fresh, fresh, fresh

So last Thursday was my birthday and it was a truly lovely day. I'd hoped to post the photos with this post but my friend still has them as they were taken on her digital camera.

One of my lovely presents was this wonderful candle. I had come across it in a beautiful shop called Sage which sells lovely lovely things. The smell of fresh linen is one of my most favourite smells in the world so to be able to capture it in a candle that can burn for 35 hours is simply exquisite. I could not afford to treat myself to the luxury of this candle, but I'd mentioned it in conversation at work, and one of my colleagues listened. So lovely.

I also got a wonderul array of recipe books. Even though I have only lived with my housemates for a few months, the fact that they bought me a Tessa Kiros recipe book, and 'The art of Chocolate' book shows just how well they know me. I'm so excited about cooking up some treats!!

Today has been my day off and I had the most leisurely morning that I've had in a long long time - I woke up at about 9am (which is virtually unheard of for me) then read in bed for an hour and a half. I love reading, I really do. Especially when it is a book that totally captivates your attention. I'm reading 'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodi Picoult and whilst she doesn't seem to hugely vary her writing style between books, I still love it. She's very good at capturing emotion to the degree that you feel like you're catching an element of what the characters - if they were people - would be feeling. But there's something more than that. Something which I can't quite communicate in the way I want to.