Harro!

Harro! Well it's been a lot longer than I realised, I last wrote a post in June; doesn't time fly when you're having fun!

I write to you on a cold, wet, windy October day, sitting on my sofa in a big thick cardigan surrounded by tissues and hot drinks from having a stinky cold. Lots of changes have occurred recently. I finally left my job at the engineering firm and am now temping and loving it! Without wanting to get too deep on y'all on a Monday morning, I feel so free having decided to stay true to myself and do something that makes me happy instead of letting the fear hold me back. I'm trying to learn to go with the flow and to stay positive and hopeful that things will work out which I'm sure they will.

I wanted to write something fun and lighthearted so here's a list of things that I'm loving at the moment:

• Swing dancing!
• New friends.
• Jamie's Italian.
• Pinterest and Instagram!
• 1940s fashion...that's right.. I'm embracing a new look :D

I hope you've all been having a smashing time of it lately and are enjoying life, whatever it's throwing at you. I'm hoping to get back into blogging more regularly again but the best laid plans and all that...

Have a great week and Happy 1th October everyone! :)

xx

I'm Joining the Circus!

Ok, I'm not actually joining the circus but I'm super excited because I've just signed up to this:

http://www.gorillacircus.com/fts.html

Trapeze session in Regent's Park! It's not until August but I'm crazy excited about it, mostly because I get to monkey around and spend two hours hanging from a trapeze. Who wouldn't want to do that :) 

Just for Today...

...tell someone how awesome they are. Or that they inspired you somehow. Or that you love their hat. Doesn't matter what it is, but spread some love today.

Inspiration

This is just fantastic:

(from www.mindbodygreen.com)

As is this:

Enjoy!!

It's Been Quite a While!

Sorry for the radio silence, it's been quite a while since I posted anything. How's it been going in the Land of the Internets?

I've had the busiest, craziest, most stressful and fun times I've had in quite a while lately. There's been a whole HEAP of stuff going on, most of which I won't bore you with but this weekend just gone, I had the absolute pleasure of attending the London Swing Festival where along with my swingy friends, I danced my little socks off, not to mention an inch or two off my waist. I've never had so much fun in my life!!

Six hours+ dancing every single night for four consecutive nights. I'm exhausted I can tell you but it's been the most thrilling, exciting weekend in the history of weekends. I feel as though my dancing is on another level - how can it not be after dancing with so many fabulous leads :)

Saturday night was themed "Best of British" so Amy and I hand made our own skirts, rosettes and fascinators as shown below. The material for the skirt and rosettes was from a company in Cornwall, with little red London buses and phone boxes all over it. Cute! Much like our escapade to Bestival last year (where funnily enough, we discovered Swing Patrol :)), nobody really understood our outfits unless we stood side by side. At least we didn't have to pretend to be sisters this time.

I'll post some more photos soon once Amy's emailed them to me. I didn't take any of my own snaps as I was too busy dancing my butt off but I know a few of the gang have some excellent pics!

So, that's the latest update for you. I'm trying to recover from the weekend's antics at the moment but I'm feeling buzzed and more motivated than I have done in a while. That's the beauty of finding a passion, no matter how unexpected. It moves you to do the things you love in other areas of your life. Like blogging :) 

I'll be back soon, hopefully it won't be so long this time!

Turn That Frown Upside Down

I keep re-writing this first sentence and deleting it; indecisiveness is a sure sign that I need to meditate and bring myself back to centre. 

The theme of this post was to say that I'm feeling a bit blue and therefore need to write a grateful list, which reads thus:

1. Yoga

2. Meditation

3. Living in London

4. Weekends with new friends in the sunshine

5. Septum piercings

6. Lars and the Real Girl - or more specifically, Ryan Gosling. A modern day acting genius in my opinion.

7. Cycling in London. Or anywhere for that matter.

8. Swing dancing

9. Next door's staffies - the most loving dogs I've ever met!

10. Our front room - an oasis of calm and comfort

I would also like to share the following picture with you, just for shits and giggles.

Namaste, love and peace y'all.

Sunday Sounds

Here's a Sunday Sound for you to chill out to:

Enjoy peoples!

p.s. check out the new tab "If You Want More"... I've been a busy social media bee today!

Peace, namaste and love to all.

Walking and Thinking

Tonight I walked home from work - that's 3.85 miles, 1 hour and 237 calories burned. I have a clever little app on il mio telefonino that tracks your route and calculates how long you take, how many minutes per mile, calories burned etc etc. It's a handy little tool and one I shall use to record my progress for the Race for Life training.


It felt good to walk home; it gave me a lot of time to think about things. I've been in a funk for I'd say 95% of this year and I've let it go on for far too long. Time to get myself out of it. Walking was satisfying, an achievement in itself. It made me realise how wasteful taking the bus is - it takes me almost the same amount of time to walk as it does to take the bus and not only that but walking is free! Another bonus surely.


I haven't practiced any asanas today, I have a chesty cold (again!) and I feel that resting is what I need. I used my neti pot this morning, it made me feel more congested though I'm not sure if that's a side effect that occurs when you irrigate your nasal passages whilst in the middle of a snot fest? I need to ask my soon to be yoga tutor for some advice. I'll be meeting up with him and Anna on Saturday. Anna is one of the other ladies I took the yoga foundation course with last year; she's lovely! She trained with Mark as a teacher last year and is now a fully fledged YAUK certified yogi AND, she and Mark are engaged. It'll be nice to catch up with her and finally meet Mark himself.


Gareth just texted to tell me to look to the west at Venus and Jupiter so on that note, I'm off! 


G'night y'all. Sleep well.

It's Happening, It's REALLY Happening

So I've spent the past week glued to the internets searching for cheap accommodation in Leamington Spa for my yoga course at the end of this month and after emailing local B&Bs and finding prices for hotels online, all of which are horrendously out of my price range, I called the local college to see if they had any student accommodation available for people visiting the area. The very helpful lady at the end of the phone, Sandra, took my details and called me back 30 minutes later with the name and telephone number of a host couple who said they would happily put me up for the week. Huzzah to thinking outside the box!

I'll be staying with a couple called Gemma and Adam who live ten minutes away from the course venue with their three cats. I've spoken to Gemma on the phone twice now and she seems absolutely lovely! How lucky am I to have found a place in such close proximity to the course and with such lovely people! And with cats! Double huzzah!

It's made me realise... this is REALLY happening people! I begin my yoga TT in two short weeks and by the end of the year, I hope to be trained and ready to go forth in the world as a yoga teacher. Seeing a plan come together really is satisfying, especially one that I've been thinking about for the past 3 years. That seems like a long time but for me, finding the right course and the right tutor was really important.


I'm excited to see what unfolds this year and where this next step in my yoga journey takes me.


I'll keep you updated with photos n ting as the course goes on.


Namaste and peace to all of you.

Little Bit of Something and Nothing

The smell of burning popcorn is wafting through the floorboards and directly into my nostrils... I think Clare just returned home and is making her favourite snack. I'd go and say hi but I have to be honest, I've got a slight stomach upset and moving from a semi-foetal position is not an option just yet. Too much information? Sorry...

As the title says, this is a little bit of something and nothing. More just a reason to say hi and waffle on about my weekend. I had a really spontaneous day yesterday! Gareth text me at just gone 8am (not long after I'd woken up and was still dozing in bed) to say he had a spare ticket to go to the Harry Potter set tour and did I want to come. Did I want to come? Does a bear poop in the woods?! I pretty much had to hot foot it to Belsize Park in double quick time but I made it with enough time to meet his sister, eat some scrambled eggs and then head out to Watford with Gareth and his cousins. Felt a little bit like a hobo turning up looking uber tired, eating their lovely food and then leaving! 

Anyway, as is the norm now, here are some photos of the tour in no particular and by no means exhaustive...

 

Dumbledore, Snape and Professor McGonagall in the Great Hall

Some owl cages in Diagon Alley

Costumes from the Yule Ball in the Goblet of Fire. Emma Watson's dress (the purple one) is unbelievably tiny!

Ron's bed.

Nearly Headless Nick's Head

Professor Dumbledore's Office

Drinking butterbeer!!

Dobby!

A replica of Hogwarts. Absolutely stunning!

More wands than you could shake a...wand at.

The tour took about two hours for us to walk around at a regular pace and there is just so much to look it. It's amazing to see how much time, effort, energy and love has gone into making every single set, costume, prop - they didn't miss a thing. The newspapers contained real stories and "in-joke" advertisements... One of the tour guidey helpery people told me a story that when Michael Gambon was eating lunch, he kept his Dumbledore beard protected inside a beard bag so as not to drop food down it, so they used that idea and created an advert for Beard Bags in the papers. Every book contained real text in case, say, a book fell off a shelf and opened on the floor and was caught on camera. No expense was spared but when you're going to make a film that is adored by so many then you have to do it right! 

We even tried some butterbeer - it was ah-may-zing! It tastes really sweet and completely delicious; it's been compared it to shortbread which I guess could be too much for some but Gareth and I were both really impressed by it. Gareth was particularly taken by the "secret ingredient" that they put on top of the drink to give it a beer head... No idea what it is (obviously, being a secret ingredient) but it's really tasty.

The tour doesn't officially open until next weekend methinks, but Gareth works for Warner Bros so was offered free tickets for the tour before it opens to the public. I think tickets will be priced at something like £28 but it's worth it! 

So with the tour over, we drove back to Belsize Park and took a wander into Camden Town, had a little mosey and then headed home. I spent last night vegged in front of the telly watching a program on musicals then went to bed and fell asleep watching Midnight in Paris. I need to watch it again from beginning to end but from what I have seen, it seems like it's trying to be Vicki Cristina Barcelona but with cr*p acting.. I'll get back to you on that!

Today I've been a little hermit; I woke up this morning, meditated, fell asleep again and then got up, cooked an epic breakfast omelette, watched about 20 minutes of TV, realised it's rubbish, practiced some yoga, did a load of washing, tidied my room, popped to the shops for some essentials and then came back and now I'm in bed with a slight upset stomach. Sure it's nothing, I think it might have been the eggs.

This weekend's been awesome and had reminded me yet again how awesome life is and how great my friends are. I've been worrying a lot about money lately but a thought occurred to me earlier that I may be financially skint but I am abundant in life. That's something to hold onto and be grateful for.

If anyone has any photos from their weekend they want to share then please do! I'd love to see what you've been up to :)

xxx

This one's for you Amy

Happy birthday my beautiful friend!

Best Night...Ever!!

Oh my gawd, I'm so unbelievably tired/hungover after last night. I got in at 4 of the o'clock this morning and woke up at 11.30 - I haven't slept until almost lunchtime since I was a teenager! I've since spent the entire day on the sofa surrounded by orange juice, food and watching Home Alone and generally feeling sorry for myself. It just dawned on me that I haven't even had a shower or brushed my teeth. Gross.com. 

What happened last night I hear you ask? The Swing Ball happened that's what! It was one of the greatest nights of my life. I had a bunch of the swing gang round to my casa before the big event for some munchies and drinks and then headed to the venue, Shoreditch Town Hall, for  an entire night of swing dancing... They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so here's a few thousand for you. They need editing so I'll probably update later.

Livia and Cameron

Me, Cameron and Livia

The Highbury Banner

Beginner's class before the social dancing began

Some of the Highbury gang

More Highbury swingers plus our teachers, James and Gen.

<3

Out and About

I've been out and about in London and decided it's high time I took more photos. So feast your eyes below. The first six pics were taken in Borough Market this afternoon.

All taken with a Samsung something or other mobile phone and edited with an app called Pixlr-o-matic. 

I was shopping in Dalston earlier today and found myself walking behind an elderly couple who were going about their daily business and holding hands. I had to take a picture. <3

I'm having a burst of creativity today

The all important ingredients

Sugar and butter in all it's fluffy goodness

It's beginning to look like cake mix

Layer one complete

Oh yeah

Out of oven...needs a bit of work

Cravings

Snippet of actual conversation with a friend to plan meeting up for breakfast:

Him: I have a craving for huevos rancheros.

Me: Of course you do.

On a different note entirely, this was the view from my front door last night:

I'm about the head out to my new favourite cafe/vintage shop for a lovely morning coffee so I best dig out my wellies from the Cupboard of Things.

Have a great day.

Peace.

My Blogging Hero

For those of you that know me well, you'll know that a) I love blogging, b) I love reading blogs and c) I absolutely love The Bloggess. She's my all-time favourite blogger in the history of the internets. And the universe. Ever. In my humble opinion, she's absolutely bloody fabulous.

Let me tell you why I think she's absolutely bloody fabulous. I came across Jenny Lawson (that's her name) on the internets one day, as one does when they find a blogger because that's where they live, on the internets. For real. I read one post and promptly had tears of laughter streaming down my face, and then much like a ravaging drug addiction, I couldn't stop. I spent hours reading every.single.thing she had ever written on her blog and from that day forward I've never stopped. I make a daily stop off at her blog which is mostly filled with "irreverent, biting satire" - her own words - but other times, it is filled with love, pain, compassion, honesty, generosity and inspiration. 

Jenny suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, depression and anxiety (Jenny if you happen to read this - which would be AWESOME - I'm sorry if I got those wrong) but her flame, or her spirit, however you want to name it, still burns with more ferocity than I could ever hope for. She is one of the most inspiring people you could ever come across.

For Christmas 2010, she did this. 

For Christmas 2011, she did this.

She also did this. Jenny started a phenomenon known as The Travelling Red Dress - a dress that was deemed so impractical and unnecessary yet to quote the lady herself:

I want, just once, to wear a bright red, strapless ball gown with no apologies. I want to be shocking, and vivid and wear a dress as intensely amazing as the person I so want to be.  And the more I thought about it the more I realized how often we deny ourselves that red dress and all the other capricious, ridiculous, overindulgent and silly things that we desperately want but never let ourselves have because they are simply “not sensible”.  Things like flying lessons, and ballet shoes, and breaking into spontaneous song, and building a train set, and crawling onto the roof just to see the stars better.  Things like cartwheels and learning how to box and painting encouraging words on your body to remind yourself that you’re worth it.

 The Travelling Red Dress now has it's own Facebook page and women the world over are sending red dresses to each other in the name of love and inspiration. And Jenny.

The thing about her is, I'm not sure she's aware of how totally awesome she is and that makes me kinda sad. Because she is so awesome. I wrote to her a couple of years ago when I was going through some major stresses in my life and had a mini-meltdown, and I asked her where I was going to find my joy again. My joy had disappeared and I was worried it would never come back again. And this complete stranger, who probably receives twelvety million emails a day, took the time to respond to me with such compassion, good advice and good humour that I promised myself to forever take her advice and not let myself get that way again.

I'm still fairly new to blogging and am nowhere near as funny as The Bloggess but one day, I hope to be as amazing as her - not just at blogging but at life too.

Limits

Hey good lookin, whatcha got cookin'

Hi everybody, hope you're all feeling grand. It's been an absolute age since I last sat down with my trusty old Mac and wrote a good post. Life has been pretty crazy since the beginning of December what with flat hunting, flat finding, flat moving, Christmas, New Year and all it brings and other such things that I've been doing that I can't remember. I've been blessed with a Buckley brain which means a complete lack of memory combined with "if something new is going in, then something old is falling out".

I've got an absolute ton of ideas buzzing round my brain that need to make their way onto a post but for now I'm going to stick to one so as not to overload everyone with brain splurge and to try and make some kind of sense.

This post is about limits. I've been thinking hard about my blog again and the direction I tried to take it in with being solely about yoga and I've decided I don't want to limit myself to the confines of one subject. I love yoga but I need the creativity and freedom to be able to express what's going on in my noggin, whether it be yoga, swing dancing, cycling in the rain and getting lost on the way home (more on that later) vegetarianism and carnivorism (is that a word? If not, it is now) or anything else that's going on in life.

So in a nutshell, this post is returning to it's original format of whatever is on my mind is going in the blog. I think I should wish you readers luck because who knows what's going to end up on the page. 


That's all for now peeps, I'm going to try and write more regularly now things have settled down a bit. I forget how much I love writing until I sit down and do it again!!


Have a listen to this, it's one of my favourite and newly discovered songs.


Bye for now!! 

Happy New Year

Hi everyone

This is just a quick post to wish you all a very happy (and belated!) new year. I hope 2012 brings you much peace, joy and happiness. I'll write a longer post when I get internet at home on Saturday but until then, have a fantastic week.

<3

xx