Exciting!!

Einstein was right, you can be in two places at once

:)

HONG KONG AND THAILAND

I had the best time seeing my little sister, she lives in Thailand so we don't get to see each other so much any more. So meeting her in Hong Kong and then visiting her home on Koh Toa was a huge treat. I obviously went a bit photo crazy being in such beautiful surroundings and took loads of snaps. I'm sending off my Holga and xpro photos to be developed today, in the meantime here are a few off my LC-A+

Talents

My super fantastic boyfriend Owen Gatley is featured on it's nice that, and quite rightly so. You can read the article here. Good job bab :D

Arboretum

Mum and I took Lib to the National Arboretum in Tetbury a week or so ago, these are my favourite photos off my mini










(these are fern leaves but at the moment they are really creepy and look like sticky up octopus legs)

Also I am watching a vintage typewriter and suitcase on ebay. If I don't win them I will be very upset.

Cookcook

Pacman?


Cupcakes + biscuit cutter


- the middle


+ pink butter icing =


I want to make pastry for a pie/tart next. Yom.

Click

I brought a Krab for my LC-A+ a few days ago, I'm super excited to use it :D I'm hoping for a rainy day and the chance to go splash about in some puddles or go to the seaside :)


I also would quite like a Bronica EC TL.

If anyone wants to buy me one, that would be amazing

When I grow up

I will own a house and have a whole room filled with books with a big comfy chair (plus blanket) in the corner. I debated adding a fire to this lovely fantasy but I fear my clumsy nature would probably lead to me accidentally setting fire to the all books, plus I'm pretty useless at making the fire burn at work, so no fire. I think there would also have to be a side table for a glass of wine/cider or a bowl of cereals, perfect.

Orange

I'm kind of thinking I might dye my hair a Christina Hendricks as Joan from Mad Men-esk colour.




I would like the colour of the former and the style of the latter please. Yellow is overrated.

BIG CHILL

Thom Yorke, Metronomy and Explosions in the Sky have been added to the Big Chill line up, eeeeeee :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Happy

Carbohydrates
having the internet back
National vegetarian week
Photographs
Mad Men
The Independent crossword
Cider
Rachel Getting Married
Looking forward to Claires wedding
I haven't lost my Blackberry yet
I haven't lost my umbrella yet
Dad, Mum, Clare and Libs
Nine Stories
Baking
Pay days
Surprise deep fried Mars bars
Custard
The Me and You and Everyone We Know soundtrack (still)

All of the above put a big smile on my face :D
Sadly since Helen moved to Thailand I miss her lots, also it's pretty likely that Dad will have to move to Hong Kong, boo! Stop leaving the country family!

SNAP

I'm still a total novice with the Sportsman, the focus settings in particular are still are a complete guess and I don't have a clue what one of the wheels is for, but I really like this camera. Its fun to shoot with and as it's second hand I like thinking about all the things its seen before I picked it up :) I like to pretend that it used to belong to a nice elderly couple who took photos when they went to the beach together, I really hope its true.

Kitsuné Maison Compilation 8

You are brilliant, I wasn't overly fussed when I first heard it a couple of months ago but I'm listening to it lots recently, I don't understand why I didn't feel this way the first time I heard it, maybe I was in a weird mood. I really want Penguin Prison to release an album soon please, I've probably heard A Funny Thing and Animal Animal too many times now and don't want to get sick of it, thanks.



Kitsuné Maison Compilation 8

Sophie Dahl

You are my new life inspiration. Today I caught up on all the episodes of The Delicious Miss Dahl and I am in love. She

Is really really nice
Is ultra hot
Has an awesome kitchen
Likes second hand books
Is a super cook
Is veggie
Wears the best clothes
Is borderline OCD tidy.



I want to be her. Jealous. The yummiest recipe is probably Puy lentil shepherds pie, I might make it tomorrow, it looks soso good. I may also have to make the peanut butter fudge, it all looks dreamy. Annoying I don't eat fish or seafood though-those scallops with peas looked amazing. The first episode definitely had annoying elements, but she totally won me over in the other 2. I think I will ask 'what would Sophie do' whenever I am presented with a problem from now on. She's amazing.

Busy, busy, busy

SUUUUUUUUUUUUUN












Being a typical British person I am obviously already sunburnt. Good one. Due to free houses and La and Claire being back I have been pretty much constantly drunk since Wednesday and intend to go to Worcester on Monday. I think I will have to implement some kind of drinking ban after Monday or I'll die.

Nap

Recently I have got well back into napping. Everyday around 3 I have a nice 2 hour nap. I think It started because ever since I have been able to read I nearly always read a book before bed unless I am wasted, someone else is there or both. Inevitably I'm pretty sure I have trained my body to fall asleep after 2-3 hours of Reading-or less if I am tired. So recently I have been afternoon reading and (I assume) therefore have been napping. But now I don't even need to read to have a nap I generally get pretty sleepy around 3 and fall asleep. The only time I can't is when I have work as that usually starts at 3 so I have to postpone the nap until I get home.

Good things about napping are that because you are (most likely) only in stage 1 of the sleep cycle you can have more control over the dream, and they can also be more vivid. For example just now I was dreaming that The Cave by Mumford and Sons was playing in the background, but I changed it to Wow by Kylie Minogue. I don't know why, but that is what I decided. I tend to find sound is a lot more vivid in naps than in dreams, I don't know if that is true for everyone or not.

I also stumbled upon this website yesterday which I thought was pretty funny.


According to the website the position that I sleep in that is closest to the 6 options is Foetus position. This means I am 'tough on the outside but sensitive at heart'. Interesting and probably incorrect although I would say I'm quite a guarded person which I guess could be similar to 'tough' and I'm definitely pretty pathetic which is probably 'sensitive'.

Owen sleeps in the Freefall position which means he is 'often gregarious and brash, but can be nervy and thin-skinned underneath. Doesn't like criticism, or extreme situations'. Haha! I don't think that's right at all, apart from maybe the last part about criticism and extreme situations, but that is probably true of loads of people.

I don't really know the sleeping habits of my other friends but Carly, Yas and maybe Tara are probably Foetus like me. I would like to meet someone that is a Yearner it is one of the strangest sleeping positions ever, they must have super achey arms all the time. Having said that, someone that takes forever to decide something and is then stubborn once they have chosen sounds like someone that would annoy me so maybe I could ask them quickly why they sleep with weird arms and never see them again.


I found this photo and I like it and it is appropriate for this post but it is also one of my worst fears-falling asleep on public transport makes me feel really weak. If I am travelling with someone else it is not so bad but it's still really horrible, urrrrrhhh.

Craft

I've done quite a lot of craft related things recently, here are a few:

1. I made a skirt

It's not very exciting, but it is pretty material and is appropriate for Spring. PLUS I made it really neat, none of my usual wonky sewing and having to unpick everything about a thousand times, I'm pretty happy :D

2. I decorated Easter cupcakes at Bethans

Everyone else decorated some too:

We had a decoration competition and then played some jenga and a rousing game of articulate which Bethan, Joycey and I lost spectacularly. I needed Queeg on my team so we could defend our reigning Articulate champions title.

3. I found this beautiful 1930s sewing machine in a Worcester charity shop. It came with the original book and bobbins etc... Here is a nice photo

And here is a boring-but-you-can-actaully-see-the-machine photo

It is beautiful and was a massive bargain at £25 I couldn't believe it. I'm keeping it till I die and if I have kids hopefully they will like it and it can stay in my family forever along with the ring Claire got me for my 21st.

4. In the same charity shop I found this lovely Ilford Sportsman camera

I loaded it with some 400 iso black and white Ilford film (naturally) and took some rough photos to test the aperture settings and see if it's in working order. So far I have found that the hotshoe is broken but everything else works well :) for less than £10 I think that's pretty good, and it came with a leather case.

5. I also started some knitting but I didn't take a photo.

On a non crafty note, I am going to Reading this year as well as Latitude and the Big Chill, greedy, greedy, greedy. We keep coming 7th out of 13 in the pub quiz and Jons team keeps beating us. I am WELL into Masterchef and really want Alex the hottie to win, but if Tim wins I'd also be be happy and I probably wouldn't mind that much if Druhv won either. Masterchef has also made me really want to go to India, it looks amazing. I need to stop giving into peer pressure and going to Priors and dancing on a Sunday night when no one else is, it's just embarrassing. I really really REALLY don't want my sister to move to Thailand on the 26th :(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:( I am going to the cinema at 10:30am tomorrow with my family to watch something involving dragons and I have no idea what it is. I'm mega looking forward to meeting Joe on Wednesday or Thursday. It's lovely having Owen, Dan, Ruth, Kirsty and others back for a bit. My lower left wisdom tooth is dead painful, so I can't eat any of my Easter eggs and I have to eat Nurofen all the time, boo! On the plus side, I do get lots of soup-but obviously no bread to eat it with.

Hope In The Air

Yellow

When I was little I had a theory that you should draw a picture using all the colors except yellow, making it as good as you could, and then, finally, after giving up, you should add yellow. And yellow had the magical property of instantly making everything come alive, it was light itself, and thus the picture came into being. Mike Andrews' score was the yellow for the movie. When we started working together I was nearly done editing, exhausted, running out of time, and pretty sure I had failed completely. Mike asked that I work with him all day, every day-that I really make the score with him, note by note. In this way I began all over again, with a new voice and an ally who had all sorts of fantastic powers. It must have been a very finite number of weeks, but it balloonized in to exactly the amount of time two people would need to create a whole universe. We wrested the movie down, drawing out the sadness that needed the hands to hold it, making music to be irreverent to, to laugh to, to love these characters through. It was terribly hard and sometimes frighteningly simple. Bryan Cook flew the plane, often to heights that were clearly without oxygen, but never questioning our insane trajectory. And we got there! When I watch the movie now, I realize it is all one thing, a single experience, the yellow has combined with the other colors the way the light should. but I suppose one makes a soundtrack album to somehow crack open that single voice. Maybe you can hear the beautiful reality of separate people feeling the same thing and expressing it at different frequencies that are unique to them. You don't have to do it alone, and in fact, you can't.

-Miranda July, May 7, 2005
On making the soundtrack to 'Me and You and Everyone We Know'

If you haven't seen this film or listened to this soundtrack you absolutely should, both are beautiful.

Impulse buying

Brolly

Knitting needles

BlackBerry

113 DAYS, 9 HOURS, 36 MINUTES, 6 SECONDS

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:DFFEG;UbchdsjfI CAN'T FLIPPING WAIT!!!BHDglbJHLBCFHbefBBGIYY3THQ3437


THE NATIONAL
GRIZZLY BEAR
FLORENCE
RODRIGO Y GABRIELA
BRET EASTON ELLIS!
CLUB DE FROMAGE
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
EMPIRE OF THE SUN
BELLE & SEBASTIAN
THE HORRORS
AHHHHHHHH!!

A Philosophy lesson 2

I stole this off Rich Alex and Nicks blog I love Dawkins too much to not repost.

Music, telly, film, literature and that

The Blur documentary 'No Distance Left To Run' was really good, I'm not the worlds biggest Blur fan and I've always thought Damon was a bit of an idiot, but actaully he came across as a pretty decent guy. Alex is still a hottie and Graham is still a bit weird. The documentary was surprisingly emotional and the final scene of everyone reunited and playing Tender at Glastonbury was really beautiful :)


Sexy Beast was pretty good, Ray Winstone was completely convincing as a strangely loveable ex safe cracker and Ben Kingsley was brilliant as a crazy psychopath trying to get Ray Winstone to come out of retirement for one last job. I thought it was beautifully shot considering the content and the graphic murder scene blended with the underwater bank heist was perfectly executed.


After the greatness of No Distance Left To Run and Sexy Best Owen forced me and Julia into watching Wild Hogs which has got be the most hilariously terrible film I've seen for years. I still haven't got over the dreadfulness of this monstrosity. This photo accurately captures the appallingness.


Heart of fucking Darkness why aren't you easier to read dammit! I'm still not very interested so I started Factotum instead, oops.


True Blood season 2 is well ace right now, I'm well into all the Fellowship of the Sun madness and brainwashing of poor Jason. Sookie is still super annoying and Eric is still super hot.


On a side note I think that True Blood has overtaken the Wire in terms of best TV show credits.


24 is also well good right now, although I did guess who was working against President Hassan aaages ago, but whatevs. I'd be happy if Dana cheered up a bit, she's so bloody miserable, poor Freddie.


Joes radio show! Joe has the best voice for radio ever ever. You can download it as an mp3 and listen to Joes dulcet tones and delightful song choices on your ipod all day long, wonderful :):)

Not cool

Catholic group granted gay adoption exemption
Urgggh :( :(

Memory Lane

Hel reminded me of our childhood love for Meg and Mog this evening and I think some of my favourite childrens books deserve a mention.



















OK, enough for now.