The Letter I Wish I'd Written.

Bags and boxes packed with clothes, books and films. Sitting along the hall wall waiting to leave you.
A once filled home, of music and laughter now sitting silent and dark. 
Faded marks on the walls where photos once hung. Voids in the dust on the shelfs where frames of friends and china figures once stood.
An over flowing sink of unwashed plates, mugs, bowls and glasses. A stack of take away boxes with half eaten food, lay piled in an over flowing bin.
Laying on the sofa wrapped in a red and black blanket. Looking at you so peaceful in you dream like state.
It has been so long seeing you this way. peaceful and at ease at the end of the day.
A stack of journeys sit on the table beside you.
Each filled with receipts, and pitchers. Ticket stubs of memories. The words on those fade pages of times with smiling faces, and tear drop stains of our days together.
Telling of adventures, pick nicks, hopes and dreams. Of fights and nights of passion.
All of those un said words, reading like a tragic love story.
Do you remember the time that we got court in the rain when out running one summer Sunday evening. And we danced and kissed in the middle of the street as you picked me up and held my tight. Like the closing scene of a 1940s black and white Hollywood movie.
The night of our anniversary when you took me to the Ivy. You dressed in a suit and bow tie and me in that long green dress and those killer black heels. And after leaving in fits of laughter and tears form winding up the waiter and the posh silver spooned couple, that sat on the table beside us. You gave me a piggy back, while I carried my heels. With strange looks and tourists cameras tacking a look. Our heads swimming in champagne and love. I think that I lost an earring that night down by the themes where we walk that starry night.
Pressed rose petals and cut out hearts from the wedding table dressing of our best friends wedding. Best man and brides maid. It was our new love at second sigh. you in top hat and tails and I pretty in pink.
A midnight pick nick on Primrose hill. Fish and chip, champagne, mushy peas and curry sauce. Laid out on a blanket, with bouquet  of red roses. Us dining by burning candle light. with our promise that it would last forever.
I believe that there is a torn piece of the chip bag with the restaurants logo hidden with those pages.
You smile in your sleep still, so sweetly and still. Yet a sadness surrounds you. Which I can not heel.
As you move a book full’s from under the cushion where your sleeping head lies. Laying open upon the wooden floor covered in a red rug. A faded pink pressed flower held in place op the open page with sticky tape and tracing paper, form a bunch of flowers I hit you with. A shower of flower heads and petals us as you pulled me close in sadness and tears . A single flower to remember what might have been.
With the changing sun beams across the walls and wooden floors. The bags and boxes vanish, form the long standing wait. The empty walls fill with vintage posters, and all new art. 
Don’t feel sad, I don’t blame you. But I wish I told you.
With each changing day the winter has now returned. The painting of the Christmas tree that you had brought that christmas here, now hanging on the wall. A last visible memory of us in this room, in this newly dressed room.
I wish that I had told you every day, twice a day how much I cared.
Know all that is left is sitting beneath the bed. A box of journals and photos. A single earring and a champagne cork,  A home made CD of our songs that created memories. 
All of these things, make up, the unwritten letter that I wish I’d written. And left for you to read.

© sarah jane patel

I wrote this as an entry piece for a competition for Elleuk.com in September 2014. Intitled "The Letter I Wish I'd Written."
I have not heard anything form them regarding the piece so here it is for all to see, rather then it sitting saved on my computer.

Venice Trip.

Last month took a trip to Venice, Italy for five days. It was my first holiday since 2007 and was the first time that I have been out of the country, unless you can count the random one day trips to France when I was at school.
But any way those five days were wonderful. I arrived on the 2nd of February in the after noon, at venice Marco Polo airport, a short walk away are the docks to catch a speed boat or a water taxi to venice. Which I got the water taxi. he trip took about 45 minutes which was beauty, very scenic . As the boat approached the the entrance of the Grand Cannel all of us on the boat were greeted by an amazing red, orange firry sun set, that made the turquoise logon water look incredible. I wish that I had my camera to hand instead of in the bottom of my bag. the decaying building along the cannel were so alive with colour, the plaster falling off of the buildings reviling the brick beneath. Closed restraints and coffee shops, saints on walls outside churches, If it was not for the modern boats and tv arils it almost seams as if you face stepped in to another world.  

Venice’s canals are tidal, Twice daily you can hear a siren go off, two hours and its high tide, with streets, and plazas flooded, which can limit your movements if you don't have Welles, even with  the board walks that they put up along the edge of the canals and busyer areas. Shops manly stay open, with their flood defences in place at the doors. If you look  the ground as you head around you see small paving slabs that have a hole in then, to allow the water up and down.

I ventured over to the Rialto market on Tuesday morning. The mornings high tide had begun to retreat and the smell of fresh fish, fruit and veg’ was lovely, made me feel at home being brought up in a fishing village. 
Heading feather in to San Polo I came across San Giacomo Dell Orio, A beautify church on a large square, The first of many That I would come across. The first day I stayed copse to the Hotel, visiting San Marco Square and other small squares.
On Wednesday the weather was beautiful warm and sunny, it was as if Spring had arrived, this day I went around San Marco. Doing what tourist do best, get lost on, unable to fine your self on the map and taking lots of photos. Latter that day purely by chance I discovered possible the only proper pub  in Venice, The Devile’s forest pub, located down what I can only describe as an ally way off of Merceria LL Aprile. In side it is a traditional british pub far from London.

San Marco square was in preparation for the Venetian carnival on Saturday 7th.
During the week, mainly in the evening I would see people dressing in Stunning gowns and masks. heading to balls being held at different venues.

 The stage under construction at San Marco square 

Venetian Carnival dress in side the reception and Bar (male on the right and female on the Left).

Thursday it snowed, a shocking change. heading out across the Rialto Bridge and walked around San Polo and down to the Ponte dell’ Accademia bridge back over to San Marco.
On the Friday Before heading back to the air port I went back over to the Rialto market to use up my 35mm film.
It is so easy to get lost around the narrow streets, weather it be at night or during the day. A lot of the streets (being so small they are more like paths) are not marked and named. But this is  part of the joy, at one point I did start retracing my root back to the Hotel using my photos on my digital camera.
I have fallen in love with this place and I really want to go back. 
I filled up a 36 short black and white 35mm, 125 asa film a 24 short colour 200asa 35mm film. and 300 digital photos, just a fue, 

Rialto market. Black and White 35mm, 125 asa film

San Giacomo Dell Orio.
Black and White 35mm, 125 asa film

If you would like to see more of my Venice trip check it out at: mytheoryofthecrows.blogspot.co.uk/Venice

Deceiving Sky's

Deceiving sky's of shades of blue and white cotton candy clouds floating on the cold crisp air.

Creating a look of summer high above the world.
Upon the ground of cold concrete and frozen earth we walk.
The horizon lined with baron trees, lifeless lines of twigs and brunches stretch out and up towards the cold bright white light.
The smell of water in the air, like fog that has not yet fallen, and small drops of water sit on cob webs making the invisible lace visible in the light.
A quietness and stillness fills this place.
The home of the eternal sleeping. The forgotten. The dead.
With carefully crafted cold grey stone, in shapes of crosses, anchors, heads and angles. Pedestals with pots, supporting the growth of poison ivy, tomb like houses. Line the path ways. 
A maze of forgotten unrealised beauty in such a cold and morbid place.

That deceiving sky of shades of blue, growing to darker, to deep shads of blue and black.
A bright white, grey face of ancient stone looking down upon the cold and frozen earth form its dark and cold home in night sky.
Illuminating the world with its soft glow, casting shadows of strange on the surface of the world at sleep.
A glowing light of greys encircles the moon, like a colourless rainbow in shades of the grey of night. 
A forgotten beauty, seen amongst the forgotten city of the forgotten dead.

With dark sky's as clear as day you can see for miles in to the unknown world, of burning life, the regiments of the of long dead stars glowing like distant candles, marking passages and  cites of another world, on a deceiving sky of winter.

©2015 sarah patel 

Film Review: Only Lovers Left Alive.

First aired at the Cannes on 25th May 2013, and released in UK on 21st February 2014.
Staring, Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska, Anton Yelchin, Jeffrey Wright, Slimane Dazi, and John Hurt.
Writen and directed by Jim Jarmusch

And music by Jozef van Wissem.

This has defiantly become one of my favourite  films for sure, and one of my favourite vampire films.

I have been a fan of Tilda Swinton for a long time. (The white witch of Narnia was lovely and enchanting and the twisted angle Gabrielle in Constantine).

What I love about this film is that it is not like any other vampire story. It dose not have the Dracula influence of lost love and vampire hunters. Its just to true lovers that neither time nor distance can come between them.

This film shows a different state of of vampire life. They don't kill to eat, hey pay doctors at blood banks to quench their thirst. they appreciate everything, art music nature, architecture, the world.

Eve (played by Tilda Swinton) travels for Tangier to Detroit to see her husband Adam (Played by Tom Hiddleston). You see her packing for her flight. Two pieces of hand luggage in each case she is only packing books. You see her choosing from a vast collection through her home, smiling as she looks through each of them, creasing each ageing page that she opens, admiring it. She is the optimist.
Adam’s passion is music an science. Creating his own music, building his own generator, and a web cam out of old dis-used technology. He has a goring collection of string instruments with a knowledge of the history of each. He is the pessimistic one un trusting of even his own wife at times.
John Hurts character Kit or Christopher Marrlow describes Adam as “suidicial romantic scoundrel”
The first time that you see Adam and Eve on screen together there is a reserved want and passion between them.
They refer to the human race as zombies. In a way you could say hat we are compared to these characters. Walking through life regretting, un-realising anything and everything.

When Eve’s sister Ava (played by Mia Wasikowska) turns up you see a completely different energy in her. while Adam and Eve are these reserved couple Ava is almost a rebelling teenage party rebel (even though she is hundreds of years old. After she kills Ian, Adams assistant, and destroying some of his she is thrown out and Adam and Eve are left to make a quick exit form Detroit to Tangier. The sadness of Adam when he has to leave all his instruments behind is almost heart breaking. The way that Eve looks after him is mothering almost.
When they reach Tangier they go to Kit for blood to find that he is dying and that they are now left alone and no way to get blood. they have to result to killing a young couple.

Adam and Eve’s age is never mentioned, apart form they have lived though the middle ages the french inquisition, the why that Adam speaks it is believed that they knew Pythagoras, Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, and Tesla. Eve, when looking a photo of the two of them, she says that it was their third wedding. Every thing suggesting that they are as old as time and that they where the first.
The idea of a vampire can not enter unless invited to them is but a superstition of bad luck, along with garlic. (holy water and crosses are not mentioned but I assume that these are the same), And as for day light, they sleep during the day and travel only at night, keeping with the traditional night dwelling creatures.

It may be another vampire love store but this one, to me is not a teenage vampire film, even though it might seem it due to Tom Hiddleston playing one the leads, its not. The film is deep, almost dark in some ways. It is depicting a single moment in these two lovers existence. showing their passion for the world and each other. The sound track is almost the kind of music you might listen to while high. The sound track I find amazing, almost hypnotising, and relaxing, its beauty.