Misty Mountains

I tend to associate sunset with being in other countries and sunrise with being in the UK. Obviously the sun rises and sets over the whole world but I think perhaps I just appreciate the sunset more when I’m travelling or on holiday, rather than working indoors or running around as I normally am in London.

These photos were taken in the Cotswolds. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I can remember witnessing. The sky was alight; starting off bright and fiery before switching to blue and lilac, mist rolling over the hills. It made me think of both Led Zeppelin and Elgar; two British originals and heroes of mine for whom mountains and countryside were a recurring theme. As it started to get darker and colder there was a strange, dreamlike quality. Haze slowly descended over the hills laid out below us and it felt like we were standing on top of the world.

I’ve always appreciated clouds and mists like this; there’s something about the constant shifting and transient nature which just makes me appreciate the impermanence of everything – and the importance of appreciating each singular moment as it passes by.

How To Be Happy

I’m a very happy person. I wake up in the morning and I’m happy to see the day. I go to sleep at night and I dream happy dreams. I spend most of my days alternating between laughter and “oh my god, this is amazing” levels of wonder. I’m not content, or fulfilled, or satisfied… but I am happy. I don’t get stressed, I never feel bad or annoyed with myself and any grievances or frustrations that crop up in life are very short-lived. People often say “why are you so happy?” and I don’t have one single answer, I just live a very happy life.

I recently read a post about being unhappy… I’ve never felt bad for no reason at all and it made me feel upset that there might be people out there going around feeling sad or moody or lonely, when in my experience it’s possible to avoid all that. So I’ve been trying to think about the things that contribute to my happiness. 1. Surround yourself with things that make you happy. My room is filled with Moomins, crowns, sequinned clothing, musical instruments and pictures of Jimi Hendrix. These represent my favourite things and every time I go in it’s like a mini “yay!”.

2. Surround yourself with people that make you happy. Kind of the same as the last point! I’m very happy with the people in my life; most of them inspire me or at least amuse me. I don’t hang on to the boring or mean people and consequently all the people I know now I really cherish.

3. Find things funny. I spend about 50% of my waking hours laughing. I find everything funny; I’m a simple girl really and most of the things that could be stressful or worrying I find funny. The main thing I find funny is myself; my lack of girl knowledge, my hilarious clothing collection, my past efforts at blogs/songs/photography, the stupid things I do as part of my job (building elephants out of cardboard, listening to every recording of The Muppets and choreographing a dance to Ghostbusters are all things I did today). If you can find yourself funny you’re literally laughing your way through life.

4. See how lucky you are. It sounds corny but at least twice a week I’ll look around and just think “this place is awesome, these people are awesome, my job is awesome, this is great” and feel lucky. We have so, so much to be thankful for. I look back at my horrifically lonely, turbulent teenage years and I think “God, teenage Laila, you got the life you always wanted and deserved, well done you”.

5. Eat properly. Just eating 3 meals a day and sleeping 8 hours a night can make so much difference. If you regularly feel unhappy, try doing this for two weeks and you’ll be astonished at the difference it makes. Also: tell people you are doing this. Your friends love you (and if they’re anything like mine will call you up to make sure you are going to sleep at a good hour/bring you home cooked meals). 6. Incorporate the things you love into your life. It depresses me when people talk about things they enjoy as a seperate bit of their life. I love stupid clothes, going out for breakfast, making music and rehearsing with friends… so I include all these things in my day to day life.

7. Change whatever is making you sad. Seriously, just grow a pair and do it. Change jobs, cut your hair, call out the mean talk, whatever it is just figure out what it is and attack it as simply as possible. People go on about these things being hard and waiting for a good time to make changes that will make them happy. Here’s the thing; the sooner you do it the sooner it will make you happy. Don’t wait for things to reach boiling point or some mythical far-off date when things will be better; actively fight for that NOW. Time is precious.

8. Don’t do things that make you sad. Don’t wallow in your own misery or get out the box of your ex-boyfriends clothes or watch back a film that knowingly makes you cry. Some people may find they enjoy being sad sometimes but seriously I like to reserve my sadness for the things that are truly, unstoppably sad.

9. Have more confidence! I tell you honestly; the world wants to be your friend. Go out there and say hello.

10. The sun will rise tomorrow. As my Dad once told a very heartbroken and depressed Laila; the sun will rise again tomorrow. If you’re seriously in the midst of despair and nothing and nobody will comfort you, then go to sleep and know that tomorrow, the entire world will be new. A quick poll of my office and these are apparently the phrases I use most often:

“Yayyy!”

“OH MY GOD THAT’S AMAZING”

“Oh wow….!”

“Get involved!”

“OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU”

“F*ck it!”

I think that pretty much sums up my attitude to life; be impressed by things, be grateful for things, go after life and take what you want from it and most of all don’t worry, be happy, f*ck it, it will sort itself out in the end. Here’s to happiness!

Golden Hour

Aren’t sunsets wonderful? I wanted to share these photos from Prineville; many are just from my Aunts garden but there was such a gorgeous light in Prineville every day we were there. I tried to capture the beauty and stillness. The sunset seemed to last for hours and every evening we were drenched in this stunning golden light.

My family has had ties and connections to Oregon for about 5 generations now and on this trip my Aunt took me to visit certain key areas where ancestors of mine were born, married, buried. It’s strange to think that we live an entire life and eventually get distilled into a handful of places and sentences. “Hers is the fourth plot from the left. She liked playing the piano and was a big animal lover.” “His birth entry is on the second page. He had grey eyes and everybody mentioned his big smile.” We’re left to fill in the gaps with our imagination. Maybe when our generation is gone it will be different, and we’ll leave acres of mundane photos and comments strewn across the internet that our great-grandchildren will never read.

Temple Square

Temple Square is a huge complex in Salt Lake City where most of the headquarters for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are based. I think Salt Lake City is best known as a Mormon town and so naturally it’s a place with a lot of history and somewhere I wanted to visit. The grounds were very beautiful; I was really taken with the gorgeous flower arrangements everywhere. We were lucky enough to be there on a beautifully sunny day; the huge white temple literally looked like it was glowing and the soft breeze amongst the flowers helped to create such a feeling of tranquility.

We were able to go into each of the buildings to look around and learn more about the history of the area, and even hear the renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearsing which was pretty magical! Given how busy my trip was overall I really relished being able to just wander such a calm and peaceful area freely and have some time to reflect by myself.

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By the Thames

Do you ever have those days where you end up abandoning your plans to just hang out and chat? My good friend Danilo and I somehow managed to spend the whole day hanging out on an impromptu whim and it was so much fun. We started off the Monday morning visiting an exciting new site where WOLF PACK (the contemporary theatre group I run and which Danilo is a member of) will be performing next year and then supposedly we were both going home to do work. Except we never did! The sun got brighter and brighter and spurred us on to just soak it all up and be tourists in our own city. We ended up wandering around Waterloo, browsing records and vintage clothes, eating falafel in the sunshine, pigeon-watching (far more entertaining than people-watching), wandering along the thames for a sunny afternoon pint on the Tamesis dock and strolling all the way back to the South Bank.

Danilo (pronounced “Dah-nee-low”) is one of my close friends from university and I think we are the only two to have taken the “freelance” path since graduating (as opposed to full time employment or teaching). I don’t tend to feature my friends on here (apart from James, it may as well be called James Parade) as barely any of my friends know about my blog. To be honest I doubt most of my friends actually know what a blog is!

It was such a gorgeous day to take in the beautiful views of the river. I’m not normally a massive fan of my own photography but I was pretty pleased with the postcard quality of the top photo and the garden museum was beautiful despite it being autumn already! Cheesy tourist photos were a must, and I also had to include a shot of Danilo’s amazing vintage shirt inherited from his grandparents. Thank you to Danilo for the photos of me and for an awesome Monday!

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Lutyens House

I hope all of you have been enjoying the gloriously warm evenings we’ve been granted this summer! It’s so lovely to be able to stay out in the sunshine late into the day. These pictures were taken at Goddards, a beautiful country house in Surrey. The house was designed by renowned architect Edwin Lutyens  and for most of the time it is private to the public and kept for reservations. James and I were lucky enough to be invited to a dinner at the house with members of the Lutyens trust and took the opportunity to explore the beautiful home usually off limits. It was a gloriously golden evening when we arrived and the stunning gardens were filled with dappled rays of evening sunlight.

Edwin Lutyens collected many interesting objects throughout his life which have found their way into the home, such as the beautifully ornate door knocker pictured below and the rare stag heads decorating the bowls room. It felt like every room was filled with yet another unique treasure! The living-room also featured a hidden door behind the curved bookshelves, originally put in to allow a small person to crawl through and clean the windows behind. Old houses have such a feeling of adventure, don’t you think? Especially when filled with as many quirky details as Goddards!

Tiny Islands

Today I’m going to share Ile Aux Cerfs and Ilot Mangenie, two beautiful islands just off the east coast of Mauritius and about a ten minute boat ride from where we stayed. Mauritius itself is a very small island and these neighbouring islands are about the size of one or two football pitches.We spent the most time on Iles Aux Cerfs as Le Touessrok has a boathouse there offering various activities for free. We tried out kayaks and pedal boats and explored the mangroves, trying to catch a glimpse of the monkeys. We also took a trip by speedboat to visit a waterfall. On the way we passed lots of colourful houses and a tree filled with sleeping Mauritian bats. The bats are endangered and theres been a lot of conservation efforts to increase the population so it was amazing to see them in their natural habitat.

We stopped on Ilot Mangenie for lunch with friends; it was completely idyllic. The dogs were strays who were hoping for scraps of food; you can see James is frowning at one rather persistent canine under the table but all in all they were very well-behaved, sitting patiently next to our table. There are over 400,000 stray dogs and they all look pretty similar as you can tell from the two I photographed. Strange to think they might all be members of the same family. James doing his best Hollister model impression.

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