Ce qui m'inspire en ce moment...mish mash of happy things!

Lately I am feeling very inspired! But rather than by one thing in particular, it's by a mish mash of happy things! So here they are....

1. My snazzy new camera, a beautiful Canon digital SLR. It's super fancy and I have a LOT to learn about photography but I'm really excited to learn. This is officially my new hobby. Already it has been so much fun to play around and I have been busy trying it out, taking pretty pictures of anything and everything!

2. This leads me to my second happy thing - birds! Armed with my new photography machine, I've been sneaking up on them like the paparazzi, capturing their fluttering wings when they least expect it! From bluetits on the feeder in my parent's garden...

...to gulls flying around at sunset the coast of Scotland...

...and this pretty little sanderling skipping on the shoreline...

...to this rather handsome tufted duck spotted right here in London...

I'm so happy to finally be able to capture these creatures up close and get a glimpse of all the little details that set them apart - like the green patch on this tufted ducks face which you can't see with the naked eye, or the way that that sanderlings feet skim the surface of the water, making tiny little ripples.

3. Third source of joy - birthday fun! Ah yes, I aged another year this last weekend and had a lovely time celebrating quietly and happily with my man, who suprised me not only with birthday cupcakes, but also some bubbly, some vin rouge, some olives and, best of all, a selection of cheeeeeeeeeeeese (stilton, cambozola and dolcelatte to be precise: stinky goodness)! So yummy! Is it weird to say that you feel 'inspired by' cheese? Well I care not, cheese makes me happy, and being happy inspires me...

4. The amazing skirt my lovely friend stitched up for me for Christmas. It's made of beautiful paisleyish fabric, it fits perfectly and it's handmade! All of my favourite things :) It's inspiring me to get my sewing machine out and get creating...

5. This song. As far as I'm concerned it is perfection :)

6. I spent my Christmas holidays completely immersed in Haruki Murakami's latest book, IQ84. I don't really want to write a big long review - just go and read it - but I will say that I absolutely love this man's writing and his crazy weird imagination. It was wonderful to get so hooked on a book again and I feel inspired to both read more on a regular basis and to get writing myself....

7. And the most exciting thing of all that is making me happy and inspiring me is... in a couple of months I'm moving to France! More precisely, "the most beautiful city of France", Bordeaux. That esteemed title comes from a plaque found in the city itself, (see below) so it's clearly not biased at all! haha! But yes, my lovely scientist man will be starting a new job there in March and seeing as I'm free to finish off my studies there (my PhD is, rather handily, in French literature), I'll be 'fleeing the country' with him. I'm so excited for more French adventures. There's just the small matter of finding somewhere to live first! And then the croissant eating can commence!

We've visited the city twice before. To say that I am excited about living there is an understatement!


It's Wineland!

What's been inspiring you lately?
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