In which there is magic at twilight

At the weekend I went along to a local folk dance club having enjoyed the ceilidh at our own wedding so much, I wanted to do more. We did dances from Jane Austen, but also a round strip-the-willow which I always love. Apparently the club do different types of folk dances every week, so Irish dancing, Morris, ceilidh, Scottish dancing etc. As expected though, it is mostly old people in the club. I do have lots of friends who love barn dances when they are at parties, but I know doing it on a Friday night isn't cool. It's not really the solution to making more friends in the area. In fact we are so uncool that we then went home, made cachaca strawberry daiquiris (almost like normal people), but then after drinking them did a 2 hour dungeon crawl on Neverwinter, the MMORPG that is sucking up my time. Oh dear. 

We have been living in this place for a year and a half now, but we only have a few friends we've made from our board games club. I really want to take up something new to meet new people but I get so nervous about joining sports clubs (they'll be full of sporty people! I'm so unfit!) and the other things I like (art, dancing) don't seem to be for people my age. Any tips of finding new things to do and new people? 

We've been using our blender a lot more since I discovered the joy of blending frozen fruit. No looking back! It's cocktails or smoothies every day in this crazy heat.

Went clothes shopping at the weekend and got the both the items pictured here. I love this skirt. It's quite a stiff thick material, but really comfortable and it has pockets. I also love the stag print tee. A bit different from all the ubiquitous swallow prints everywhere.

Pockets!

 

 We went to the park Sunday evening, took a patchwork quilt and played some Magic in the late evening. We were there till half 8 and it was still light! Just utterly beautiful.

Outfit details
Skirt & Top: New Look
Accessories: Claire's

In which deer and galaxies collide

Yesterday I had a lovely day out with a friend, trampsing through Richmond Park and then eating ridiculous amounts of cake, the two things providing perfect counters for each other. We got to see the deer and also a fox and a woodpecker. Not a bad bit of countryside for London. I do get such cravings for a rural location after having living by the sea and near the Yorkshire moors. It is so refreshing to be somewhere without tower blocks and housing estates in sight.

The photo may look excessively bright and I won't deny that they were taken with a filter applied, but in truth this was because the normal camera settings wouldn't capture the colours properly. It was as though my regular camera was applying a 'dull' filter to my outfit because it couldn't accept how excessively bright it all was. My jacket really is that yellow!

After my last post on my love of pocket watch necklaces, this is the second one I was referring to. I have one gold and one silver to co-ordinate either way. :)

We saw lots of deer, both fallow and red dear we believe. There was a group of does and a group of stags. Sadly the stags with the impressive antlers were too far away to get a good photograph but I was content to see them purely with my eyes. What was fascinating was the way the deer blend into the bracken like ghostly waifs.

This is what I look like on the 'dull' photo. I swear it was much brighter in the air and on me than this appears but the weird twisted trees were impressive anyway.

Little mugs of hot chocolate at the tea house we went to!

We went to this beautiful tea-rooms/cafe type place. We are inside a greenhouse with fairy lights and flowers everywhere. There were several other greenhouses around with different types of tables and chairs laid out inside.

Outfit details
Jacket: H&M
Skirt: Dorothy Perkins
Shirt: Matalan
Galaxy Print Tights: Camden Market
Pocket watch: Present from my dad
Shoes: Docs I have had forever
Pink gloves: Charity shop

In which there is snow and sorrow but all is well

Before I say anything else in this post, I must begin by saying I have just returned from seeing the current film of Les Miserables and I am still in a state of recovery. I have never seen anything that made me cry so much. Some films, like Avatar or Titanic even, have significant moments that make you cry, pinnacles of sadness as it were, but this film: wow; Andy and I were genuinely sobbing for about half the film. It is utterly heart-wrenching. Also, Hugh Jackman is a god among men. I can't deny that he is my longest running celebrity-crush. I used to have a poster of him on my wall as a teenager because I was, and am, really into X-men and he is damn sexy as Wolverine. Since then he has continuously impressed me as a person. He really can sing and he is charming and funny in real life. In this, he was so impressive that I feel proud of my 14-year old self's lasting taste.

Andy and I took the day off work to go see the film and it did work out as a wonderful day, despite the sorrow. It snowed all morning so we decided to get breakfast out. We went to this extraordinary greasy spoon that does food that the two of us crave over, by which I mean American food - pancakes, milkshakes and floats. Andy lived in America for most of his childhood and I visited him there when his parents were living in Texas. I love these things - and Britain has no IHOP (International House of Pancakes that isn't actually international).

So these are our breakfasts:

Andy's hot chocolate

American-style blueberry pancakes, with bacon. It's blurry I know, but he was in a hurry to start eating it when it arrived so I didn't get time to take lots.

I got blueberry pancakes, English muffin, bacon, sausage, egg and maple syrup.

Then we went to the park, covered in snow just for us. Having the day off felt so beautiful in the endless snow. No kids to run around, no people on bikes. We were walking through it all, still completely fresh in the middle of the day.

Outfit: Skirt: Mango, Velvet shirt: charity shop find, Coat: charity shop, Bag: New Look, Ear muffs: present, Wellies: there's long story involved with how I got those wellies, Socks: Matalan, Tights: H&M.

Butterfly wellies with lacy knee socks over knitter yellow tights.

Wearing a velvet shirt for the first time ever. The thing keeping me warm-ish. And I loved the contrast of fabrics with the thick velvet against the soft light skirts and the black on pink.

The outfit looked a lot more glamorous indoors. The gloves possibly ruin it's photogenic qualities, but it was still snowing at this point. I hope they are allowed.

Andy got me spinning round to show off the skirt. And his hands were shaking so much from all the snow that this way blurry photos were ok!

You may have noticed my hair has changed since the last blog post. I wanted to have something new and bright, hope you like it! 

And if you don't care for pictures of pancakes or people then, please look at the snowflakes. I have never seen this before, never stopped long enough in the snow to notice, but today I saw the flakes fall like Christmas sprinkles. As we caught them on Andy's gloves we notices those paper-cut out shapes, the special snowflakes of metaphor actually falling and visible with a naked eye. Without a microscope, or a fancy camera zoom, this is what we actually saw when we stopped for a moment:

In particular look at a third of the way down on the far right. Perfectly formed and incredible.

In which there is high tea and a space suit of sorts

You know those clothes where you just feel gorgeous in them? You walk around and feel better about yourself as a person just because you are wearing them? That's how I felt today; perfectly myself in this outfit.

I have a brand new dress that is unashamedly inspired by all the fashion blogs I read and the trend for galaxy prints. Now I have one I think it is absolutely perfect. It goes with every colour! I can wear any accessory, scarf or jacket and they look just right because they bring out that particular spash of pink/yellow/electric blue in the print. So because I love it so much I am going to swamp you in photos.

I am actually wearing make-up in this which is something that I don't do too often. I go through phases and at the bottom wearing this dark red lipstick (which barely shows here) is my favourite thing.

Dress: New Look; Coat: charity shop; bag: New Look; Scarf: present; shoes: Blowfish

Hah! Messy-wind hair. And a bin in the background. I kept this photo in here despite the obviously terrible photograph elements, cause I like my face in it.

The top of these two bracelets is made up of mini Mah Jong tiles which is one of my favourite games. It's a nice thing to wear for an evening of gaming as well. If you've only played Mah Jong as a solitaire game you should totally try it as a four player proper game. It's so beautiful and elegant and also fun.

After my last post I thought it would be nice to share with you some of my Christmas gifts in action. I mentioned the deluge of fine dining items we received (tea set, cake stand etc.) and I felt it was only appropriate to invite some close friends round and have a foundue afternoon to welcome in the new year. I'm so glad we got to use it all and not have it be something left lying around in the back of a kitchen cupboard!

Luke lighting the candle for the fondue (which was being heated up in the kitchen)

Setting up the tea. Sorry for the phone in the photo!

All for one and one for all! With strawberries.