I have forgotten what I wanted to write about, but it has something to do with a book I just finished reading. So often, I find that the inspiration to fill this space is prompted by a really good book. It was The Language of Thorns by Patricia A. Mckillip, and I felt as if I was holding my breath all the time I was reading it because the language was so beautiful, as beautiful as a daydream.

In other words, I finally went on that trip to the UK and Italy! It wasn't as I expected, in fact travelling as an adult is such a wonderful experience. I was alone in London for three days in a room of my own, 9 Square metres long on the third floor with a view of the sky if you drew the curtain back, but mostly a blank white wall. I met my cousin for dinner a few times, and also for Hadestown the musical, and mass, and it felt freeing? I forgot how self-conscious I get when alone and for the first day in London, I spent the entire day at the Victoria and Albert Museum marvelling at all the curiosities. I felt very Victorian haha. 

I saw: a little foldable fruit knife with a mother of pearl pattern in-laid against a cobalt blue handle. The description said it also had a musical box inside of it so to play music while you cut fruit. I saw giant plaster casts of the Trajan column, a three-storey wooden staircase taken from a medieval house in Brittany, giant cast-iron keys, 13-14th century tapestries, the Great Bed of Ware (3m wide and supposedly able to accommodate 4 couples, also mentioned in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, but somehow much smaller than I expected?) and lovely examples of woodwork and marquetry - very marvellous. For lunch, I ate inside a canteen designed by William Morris with the sun shining through the stained-glass patterns and the gas-lamps that had been converted to electric ones. All in all, I had a good day.

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I wrote the above bits earlier last month, and then I was distracted. So now I am back in December, and I want to write about the nice day I had today. I had time off today, so I woke up late, chatted a bit with my sister, then went for a massage where the lady rubbed out all the knots in my shoulders and neck. Then I had a quick lunch and went for a haircut - I love love having my hair short. It's a disgrace when it grows out because my hair cannot be tamed, and the waves tend to spring outwards when they grow - but anyway, now it is short, and it will lay nice and neat for a while. I came home, and read a book - Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, which if you like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell, is written in a similar vein - with elements of academia, and tricksy fairytales, and agreeably amoral fae. And I realised, re-reading the post before this, that this was the last book I mentioned haha. So now we have come full circle.

Anyway, then I slathered almond butter and blueberry jam on the challah bread I baked on Monday evening and toasted it in hot butter - so this is the part that made my day so much better - and now I am here, waiting for my dinner.

I am in a good headspace.

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A list of things i have done this year:

1) Got tickets to Taylor Swift!!!! I'm not a swiftie but she's amazing live, and the crowd was so fun. Also the experience of getting tickets - the waiting, the nerve-wracking anticipation - has ruined me for getting tickets to concerts. This was the only concert I attended in 2024 hahahah.

2) Watched Hamilton!!!!!! Omgggggg a dream come true. Amazing stage direction and plotting of the storyline. There was this part where the wedding scene was "rewound" so we got a different perspective and the actors literally danced backwards on a revolving stage and reset the scene like whaaaattt. The music gave me goosebumps.

3) Watched Six the Musical - only ever watched the bootleg slime tutorial on youtube so this was pleasantly fun and educational.

4) Attended mass said by Pope Francis in Singapore!! Lol after the whole Taylor Swift business of getting tickets, was pleasantly surprised that our ticket balloting was successful the second round. We were seated so close to the front and the aircon was blowing our legs and we had a good view of everything. Was really blessed! I don't know, mass is such a comfort. Was most impressed by the Italian bodyguards who were very good at carrying babies and could remember who they belonged to. If it were me, I would be asking "Eh whose one ah??"

5) Went to London, Bristol, Bologna, Forlì, Ravenna, Modena and had a really wonderful time! At Forlì, we went to the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition which had the largest collection of Pre-Raphelite art together in history and it was so beautiful - I loved the tapestries by Morris and his friends, the attention to detail, the Burne-Jones paintings, also Evelyn de Morgan - amazing amazing. We went twice and I didn't get bored looking at all the art. 

In Ravenna, we saw the famous Byzantine mosaics (6th century) - It was a good thing we had a guide book because actually, the mosaics are very high up, so to see in detail it was better to have the photographs. The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire which moved from its capital city in Rome to Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) some time in the late 3rd century. It was mostly Greek-speaking and later on, was conquered and the territories became part of the sprawling Ottoman Empire. But anyway, kind of foreign and fascinating to me.

In Modena, we visited a cheese factory where they make Parmigiano Reggiano and where we could taste the cheese in various stages, and where I bought the most wonderful balsamic vinegar - a revelation, I think, sweet and earthy on the tongue, like full-bodied wine but without the alcohol content. The only thing I missed out on was taking a picture and saying "Cheese!" Alas, a missed opportunity.

I have had a good run of the year, I think. So many moments that younger me could never have dreamed of having. I think, though, that my favourite part is my mental state - it is certain that I still have those moments of existential shame, of a wish to disappear into nothingness, to be folded over and over into myself until the size of an atom on a pinhead, for reasons that even I cannot begin to explain - but I am unlearning myself.