinned it because I thought it was a genius idea, and a great way to share the books you've loved.

I have some odd attachment issues with books. We recently worked through Marie Kondo's (cult?) classic 'The Life Changing Magic of Tidying' but when it came to the part when we had to remove books from our lives if they didn't spark joy, we both stumbled. Books will always spark joy, even if I haven't yet read the words. It's the smell of them, the texture of the pages, the weight and the thickness, the binding, the illustrations, the promise of adventure and another world within....all of those things can spark joy before I've even read the synopsis.

I recently picked up 'The Pier Falls' by Mark Haddon simply because I was drawn to the colours on the dust jacket and it looked like it would feel nice in my hands. 20 minutes later I was sitting on the floor in a crowded London bookshop watching the harrowing sight of a wooden seaside pier collapsing into the sea and causing the demise of hundreds of people. I'm yet to read anymore of the short stories contained within that book - for all I know they could be hopeless, but I could never part with it now because of those 20 minutes where I fell utterly in love.

Speaking of love, I of course must mention Harry Potter. J K Rowling's magical world of dragons and wands, potions and professors, and her stories of friendship, love and courage have been a huge part of my life since I was 11. I'm nearly 28 now, and I still know Hogwarts as well as I know my own house, I fall asleep each night (much to my husbands dismay in the early days of our relationship) to the sound of Stephen Fry, transporting me back to that place. It's not really a 'safe' place, the stories are full of heartbreak and anger and tragedy and I don't even really listen to the words anymore - I've heard them hundreds upon hundreds of times, but I could be in a different country, with nobody I knew, up a mountain even (yep, I dragged the contents of Hogwarts up Kilimanjaro with me) and I will immediately be at home. I've got about 50 copies of the Harry Potter books, different covers, different illustrations, even different languages - yes that's excessive and they take up a huge amount of physical space, but can I part with them? What do you think...

For the most part though, I'm not precious. If I lend a book to somebody, I like it to come back looking as though it's been read, with the corners turned down and the spine cracked open, maybe with a water marked corner where it's slipped into the bath or with biscuit crumbs trapped between the chapters. I like to know that it's been devoured and loved in just the same hungry way as I have loved it. Which is why, as much as I find it hard to part with them, I think the idea of sharing the books you've enjoyed with strangers from a 'Little Free Library' is fantastic. Not only do you get to pass the joy around (which is the exact ethos behind The Salted Tail) but imagine opening the library up to find someone had left their own dog-earred and damp friend for you to discover too.

I went back the the image above, and clicked through to Apartment Therapy which in turn led me to Little Free Library. I had no idea how big it was! It turns out there are over 40,000 Little Free Libraries around the world! The website has plans to build your own, or of you are within the U.S you can buy a readymade little library and start you own literary adventure right outside your house/shop/community centre/church - anywhere really! Their aim is to promote reading in children, literacy in adults and as many libraries as possible around the world!

A quick Pinterest search later, and I learned that not only are there thousands of little libraries out there, but some of them are also rather amazing...

This one built by Kelly Rae Robert's Dad has a childrens library annexe! Words can't quite describe how much I love that! 

This one I spotted at Design Vagabond and is cleverly designed to be waterproof, and totally immersive -  and it's so playful! It has little peep holes all around the edge so you can peek in before you duck under and start searching for your next book. 

This one, designed for Chronicle Books is inspired by the architecture of The Sea Ranch, California and has a living roof. Air plants and books in one cleverly designed space - yes please! 

This one might be the best one of them all. It's a little bigger than your average Little Free Library, but what a fantastic use for a disused telephone box! The parish council bought the telephone box for £1 and the villagers of Westbury-sub-Mendip in Somerset set about turning it into a library and stocking it with books! 

The quiet please sign really did make me smile! 

Don't you think it's just the best idea! Our little village in Norfolk is full of honesty boxes selling eggs, plants and vegetables, so I think a Little Free Library could work really well here! 

Could I be persuaded to donate any Harry Potter books to it though...we'd have to wait and see! 

Eat Yourself Happy (Recipe Book Round-Up)

So, last week I had a day where I could quite happily have dissolved into a big puddle of shaky self doubt, poured myself into bed and stayed there for the rest of the day.

I sat in front of my computer for almost five hours, with a very productive looking list of emails to send and various HTML issues to tackle beside me. Somehow though, I managed to spend until 2pm in my pyjamas, alternating between refreshing my Instagram feed, wondering why people weren't reading my posts, and shouting at the screen when I made everything vanish trying to tweak my blog template with no real idea what I was doing.

That horrid self-doubt became the over riding emotion of the day - I have no idea what I'm doing!! A few days before I was so full of enthusiasm and optimism for this new journey we're about to set out on, but today I wanted to hide from the world, delete this whole stupid blog and get a normal job.

Currently Coveting - Wednesday Wishlist {The Bookshop Edition}

You may remember last weeks wishlist featured a few items I spotted while I was in London a couple of weeks ago. During this trip, my friend and I somehow ended up spending over four hours in a single shop! This isn't unheard of for us; we once spent seven hours in the Leeds branch of Ikea and came out a little unsure as to which way was up, and with a giant paper lampshade to transport back to my student house on the bus!

This time though, it wasn't Ikea, but Foyles. I truly love this bookshop - it's got the ease and comfort of a Waterstones but with the exciting and unusual range that an independent bookshop offers. Whenever we're both in the city, my friend and I usually arrange to meet somewhere inside the Waterloo branch, and this time we made plans to visit the new flagship store on Charing Cross Road. We actually ended up in there twice, once around 15 minutes before closing time where I hastily grabbed a couple of magazines to add to my collection, and we decided to come back again for lunch and a proper browse the following day.

This we did, and at first we bi-passed the books in search of lunch! We were really impressed by the cafe: locally roasted coffee, lovely salads and soup made in the little kitchen you can see behind the counter, and possibly the best iced hibiscus tea ever! And so, here we stayed for the rest of the day....

The shop has 8 floors. Yup, 8! I've since learned that there are approximately 200,000 different titles and that they are displayed on over four miles of shelves. So it was easy to get totally lost among the pages. I was most impressed by the vast array of craft, design and cook books on the basement level and I really enjoyed the way the magazines and journals are displayed along side the books in their relevant section.

I managed to be somewhat restrained and only bought a few things: Betty and Lunch Lady Magazines, The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon (from which I read the first harrowing short story, sitting on the floor with my mouth wide open...it's great, read it!) and Sewing Happiness by Sanae Ishida which I've been wanting to have a proper look at since hearing Kate of A Playful Day talk about it during a podcast - it's so perfect it needed to be mine!

There were several more it was a struggle to leave behind, but I put them back on the shelves, decided to compile them into a special books edition of the wishlist series, and have vowed to dig out my library card - we are in danger of filling up our house with books then having the bank take it away because we don't have enough money left to pay the mortgage!

They were as follows:

The Trainable Cat by John Bradshaw and Sarah Ellis -  This is a slightly strange one I admit, and I think our cat Pastry is already pretty happy with his life of sleeping and eating! However, I spotted a few tricks and ideas that I think would be really useful, so I imagine there would be many more throughout the book. For instance, Pastry does't go outside, so we have to trim his nails. We usually do this while he's asleep but the book explains how to train your cat not to fear the clippers and eventually willingly let you trim their nails! I'd be really interested to read the whole book and see what else we can do to make our daft little puff even happier!  

Review: Big Magic - Creative Living Beyond Fear

Yesterday I finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert's most recent book 'Big Magic - Creative Living Beyond Fear.'

I've only read one other book of hers, the ubiquitous 'Eat Pray Love,' and I will always remember the weekend over which I both read the entire book and watched the film adaptation (I was still living with my parents and had an entire weekend in the house alone, burning candles, spending hours in the bath and if I remember rightly eating copious amounts of sweet potato chips and hot chocolate.)

I adored it, I finally felt like a grown up, and while lots of it became firmly entrenched into my very being, I didn't have the huge epiphanous feeling that my life had been changed forever that many people seem to experience after reading it. I didn't want to run away to Bali, and while travelling around Italy eating is incredibly appealing, I think it just made me feel quite satisfied with my own adventure at that time in my life.  

Big Magic has been very different though. Whether it has lined up perfectly with my life by mere coincidence, or if it has come to me just at the opportune moment by some kind of divinity I can't be sure, but the epiphanous moments have been plenty, and it had most definitely changed my life.

The Year In Books {March}

Reading my February choice for Circle of Pine Trees 'The Year in Books' post accidentally crept into March. This happened for a number of reasons, one being that unfortunately my life hasn't had much room in it for reading, as much as I've being trying to carve out the odd few minutes here and there, and secondly that I just stopped finding it compelling. 

When I first started reading, I was totally hooked, and found myself reading beautiful sentences aloud to my husband. However, in my February post I wrote that I was beginning to find the writing a bit irksome, and this feeling intensified the more I read. There's almost too much going on, simple sentences are fluffed out with lots of adjectives, and the smilies and metaphors (beautiful as many of them are) are so frequent I stopped appreciating their beauty and found they just got on my nerves. 

It's a shame, because the story is great and, as I said, Joanna Cannon has a real way with descriptive writing, but there was just too much flowery language, and not enough depth to the characters for me. I think if you're into a mystery, it's worth reading for the 'whodunnit' (which I won't give away) storyline and there is some really stunning imagery, but I didn't love it like I wanted to. 

So, onto my March choice! I can confidently say I am the only person reading this title this month (well, as part of the challenge anyway!) 

It's called 'Rut' and is the debut novel from my very talented, very best friend in the world Laura. She wrote it last November during NaNoWriMo (yup, 50,000 words in one month!) and I don't think I'm being biased when I say it's awesome! I'll review properly when I reveal my choice for April, but if you'd like to read some of Laura's work, you can find some short stories here.

The Year in Books {February}

As you may remember from my January post, this year I am taking part in Circle of Pine Trees 'Year in Books' project, a year long personal project, in which you challenge yourself to read one book (at least) every month, and share it online if you wish.

My January choice (post here) was The Island of Adventure, from Enid Blyton's Adventure series. Oh how I adored it, and reading it has rekindled an old love of mine too. When I was younger, I read and re-read the Famous Five series, and listened to The Faraway Tree stories on audio cassette every night while I fell asleep, but this was the first of the Adventure Series that I'd come across. Since reading The Island of Adventure, I've become a bit obsessed with Enid Blyton all over again, and have been listening to audio books I've found on Youtube non-stop.

I love the language used throughout all her books - "Oh, do let's go, what a fine time we shall all have together." I love that as an adult I can almost hear my grandparents talking about their own childhoods while listening to the adventures the various children encounter during the long summer holidays, allowed to play outdoors and explore the world on their own.

I love that a tea of plums with new bread with butter is described as a 'feast' (and why not!) and that every child in every story is expected to help out with the chores at home before being allowed to have time to themselves. It's interesting too, that 'George' (one of the Famous Five) who's full name is Georgina, prefers to wear boys clothes, use a boys name, and generally identifies as male, and nobody bats an eyelid, even referring to her affectionally as 'Master George.' For an author published in the 1940's, Enid Blyton was clearly ahead of her time!  

Anyway, onto my choice for February! At the beginning of the month, Laura (of Circle of Pine Trees) proposed that for one month only, everyone who fancied it bought/borrowed and read the same book, and joined her, and the author for a live twitter chat on the 14th of March. I scurried off and pre-ordered 'The Trouble with Goats and Sheep' by Joanna Cannon, and I'm enjoying it a lot so far! I'm totally gripped by the story, although the more I read the more I'm finding the sheer volume of descriptive smilies and metaphors a little tiring. It's not enough irksome enough to put me off reading, and don't get me wrong some of them are beautiful, but the awesome ones are getting a little lost among others that feel somewhat forced! I'll let you know in a week or so what I think when I'm finished!

I have next months choice lined up already too! I can't help feeling this year is just going to zip by before we know it!

Delicious Miss Dahl

I've spent this evening sitting on the sofa in my pyjamas and a jumper, with the cat on my lap, and a hot chocolate, binge watching Sophie Dahl's TV show, which was on a few years ago and which I finally managed to find on DVD (from Australia!)

I am totally in love with this woman, and until this evening I'd sort of forgotten how much. She's stunning, hilarious, a proper foodie and I would like to steal all of her clothes! A quote from her programme inspired the first name this blog had ('That is This and This is Heaven' - she was talking about the way her peanut butter fudge embodied the salty lipped sensation of eating an ice cream on the beach as a child) and I've grinned with joy a several times while listening to her muse about the poetry of food.

I wrote a couple of posts linked to Sophie Dahl in the very early days of my blogging career, and I thought I would share them again now:

The first, about how I would happily wake up to find I had become her (not strictly true anymore, as I feel much more comfortable about waking up myself these days, but still fairly relevant!)

And the second, a review of 'Playing with the Grown Ups', which has reminded me how much I loved it and prompted me to add it to my list of books to read this year.

The Year In Books

Since being more active on Instagram, I've stumbled upon a few new blogs that have become part of my regular reading list. One of which is Circle of Pine Trees, a blog written by freelance writer, editor and photographer Laura, for people who notice the beauty in life's little moments, full of kitchen stories and outdoor adventures.  It's beautiful and I've spent a good few hours reading back through posts and admiring Laura's wonderful pictures. 

Laura runs a project every year called The Year In Books. It's a project anyone can join in with and share on social media, and the idea is that everyone taking part makes time and space in their busy life to read at least one book every month. You can find out more about the project and how you can join in here. On the last Monday of the month Laura hosts a live twitter chat using the hashtag #theyearinbooks, where participants can discuss what they're reading, and get some recommendations for books to read in the coming months. 

I think it's a great idea! I've got books everywhere that I've been saying for months that I'll read, and I always seem to prioritise something else that feels more important. Reading, like art and music and all the other sometimes seemingly unimportant things are actually far more important than the other things we prioritise. They're the things that make us feel whole, that give us joy, that inspire us to cook and travel and write and give us that feeling that I've written about so many times before, the one you can't put into words but that makes you want to shout and laugh and cry all at once because something has touched you in a way you couldn't possibly explain. I am definitely guilty of getting too caught up in the everyday to remember how important it is to seek out that feeling at every opportunity! 

While it's not a traditional book club, and the idea isn't that everyone reads the same book, in February, Laura has suggested it might be fun for participants read The Trouble With Goats and Sheep, by Joanna Cannon. I've pre-ordered it so I can get started once I've finished my January choice.  

January's book is one I got for Christmas, The Islands of Adventure by Enid Blyton. 

My Mother in Law bought it for me knowing how much of an Enid Blyton fan I was when I was younger, and assuming I had read and it before and it would therefore be a nice trip down memory lane. However, while I read the Famous Five stories over and over for a good decade, and loved the Magic Faraway Tree series so much I wore out my audio cassette tapes, I hadn't ever read any of the Adventure Series! 

I'm nearly finished already, and I love it. I know it's not a challenging or thought provoking read, and I'm not going to glean any major new insights from it, but it feels like a big warm hug. The writing style is typical Enid Blyton, all 'golly gosh' and crumpets with tea, and children allowed to run wild on windswept beaches exploring caves with nobody to supervise them but a creepy housekeeper and a talking parrot. I've chuckled at the turns of phrase, and it reminds me so much of the way my Grandad writes (I'm midway through typing up his memoirs at the moment, and he writes in the same sort of voice, which makes perfect sense as he would have been roughly the same age as the characters when the book was written!)  

It' s been the perfect book to get an early night with and hide until the Spring, when the evenings are hopefully light enough to do a bit of that windswept beach walking and cave exploring that sounds so appealing! 

Please do head over to Circle of Pine Trees and join in too! 

My First Graphic Novel

It's my 27th birthday in a couple of weeks, and while my best friend and I were in London a few weeks ago, she gave me an early gift (it wasn't really supposed to be early but I couldn't wait...we don't get to see each other very often and I was excited so it went from "Ooh thank you I'll save it for my birthday" to torn open within about 30 seconds!)

In fact it was two gifts (yep, I opened them both) the first this pretty canvas bag from the Donna Wilson (who I've long been a fan of) for John Lewis range which unusually has pockets inside!

I love the print and it will be useful for hiding things away when I'm mid-project and need to be slightly less spread out all over the living room floor! Unfortunately I don't think the collection is available anymore, but it did prompt a rather long scouring of Donna Wilson's blog and online shop...so many pretty things I can't afford!

The other gift was a first for me, (because a bag is evidently not a first!) a graphic novel! It's called El Deafo and is an autobiographical novel by Cece Bell, an author/illustrator from Virginia who has written and illustrated several children's books.

This one is focused around Bell's experience of growing up with a hearing impairment, and it is both hilariously funny and deeply moving the follow Cece through her school years, as she learns to lip read, has a lot of mis-heard mis-haps, makes several (often highly irritating) friends but also feels alone and alienated,  and refuses to learn sign language! I really enjoyed reading a book written in this style, it's really brilliantly written and the use of speech bubbles and captions to indicate Cece mis-heard conversations really hits home....

Isn't it so much more meaningful (and lets be honest fun!) in this graphic format? I really loved it and have promised to lend it to everyone I know! I also can't wait to read more of Cece Bell's books soon, I've got my eye on this one next, or maybe the Sock Monkey series!