The last seconds of the beach.

Curled up in the last seconds of Sunday

Through the rambling roads we drove

Passing villages of old and moving-

Onwards towards the sea

And I smiled for what was no longer there,

For the wicker picnic basket, green open top car and tartan blanket

Sheltered from time's tempest, hiding in the grandfather clock

As we moved, onwards towards the sea

Where we would find treasure troves of an abandoned era

With reminiscent relics of midnight in Paris

And vintage colours for our fast fading cheeks

As we moved, onwards towards the sea

We walked leaving elusive footprints,

Feathered in the impressionable sand

As the departed laughter faded with a wistful sigh,

Into the ether of the painful shimmer of the past

Leaving nothing but you and me

And the crashing lull of the onward coming sea. 

-This is a poem I wrote a while ago, inspired by a strangely beautiful day out with a friend and coming to the end of secondary school. Definitely not my best writing but oh well! 

-Philippa x

Fairytale Photography: Woodland Nymph

These photographs were taken as part of a friend's A-level project. 

We took the basic idea of a mixture of fairy-tales and based the look on this.  

We were quite lucky with the sunlight on this one! I like the effect of looking into the light, while the other side is still shadowed.

The angle for this shot worked better than expected. 

Again, the light on this was a stroke of luck! The wind also played a part in creating a slightly more wistful, hazy effect than in the other photos. 

This is definitely the most 'still'. It's more of a frozen moment than 'captured'.

In contrast, this shot has more of a feel of movement. Or the anticipation of movement, I think it's a mix between hiding and waiting. 

This is one of my favourites, I especially like the dappled look of the trees in the background. 

On being a teenager

I am 16 and female, so therefore by most people's (all people's probably) standards: a teenage girl.

And I have a few issues with this. Not about actually being 16 or a girl: teenagers grow up and girls are awesome.

But seemingly the rest of the world's perceptions of us are, to say the least, not so great.

Firstly, there's the assumption that we're all irrational and over-emotional and just frankly annoying. Okay, so yeah I've been known to 'fan-girl' (even the phrase is problematic) and yes, sometimes over some fairly stereotypical things and people (Tom Hiddleston anyone?) but that doesn't give other people the right to dismiss our genuine interests as puerile or unimportant.

The reason why so many teens can seem so uninterested and 'cool' about things is that we've somehow learnt that it isn't cool to be passionate. 

So, if I want to get slightly over excited about Tom Hiddleston, T S Eliot or Taylor swift  do us all a favor and just me leave to it yeah?

Ahh, Taylor Swift: the queen of 'teenage girl music'. This leads me on perfectly to my next point. It's often heard of certain things being referred to as 'for teenagers' as if this somehow makes them less valid.
People often don't view art, music or literature aimed at young people as 'serious' or worthy even.

This is ridiculous when you think that some of the books we study as literary classics today were originally aimed at children and a younger audience. Gulliver's Travels and Alice's adventures in wonderland are both great examples of this.

Furthermore such respected classics as Jane Eyre and pretty much all of Jane Austen's books would very likely be labeled as 'chick lit' today (though this is maybe more of a gender issue.)

However, I think my main issue with this trivializing of the teenage is when it crosses over into belittling actual emotions and feelings. Our problems are often simply put down to hormones and being in 'that awkward teenage stage'.

Yes, hormones may have a part in how truly messed up we're feeling sometimes but does this make our emotions any less real? Any less our own?

As teenagers we are trying to invent ourselves, to figure out our own identity and start to build our own lives away from being defined simply by our family or school.

This is difficult and scary enough for most people without being crammed into a box with every other person who happened to be born within the same few years.  

Sorry for the very rambling post, as you can tell I'm still trying to gather my thoughts on this matter!

-Philippa x

Summer reading recommendations: I capture the castle (review)

“So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy.” 
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle



The long summer can be a perfect time to get back into reading after the hectic months of the working/school year. I personally have just finished my GCSE's and my main aim for the holidays is to sharpen my reading skills (I'm too cool I know).

For me, summer tends to entail a desire for a certain type of book. The type of book you can imagine reading reclined in a hammock in a field full of tall grass and perhaps a gently flowing river to lull you into a new world. A book with a slightly magical touch. A book that will make you fall in love.

Amazingly, I have found a book that easily does all these things and more: I capture the castle by Dodie Smith. Set in the 1930's in a crumbling castle, this book contains some of the most wonderful characters you will ever meet. It's narrator is teenager Cassandra Mortmain who is at once hilarious, incredibly touching and just a tad 'consciously naive'. At the start anyway.

Cassandra lives in the castle with her dysfunctional (to say the least) family, which includes an eccentric nudist stepmother, reclusive father and restless sister who 'wants to live in a Jane Austen novel'-a sentiment I'm sure many of us can relate to!

The book follows the characters' personal struggles to escape their poverty and the sometimes funny sometimes unbearably sad lengths they go to to do this.

Written by an author living in California but pining for the fields and countryside of England and set in a time between a country being ripped apart by war, the tone is perfectly longing and nostalgic, anticipating a change but not quite accepting it.This beautifully reflects the in-between period of being on the cusp of adulthood but still wanting to cling onto the last dregs of being a child.

With a splash of romance (both unrequited and otherwise) adventure and growing up, I capture the castle so poignantly 'captures' being human that it almost seems to have a pulse.

I don't want to give too explicit of a review of this book because I think everyone should have the pleasure of being seduced by it's charm in the purest way possible.

Seriously, read it.

I hope this has been helpful in some way! If you have any recommendations for summer books yourself then please leave them in the comments.

-Philippa