Colour week - an evening at home with pleasing purple

Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.

Alice Walker

(1944)

I arrived home from a couple of days away for work last night, dropped my bag at the door and rushed around with my little camera to capture some purple... while I was doing this I noticed that a lot of the purple I have in my space falls clearly into the sparkle or comfort camps. Purple is such a special colour to me (the third of my three faves, along with turquoise and orange) and one that I'm ever and increasingly enamoured with. I even love the words that are used to describe purpley colours: violet, lavender, lilac, plum, thistle, orchid, mauve, magenta, royal, amethyst, wine, aubergine, mulberry... all so deliciously evocative of rich experiences, scrumptious flavours and beautiful scents.

~ it was actually my overnight case that reminded me that I had not collected any purples yet. It's the perfect size for a night away for work, this bag, and although I do have more hard-wearing and practical black luggage because, well, it's practical, I always feel just a little less like I'm walking in Peggy's shoes when I carry the purple bag.

~ swapping my purple suede heels for comfy slip-ons begins the transition into relaxed, at-ease-at-home mode... If I'm not pottering around in bare feet or socks, these are my favourite house-shoes.

~ later, after a nice hot shower, a change into my fluffy robe completes the transformation from at-work me into at-home me. Once or twice a month this all happens before 7pm, and although there's no reason not to do this except convention, I still feel strangely decadent when I succumb to this nursery routine.  Although, now that the days are lengthening into the lovely long evenings we enjoy at this latitude in summer, I'm less inclined to dive into soft warm things as early. Still, sometimes it's as much an inner comfort thing as an outer comfort thing. Know what I mean?

~ I actually own a book called Mauve, a fascinating read for anyone interested in colour and a perfect photograph for today's colour theme. Unfortunately it's not made it out of a box and onto a shelf yet (I've run out of shelf space for the moment and am awaiting the delivery of a few more bookcases before I can finish the unpacking of all my books) so we'll have to wait for another opportunity to see that one.  While I was thinking about that, I popped into my study to fetch something and ended up taking this rather fuzzy picture of the purple books I have on the shelf in there instead. It's a bit disappointing to see that there are so few of them (is purple just not considered a good colour for book covers I wonder? And if so, why?) but I do love the ones I have. I don't know if you're familiar with Barbara Kingsolver's novels? The Poisonwood Bible is probably her most well know and remains on my top twenty best reads list - excellent. The rest are lighter in tone and content but I've enjoyed them too. I admire the easy, conversational and flowing writing style she has. Prodigal Summer is another one that I really enjoyed... Actually, I might dig that out and re-read it to get me in the mood for the great summer we've been promised soon. I live in hope. Of good weather that is.

~ while I was in the study, I stopped to take in a little beaded bauble that I have hanging on a door handle and quite inadvertently caught the lovely purple vase in the background, a beautiful house-warming gift from my landlords. I actually only noticed this when I downloaded the pictures and I know the lighting in this shot's not great at all, but I had to use it - two bits of purple sparkle for the price of one. I couldn't resist.

And that was that, a relaxing cup of tea (chamomile and vanilla, with a spot of honey), and the evening ended... An uneventful but pleasing purpley evening.

And now it's time to start another day... and to keep my eye open for green.

I haven't had a chance to make the rounds of all my fellow colour players yet (am getting really, really, really frustrated with cloud wi-fi internet access, which is intermittent at best in this area, despite being in the city centre, and means the best time for me to be online is apparently between 2 and 4 in the morning - oh how I miss my reliable, anytime, high-speed broadband) but those I have had a peek at are serving up a feast of colour loveliness. I look forward to visiting the rest soon...

Hope you have a happy purple day mes amis!