you've torn your dress, your face is a mess

la la laaa. hello again everyone, how are you?

i seem to have forgotten how to behave in the holidays it's been so long since i've had a proper one. i got up at nine this morning, nine.

i tend to post a bit more in the holidays (which is good for you guys, i hope) & i'll probably update or schedule posts for the award and, of courrrse, the mystery-surprise-thing.

um, anyway, to the crux of the matter. this is my outfit from yesterday;

i'm wearing the grey tights from yesterday's post which you can't really see unfortunately. i actually love them, even though my brother said they made me "look like a zombie". cheers bro.

i still feel a bit weird posting outfit pictures, because i don't often like pictures of myself. i mean, it's easier when i can edit them myself & choose what side of myself to show the camera, but i still hate looking at the camera, which is why you never see my eyes.

i feel like i always do this self-deprecating spiel whenever i post photographs of myself, so i apologise if i bore you! i don't mean to prattle on, but i don't want it to seem like i'm hugely big-headed & adore my own appearance.

that said, i don't hate it, i just dislike the way i look in most photographs.

playsuit - vintage (ebay), shirt - primark, tights - primark, necklace - made by me, bracelet - gift, watch - gift

to break the rather serious tone i may have inadvertantly created, here is a shot of me dancing to rebel rebel by david bowie. thought an action shot of me dancing like i think i'm one of the isley brothers might entertain (:

oh, you pretty things

i shall reveal the oh-so-mysteriousness of my last post soon, but for now i will just crank up the suspense. well, actually i still need to find & arrange all of the photos, but feel free to stay on the edge of your seat.

firstly, i'd like to say thank you to amber for passing on an award to me recently. it involves taking pictures of various favourite things, & sadly my camera is currently out of charge so i will take the pictures & put them up later in the week!

i've bought quite a few things in the past week, but i keep forgetting to post about them! as i said before, my camera is asleep so you'll have to make do with pictures from my rubbish quality (yet newly discovered) webcam.

last weekend at barter books, i bought the shawshank redemption for only £3.60! i realised after i took the picture that you can't see the title, but you can see morgan freeman's beautiful face so it's not all bad.

say hello to the dire straits first album!

it says hello back, but in a very moody, guitar-filled angsty way. this was also a purchase from barter books, i think it was about £4.60. i haven't played it yet but i do know all the songs.

today i went shopping with mother for various things, & bought a fair bit more than i probably should have done, as per usual! these tights were only £2 each, i love the grey flowery-lacey ones & i've been after some dotty ones for a while & i think these nude ones will suit me better than the black kind.

please excuse my ridiculous face.

i managed to find some ribbon for my shoes which is almost exactly the same colour as my dress, yay!

i also made mother wander round hmv for a bit while i decided which cds to get out of their 2 for £10 offer. (this offer, by the way, is an absolute godsend for me as i've made it one of my summer missions to actually buy more music instead of downloading it) i actually wanted to buy some beatles cds, as for some reason my itunes has deleted half of each song, & when i say half i don't mean half of the songs have gone, half of each of the songs has disappeared. i actually despise itunes sometimes.

anyway, i bought the sound of the smiths & the best of bowie instead. i love bowie & have mainly been listening to my records of his at the moment, i thought it was about time i had some songs on my ipod!

also, finally i managed to get my hands on these books! i've been wanting to read the great gatsby for so long, the same with anna karenina. i love sylvia plath too, her poetry is so bleak but beautiful.

curiouser & curiouser

my shoes for my auntie's wedding arrived today! (along with some really old music magazines about the beatles, but i won't bore you with my old man tastes!) they were from peacocks, which is actually a really nice place & still pretty cheap - my shoes were only £16 & they were pretty much exactly what i was looking for. yeah, suck it topshop!

i think they'll go nicely with my dress, as i don't want everything to be too matchy-matchy.

the only thing i might change is the little ribbon tie, as i'd quite like something in blue (no pun intended) to go with the dress.

now for the more exciting part of this post, to be revealed after the jump break! oh, the tension.

the book of dreams

last weekend, my mother & i went to barter books, which is a huge second-hand bookshop in alnwick (about a 45 minute drive from my house). it's a beautiful building, the bookshop is located in a listed victorian railway - i would have taken pictures both inside & out, but as they sell very old, very rare books they have a no photography policy. so i'm afraid you'll just have to imagine the lovelyness!

the reason we were going was for me to buy books to read for my english literature course. personally, i adore buying old books as i love the history they have, & also it's pretty good for the environment! they're usually a lot cheaper too - although while browsing their online catalogue we saw several seriously ancient books for thousands!

these are the books i bought, some of these i have wanted to read for a very long time but have never had the money to buy them new.

in case you can't see the titles, they are;

the virgin suicides - jeffrey eugenides

mrs dalloway - virginia woolf

plays - oscar wilde

the kite runner - khaled hosseini

the crucible - arthur miller

the picture of dorian gray - oscar wilde

war & peace - leo tolstoy

not a bad haul for £20 in my opinion! as soon as i finish reading pride & prejudice i will start on the virgin suicides, which i have wanted to read for quite some time. i also bought the dire straits' first album on vinyl, but forgot to take a photograph!

i had a huge list of books to buy, & sadly the majority of the ones i wanted weren't there. the four books i wanted the most were anna karenina by leo tolstoy, the great gatsby by f scott fitzgerald, selected poems by sylvia plath & lolita by vladimir nabokov. i need the first two books for my coursework this year, so i think i will have to search amazon for these later. i don't really like searching for books there though, as i prefer browsing through bookstores.

train in vain

alas, it has been a while since my last post! i am sorry for this, but this thursday i had a small operation on my foot so i've not been feeling that great as it's still pretty painful. not to worry though, it's nothing major & i have a couple of posts scheduled for this week which (by hook or by crook) will get to you. or you will get to them, as they're out in cyberspace for you to see. anyway, you get the picture.

this wednesday, my art class went on a trip to edinburgh to visit some of the galleries there.

my view of berwick from the train.

my friend joanna & me walking through princes street.

me standing in front of an actual roy lichtenstein painting! allow me just a few seconds to be in awe over this, then we can move on.

...

okay, let's move on.

we weren't actually allowed to take pictures in the gallery, but we managed to sneak this one in - mua to the ha! this was one of my favourite paintings, but then i do just love roy. my favourite gallery of the day was the national gallery, specifically the impressionist gallery part of it. we got to see some real monets & van goghs, which actually struck me speechless for a few minutes.

myself & joanna again, this time in princes street gardens.

we were total art nerds at lunch & did some sketches of our view at lunchtime.

the name of the project we were researching for is structures. the part i have chosen to look at is the natural world, so i was collecting a couple of primary images in the park (that's artist speak for taking some pictures) & this is one of my favourites. for some reason i have a total fascination with decaying, slightly decrepit things.

my outfit for the day, i'm clutching my skirt as it was unbelievably windy that day!

flower art in the gardens.

edinburgh. i love this view so much.

an exhibit from the fruitmarket gallery.

i had a lovely, lovely day with one of my best friends. looking at the art was just amazing & is something i wish i could do more often.

picture credit; only 1, 5, 7, 8 & 9 were taken by me, 2 - hannah, and 3, 4 & 6 are courtesy of joanna.

the needle and the damage done

some people asked for me to post the finished version of my artwork which i posted the pictures for last week, so, erm *awkward drumroll* here it is.

oh, it's a poppy head by the way, in case you weren't sure what it was! (and the medium is oil pastel)

this really does make me feel quite awkward; i don't want people to think i'm posting this because i think i'm awesome, i did it because people asked but i am also quite proud of this. i never used to feel that i could draw or paint or do other arty things as well as the other people in my school - or even in my art class - but over this past year my confidence & my ability have really grown. i feel very comfortable drawing now, & i don't feel like the rubbish outsider in my class any more.

*

anyway, moving on.

i would like to thank both Nat Elizabeth & JC for giving me this lovely blog award;

it really means quite a huge amount to me that people even read my blog, let alone comment like these two do. and it means an even huger amount that they love this blog, as the award suggests. so thank you very very much girls!

i think i'm supposed to send these on to 15 bloggers, but personally i think that's too many & it won't be as special that way, so i'm going to pass it on to two of my favourites, Kat & Lexy. you should go visit their blogs, & those of my awarders too, as they really are all wonderful people.

i'm off to edinburgh tomorrow with my art class for a day of galleries & amazingness, so hopefully i should have some pretty pictures to share with you all soon!

*

ps. i think i should explain the title of this post as it seems a tad pessimistic. so, poppy seeds are used to make opium which (forgive me if i'm wrong) is something to do with heroin, which that song by neil young is about! phew, okay done.

making banana pancakes, pretend like it's the weekend

this wednesday, my father, brother & i caught the train to london to go see jack johnson at the o2. it really was one of the best concerts i've ever been to, the atmosphere was brilliant & he is just amazing live.

one of my favourite moments was when he forgot the verse to one of his songs, & did the intro to foxy lady by jimi hendrix! i actually squealed at this point, & my brother looked at me in bewilderment.

most of my photos turned out pretty badly, as the night setting on my camera couldn't handle the gig lighting. i do like this one though (:

the screen behind him was really cool, it kept collaging pictures from the crowd & from different angles on the stage. when he played songs from different albums, the background of the screen changed to suit the colours of the album cover - like when he played songs from inbetween dreams the background was yellow with shadows of trees. i thought that was a really cute idea.

he was really lovely to his band as well, they played a song written by the keyboardist, and another surprise was when they were doing a little jam after one of the songs & the guitarist (the guy on the left) burst into a rap!

there was also the cutest little bit when he dedicated songs to his wife, his mother & father and his baby daughter (9 months old, awww!), so unbelievably sweet!

"i wrote this song for my brand new daughter. she just learned to make fart noises with her mouth, now she's got two older brothers who are encouraging her to make those noises. by the way, she's only nine months old, so those noises are still pretty amazing."

but if you were thinking that's the last of the surprises, you would be mistaken my friend! at the start of the acoustic encore, he said;

"i'd like to bring a friend of mine out here, i didn't even know here was here tonight, here he is."

then out comes ben stiller! air guitaring away while jaws were dropping.

(that is supposed to be a photograph of ben stiller, but it is ludicrously blurry. sorry)

of course, i bought a tshirt.

it's quite cute, it features little drawings of all the instruments used in his show - including an accordion, a ukelele (one of which i am desperate to own) & that weird keyboard-flute-organ thing.

i love the white, turquoise & orange colours.

inside the neck of the shirt, there's a little note saying that this tshirt is made from organice cotton & printed with water-based inks courtesy of jack johnson's all at once eco-friendly organisation. it also says that all of the profits from this tour are going towards this charity. seriously, could this guy be any more lovely?

i think it goes pretty well with my sequinned jacket (and possibly my white ruffle skirt, but that was in the wash), & let's face it i need to start wearing this beauty more.

the only thing wrong with this shirt is that it's a tad, er, low cut for me. and i'm not really one for gratuitous cleavage shots, thank you very much =S

it really was such a good show, i even saw my father tapping along to it! (which would be a pretty big deal if you knew my father) i love jack johnson's music so much, the lyrics to his songs kind of represent everything i want in life, if that isn't too corny a thing to say.