Back for a moment...

...then off again early tomorrow for a weekend on the South coast with my parents. But just thought I'd check in, thank Rebecca from Daydreams in Lace for the tag (will write my ten things when I next have a moment!), and say hello to everyone...I promise that there will be a wedding post soon (thanks for all the positive comments on the last one!), with plenty of pictures, and a holiday post too, again with many photos, as I have had so much fun playing with the new camera these last ten days.

I leave you with another little photo from the wedding, this time one M took, me looking out across Front Court into the blazing sunshine...

Arriving back from Nice tonight to the cool evening air, that day, with its unexpected heat, seems so long ago. But I am so thrilled to be able to fully embrace autumn now!

Little preview...

The bride was beautiful, the weather was gorgeous, and we managed to pull off the flowers in the end. I want to write more and tell you all about it, but I still haven't quite finished packing and M and I have to get up very early tomorrow to catch our train, so I will have to leave it at that for the moment, with the promise of more upon my return.

I meant to be both organised and technologically sussed and schedule a few posts for while I am away, but this week has just been so hectic, what with organising the flowers, attending the wedding itself and finally rushing back to London today to pack bags and do last minute pre-holiday shopping, that I haven't managed it.

I'll leave you with a sneak peek of one of the flower filled china swans taken on the new DSLR...back in a fortnight!

A bevy of swans

A & T got together at college around the same time that M and I did, and, just over a year ago, in the week before graduation, he proposed to her, kneeling down on the floor of a punt they had hired one balmy summer's evening. On Saturday they get married in the chapel of our old college, where A's parents married many years ago after also meeting and falling in love in Cambridge...such a lovely sense of coming full circle!

Partly because A has very little interest in flowers and didn't want to spend masses on a professional florist for an element of the wedding she wasn't that fussed about, and partly because as recent graduates, limited funds have meant parts of the wedding have been DIY by necessity, I offered to do the flowers for the tables. Mum (who, with her fantastically green fingers and eye for flower arranging, has been a wonderful help throughout) and I struck upon the idea of using vintage china swan vases after seeing an abundance of them at one particular car boot sale way back in January, and have been collecting them (along with various enlisted grandmas and vintage-loving friends) in charity shops and boot sales ever since.

We have begun buying flowers in soft pink, peach and cream tones, and on Friday we will assemble everything ready for the drive to Cambridge on Saturday morning. I am more than a little nervous about pulling it all off, but I am also just so, so excited about the whole day!

Paris

A wonderful late summer's day in Paris. Warm air, sunlight on the green river, leafy streets. Exquisitely presented lunch in jewel-bright colours, decorated with fresh flowers and accompanied by the most divine champagne I have ever tasted (I wasn't paying!). Wandering in the sunshine down narrow streets and into cool, stone churches, sunlight through stained glass throwing abstract patterns across the floor. Stepping into 'Merci' a fabulous shop on Boulevard Beaumarchais, painted crockery hanging from the ceiling and crowded onto old crates. Coloured pencils in rainbow colours that made me long to go back to school, melamine plates and cups in pastel shades that made me wish it was still the season for picnicing in long grass.

Late afternoon, crossing a bridge, looking up to see the Eiffel Tower, a distant smudge in the bright setting sun, and feeling my heart flutter, as it always does in this beautiful city.

All photos on my dying Ixus. DSLR wasn't insured, or at least, only a very small fraction of its cost would have been.

Daytrip

Off to Paris for the day tomorrow as Dad has some friends visiting from Australia who wanted to go and he's taking me along too. Very excited, for although I have been many times before I always find something new and beautiful to discover. Haven't decided whether to take the new camera yet though as I need to check if my travel insurance covers it, I'd be devastated if something happened to it on its first outing!

(Picture from past visit)

A little bit of money, and a lot

This weekend I have been both rather thrifty, and also very extravagant.

On Friday I had a successful charity shop haul, assorted gold picture frames that I am going to turn into a wall feature sometime in the near future, three more china swan vases for next Saturday's wedding flowers (can't believe that this time next week two of my friends will be married!), a floral print dress for under a fiver and two lovely glass storage jars for the kitchen. I also came back with a big brown paper stuffed with large purple-green English plums from the market. Inspired by Fay and Rebecca's posts here and here I decided to make jam with them, just a small amount, but hopefully it will keep me going through autumn, especially as M has declared he doesn't like plum jam on account of the skins.

Today however there wasn't a charity shop in sight and, back in London and this point, M and I strolled over to Tottenham Court Road and the camera shops where I spent more possibly than I have ever spent in a single transaction before on a new camera, my first digital SLR.

My old digital camera, a tiny, basic, Canon Ixus 30 that has been with me since 2005 is now, finally, having survived both gap year journeys in wooden canoes and nights at university where its contents were the only memories left, dying on me. It still functions perfectly okay (all my photos on here were taken with it) and will still be used on nights out, but the auto focus is going on anything other than close-ups and I felt that with an upcoming wedding and a holiday and all the associated photo opportunities, now was a justifiable time to buy a new one. Very excited to start taking photos with it!

Day off

I'm lying on the window seat in the Norfolk home, looking out at the garden. The electric pink dahlias and salmon coloured gladioli provide bursts of colour in a garden that is otherwise beginning to fade. The green is not as vivid as it was just a few weekends ago, the lavender bushes are looking more silvery, and I can see the translucent purple of the autumn crocuses unfolding under the lilac tree. The morning sun is slanting into the room I'm in, but my toes are cold for the first time in months.

On the train last night, the moon low and yellow across the darkened fields we were speeding past, I read the following:

'People say that autumn is bittersweet and melancholic - the passing of another year into winter - but I think the season is more about new beginnings. It's about change, possibility, promise.' (from La Vie Parisienne by Jane McCulloch)

How apt, I thought. It summed up entirely how I am feeling at the moment. This sentiment also explains why, emerging from the bright warmth of the carriage to the vast, inky, Norfolk sky and drizzle spattered car park, I wasn't filled with dread at the thought of cold nights and dark mornings, but rather felt a vague, deep thrill.

I am off to raid the charity shops and scour the auction, feeling hopeful for some good finds.

A possibility-filled Friday...