The Purple Notebook

 A blog about history and life

[thepurplenotebook]

29.06.20: I can't breathe

29.06.20: I can’t breathe

In the decades to come, we will think back to these months. This strange chapter of our lives is likely to hover in our psyche. And as the days merge into one, I wonder how I will remember this time.

Will I think of the university days cut short? Or of the many late nights, books read, films watched, and paints spilt?

Although most of my life now consists of tv shows to binge or zooms call to…

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[thepurplenotebook]

31.05.20: A memory of a sadder time

31.05.20: A memory of a sadder time

What do you remember about that night?

Do you remember the club packed with people?

The flickering lights?

Blasting music?

Do you remember that I cried, and you didn’t come?

Did you really not see my texts?

You remember that I danced near a stupid boy.

That’s something I don’t remember.

Because that whole stupid night my eyes were on you.

I remember what you were wearing.

I remeber you dancing…

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[thepurplenotebook]

23.05.20: the problem with 'new you'

23.05.20: the problem with ‘new you’

Is there such thing as a ‘new you’?

  New year, new you.

Fresh starts.

Time to reinvent yourself.

Isn’t that what everyone tells you?

Go to university, where no one knows you, and you can be whoever you want to be.

It’s a truth we’re all so desperate to believe and yet it is so desperately unattainable.

The first months of university were a blur of partying, new friends and new chances.…

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[ancientorigins]

Archaeological Evidence for 1,700-Year-Old Chemical Warfare

Almost 2,000 years ago, 19 Roman soldiers ran into a cramped underground tunnel, prepared to defend the Roman-held Syrian city of Dura-Europos from an army of Persians digging to undermine the city's mudbrick walls. But instead of Persian soldiers, the Romans met with a wall of noxious black smoke that turned to acid in their lungs. The discovery of their bodies provided the first physical evidence of ancient chemical warfare.

[thepurplenotebook]

01.10.17~En-who?-duanna: The First Author IN THE WORLD

Daughter of ‘Sargon the Great’ and High Priestess of the Moon, Enheduanna was not only the first author in the world known by name, but also altered the whole of Mesopotamian culture through…

Entry Four- The Purple Notebook

[thepurplenotebook]

31.07.17~ The Four Heads of Caerphilly Castle

A grand symbol of medieval engineering, Caerphilly caste stands proudly at the heart of the small welsh town. Similarly to Chepstow castle and many others along the welsh border, the castles purpos…

Entry Three- Purple Notebook

[thepurplenotebook]

15.07.17~ The Viking Parade

Last Saturday, instead of the usually traffic travelling through Chepstow’s town centre, there was a parade of Vikings. The high street was filled with the banging of drums, the laughs and shouts o…

Entry Two- The Purple Notebook

[thepurplenotebook]

13.07.17~ Entry One

Purple Notebook                                  

The first post. This blog, “The Purple Notebook” (although I doubt it will be long before I end up changing it), is named after a purple notebook. The first time I wrote in that notebook it was winter and I was 16. I had decided to rekindle my love of writing, and wrote mainly about trees. It’s just over a year later. It is summer and I am 17. And when I write, I am usually still writing about trees. This blog is probably going to be filled with the crappy articles of an aspiring journalist, or badly taken photographs, or random ramblings, or adventures. I will probably change my mind about what I put in this blog, and in 2 months I will probably re-read this first post, cringe intensely, and promptly delete it. Either way this is the first step, it’s time to stop writing about trees. 

https://ellendurbin.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/first-blog-post/