I am writing this to you (or was, before I typed it here) sitting against a tree, slowly overtaken by this quaint, English beauty! The sky is wide – blue and soft like a Chagall painting. The river (ohh…) is beautiful. It is the first thing I found when I left my hostel Saturday morning, and I began my first day writing and reading by it – the River Avon – sitting on a bench beside these adorable boats. I’m not sure what they’re called, but they’re long and skinny and I want one! The houses along the river are some of the most idealistic homes I’ve ever seen – their gardens open to the water! I will spend many hours here.
Everything here is like a fairy tale. Stone houses with red doors, long, rambling countryside, fine English pubs…the town is a bit touristy, but the surrounding areas are lovely, and the churches – oh. Some of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen. It is strange being here – so much like a dream, and yet it is only a place! And now that it’s real, it’s changed…(Oh dear. Over philosophizing already!). I have spent two days exploring the city by myself, and today I moved into my house (on Prior Park Road! Don’t you want to be here…). It is lovely. My room is on the top floor and feels like an attic (so terribly romantic!).
I will stop boring you now, except for this (a beautiful poem by Yeats I found on the window of a bookshop here):
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Love your silly, ridiculous, hannah banana
