{quotable thursday-ciao d'Italia}

Hello blog land! That's right! I'm back in Italy!!

I arrived last night in Ferrara. So a quote from the 19th century from William Hazlitt's Notes of a Journey through France and Italy (1826):

You are in a dream, in the heart of a romance; you enjoy the most perfect solitude, that of a city which was once filled with the 'busy hum of men', and of which the tremulous fragments at every step strike the sense, and call up reflection. In short, nothing is to be seen as a Ferarra but the remains, graceful and romantic of what it was.

I'm here for a conference & today we were in this glorious room in a Renaissance palace (Palazzo Tassoni). Well blogger doesn't  seem to be working for me at all on my iPhone. I can't upload any images and it keeps reloading and causing problems. For pics see my Instagram
 So I will say ciao for now L 

{quotable thursdays}

Apologies, this is a little late--it's Friday here in the UK, but I know somewhere in the world it's still Thursday!

Last weekend I celebrated my birthday in great company of my dear family! We went to the beautiful National Trust property, Standen--adorned with gorgeous Arts & Crafts Morris wallpaper etc.... We also went on lovely autumnal walks. my dad wrote the following poem, which is today's quote:

Now friends and family gather round

To celebrate the passing year.

The house at Chelmsford will resound

With merry birthday cheer.

With glasses filled and heaping plates

The guests now make a toast.

While birthday tales Great Charles relates,

Dear cousin and genial host.

“To Leaps, Tinza and Doctor too

“Please raise your glasses all.

“Welcome, every one of you

“To Leah’s birthday ball!”

Then Charley escorts his lovely wife

And dances around the hall

Marian tells of country life

Which keeps them all in thrall.

Melissa does a highland fling,

A jig so neat and trim,

While the Weatherups a duet sing

Until the others all join in.

We too shout across the miles

From distant shores and seas

“May your day be filled with birthday smiles

“And joy that never cease!”

I posted pics over on Instagram, , but here are a few!

{the barn at Standen}

 

& then it was party time!

{fancy masks!}

xo, L

{quotable thursdays}

{Domenico di Michelino, Dante holding the Divine Comedy, Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, 1465}

« Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,

ché la diritta via era smarrita. »

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

So begins Dante's Divine Comedy. It is fitting for a number of reasons this week--for one, this weekend, I turn 35. In the time Dante was writing, 35 was considered midlife, and thus his journey begins at 35, in the middle of his life's journey. It reminds us that in life we often have to take arduous journeys to reach our final destination. 

The world seems like a rather dark place right now; with so many unknowns. We must journey through the storms, and here's hoping that light appears soon through this dark tunnel.

I for one, will try to leave the troubles of the world behind me this weekend, and instead, celebrate life.
I read Dante's Divine Comedy in an undergraduate course in my early 20s. Then, I had dreams of being an Art Historian and travelling to and living in Italy regularly. In someways, I fulfilled that dream. But our 30s are often about fulfilliing the dreams we had in our 20s or realising that our paths have taken a different route. I think most importantly, our 30s are realising that 'happily ever after' doesn't really exist. I often hear people telling me that I must be so lucky working in a profession that I love. It's as if somehow, if you do what you love, it's not work. This is a bubble worth popping. First of all, we don't live in a world where we actually do what we love; we live in a world where administration and bureaucracy often takes up most of our time. My job is a lot of hard work. It took a ridiculous amount of years with uncertainty, making very little money, and very little rewards to finally get to this place... and even my dream job is full of stress, moments where I feel like giving up, and too many times when I feel like I'm just not good enough. Whatever dreams we had in our 20s--being a mum, finding a perfect husband, getting that envious successful job, buying a house--our 30s are about coming face to face to reality with those dreams--kids screaming, husband's smelly socks that need washing, the stress and work of being successful, paying a mortgage...
That's just to say, that the next time you look over at someone and think 'hey that person is so lucky' because of their job, their shoes, their house, or their partner, it might be worth thinking about the arduous journey that person probably took to get there.

I am grateful for the lovely people who have accompanied me on my journey-it has not been easy, and it still isn't-but it has been worth it.

xo

L

{quotable thursdays}

Hello blogland!
Thursday again already? Hope you all had a fab Hallowe'en and All Saints!
I met a number of deadlines on Monday, but for the last six months I have been feeling like I've just been going from one deadline to another with no break in between. You may have seen lovely pictures of Southern Italy, but I was there for work, and haven't taken a proper vacation in ages--I worked like a crazy person through the summer to try to meet two book deadlines...
and now I've got another 3 publication deadlines to get through before December.
So...in a year or two's time, when my publications start actually getting published, and I brag about my accomplishments, I will remind you and myself that I only got there because of all this hard work.
I think it's often easy to see others' successes as unfair--but we often don't see the toils behind the scenes. So with that:

{success}

We can all achieve great things...it just requires a lot of work;)

We must thank the people around us who enable it, but also ourselves, for pursuing things when we sometimes just feel like we want to give up!

{thanks!}

xo
L