I find it so so sad that when we perform acts of cruelty towards those we claim to love, we cannot remember all those random acts of kindness that over the years, they gave to us.

When I first started my visual blog, Arlington Rd, initially I was drawn to interior images of beauty, then, of places that I wanted to live in and now, only to places that show signs of domestic and family life.  Beauty without a soul is nothing.

I started a new blog a month ago.  A visual one. It's been great.  I'm loving it.  I spend hours trawling the net for images.  Anything that talks to me. Anything that appeals to my soul.  But it just occurred to me.  Am I looking at a life in pictures as opposed to living one?  Just a thought.

How many times do we need to be faced with someone with a terminal illness, that is really way too young to die, to think 'if not now, when?' and to actually act on it?  Do we all really have a part in our brain that we are unaware, of that thinks 'it won't happen to me' and 'I have time'?

We get older and things change.  Our taste in music, interiors, movies and we accept this, yet we still expect our bodies to look in our 50s, how it did in our 20s.  We see images of famous women our age, who have at their disposal, nutritionists to tell them what to eat, cooks to prepare the food and personal trainers to bully them into achieving the perfect body, yet the signs of ageing are still there.  Back fat, bingo wings, saggy knees etc.  If these women cannot fight the effects of time with all the help they have, then what hope do we mere mortals have?  It should make us feel more accepting and yet, the body bashing continues.

Desire to de-clutter has reared its ugly or pretty head, still not sure which one it is.  Surrounded by 'stuff ', by my standards anyway.  It's all over the freaking joint!  Where does it all come from?  No sooner do I get rid of some of it, it comes back again, but each time with a stronger force.  Heeeeeelp.  In the attic, in the shed, in the house, eeeergh, where isn't it?  I read once that stages of life are determined by how many keys one has.  When you are a child you have none.  Then when you are a teenager you get given a front door key.  Then you learn to drive and you get a car key.  Then you leave home, get your own place, get an additional front and back door key and possibly a shed or garage key.  Then you get older and more security conscious and if you have double glazing, you get window keys and on and on it goes.  I have WAY too many fucking keys.

Just been reading an interview with Sofia Coppola, an intelligent and talented film maker.  The following description is in the opening paragraph.  'She is calm and softly spoken.  Her milky skin, cherubic lips, brilliant sparkling eyes and choppy, bobbed hair lend her an ever-youthful demeanour.'  For crying out loud, this is in a relatively intelligent magazine, not Daily Mail online.  What has happened to us?  This is an important woman with a lot to say.  What has happened to journalists?  What has happened to us?  Is this what we now expect from our interviews?  What is perhaps most upsetting, is that I always assume that these top people approve their interviews before going to print and if this is the case, why are they not saying 'hold on a minute, this is 2013, this is not what our mothers and grandmothers fought for'?  Maybe I'm disappointed.