Let's begin again

Hello, darling reader. I haven't been able to post recently for a number of reasons, many of which make me sad to think about and i'd rather avoid the subject entirely however I feel like I owe you an explanation. I've been rather busy with various things such as my grandparents being over and my friend coming to stay but I've also received some horrid news about my granddad who lives in Singapore and it's just really not good. I'm finding it hard to deal with, mainly because I've never lost anyone before and I didn't realise just how awful that feeling in the pit of your stomach is, but i'm coping and so is my family. 

I'll move away from the sad news now. I feel really out of touch with this blog, as if before it was a best friend who I could confide in and share my deepest feelings with but now is an old friend, disconnected as the strings of similarities have been cut away with the sharpest of scissors. I have nothing to blog about, whatsoever, and my blog has no real comfort to me. However, I wish to amend this.

A twitter friend (Christina who can be found at @takealookattime) recommended that I wrote about things which inspire me. I've decided to do as she has suggested and rather enjoy the idea of filling in peoples requests until ideas begin to flow again. Perhaps you could email me with suggestions on what you would like to see in my blog? My email is rossybowties@gmail.com if you want to give it a go.

So, the question for today is 'What inspires me?'. The beautiful thing about this question is that it is so open. Should I write about what or who inspires me in day to day life, or what inspires me to write? I choose to write about what inspires me to write, seeing as it is the reason why I am continuing with this blog. That plus my readership is wonderful and I love every single person who reads my rambling nonsense.

What inspired me to write from the age of around seven was the fact that I had no other talents. Whilst my friends were plastered in ballet shoes and tutus and shoved onto a stage, lights blaring down at them as they twirled about like wonderful sparkling faeries; I watched from the audience with a frown on my face and a heavy heart. I couldn't dance. Whilst my friends were plastered in football boots and football shirts and scurried across a field, chasing a ball as a cat would chase a mouse; I watched from the sidelines with a frown on my face and a heavy heart. I couldn't play football. You see, my childhood was filled with being proud of others, yet rarely feeling proud of myself. 

Then I picked up a pencil.

A magical invention, from which words which had trickled from the corners of my mind and swirled through my veins down to the tips of my fingers could flow onto the page, drowning notebooks in stories and poems. Although I was not a talented writer as a child, I enjoyed it thoroughly and I can recall now a notebook I had which was decorated with Disney princesses and which held within it dozens of fairy tale worlds that I had created. What inspired me to write was the fact that my notebooks would listen to me, and appreciate my writing more than anyone else did.

As I grew older, I was inspired by authors who poured beautiful words, laced together into even more beautiful sentences, into books which I enjoyed so much. I was enchanted by Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree and swept away to Hogwarts by J.K Rowling. I dived head first into these stunning books and still haven't emerged from the worlds within them.

Nowadays, i'm inspired by the beauty of the earth around me. I'm inspired by the noise grass makes as it ripples in a cool summer breeze, the leaves of the trees rustling and the twigs tapping together; an natural orchestra of wondrous sounds usually ignored by the ears of humans. I'm inspired by the first light of day as it crawls over the houses in a pink haze, greeting the birds which are already singing their songs to one another and hopping about the trees, tickling the rare few humans who are awake early enough to witness how rosy and rich in colour the sky is. I'm inspired by the smiles of passers by, the curl of their lips upon their faces which prove that a secret is tucked away somewhere inside them just bursting to be revealed to the world so that it can spread the happiness around.

I am inspired by each day, each moment in which I find something beautiful or rare which clutches at my heart and holds on, sending warmth throughout my body. Although things might get tough, for both myself and my readers, I can still be inspired to write, as no matter how hard things get there are still reasons for us all to smile.

I have begun to inspire others, just today a friend has started writing a blog after reading mine, and that seven year old girl who felt like such a failure at such a young age is finally discovering something which makes her feel proud of herself. I'm proud of myself. As, for once in my life, I am beginning to spread the word. I'm making others smile, and then they are trying to make others smile because of their smiles and the smiles are just spreading far and wide - reaching places all over the world. I'm sat in South East England with a smile across my face, and my granddad is sat in a bed in Singapore and he will soon have chunks of my blog in his hands (I've sent him some of my blog posts as a gift, he's very ill and I thought it might cheer him up) and perhaps I can share that smile with him too.

I hope I can inspire more people, I hope you can all inspire others, and I hope that the world around us continues to inspire everyone with its beauty and wonder.

I will leave you with that. Good night, dear reader, and sleep well.

Ayesha x

Day Unknown

I am so sorry for the lack of blog posts over the past few days; my internet has been completely down and I haven't had any contact with the online world. I'm back now, however, I still have nothing new to share and haven't found any source of inspiration. A blog usually contains things that go on in peoples lives but my life is so dull and pointless, I literally don't do anything.

I've been continuing my novel, for those interested, and Elizabeth has not only met a character who will change her life and fill it to the brim with adventure but also has begun to feel a little more alive again. Here is a snippet of a moment in the hospital where Elizabeth's new friend Andrew shows her something so spectacular that she's momentarily stunned.

“Step into my office.” Andy chuckled, opening the glass door which led onto a balcony. I tentatively followed him, the cool night breeze curling around me and making me shiver. I gasped as I realised what he wanted me to see; sunrise was creeping upon the night, the dark sky streaked with gold and dusky pink, the leaves dancing as the world began to wake. I took a seat beside Andy, back against the glass door, watching as birds flew across the sky.

“It’s beautiful. Really beautiful.” I whispered, squeezing Andy’s hand which I hadn’t realised I was holding again. He grinned at me, squeezing my hand back. We didn’t say another word, just watched the sky ablaze with colour as dawn flooded the night and pushed the darkness away. The willow, my willow, brushed at the grass surrounding it in greeting as morning encouraged nature to wake. I realised that I was doing the same, I had found a friend which the light of the early morning had nudged me towards.

I wish my life held moments which Elizabeth gets to witness, there are so many more days filled with beautiful sunrises and hours sat on cliff sides watching the sea crashing against the rocks below. I have had witnessed beautiful things in the past but they are all magnified in Elizabeth's life as these moments are so new and fresh to her. It's like she is grass that has been freshly mown and i'm an overgrown field of weeds. I get tired of sitting under the same sky but she has so much yet to discover and everything seems so crisp.

I'm soon off to Venice in a few weeks and although you won't see me blogging whilst i'm away, i'll be back with stories to tell and a different sky to describe. I'll then be going to Cornwall, my childhood holiday destination and where most of my writing inspiration comes from. Each day I will give you a slice of the seaside or a chunk of a field full of strawberries and hopefully you can smile and join me on my adventures. 

For now, i'm sat upon a lumpy blue sofa, a grey shade coating the sky and making everything seem like it is dormant or sleeping. I feel the same, i'm in a dreamy sort of haze where I feel like I should be taking a nap and dreaming of those strawberry fields and the cool Cornish sea. Perhaps I will do just that.

Again, apologies for the lack of writing. Soon my blog will be bursting with Italian ice cream and Cornish pasties and you may gobble it up until you are full and satisfied.

Ayesha x

Day Thirteen

I really can't apologise enough for missing yesterday's post. I had an awful evening and really was not in the right mindset to write you all a post. Unfortunately, in addition to that, I also have no inspiration left and not much to say. Each life is so unique and beautiful in its own way so pointing things out to you about my life will probably seem immensely boring in comparison to everything in your life which makes you smile.


However, I have not much else to tell you. Today I shall share with you something which happened to me which I believe not many others have experienced, therefore I feel like I am revealing something very private. This post is a whisper, from me to you.


I have horrid eyesight. I'm about to be knighted with permanent glasses, a knighthood which I do not want to receive and and dreading awfully. I wear glasses on occasion when I need to see things in the distance and I find the transformation between not wearing and wearing glasses to be mesmerising. As soon as that thin layer of glass covers my eyes, I blink, and my eyelashes brush the frames ever so slightly as if giving them a nudge to get them to begin their magic. Once I open my eyes from blinking the world explodes before me.


Colours become deep and rich and I can almost taste them on my tongue as my eyes guide my other senses. The usually blurred edges of leaves on the trees become so sharp that I feel that if I reach out to touch them I will cut my finger and blood red will join the crisp green of the leaves in a burst of beautiful colours I wouldn't have been able to see properly before. Nevertheless, there is something which stopped my heart for a moment yesterday and I had never experienced anything more breathtaking in all my life.


I was sat outside on a mild day, relishing the scent of freshly mown grass, and I happened to be wearing my glasses. At one moment, I looked to the sky and gasped. I was terrified at just how new the world suddenly seemed to me. Something you probably all take for granted are clouds. Clouds, thousands upon thousands of them, cross over your heads each day unacknowledged. They float with the wind, so silently that they are rarely noticed unless something else pulls your attention to the sky and you spare a thought for the poor, lonely masses of condensed water vapour.


Yesterday I saw clouds properly for the first time in my life. I've never taken a glance to the sky in my glasses, and I didn't realise until yesterday that I had never seen clouds properly. Tears fogged my eyes, I was that in shock, and I smiled a smile more wide and true than I had in a very long time.


Clouds truly are beautiful. Wisps of a wonderful white colour on the edges which cluster together nearer the centre of the cloud to create something so large and fluffy. They are such friendly things, hugging each passer by who happens to glance up with a feeling of such warmth. The smaller ones, barely making a scratch upon the sky, blow away so quickly i'm almost certain not enough people watch them go. They leave without even saying goodbye. Until yesterday I had never truly seen clouds, I had wasted over sixteen years without them.  I regret that most deeply.


I apologise on boring you with details you already know, for I am sure none of you are as silly as me and have noticed clouds before. I will take much more time acknowledging their beautiful existence now, and perhaps they will appreciate the smiles I will give them and how those smiles are dedicated wholly to the joy they bring me.


My blog is honestly reaching an awful point. I'm describing clouds for goodness sake. I'll try so much harder in the future, sorry.


Ayesha x

Day Eleven

"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generation, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable."

As you may already tell, the format of this blog post is again a little different to previous ones. I am trying to keep my blog exciting, and I thought that perhaps by discussing this beautiful passage with you I could try and keep you interested. So here I go.

The above passage, as is obvious, was extracted carefully (well, copied and pasted, but we can pretend that I used a scalpel to precisely cut the edges of a page from my book 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' and then gently stuck it down on this blog post using minuscule blobs of super glue) from a short story from a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. This particular snippet was taken from 'A Case of Identity', a rather interesting story. 

If you know me, then you know that I love Sherlock. I love the BBC television show more than I love anything else in the world and therefore decided to turn the first page of A Study in Scarlet with a held breath and delved into the extraordinarily sublime world which envelops Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Rarely do I get so absorbed by a book that when I peer up and over the edge of it my vision is blurry and all I can see are the wonderful characters I have fallen so in love with, but Arthur Conan Doyle's stories of Sherlock Holmes's adventures do just that.

I apologise greatly for that moment in which I just attempted to convince you to read the Sherlock Holmes stories. I hope you now have Amazon up on another tab and are ordering the books right this instant! Back to what I really wanted to talk about. The passage.

I have never read something that portrays human life better, and the realisation of how true Sherlock's words are hit me so fast that I had to sit back and re-read the paragraph, my heart racing and my face flushing with excitement. He's right. If I were able to fly over London (or anywhere for that matter) and use the before mentioned scalpel to gently prise the rooftops from houses I would be able to peer in and see something beyond the imagination of any person.

Life. Real human life. People living, breathing, existing. People brewing tea, taking a shower, reading a newspaper, having arguments, sharing kisses. People doing such normal, everyday things that they go unnoticed to those lost in daydreams. You could imagine the wildest stories, in which knights battle dragons and princesses kiss the princes of their dreams, but reality is so much stranger, so much less cliched, so much richer in adventure. The most bizzare of imaginings cannot in any way be more enthralling than the life of an average human being.

Next time you thing your life is dull, or you sit there and think to yourself 'nothing happens to me', just remember Sherlock's words. Remember that "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent" and then maybe, just maybe, you can see just how important every life on this earth is. Perhaps then you will see that your life is actually much more complex and intricate than the life of Sherlock Holmes.

I hope this post hasn't made you so bored that you've removed yourself from your computer screen and begun to shoot at the wall in frustration, and has instead given you something to think about.

I hope you are all enjoying the adventures that life has to give. Good night.

Ayesha x

Day Ten

Another day with nothing to say so I thought I would grab a picture (from the prettiest tumblr in the world owned by my lovely friend Charlie) and tell you the story behind it. For some reason this picture grasped my attention because I can imagine the person in it being pensive and it would be nice for my dear readers to know what she is thinking.  

I was shrouded in the scent of old books the second I set foot into the book shop, head ducked, watching my scuffed shoes carry my feet forward for me. In the distance between what was occurring in my head and reality I could hear wisps of the voices of the book shop owners tickling at my mind. I shook them away, the wispy voices crumbling into dust in my head as Mr and Mrs Jones frowned at me and turned back to the piles of books they were sifting through. I picked my way through the stacks of books which were blocking my way; even physical things were closing in on me. I bit back tears.


I reached the coffee shop which was joint to the book shop, the fragrance of strong coffee glazing the scent of old books with another layer of hazy smoke, too sweet, too sickening, I couldn't breathe. Usually those smells would calm me, but I was wrapped up in everything that had happened over the past few days. I was choking on it all.


I ordered a cup of tea; a cup of tea is strong and steady. It is controlled by the person who brews it. Control, exactly what I needed right now. I shakily went about my ritual, brewing the tea for exactly three and a half minutes before removing the tea bag and watching as the swirling flavours crowded the cup; they seemed flustered, confused and lost. I noticed this and hastily stirred the tea until it was calm and quiet once more.


I then gently poured in the milk, the smooth, lulling fluidity of the liquid as it poured into the tea gave me a moment to breathe. The tea was complete, and as I blew away the steam which was pirouetting from it I felt relaxed for the first moment in a long while.


I forgot about my dad, the car crash, my mother's spiraling depression, my uncle's abuse. I covered the bruises on my wrist with my sleeves and kissed them quickly through the fabric. Everything would be okay. I would be fine. I had a long cup of tea to mull things over and I could lose myself in a book or two. Reality slowly flooded away completely and my mind felt like a tranquil place. I'd look after myself now.


I have no idea what that was but there you go, that's the story of the girl in the picture.


I'm tired now, sorry this was left so late and is so awful and short. Good night, sweet reader.


Ayesha x

Day Nine

Today I discovered a place of true tranquility and for the first time in a long while,I felt able to take a deep, shuddering breath and to breathe out all of my problems. I watched them twirl through the wind alongside pollen and grass seeds, a smile spreading up my cheeks then rushing back to the centre of my face to open wide as I sneezed. Pollen and grass seeds are an awful combination, even in a place so peaceful and mellow my body seems to find faults.


This beautiful place I am speaking of is one which is often overlooked by the average passer-by. A place folded into the corner of fields or crouching in long grass or behind fences, attempting to keep out of sight. A place younger generations fail to see behind its stereotype of 'old fashioned' and adults fail to make time for in their busy schedule of a day. Yes, dear reader. I am talking about allotments.


For those who don't know, though I don't doubt your intelligence, an allotment is a small plot of land which can be rented by a wonderful, caring member of the human race and tended for. The owner will create a rainbow, a stunning rainbow of vegetables, flowers, fruits, right inside that allotment. The owner will spend day after day in the rain, sunshine, snow, hail, caring for their plants as they would care for children. 


Allotments are proof that love doesn't have to be limited to just people. Love is universal; it is poured into allotments by its owners as they water their plants, the mixture of affection, hydrogen and oxygen coaxes the crops to turn to the sun with a smile as they grow.


It isn't the care and tenderness owners display as they grow their vegetation which stuns me into silence, it's just how breathtaking the place is. I was stood in the middle of a field of allotments today, my shadow cast over a forgiving row of cabbages who didn't mind my covering of the sun for the moments I was there. I guess even the cabbages could tell how in awe I was. The watery suns rays tickled the plants below and they rustled in the wind in appreciation. I turned on my heel slowly, absorbing the colours of each plant.


The raspberries had a rosy blush to them which made me want to turn away, frightened that they were too shy for my stares. The runner beans were a crisp green, a colour reminding me of sipping cool lemonade at a picnic in the park on a stifling hot day. The dandelions, frowned upon by the allotment owners, and most people for that matter, held the strongest yellow colour which the sun itself seemed jealous of. The dandelions stood out menacingly among the greens, its pretense of fluffy petals and cheery colours not hiding well enough how deadly it was. I mean, even the sun seemed upset. Every time I spared a glance towards the dandelions the sun would hide behind a cloud in annoyance.


I noticed a woman sat on a bench next to her allotment, her hands curled around a small flask, breathing in the scent of tea and compost. She appeared to be almost sleeping, her eyes fluttering between open and closed, butterflies flying past mirroring the motions of her eyelids. Tranquil. In that moment I decided I wanted to be like her. I wanted my own allotment which I could tend to and care for. I wanted to be able to sit beside it, delve deep into a book and look up every few moments to capture the rainbow of colours behind my eyes.


I haven't much else to say today, except that I would really like an allotment, and that tomorrow may just give me better inspiration than I had today. I really hope you are all enjoying my blog, I would love to find out what you think. I am utterly shocked at how quickly I have reached over 1000 views and it means an awful lot to me.


Thank you, and good night.


Ayesha x

Day Eight

I realised just now how dull my blog titles are and I was about to apologise (as I seem to do a lot in my blog posts) however I realised there is something mysterious about the titles of these posts. They are so empty, so without meaning, and therefore are like a wrapped present. The dull wrapping paper coats the present, leaving the gift within unknown, unnamed. Just like my blog posts. Each day, you, the dear reader, has no idea what I have written about and this mystery is kept unanswered until you read the post itself. Perhaps the blog titles aren't as dull as I thought after all, as long as you can see the meaning underneath.


Today has been awfully boring, mostly filled with me watching some of the Olympic sports and writing my novel. I've passed over 1300 words however I don't really want to share all of it with you. Here is the next paragraph after the ones I put in my last blog post.


The willow cascaded down over a small river which flowed around the hospital, its bottommost leaves brushing the rim of the water but not quite emerging themselves in it. The medication I was on seemed to drag me under, deeper than the leaves skittering on the surface of the water, deeper than the roots dug so firmly in the ground.

The sun set in the sky and rosy streaks reflected in the river. Sleep claimed me.

Oh and perhaps I could throw you a few more.

“Lizzy.”

“Dad, call me Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth.”

The word ‘dad’ felt so foreign on my tongue, the man sitting beside me who claimed that title seemed equally as foreign. I didn’t know a thing about him, yet he knew so much about me; I felt like the cover of an open book, exposed to all those around me yet unable to see anything under the shell which I was.

“You’re going to have to co-operate, sweetheart.” He said softly, his eyes crinkling at the corner as he attempted a smile.

There, that's how I fit those three lines in which were the start to my novel originally. The mysterious lines. I've crammed a lot of mystery into this incredibly boring post haven't I? All of my inspiration has gone into my novel, my brain is running dry.I hope you can ignore how little I have to say today and enjoy that snippet of my story I have given you. I'm going out tomorrow  so I should have more to say and will hopefully be inspired.

Apologies, lovely reader, have a good evening.

Ayesha x