Meeting Hugh and Wearing Blue

October greeted me with a birthday picnic, five kinds of cake spread out on a blanket in the park.

This birthday was a good one. Although it had a rocky start. Not many people can say they’ve been rejected by Hugh Grant, particularly Sallies girls, but the conversation on the first morning of the Dunhill golf championship went something like this:

‘Could we have a picture, please?’

‘Yeah, in a minute, just give me a sec.’

We nodded politely as he went to tick off whatever it was from his to do list. But Hugh had deception on his mind. He proceeded to the first hole of the Old Course and promptly teed off.

Come on, Hugh. Stop toying with us. We all know you can’t do the Old Course in a minute. We all know it, Hugh. We all know.

So over it.

...

Over summer, Imogen stayed, and in the time that wasn’t spent washing dishes and serving school dinners we took photos. Since Melbourne, my clothes are all bright. I often look ridiculous, but I don't mind. It keeps the warmth with me.

I bought this jumper upon my arrival into Glasgow under January cloud. I was desperate for something bright. It has seen me through many a grey day. There is nothing that lifts my mood more on a gloomy morning than dressing like an over-saturated photo.

 I was walking along this little mini pier being all artsy for Imogen's camera and we found a rope. I envisaged scenes from Moulin Rouge, but it looks more like i am winching myself out of Davy Jones' Locker. I'll take it.

Then we found this perfect little corner of colour coordination and I put on my best glower. Who wore it best?

...

This semester is going incredibly slowly - each day seems to last a week, and I'm perpetually busy. But this last year is a good one. I am forever being blown away by a very simple realisation:

I am happy to be here.

summer and smiles come back to me shyly

I have a flat.

Commuting didn’t seem so bad at the time – it’s easy to trudge along and accept the present. Now I’m living on my own again, I realise I missed the freedom of organising my own time, the little responsibilities which, added up, make you an adult. I am enjoying doing the boring things: writing lists, washing up, unpacking my suitcase and assigning each item its own proper place.

Now I see I missed my morning cycle, propelling myself into the day instead of being pushed forward, half-asleep, on an early bus. I’m living in the east end for the first time, and my bike takes me through a park, in sight of the beach, then up a wide curving slope with the old city wall and the cathedral to my right. I cycle uphill into the wind, gears too high and seat too low, feeling the push in my thighs and enjoying the fleeting chance, once again, to exercise by accident.

Our living room is blue-green, and our poky little kitchen is painted bright yellow.

I visited family in Jersey.

I know the island as a childhood friend. We visit my grandmother’s house and it hasn’t changed since the photos in which I sit, baby-cheeked and serious, on the living room step. The photos come out, the medals from the wars. Stories slip gently through more practical conversations. In the prison camp in Shanghai my great grandfather ate maggots for protein. Matthew, could you help close the garage door? My great uncle, spurned, wrote my great aunt a poem: I am in love with a cold green stone. And perhaps my mother could lend a hand sorting out this paperwork?

I know the island well, but this time I saw it from two different vantage points. By bike we clattered and weaved to Corbiere, where blue tides recede and yield the lighthouse path to dry feet. At Anne Port we threw the bikes aside and floated face up under blinding sun. It rained two days later, but we rode on anyway.

Then my uncle, a pilot, showed us the island from above. The lido at Havre de Pas where we swim daily; Mont Orgueil Castle where Imo once lost a teddy bear; Pontac Slip where we let ourselves get sucked into the black ocean at midnight – these familiar sights were spread out on the map below, all small parts of one great picture.

Now I am back, and in St Andrews too I have bike and beach and sun. 

An exam looms and the holiday is done, but summer is not quite over yet. 

The blue sky peeks at me from behind cloud-blots, 

and I treasure fleeting frequent moments 

within which I feel 

like spinning 

again.

May Dip

St Andrews is full of weird traditions, from wearing ridiculous gowns in ridiculous ways to refusing to walk across particular cobblestones where a Protestant man was once burned at the stake. I could go on – but my favourite of these traditions is May Dip.

Anyone fancy joining me to run into the North Sea at dawn? It’s two degrees air temperature and the familiar biting wind is howling through your ribs. The tide is out and slipping away further, so it’s a long run across numb sand to get to the water. But there are bonfires all along the beach and a pink and orange glow is starting to spread across the sky, while the wet sand is gleaming with firelight and the first rays of dawn.

We ran in together and held hands as we submerged ourselves. The shock of the cold knocked the air out of me. I emerged gulping for air, mind blurred and fuzzy, but the air seemed warm now, and the sun was rising too. We whooped and laughed and sloshed away, frog-legged and numb, in search of hot showers and pancakes.

Where I’ve been

I’ve not written here in over a month, which is a little ridiculous. But I have written! Example 1: let’s talk about Labelled.

Labelled Magazine is all about body positivity, inclusivity, feminism, ethical fashion, and happiness. We’ve got two issues out and I’ve written for both.

Ethical fashion: Read my feature on Pineneedle Collective blogger Annika here even if you’ve already heard me rave about her blog.

Ethical fashion again: I also did a feature on ACHIK, a student-led ethical clothing venture stretching from Guatemala to St Andrews – read here.

Opinion: I think this article kind of sucks, but here are my thoughts on the idea that ‘everyone is beautiful.’

Finally, I’m going to be fashion blogging over summer (sort of). You heard me! Soon you’ll be inundated with posts about where I got my clothes and why I think that’s important. Get keen.

Easter Sunday snapshots

It is eighteen degrees on the sunny side of the street.

Shadows hint of winter across the road.

Sunlight glances off pale skin, white and blinding bright, soothed only by the glitter of orange-golden hairs gleaming like jewels upon a stranger’s arm.

My goose-pimpled mother thaws, and takes off both her jumpers.

It is Easter and spring has risen indeed.

on commuting and living with parents

Since the Easter break, I’ve started commuting properly rather than sleeping most nights at a friend’s. As a result, my experience of St Andrews has changed considerably. During the day, I’m in the library, the union, or the bistro. I’m studying, volunteering, or working. In the evening, I’m at home with my family in Dundee. The space and time between is filled by two buses and one long bridge. While crossing this bridge I have never managed to avoid thinking about the one that fell down, passengers and all, during a storm in 1879. 

But let's not dwell on the past. I already spend about ten minutes of my day staring at the stumps of the fallen bridge poking out of the water like thuggish fists, failing to quell the stalwart modern optimism of the University of Dundee's rather renowned architecture and engineering courses. This is what I've learned from commuting so far.

Uni is tiring, and commuting brings that out.

I’ve always loved going home to see my family, but the difference in the past was that it was during termtime peace. I’d set aside a weekend or a day or even just an evening when I wasn’t thinking about uni and could enjoy the company of my sisters and my parents and the little rabbit who makes my day when she hops up to me and asks me to stroke her ears. Or, even better, I’d spend the holidays at home, the weight lifted from my shoulders for weeks at a time. Now, when I go home, it’s not to catch a break.

At the moment, I’m arriving home and I’m tired and stressed and ready to tick the day off my calendar. I don’t have the energy to converse properly, let alone joke and sing and dance the way I normally would before going home was a daily occurrence. My family often say that although I myself am not particularly loud, I bring a lot of noise with me, but I’m not sure that’s happening now. Between studies, work, and volunteering, I just don’t have the energy. But it’s only been two weeks, and already I can feel myself adapting to my new volunteering role, which I started at the same time as I started commuting properly. That bodes well, so hopefully I will adapt to this too.

Commuting encourages self-care.

Although home is no longer something I can compartmentalise as separate from uni life, commuting certainly has a lot of benefits. Life is simpler living with my parents. I don’t have to make time for shopping or cooking (two things I loathe with an equal passion) and eating doesn’t happen alone (the reason I’ve never learned to love to cook). My parents have their rules, and the internet goes off at midnight each night. Eight hours’ sleep is suddenly, miraculously, yet oh so easily attainable. I no longer have to worry about paying for heating, and it's amazing what warmth does for your mood. Finally, Dundee’s weather is much milder than St Andrews’ – it’s amazing the difference crossing the bridge makes – and I’m motivated to run again. Looking after my health – and, as a result, everything – is so much easier at home. And sure, that's because my mum’s doing half of it for me. I’m not ashamed to admit that.

But even if I wasn't living with my parents, I think I would still be taking better care of myself than I did when I lived in St Andrews. When you know you can't just go home, you have to plan your day. This means packing food which is going to keep you going. This means sleeping - as we've established, commuting is tiring. When I had a flat within walking distance, my relatively unplanned days would become weeks, and I'd always come home for the holidays exhausted and slightly underweight. Most people probably have a better handle on their lives than I do at this age, sure, but commuting is forcing me to take proper responsibility for my day, and as a result, my wellbeing.

Social time doesn't come quite so easily.

Socialising is the hardest part, so far. I've barely found time to meet friends since coming back since Easter break. If this continues, it’s going to be a pretty lonely end to the semester, and I don’t want that to happen. I can see myself having to actually reserve myself some friend time in my diary at this rate. When I’m living in Dundee, I’m not just going to bump into my uni friends. But living in St Andrews can be lonely in other ways. In the past, several times, I’ve gone days and days without seeing my flatmate. I’m going to have to be much more proactive about socialising now, but it’s also less vital now that the house I’m going home to is full of people. When you’re a family of six, there’s always someone there. It’s much nicer.

.

St Andrews is tiny, and being in Melbourne taught me I’m definitely a city person. It’s important to get breaks from the small-town commotion, to go somewhere bigger and calmer and gentler. Equally, being a visitor to St Andrews rather than a resident has shown me a different side to it, and I am very lucky to get to study in this old boarding house by the sea. I’m glad I get to spend each day both in a town and in a city. I'm also very lucky to have this option - it's a real money-saver and having parental support just 40 minutes away is something most students just don't have. It was definitely the right decision to commute this term.

A Weekend in Kettlewell

For the weekend I got to drift, timeless, between adulthood and youth. I’m among the oldest of my generation of Chappells, and the oldest of the various godfamilies my sisters and I were each given. And I’m among the youngest of the adults, and yet in another way I grew up with them too.

I floated through the lounge room making loom band bracelets with eight-year-old Bessie, passed by a pillow fight and a questionable freestyle rap battle, mixed white wine and lemonade into a champagne-style potion as a big-girl cousin, and laughed at drunken uncles gulping whiskey at 3am. One minute I was the designated adult in charge of a hilltop expedition, the next I was penguining on my belly down a snowdrift, fingers white and snowball-cold.

Getting the whole family together is never easy, and for the last year or so it’s been me missing from the picture. As for joining both families, the godfamilies, and assorted others who I’ve grown up with – that’s something we’ve never had before. But, for a weekend in a Yorkshire hostel with sun and snow and clambering stairs, it didn’t seem unusual at all.

Looking at the village with a loom band knotting my hair

Eight year old child: “I read To Kill A Mockingbird. My favourite character was the Reverend.”

Adult with no memory of Harper Lee: “Ah… yes… the reverend… good character, that…”

“The Chappell bottom. A blessing, a curse. Go on, show me yours.”

“Ooh, this bunk bed is high up, isn’t it! I can see everything from here! I feel like I’m floating!”

everything and nothing has stayed the same

I notice the cold the most. I shiver as I rush from one university building to another, and, having lost my gloves, my hands mottle and spread between bronzed tan at skin on my wrists and bloodless cold white beneath the skin of my knuckles. 

And I notice the dark. I am very lucky to live on Scotland's sunniest side, and I love the briskness of a crisp blue day with no clouds to quell the biting wind. But the late mornings, the early evenings, and the days of never-ceasing dusk haunt and hollow me. I arrived home and none of my clothes suited me anymore. I cleared out the browns, the greys, the blood reds and forest greens. I walk down old grey streets with a bright red coat and a bright yellow scarf and hold the clear sky close.

Though everyone tells me it's like I never left, I have returned to Scotland a minimalist. I write and write and see people who matter most and leave this tiny town when I can. I have been here a fortnight straight now, my longest streak, and in a few days it will be time to leave again. St. Andrews is best enjoyed part-time.

I think about Melbourne always. About the sun, the city, the sky, its scrapers. The friendships, the good bits and the bad. Cycling down Swanston, my mind at peace, and up Heidelberg, taking my thoughts out on my aching legs. The glow and buzz of the ever-shining CBD and the dark of the suburbs lit by streetlamps and strange starlight. Experiences which are mine and mine alone. Stories I inevitably won't end up telling because you can never tell them all. Can you even share an experience once it has already become a memory?

The hardest, strangest part of going away is coming home. I suppose I knew that all along.

It's not just haggis and ceilidhs, you know

edinburgh

In the dusk of early afternoon, Edinburgh glows blue. We cross the bridge on Viewforth and follow the steps down to the canal, where barges steam gently, yellow and red and green. The water is frozen, the ice crinkled like plastic wrap over the rocks and frilled plants and litter below. Stone skimmers, thwarted by winter, find new delights as their pebbles bounce off the ice with a xylophone chime, and, though the ice prevails, white bubbles rise and ponder at each stone’s touch. An open loaf of bread sits expectantly halfway across. Someone remembered to feed the ducks.

We walk this route each day, past the ice, past the bright barges, past the ducks with frozen feet. On Lothian Road exhaust smoke glows gold in the car lights and mingles with the fogged cold dragon breath of bustling humans. Dour lovers kiss at the bus stop and a homeless man in fingerless gloves reads a well-thumbed book to his dog. The castle, grey and impregnable, rises up as we pass Cambridge Street. Far above the grey cobbles and stone stairwells and windswept wynds, the last veiled rays glance off its windows.

Huddled beneath two red coats and two tight scarves and two warm hats, we walk this route each day.

glasgow

The first weekend of term was spent in Glasgow. Sauchiehall Street, like Melbourne’s Swanston, stretches from near the university to the centre of town. My sister walked from Kelvingrove, and a parade of little girls in princess dresses, fresh from a birthday party, did the same. I found the princesses first. Elsa was in the lead, holding tight to her mother’s gloved hand, and Cinderella and Anna followed shortly after, clutching party bags. With my bright yellow scarf and bright red coat, Imogen was the one who spotted me, but I found her as proud Rapunzel brought up the rear, tossing her hair.

It was a dry weekend, sun-filled and snowy, and uncharacteristically so. I squinted in the sunlight at the entrance to the quads as Imogen’s camera, Virgil, snapped at Glasgow University’s old stones. Kelvingrove gardens were white and gold and at George Square Wellington wore his hat with pride. We ate mushroom burgers at the 78, snacked on chilli peanuts while watching Gone Girl, and in the dark talked our way to morning.

Glasgow, wide and freeingly anonymous, is as close to Melbourne as Scotland comes.

dundee

Little has changed. Clark’s still sells late-night strawberry tarts. Henry’s still sells amaretto coffee. My sisters still cut their own hair at 2am. My family are still loud with seasoned jokes we need only half-tell. We are as we ever were: between us girls we have more piercings, more hair-dye, and more makeup than ever before, but we are as we always have been, just more so.

st andrews

And now I am back under scudding Renoir skies and ink-blot trees, translating thirty lines of Virgil* a day and wearing my scarf a la Bardot to fight the biting North Sea wind.

I don’t quite know where this blog will lead now. I suppose we’ll find out along the way.

*Not the camera this time.

snapshots of moments made vivid by goodbyes

7/1/15, 12.45pm

On a heady 37 degree day, as the warm wind blew like bad breath across my face, I hurtled out of Darling Gardens and over a pothole, over my handlebars, and into the road. The tarmac reeked, molten under the stinking sun, and what remained of my skin stung in six different places, but the eggs I’d just bought were still whole. The eggs were the first thing I checked, before I noticed the bloodstains on my purse, the buttons ripped from my dress, the deep gashes on my palms quickly sullied by bike oil as I struggled with my chain. I walked the rest of the way, black and red and purple all over, the heat nettling my skin with a sweat-salt sting. The weather broke later as I washed my wounds, thunder like a lover finishing lightning’s sentences. Fat raindrops drummed on the tarmac, cooling it until it smelled like home.

8/1/15, 9pm

Southbank glitters and I spin. The fairy-lit trees are blurred blotches, skyscrapers cradle street-level lovers, and I am alone with my coupled-up friends but I am happy. They hold hands and walk on as I lean backwards over the railing of the bridge, ponytail swinging towards the slow Yarra below. Brown in its daylight lethargy, the silt sits on the water’s surface, and so they say the river flows upside down. But tonight Melbourne is upside down, shimmering blue and pink and gold on the slow black swell, and the real city reaches towards the sky, but the mirrored city reaches towards me.

The sun has set pink and red. Now the sky is black, and the storm never came.

9/1/15, 01.34

It’s early in the morning of my third-last day, and the clock hands have tipped me deep into my thoughts. And I wonder if back home I’m known as the yellow girl with the swinging ponytail and strange fascination with rooftops who wastes no time working out who she likes. And whether I was known as this before Melbourne, or if these are traits I’ve formed here. And if it’s how I’ll be known when I return. And I notice that I like myself here, I like what Melbourne makes of me, and I like what I make of Melbourne. I haven’t found myself. What a stupid phrase. We've lost ourselves, if anything. Introspection so far from home is like looking in a new mirror and realising the mirror you had before was distorted, and this one is too, but in a different way, and yet the mirror here and the mirror back home both show you yourself. I don’t want to lose this sense of self-assurance, this city-sense of peace. But something tells me it’ll be okay. I won’t.

11/1/15, 22.41

I’m sitting in the airport and, unlike the past few days, my eyes are dry. Moments stay with me. Friday's rain-dappled nightlit walk down Swanston Street; the Trades Hall disco ball spinning as we danced to The Jam; my laughing friends singing the Proclaimers over and over; their reddened eyes as they hugged me goodbye at the terminal entrance. 

 But I’m in action mode: endure now, think later.

I don’t want to go.

It Doesn't Look A Bit Like Christmas

For the past month I have inhabited the surreal parallel world of Australian advent. The blue sky above Bourke Street is veiled with green and red baubles, the town hall is parcelled up beneath a massive red bow, and Flinders Street Station glows each night like the gaudy house front of your most obnoxious neighbour.

On December 13 I returned to Melbourne from Byron Bay to the dulcet clash of glass bottles against tram tracks, Spring Street having become the venue for a late night street brawl. Running up Bourke Street, I wormed my way between Santas, uncostumed and alone in a thirty degree Where’s Wally world. On Christmas Eve we climbed Hanging Rock and looked down with sunlit faces at the land, Tuscan yellow and far below us. Christmas day was Christmas dinner, hosted by a kindly Old Boy from a friend’s school and his wife. The sun was shining and there was hardly a pine tree in sight.

Christmas in Australia and Christmas in the UK are very different, notably that here it’s just somehow… less. I think a lot of that is down to the weather. Come late December, we Brits are desperately in need of something to lift the spirits. But here, with the sun shining and the days drawn out long, the celebration is just an added bonus.

Ridiculous.

bronte beach was sun on my salt-flecked face as i balanced, whooping for joy, on flash's shoulders, the sea up to my chest, bubbles rising from where he stood, submerged. my eyes wept for the salt, tears mingling with ocean, and i did not worry about the burn scar on my back or the precariousness of bikini tops, normally so infuriating. we floated over the first wave, dove under the second, and paddled furiously until we caught the third.

manly was avocado and soft boiled egg salad and a parking space right next to the sand and the story of how flash and gabi met, told lovingly over a jug of water and a bowl of chips.

new year's eve was dancing and photos with full makeup and kati's dress. it was hearts to hearts, sing-alongs, the sound of music, go-pro close-ups of charlie’s face, ice-cold chilean liquor and linked arms. it was stargazing, head skyward, alone atop the wrought-iron garden gate. it was fireworks over the bridge and a grumbling old man promising us we'd end the night in a paddy-wagon. we woke in the same room, exactly where we fell, having eaten all the chicken sandwiches at 4am.

2015 started with a swim in flash's pool. i anchored my ankles against the edge and starfished on the surface, gazing at the peeling eucalyptus whose leaves flecked the blue sky. cockatoos flirted, frangipanis floated, and sia sang through declan's speakers.

we drove everywhere in flash's car, triple j blasting. louis and i bickered in the back seat and kati cackled constantly while gab danced and flash showed us all his favourite places. we rolled down the windows and sang along and didn’t care.

and when my ferry left mosman i stood at the prow, gazing forward.

The 65-year-old who hosted us for Christmas: “What’s a selfie? Sounds like a type of cheap ice cream.”

“I don’t know what my boyfriend sees in me. Look at me. I’m wearing socks and sandals. What the fuck?”

 “God, Miriam, take some time off from being a feminist. Get out from under the king’s horse.”

Byron and Back Again

The first person I met when I arrived in Australia was more stoned than the regular clientele of Medusa’s favourite Amsterdam coffee shop. We played a game on his phone and he defeated me mercilessly despite my temperance. Then our brief friendship came to an end. “Duuuude,” he drawled. “This was sick, dude, but I’d better go. I need to meet my dealer.” His phone buzzed gently. The lock screen was a leaf of sweet Mary Jane.

I was reminded of this encounter when I arrived in Byron Bay. The stereotypical image, once a mere doodle in my mind, is filled in at the edges and becomes as colourful as a sun-tanned tattoo. I had never seen a dreadlocked mullet before going to Byron, but now I’d hardly give it a second glance. Most people are barefoot, but the hair wraps and tie dye make up for any lack of sole covering. On my final day, the white rastas got out their ukuleles and bongos, dreadlocks enveloped in Santa hats, and performed an acoustic Christmas Carol concert on the grass.

Byron Bay offers more than just people-watching. Surfing, sea-kayaking, diving, and snorkelling are all on the to-do list, though I ticked off only the last. At Julian Rocks I met a sea turtle and watched it dine on jellyfish, but stayed far away from the rays lurking on the seabed. I burnt myself at Belongil Beach, the quieter, nicer beach about a kilometer from the town. A slow, hot walk to the Cape Byron Lighthouse and Australia’s easterly point, passing as many beaches as it does, could fill a day. At the lighthouse I scribbled a windswept postcard to my friends at Yarra, and at the easterly point a school of dolphins frolicked in the glittering waves.

I’ve spoken a lot about the residence I’ve been living at while studying in Australia. It’s been the source of most of the friendships I’ve made while here, and certainly the ones I know I’ll keep when I’m gone. Res life isn’t for everyone, but if you don’t mind a messy kitchen, thrive in a busy, loud environment, and like to be surrounded by people, it’s for you. (Tip: this year, floor 1 was the noisiest, floor 2 was the friendliest, and floor 3 – mine – was the most peaceful.)

Take a look for yourself with our handy resident-made virtual tour.

Yarra House Virtual Tour from LV Media on Vimeo.

"Why are you eating her ice cream? Is stealing her food some weird revenge?" "Well, they do say revenge is a dish best served cold."

 “I’ve been through a lot. Even my scars have scars.”

“But the German for Ovulation is Eisprung. That means ‘egg jump’.  So the egg jumps between the fallopian tubes, back and forth, and the sperm shoots it. Like Space Invaders. Right?”

 “Empower: for women. The new fragrance by Chappell.”