Day of dreams

I always got the feeling that Valentine's Day was better in older times, when love was more forbidden.

When I was a teen Valentine's Day always tortured me, because I never received the anonymous valentine that I secretly longed for. Then as I got older and became a little more acquainted with love, still without ever receiving a valentine, I grew to look upon Valentine's Day with a degree of cynical disdain. Now I enjoy Valentine's Day from a distance. I look upon it as a day of nostalgia and dreams, where ponder romantic fantasies, the things that I have always hoped someone would do for me - write me a love letter, give me roses, elope with me to the city of love...kiss me amongst the wild flowers. I start to wonder, "Will anyone ever do these things?" not because they will never love me, but because, well things are different nowadays. Or perhaps it has always been this way and it is film and television that has given us these huge romantic expectations of Valentine's Day?

In my heart I feel that the true essence of Valentine's Day is young love, new love and forbidden love. To me it's about the risks an thrills of new love. But ironically, I don't think that many young people write love letters or send valentines anymore. Is it because love isn't as forbidden nowadays, or is it that we're just not as classically romantic? I have also never sent a valentine myself (except when we were as good as forced to do it in Primary school, but does that count?), which I think is partly due to the fact that if I had given valentine to a boy at my high school it would be seen as a huge joke - or is it because valentines were traditionally given to women (I don't know)?

Anyway...sometimes it's nice to imagine what romance can be, regardless of whether it has been for you.

I am an avid collector of images that delight and inspire me, especially now that I have Pinterest, so I thought I would share some Valentine-themed images that are inspiring me. Lately, Valentine's Day also seems to awaken an obsession with pink...

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Look at these two!

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Perhaps someone will throw you a pink tea-party, or send you a love letter or kiss you in the wild flowers this Valentine's Day. I hope that they do. They probably wont, but does it matter? Isn't the longing, hoping and waiting what Valentine's Day is really about?

Midday movie

The weekend before last I stumbled upon this charming little Barbara Streisand comedy that I had never heard of before called 'On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.' It was playing on the ABC at midday and we missed the very beginning of it, but once we found it T & I quickly got hooked. It's a strange little film about a woman called Daisy Gamble who starts seeing a psychiatrist in an attempt to quit smoking.  While she is under hypnosis to try and stop her smoking Daisy starts re-living moments of what seem to be her past lives.

I loved the weird plot line, which was not what I had expected and Barbra is charming as Daisy. The characters also break into song at the most absurd moments I which found quite funny, but I'm not sure if that was meant to be part of the comedy or not. The one thing I really loved about this movie though was the costumes. Daisy seems to wear a different coloured baby-doll dress paired with her gorgeous bouffant hairstyle and a matching hat in almost every scene. The film also features some Georgian and Victorian style costumes, when Daisy re-lives her past lives, but it was the 1960s costumes that I loved best.

The film also stars a very young Jack Nicholson (we barely recognized him at first!) looking very groovy as Tad Pringle...

Young, handsome Jack Nicolson.

 

 

 The amazing orange dress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This dress was my favourite, although you can't see it very well here it was covered in beautiful little applique flowers.

 Daisy can make flowers grow abnormally fast by talking to them.

She also has this amazing bedroom with floral wallpaper that looks lie a Van Gough painting and a nightie that matches her sheets!

 

More matching hats...