I know places

It just dawned on me that I am going to move out of my house in 3 months. For the first time I will be living on my own. I am not afraid of the responsibility but I will be so far away from home, it's not like I'll just be moving across town. I'm moving from Portugal to Italy. It's close in international terms, but so far... It's what I've always wanted, to leave my country, but there are several things that I will miss. Not people - family or friends... But mostly my dogs and my garden.

I won't even get started on my dogs because I'll just cry like a fucking idiot but I'd never realized how much my garden means to me.
I've lived in this house since I was 10 - I lived in an apartment before. It's an old, early 18th century house with three storeys and a big garden. We have vines and a small fountain and a big area of grass that I have to water on weekends. We have a pine tree and a peach tree, a tangerine tree, a pot with a strawberry plant. Camellias,  dozens and dozens of all kinds of roses my mom imported from England to plant here, bougainvillaea, there's an old stone structure where I planted my cactus the day I moved here - it used to be pot-sized, now it's gigantic and full of flowers.
We have a heated outdoors pool right next to the grass. We have a pool house with a bathroom and a small charcoal deposit for a grill, that were built along with the house so they're 18th century as well. There's sunlight outside, everywhere, all day, since we tend to the trees to keep shade from inhibiting the grass from growing.

We have an enormous lemon tree that has lemons all year round. Really big, juicy lemons that are - somehow - very sweet. I got used to making lemonade without sugar. We have parsley that we pick whenever we want to use it for cooking, same thing with coriander and chives.

While I'm sitting here at the computer, there's a window at my side. I'm looking at a small courtyard with a single tree and an old marble vase on a pedestal and an archway that leads to the kitchen door further ahead. Rustic stone steps that go up to the garden itself.
Sun, so much sun.

I will miss my garden.

Oh my god.

Summer Style

Hello everyone! After a hectic week in the UK, a hectic week back in Lisbon and three amazingly fast-paced days in Rome for my interview at IED, I am back to appreciate some Portuguese summer.
While flying back I took the time to read the new Harper's Bazaar and Vogue UK and found a few things that I really want, so, what the heck, I decided to scan them and show you.

French Connection dress

Paul & Joe Sister two-piece

Lovely dress from Benetton.

Now I guess I need the money to get these things... I'll have to wait until July! I've also fallen deeply in love with these: 

Prada espadrille brogues

I tried them on while in Rome but my usual size was too big on me and they didn't have a smaller one. 

So in order to drown my sorrows, I bought the following things while on my trip:

• Chanel black and white converse-style trainers
• Two Missoni headbands & a belt
• ASH heeled trainers & heeled sandals
• Hogan coral ballerinas
• Chanel rouge coco shine lipstick in Cavalière and Boy

I still plan on getting all the things on my list above and the damned elusive brogues. As soon as they're available online... mark my words!

I had the best dream last night

This might sound odd to all of you who haven't known me for that long, but I've had a priest fetish for years. Probably since I was in 9th grade. I was 14 at the time.
I had a priest fetish at 14, which probably means I had and/or have deep-seated mental issues, had a precocious brain or was just a really weird kid. Anyway, it has kept on livin' on pretty strongly in my brain and I believe I can admit now that it has evolved from a fetish and became an actual preference when it comes to men.

Awkward post is awkward. And it will get worse than this, trust me.

Last night I had a dream. We all dream, right? Well, most of us, some people don't dream, even I don't dream all the time when I'm stressed, I heard stress can actually prevent you from dreaming as opposed to giving you nightmares but oh man I'm rambling again I'm sorry. Anyway, I had a dream and it was really cool.


When I was in Tuscany a few weeks ago I stayed in a hotel called Castel Monastero. It was beautiful - an old monastery turned into a hotel. Well I dreamt of this place, but it wasn't all hotel, it was my house. I was actually pretty (HAHA) and living there with my grandparents. Half of the monastery was still a hotel though and there was a chapel that could be used for weddings and people had weddings and baptism ceremonies all the time. I was sort of the manager or something, I don't know, I owned the place so whatever.
And I was pretty.

One day one of the guys that works at the hotel drives into the fort with a priest and says he's staying there for a while, I don't remember the reason but it was work-related. And oh god he was so gorgeous I swear there are no real men like that but he wasn't the typical gorgeous, not model-like in the least but.. he was seriously my type all over. And he was a priest. So I went to greet him and I was all H-Hi I'm Ines welcome , I hope you enjoy your s-stay and he just smiled in a charming but kind of slightly shy way and shook my hand and bowed his head a little and said his name was Will.
Did I mention I was pretty?

So this went on with me showing the guy around the next day and eventually going on a long car ride giving him a glimpse of the nearby towns and the pretty scenery and having lunch and everything and he was really charming and cool but he always seemed a little uncomfortable. And, well, you know me, always the friendly sport, so I told him to relax because I'd rather be his friend than just a hostess and you could tell he was a little more comfortable with the whole thing.

I don't know he was just so perfect oh god I hate my brain this is why I'm single, I dream of this stuff then I can't fall in love with actual REAL people. True story.

Further on he confessed to me he'd been having ~doubts~ because he had decided to be a priest really early and he'd never been with a woman before and he just stared at me and I was all OH LORD WHAT'S HAPPENING

And then we had sex.

Next morning at breakfast with the rest of the staff was really awkward.

This was the best dream I've ever had though. Hats off to my own brain!

Day 1: A self-portrait

Since I don't have a shutter cable for my camera I'll just give you a self-portrait taken with my webcam, a picture my mom took and a picture a friend took of me.

Derpy McDerp. Webcam.

My mother took this one.

My friend took this one with my Pentax K1000 film camera.

It looks like I'm naked but I'm really not. I like it though :)

In other news, I made a tumblr just for written work. I'm working on a story right now and I've written two chapters, which for me is a first. If you would like to read those chapters, click this link.

Photo blog challenge

Going to make an effort to actually do this :)

Day 1: A self-portrait
Day 2: My favourite thing
Day 3: A family member
Day 4: My hobby
Day 5: An old picture
Day 6: “Green”
Day 7: A picture I haven’t shown before
Day 8: A favourite picture
Day 9: Spring
Day 10: Something that makes me happy
Day 11: Something crazy
Day 12: My everyday life
Day 13: “light”
Day 14: Winter
Day 15: Love
Day 16: Self-portrait in black&white
Day 17: A moment
Day 18: Emotions
Day 19: Home
Day 20: “difference”
Day 21: When I was a child
Day 22: My addiction
Day 23: Summer
Day 24: Today
Day 25: In a hurry
Day 26: This makes me laugh
Day 27: “two”
Day 28: Weather
Day 29: A new picture of me
Day 30: Autumn
Day 31: Anything

Factory photoshoot

So before I bring you all the lovely pictures from Italy in a tiny little flickr link, I'll show you what I've been up to the last few days (before going and after coming back).

 

 

The rest of the set, comprising of 68 photos, can be found here on its own Flickr set

I'm actually really happy with how these turned out because I've never shot people before :D Diana and Sara were incredibly patient so thank you for bearing with me for so long.

The place we shot in is an abandoned factory in Amadora, near Lisbon. For someone who is obsessed with abandoned and derelict places like me it was a joy to finally get into one - there are a lot of these places in Lisbon but all of them are closed. For the first time I actually got to explore one! All of its four floors were safe to walk on, there were some remains of the time the employees spent there - a lot of paper records, phonebooks, an ad for a typewriter, etc - and a few hints of what each room was for (i.e. we found the laboratory pretty easily, it had sinks and lots of bottles of chemicals).

Here are some unedited shots of the factory in question.

I'm off to select some photographs of Italy and then probably start writing my motivation letter.