A little bit of honest me...

I had a nice, festive blog post in mind, but instead what you'll get is a selection of extracts from my mind, as of now...but rest assured there will be some Christmas 'things of beauty' before the week is done.

This always happens. I get more excited about Christmas in late November than I do when the real thing is almost upon us. Somehow this year there is a sense of unreality which I can only attribute to the current calmness of my life. I am not in a rush. I have time. I do not have to balance working and homemaking. I have lists where I can actually tick off actions, one by one, in a normal, sane manner. This is indeed new territory for me. I like it.

via dust jacket attic from style me pretty

Meanwhile someone closest to me, namely my lovely husband, is working like there is no tomorrow. The contrast between us incongruous. I sense this may be one of the perils of being a housewife (my albeit temporary status). He is a whirlwind and I am a constant. I am the eye of his storm; the oddly quiet, alternative world of our home, as the rest of his corporate world swirls around. Suffice to say, it's a tough time to be corporate.

I finally watched the film 'Black Swan'. It's a great film, I can entirely see why Natalie Portman won the Oscar. But what has stayed with me as well, a little like an unwelcome guest, is a fascination with how her body looked. How thin she was. How all ballerinas have that grace, that look, which is almost prepubescent. I found myself wondering what it would be like to be that thin again, as I once was, aged about 15. Now of course I am a healthy, fit weight and after my children I have curves in places there never used to be curves. Thanks to a lot of training in recent months, I am now fitter than I have ever been; but conversely I weigh more. Gone though, is that waif-like quality of youth. A dancer's body...is it wrong to silently covet such an unobtainable thing?

And so this week continues, children counting down, while I try to keep a grasp on the real meaning of the season. My answer to everything: walking in the great outdoors. Now, with the addition of the puppy, walking is an everyday pursuit that I inflict on my family.

At the weekend, I woke early and my son and I did rounds of the fields behind our house before the sun had come up. It was an icy morning, crisp and fresh and oh-so-bracing. At times like those, I am so grateful for my impetuous decision to get a dog. Without him, we would not be charging round fields before sunrise on any given Saturday morning. Maybe when I made the choice to get him, I knew somewhere deep inside that we needed him. We needed something him our little family.

On Sunday, we went to a beautiful, stylish drinks party in a beautiful, stylish house. A wintery afternoon of canapé perfection and champagne flutes. It was lovely. The fact remains that loveliness for me does equate to beautiful things; elegant places and little details. I notice all the details in a heartbeat. And so it goes for me; one day in wellies, the next in heels. I like the contrasts... :-)

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