winter ♥

Lately has been beautiful, though much of it has been spent revising for exams—re-reading and re-writing notes—which has not been without enjoyment itself; reading Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetic movement hardly feels like ‘work’—but in between I have been able to enjoy the snow, which always makes me feel like a child again, and blue twilights and trees strung with colourful lights lining the streets, and toffee pennies and clementines and the scents of pine needles (our Christmas tree went up yesterday!), strong coffee and mulling spices, and winter air has a scent of its own that must be one of the most beautiful scents I’ve ever known. (My favourite perfume is Philosophy’s Pure Grace, in part because I find it has some of the smell that rushes in when a door is opened to the cold wintry wind outside.)

Also, I went to see Anna Karenina (at an old cinema with red curtains in front of the screen and a balcony, no less), and it was beautiful, beautiful, perfect! The dresses, the music, the furs, the snow, the ribbons, the jewellery, the interiors, the train! . . .