In which there are some life snapshots

This is where I'm sitting right now. Drinking that exact glass of wine.

I've always meant to do one of those 'life snapshot posts', but I often tend to do posts with one focus. However, that's not what my life is like. As this is a particularly hectic week, today seemed like the time to share all the many things I'm juggling at the moment. This is because I just got back from my Japanese lessons where we were learning about conjugating adjectives. It was so hard. Or perhaps:

むずかしい　です
I thought it would be nice to let you know what is competing with my blogging time.

So at the moment there's a lot of this:

Yes, some of this is wrong. I'm studying! This is me trying to work it out. But negative adjective forms are stumping me.

 Which is leading onto this:

 This is a view of just some of the Japanese tourism bits we have floating about. At the weekend we started going through them and mapping out a route. Yes, it is finally time to pick some dates, make a plan and go go go. We even got new passport photos at the weekend to get our married-name passports done.

Then, there is also my reading list:

The above are the books in my 'to-read' pile. This makes me very happy! Ooh look at all these interesting things. Getting back into Mike Carey's Unwritten graphic novel series. It's no Locke and Key, but it is really intriguing. I love the detail that goes into the art work.

Oh and then as well as Japanese, I am going to life drawing classes. This is where it may get a little NSFW. I'm drawing naked people after all...
 I've never actually shared any of my work on here, so now you can judge my skills! I feel my work is getting better all the time and I love having this place to sit and draw. The classes are very meditative, really focusing on art for its own sake and taking joy in your own work. I actually have a stack of paper that's getting towards novel thickness of all the drawings I've done in the last 6 months since taking up the classes. These are from the last 2 weeks:

We do these 1-3 minute warm up sketches which I really find get you into the right mind set. 

Finally I'm drinking lots of hot chocolate. For research purposes. Absolutely. Now that I've started a hot chocolate Tumblr I need some content. However, now you've seen what I'm up to, perhaps you'll forgive the current slow posting cycle!

 

 And of course, I'm still playing Neverwinter a little bit ever day. There's always time for gaming!

What are you up to? Do you like this kind of post? Anyone got any tips for learning a new language in your spare time? At the moment I've trying to learn 2 new words a day and cram it into my commute, but it's not enough. 

In which some new books have arrived

 Before Christmas has entirely slipped away from your memories I thought I'd share a little bit of what I got in my Christmas haul. There were lots of little things and chocolates and make-up and some corn-forks, but I always love books and I got some particularly beautiful ones this year. Technically the top 2 books were presents for Andy but as we share everything I thought I'd put them in the limelight too.

So we have from bootom to top:
1. Dungeon Masters Guide (2nd edition).
It's for Dungeons and Dragons and is from the very origins of the game. We have it very nicely sitting next to our fourth edition books, but now means we want to get the Dungeon Masters Guide for every version.
2. Black Orchid.
I have nearly everything Neil Gaiman has ever done, but yet this was my first time reading through Black Orchid, despite it being on of the very first things he did. It has absolutely stunning art work and a rather post-modern super hero story.
3. Locke and Key Book 4
If I was to persuade to you to read one comic book series, it would have to be Locke and Key. I am fairly sure I've mentioned them here before. The series is dark Lovecraftian inspired horror-adventure. It's a little viscous but I still have hopes of a happy ending.
4. The Pink Fairy Book
We got 2 folio edition books, adding to our slowly growing collection of these beautiful hard backs. This one has Japanese fairy tales, lovely illustrations and looks gorgeous on the bookshelf.
5. DSLR Handbook
This is what I actually asked for as my Christmas present. Having got my DSLR in the Summer it is about time I learnt how to use it properly. It's quite funny because the books is written with a really smug male tone. The author is absolutely certain of all the things you have to do in his way.
6. Moonfleet
Also a lovely boxed Folio book. I'm waiting for Andy to read it first before I do. Despite it being a classic I've never read it so I'm looking forward to getting stuck into an adventure story.
7. Sleepwalkers
This is the other non-fiction of the set. A look at the causes of World War One

That wasn't quite all the books we got for Christmas... There was this little stack as well: 

 A full collection of Meg and Mog books. When we opened them we weren't sure if they were a hint of things to come or merely a recognition of our childish side.

The Fairy Tail book goes perfectly with the bookends I got for my birthday too.

I got a little something else to go with my DSLR handbook. Finally a tripod too! So now maybe I'll do some outfit photos when Andy isn't around.

And of course it isn't Christmas without a little bit of Lego.

 I hope you had a good Christmas too! Did you get any good books? I already read most of mine so if you have anything good to recommend I am really looking for some new stories and authors to get into this year.

In which there are books and love

I don't like to harp on about the fact that I just got married too much, but it has left me with a whole host of fun photos to share and if not going on about the wedding, I want to share the location of our honeymoon because more people show love this place.

I am sorry if this is just be spamming with you my holiday pictures, but it's mostly books. Just to keep it exciting I put a few pictures of me in there too... and then chocolate!

So where we for all this? It's a little town in Wales called Hay-on-Wye. It's excusable if you have never heard of it, unless that is you are fond of books. In which case, I beg you to take a little holiday here too. The town is famous for its bookshops. There are 30 second hand books shops in this little place. One in a cinema, one just for crime, two for children's, one for gardening books, outdoor, indoor, huge or cosy. All the books you can dream of. It is a tiny place really, but it was absolutely perfect for our holiday. We did very little at all, but bought lots of books!

In this bookshop they had an entire basement of sci-fi books! All the books you can see here, and then another aisle full of them.

That same bookshop had a cafe we had recommended to us which served incredible food. Like chocolate and cardamom ice cream.

Indeed.

Oh my, folios. All those books across from me? Folio editions. I die from the beauty.

We ate a dinner out in a lovely deserted pub. We got served directly by the landlord who took our drink orders all night and lazed in massive armchairs. I'd been saving this dress for the occasion. I love a form dress with pockets!

This town was crazy about penguin editions. I am generally just crazy about matching books.

Perfection.

Crime bookshop.

Picnic by the river with some classic sci-fi.

My sister got us this lunchbag as a wedding present and I utterly love it!

This was the dinner I cooked up for us sitting outside with champagne in our little holiday house.

Yes, an outdoor bookshop. This one just had an honesty box.

Finally: The haul. 

After visiting a mere twelve of the bookshops over the week the above picture shows the final stack (bar about 2 I think that we got as leaving!) that we came away with. The day we left was swelteringly hot but we made it back to London with our bags packed with wedding outfit, cards, presents and books.
For those interested it included: Folio E Nesbit books, vintage Bunty annuals, hard bound art books on favourite painters, Clive Barker children's horror, lots of John Wyndham, Anne McCaffery and Tanith Lee, a book on the treatment of madness in women, a dungeons and dragons book and some more unusual folklore-inspired tales.

In which I'm looking for some reading material

I love reading all the blogs I do and getting to know folk from across the world and the most varied collection of clothes, ideas, crafts and eclectic styles and personalities.



Most of the blogs that I love to read seem to be girls who live somewhere near the countryside or some kind of small town (strangely often Midwest America or Melbourne). They like to thrift and frequent charity shops or make their own clothes and do outdoorsy photoshoots. They share a little of themselves and smile in their photos. I like all this.

I like their blogs and I like these people through the little glimpse of them that shines through the internet.

I am generally less keen on blogs where people just put pictures of catwalks or show off their collection of Miu Miu shoes. Oh, of course to everything there is an exception, but I want to feel like blogs offer inspiration and connection. Essentially something magazines can never provide.

However the blogs that I have found of people who live near to me seem to fall into the latter category. They also intimidate me a little with their classy looks and large shoe collections. Oh I live near London, but I'm not a city girl. I'm a country small-town girl at heart who went to university in Wales and whose parents live in North Yorkshire. London is still a spectacle not a home. The town I live in on the outskirts, that's home now - but I doubt there's a whole collection of fashion bloggers here!

*Getting to the point* I would love to get to know more people round here and join some kind of London group for people who like fashion but not Fashion and clothes but not Vogue. SO:
Can anyone recommend some good blogs that are based in London?

I just want to re-iterate, there are some City blogs I really like. It’s just that most of the fashion blogs people share or that I have come across tends to be American or Australian focused and I’d like to find more English ones in the hopes of making more friends in a city I am new to. I also love finding new blogs so please tell me what I should be reading below!

 Second point coming up!

Most of my reading list are about fashion, but I throw in some blogs on cakes, feminism, theology and comic books as well. However, I would also love to find more good blogs that are about those kinds of things, whilst also being personable, if you know what I mean. After all a blog of cake recipes and decorating is just so much more interesting if they share the stories behind the four foot luckdragon made of icing. So please let me know if you have any interesting quirky blogs to recommend too.
For instance on:
-Feminism
-Toys
-Cosplay and costume making
-DIY, crafts and making it yourself clothes
-Books, but passionate about them, not just objective calm reviews
-Cake decorating
-Comics; about comics or containing comics
And just to share the love! Some of my favourite non-specifically fashion blogs/tumblrs are:


The Lady Nerd
 Amazing and striking cosplay outfits and costumes that are totally different from anything else. Even if you are not normally into cosplay, she also writes really well about conventions with all the little encounters and witty moments. She makes me smile with every post, plus she great photoshoots.

 

 The Lady Nerd in her Vogue-Loki look. Heart.

Stoya
Definitely NSFW this one. This is the tumblr of Stoya, international alt porn star. Sometimes she blogs about upcoming films, sometimes she makes clothes, sometimes she writes about acrobatics training and sometimes about feminism. She is very intelligent, witty and all-round interesting. I learn a lot from her blog.

We Mixed Our Drinks
A blog about religion and feminism and life thoughts written by the news editor of BitchBuzz.  Very well thought out and articulated views on theology, feminism, literature and life.

Krisatomic
Blog by an illustrator/photographer who does cute drawings and interesting photographs and a bit of life blogging.

Diane Duane tumblr
She’s the author of the Young Wizard teen fantasy series. One of my favourite childhood authors who I am re-reading at the moment. She’s amazing because whilst being successful and famous she is a fan. She doesn’t place herself above her fans because she squees over Loki, Sherlock and kitten pictures like the rest of us. Interestingly she has also written some Scooby-Doo and Star Trek books.
What else do you enjoy reading beyond the fashion sphere? (or even crossing over into that realm but residing in another)

Do you read tumblrs too?

What English blogs do you recommend?

In which I meditate on meeting your heroes and like elephants

If you are just here for the fashion and prancing you can read the first paragrpah, skip the rest and go to the pics because all the rest is meditating on meeting your heroes. Which kind of happened this week. 

The outfit I am wearing in these photos went through several developments before this look was chosen. I originally wore the dress with a skirt over the top and then whined that I looked a bit too hippyish with no straight lines in my look. My boy did not get these complaints. Then I took the skirt off and wore shorts and little socks with bows on and a blazer and then accused myself of looking like a Chalet School on the weekend. Then I added my new scarf! On my birthday post I said I had four new scarves which I will be showing you over a steady period. This one is my elephant one and is super soft, like cuddling to send you to sleep soft. And after all that I was ready to set off into town for some photographs!  

This week I got to meet Mike Carey which was a fascinating experience for me. He is a graphic novel/comic book writer, although he has also written a successful prose series. If you are into these things he has written Lucifer and The Unwritten. These are big deal Vertigo comics that I have read and loved. This guy is a big deal. And there he was opening a library collection in Hertforshire, reading a story out loud, and chatting to me about myths. 

See, I'm quite a shy person really. When I meet new people I try and cover up the shyness with humour or controversial opinions but I am always an introvert pretending to be an extrovert. So when I met Neil Gaiman I crumble away in nothingness. Neil Gaiman in my favourite author (or Dianna Wynne Jones is, depending on my mood) and I have been to a number of events with him present. I wrote my dissertation on his work. I have most of his books; read his blog and tumblr; follow his Twitter and quote him in conversation. Yet, whilst I believe him to be a nice person, the overwhelming awesome of his person makes me mumble and run, or on the last occasion look at the signing line and say like a quitter "to even queue would make me sad because nothing I can say in the sixty seconds together will let him know how much he means to me", so I just walk out. 

Back to Mike Carey. I was not only was front of the queue (second to the boy eager to use this as an opportunity to get into comics), I actually talked about my favourite work of his and we actually discussed Neil Gaiman's Sandman a little and why Lyta Hall was such a great character. He told me I was clearly his key audience for his book The Furies. I had to let the next person through, but he said he would like to speak again if I hung around and, as I was getting a lift back with the event organiser, I did. In all this I didn't feel my usual shyness or crippling insecurities. I didn't worry about whether he would respect me or understand that I was somehow special. I just felt like me. Talking to a person. About books. 

And that's the kind of thing that makes me happy.

What's the difference between them? I'm not sure there is one. Gaiman is more famous than Mike, it's true. But Carey is by no means obscure, as I said. I think the difference is in me and my attitude. I just refused to let myself be awed-out of myself. I think maybe next time I see Gaiman (in October at a talk on myth: booyah!) I will stand in the queue, take my books and let those sixty seconds just exist without having to mean something. And hey, maybe Neil will respect me anyway.

Dress: ebay; jacket: New Look; Short: present; Hat: charity shop; Socks: some random little shop; Shoes: Matalan

There are always several photos where I just laugh at it all. This is where it begins.

Elephants are not Irrelevant.

Woa. It's my face! HUGE. Looks kind of weird, but I like my little freckles.

We do so many photos these days! Andy is getting trigger happy!

In which there are small moments of happiness and Lego bagpipes

I thought I would do one of those 'snapshots of life' things I have seen other bloggers do to make me cheerful. Today has been One of Those Days. You know, I accidently over-worked and, because I lost track of time,  had to wait fifty minutes for the next train home. It would have been forty except the train was delayed. And then it was chucking it down when I got off. Andy and I have been too busy to tidy so the whole house is a tip, which just isn't fun to come home to. Oh and I didn't get the job I interviewed for recently. My current job is most excellent and interesting, but it is also unpaid. I am therefore skint which is like a nagging level of panic at the back of my mind that crops up in the middle of something unrelated and can cause my heart a little grinding judder. I am sure we have all had that worry though.

However, I have had a recent re-awakening of love for this blog. The last two months I feel like I am having fun with posts and making new outfits. Plus I have a new dress I got as an early birthday present which I cannot wait to photograph. I am saving it for a bbq for this weekend (which might be a terrible idea if I get ketchup down chiffon) but I have tried it on in the house in front of the mirror about three times. Just to prepare the outfit you know? It is really different from anything I already own -batwing sleeves! But I shall save the rest of the squeeing for later.

Also, you may have noticed that I made some minute changes to the blog. The most obvious should be the new header. It has a picture of me rather than my superhero alter-ego on it. I am tipping my hat to say hello and, as a nod to the name, I used origami pattern scans from Deviant Art as part of the background. I feel that making it counts towards my weekly 'creative activity'.  Please let me know what you think. I appreciate all your thoughts and comments.

Anyway, here are some other good things in my life:

Home-made curry paste. Feels wonderfully creative + tasty

New glasses with turqoise on the inside, bronze outside. Gives little hidden flashes of colour

Library books. The library is a wonderful spot for the sad, even with noisy kids you can always escape inside

Two new musical Lego people from my sister. Look at his concetrating face! The grey eyebrows! The little hat!

Pink-style punk Lego girl!

 Ok. Just looking at pictures of my new Lego figures has made me happy again. I mean, have you seen the little Lego bagpipes? That's enough to make anyone's day. Even in the rain.