A lovely room

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I came upon this beauty via the excellent blog The Aesthete's Lament. It was once the country house of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, happily redecorated by someone called Patrick Deedes-Vincke. (A truly tremendous name.) The photograph is by Jan Verlinde.

It is my dream room, really. I know I shall never in my life achieve a room like this, partly because I live in the north of Scotland and partly because I am just too muddly. But I do like very much looking at this one.

Excessively dull technical note: this is exactly the kind of little visual note that I should like to post on my new Posterous page, but I discover that Posterous has several shocking drawbacks for a site that advertises itself as so simple that falling off a log looks labyrinthine by comparison.

For a starter, it takes your pictures and arranges them as it, not you, see fit. Then when you politely write and ask a question about this, it IGNORES you. It has no facility for resizing pictures, which I find vital. The genius Windows Live Writer does this beautifully, but of course Posterous is not compatible with it. (Oh are you falling asleep from dullness now? I am even boring myself. But this stuff is driving me nuts and I have to share with the group to save myself from running mad.)

There are several other plaintive objections I could make, but I shall save you from death by a thousand cuts, and just say that when I am getting all cross and baffled and confused, and I turn helplessly to the assistance section of Posterous, I find that all there is is a pathetic page of exceptionally limited frequently asked questions, none of which are frequently asked by me.

So, you Posterous people, I am almost at the point of giving up. And I so liked your promising idea. But the execution is frankly sending me up the wall. Should I stay or should I go? Can't decide yet. But the skies are dark with ominous clouds. Very lucky I have such a pretty picture of such a pretty room to look at.

A small foray

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Inspired by India Knight's brilliant page, I have set up a Posterous account. Oddly, although Posterous is supposedly this glitteringly simple, falling off a log type of website, I find myself a little confused by it. I am not at all certain what it is for. It feels different from this kind of a blog, although I see that some people use it just as I use Blogger. But India has done a genius thing with her site, which is to turn it into a magpie treasure chest of her own objects of desire, whether actual or virtual. I am shamelessly following in her footsteps. I like the idea of having a place on the internet where I can post brief snapshot items, and not have to worry about the prose that goes with. Here, the writing is important to me, even though as you know I sometimes let things go without the usual mandatory polish. And despite the pictures of the dogs, and the occasional photo essay about walks in the woods or visits from Virginia the Pig, I think of the Backwards Blog as a literary rather than a visual endeavour. I think Posterous is going to be where I put the pictures I like, the things I like; it will be a way of pointing a finger and saying: See, see, look at that, over there. It will not be about the actual writing, or political arguments, or letting off steam, or general ranting, or discussing vital matters of the day. I think it will be pure pleasure. That is my very early inchoate sense.

At the moment, I am linking my Posterous site to this one, until the poor unsteady thing finds its feet. Then I may separate them. Or I may decide that one blog is quite enough for one girl. We shall see. I do have sudden imperative enthusiasms which peter out and are never seen again. For now, you will see short posts with the words Posted via email from TaniaKindersley's Posterous. If you want to go directly to the site, follow this link: http://taniakindersley.posterous.com/

And in the meantime: a bonus picture of a very muddy dog, happy and exhausted after coming on a ride with my cousin and me this morning in the first bit of sunshine we have seen for days.