I thought I might as well post some pictures from my little escapade to Apsley House, which was the home of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. Apsley was originally designed for Henry Bathurst aka Lord Apsley (2nd Earl of Bathurst) by the neoclassical superstar Robert Adam between 1771-1778. Seriously, if I had a time machine and/or knew the art of reviving the dead, I would commission Adam to make me a house - in his time he designed Pulteney Bridge in Bath, fashionable town houses in Gosvenor & Fitzroy Square, Osterley Park and my beloved Kenwood House, which I will make a separate post about at some point as it figures in my spring escapades. He also did some work on Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.

Wellington moved to Apsley in 1817 and was granted 700.000 pounds to redecorate the house, which had cost Bathurst 10.000. Wellington hired Benjamin Dean Wyatt (who incidentally also worked on Theatre Royal) to work his magic, and he re-faced the facade (originally red brick), refurbished the rooms and added another part to the house. What struck me the most was how incredibly aristocratic it was. Not that I expected it to be small and snuggly, but I am more used to the country houses of the gentry or more middle class town dwellings, with less gold and more embroidery. Now, onto the pictures (please do forgive the poor quality as they were sneakily taken with my iphone.)



( The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. )

To conclude: Apsley House is a gorgeous aristocratic town house you should all visit. I was recommended visiting Sir John Soane's Museum as a contrast to Apsley. Personally I preferred Soane's as he designed his house in different architectural styles (even tacky gothic!) and collected ancient Roman and Greek sculptures on a large scale. It's such an amazing house and I've taken to hanging around there as it is free entry. Do call upon Sir Soane as well, preferably during one of the candlelit evening openings, they're spectacular.

I went a little crazy on amazon here the other day. While looking for books for my dissertation and some to help me revise for my exam on Georgian everyday life and architecture, I added far too many items to my shopping basket and as a result I have been receiving parcels non-stop for the last few days. I am incredibly excited about the first I received, Mrs. Delany & Her Circle as I didn't realise it would be so big and with so many shiny illustrations. Oh, 18th century domesticity and accomplishments, how I love you! And of course I can't help but having a soft spot for Mrs. Delany as she's my professor's pet. Let's reclaim domesticity! I have already started by acquiring a great deal of things with flower patterns and embroidering a tiny ship (which was actually an assignment for a seminar on female crafts.)



( How young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are. )

Oh, and here's my new iphone case (and iphone, whoo) and an example of my mad embroidery skills. I bet you are all awed.

Professor: So, Aleksandra, what did you make?
Me: [Holds up piece of cloth]
Professor: Ah, I see. What would you all think if you found this during your research on the Georgian era? Who would Aleksandra be?
Girl: A man!
Professor: Erm, I was thinking more she had a brother in the navy...

Not the first time I've heard that, I tell you! (Watch this space for an upcoming rant on my new flatmate who thinks everyone's attracted to her.)

Permission to come aboard although I have been absent for ever so long?

I have not really felt like writing here for the past year or so and my f-list was clogged up with random communities and fandoms I am no longer interested in, so I could not bring myself to keep up with the reading either. I have however cleaned up my f-list, my tags and my profile, and am prepared to start afresh. After going through my old entries I decided to make the journal partly f-locked. In other words, most of my old entries are locked, private or untagged and in the future I will lock personal posts (that is to say, rants) but keep fannish and historical posts public. I am growing older and therefore more paranoid, apparently.

What has happened since I last posted a proper update? Well, I finally feel at home in the new flat, will soon be finished with the second year of my history/literature bachelor degree and am trying to get into re-enactment. I have been on several escapades, watched a lot of costume dramas and bought a bunny named Dr. Peter Howarth, after an English professor at my university.



I have also started planning my dissertation which will be on Jane Austen's Persuasion and sailors wives during the Napoleonic Wars, and am currently being all excited about the Jane Austen Weekend in Florence which I am attending in May. These days I am obsessing over Sharpe, enjoying my holiday and the unusually warm and sunny London weather, and strolling about the neighborhood with my flatmate. We have also been watching a great deal of Jeeves and Wooster, and stalked people on facebook.



Lastly, how have all of you been? And have you all retired to dreamwidth?

"It's against the law to not pay rent." ♥

Also: our fourth flatmate has turned psychotic and now lives in a hostel as she's afraid we'll physically harm her if she comes home. I am at loss for words. But at least our heating works again!

Happy Trafalgar Day!

England expects that every man will do his duty.

Just some pretty paintings today as I am still sick and haven't any exciting research to present you.

Since I have been a good girl and done all the reading for my seminars next week despite the fact that I have been and still am really sick, I think I have earned the right to just sit her and look at this clip of Matthew Macfadyen and a puppy.



This is a really good adaptation, by the way. My flatmate and I decided to watch it for fun as the DVD cover looked really cheesy, but it turned out to be the best ones we've seen yet. It lacks Janet McTeer obviously - but it has got Crispin Bonham-Carter! That is not an altogether bad replacement, methinks.


Whoo, Crispin ♥ So adorable.

“Oh, Crispin! I love him. And what a name! It’s like being called Mr. Crunchy or something.” - Mara (flatmate)

Alright, I'll just go munch some strepsils now.

Long time and no see! I am not back from my sudden and unaccounted for break from livejournal but I just have an important question to ask, regarding bedroom interiors. We eventually found a flat in London, very close to Brick Lane and Spitalfields with all its Georgian Houses and Victorian prostitute-charm. New flat means new bedroom, which means that I have to decorate once again and this time I am also responsible for getting some decent furniture. The landlord left some furniture in my bedroom but the bookshelf is crappy and falls over (and it's bright red), the chest of drawers is disgusting (it was once white I believe but now it's yellow), and the desk is small and ugly. I am therefore resolved to get a proper bookshelf, a proper desk and a proper place to store my clothing. Now, the question is: dark brown or white furniture? My room is not particularly small but completely square so my bed takes up most of the space, I do have room for a bookshelf and a small desk, though. But I'm afraid that dark furniture will make it look smaller and be too dominant. The room is also rather dark so I'm also afraid dark furniture will make it even darker. The problem is that I have quite a thing for dark furniture and often feel that white interior easily become too modern, sterile and minimalistic. So again the question is: dark and Victorian as a Dickens adaptation or white with lace as a Merchant/Ivory production? (Yes, I always think in terms of costume dramas.) Should I emphasize the darkness and smallness of the room by going for a 1850s style or try to make it lighter and larger by going for something more like 1905? Here's a bit of inspiration (the first and the last picture is of actual Victorian bedrooms): ( Inspiration: real life, Desperate Romantics & Bright Star ) Edit: Had I been allowed to paint my room (and had I been staying there after University), I'd paint it 18th century style, like this amazing Swedish blogger.

I really need to clean up my mac; delete old files and put everything into descreptive folders as my documents folder and desktop is a complete mess after half a year with little or no archiving. Firstly I went through my "Handsomepants" folder, cleaned it out and renamed most of the files, so in the near future I am going to post most of them as that's what I've been saving them for anyway. That and random, obsessive, superficial fangirling. Originally the folder had a lot more files in it but then my harddrive crashed around Christmas last year (and I had to write two big essays on a crappy school computer in the library among other things - the only good thing that came of it was that I spent most of my time reading and listening to Classic FM which aired a lot of charming Dickensianish Christmas music) and I lost everything; luckily I had a backup of my Vintage Photo folder! I should probably post something from it sometime.

 ( Handsomepants Part One: A-B )

Also: I GOT MY FIRST CHOICE ENGLISH MODULES FOR THE NEXT SEMESTER!!! They're apparently provisional but I am excited all the same! My two first choices, worth 30 credits each (only need 60 for English as I also take 60 in History to fill my 120 second year credits) were "Imagination and Knowledge: English Romantic Literature 1770 - 1825" and "Women Writing in the Romantic Period". This means that my second year is going to be a blissful one full of Keats & Austen. I...I feel dizzy.

Oh, aren't I a nice person; scribbling down a rant and then buggering off on holiday. Well, I'm back in Oslo and in a better mood now although I'm slightly gloomy. But then again, I'm always slightly gloomy. Thanks for all the nice comments and party invitations - I've added them to my calendar ;)

This one week of family holiday actually went very well: first a trip to a cabin in the country and then three days in Bergen which was a lively and important 19th century city but is today quiet and provincial (albeit with a lot of pretty pastel coloured early to mid 19th century houses.)

I'll update properly with pictures later - for now you'll have to make do with this gorgeous picture from 1910 of two small girls with lollipops posted at vintage_photo .



( Meme )

Another meme because I am annoyed and grumpy today.

The 10 pictures meme

• Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.
• NO CAPTIONS! It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.
• They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.
• You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.

( Ten pictures )