My Aims For 2012

At the beginning of this year I set myself 20 aims to have completed by the end of it. I looked at this list about a month ago and realised that a majority of the things had happened!

1. Get and A* in Geography
2. Go to Oxford Street
3. Go away with friends
4. Have a good time at prom
5. Own at least 5 dresses that I wear
6. Get a job
7. Get fitter
8. Visit Bath
9. Make more guy friends
10. Get my hair back into good condition (brush it every day)
11. Get 200 followers on twitter
12. Have a party in the summer
13. Grow my hair really long
14. Visit Camber Sands
15. Go on a picnic to somewhere you've never been before
16. Swim to the bouy
17. Stop critisizing people so much
18. Paint after the art exam
19. DIY some clothes and jewellary 
20. Buy some fancy shoes

None of it was unbelievable or hard, and most of it just happened without intention but it lead to the best year of my life so far!

Memories

I came across this little idea when I was flicking through Tumblr this evening and it made me wander; if I had done this for this year, what would be inside it?

 The good times that fade in your memory and blend into and overall sense of happiness. They'd all be trapped inside this capsule, ready for someone to uncover all of these forgotten memories. 

Exeter

    Just to forewarn you, this is a pretty picture heavy post but it's definitely worth it! 

    Over the half term I went to visit my brother in Exeter for three days since I haven't seen him since he left home in September. It was so good to see him again and honestly felt as if we had never left, despite the drastic change of weather. 

   Near to the University stands this memorial and the traffic cone on its head was how we knew where we were going. Tom told us some stories about a person who had tried to climb up onto the horses back after a night out and broken both of their legs! The result could be argued worth it.

   I really like the city of Exeter and I now know quite a lot about its history due to my brothers knowledge on it. One really cool thing is that the hall that he currently lives it was the original inspiration for Griffindor house! 

   
The central square near the cathedral where we got quite friendly with some very bold pigeons who Tom ended up trying to get as many on his lap as possible. I commend him at managing 5.

    We went up into Dartmoor and we came across a spectacular waterfall so different to all that I had seen before purely for how thin it was. The view at the top of it was beautiful and so untouched although the waterfall itself had an interesting history of being managed.
 

Thoughts

    I love receiving letters. It is a feeling you cannot explain. They are so unexpected when you see your name peering up from all of the bills and business letters in some familiar hand; it just makes your heart leap a little. The feeling of someone taking time out of their day to write and send a letter, not as a task or obligation, is truly special. I remember a time when I was seven or eight years old, and I had just moved into this town and looking out the window ever morning for any news of my friends in Surrey that the postman might bring. Since then, my correspondence has altered and the content may have changed but the excitement never fades. Maybe it is the old fashioned side of me which has fallen in love with the simple systems that used to operate the world.

    I heard a voice of a lady in an interview today who sounded so magical. I found myself hanging on her every word as if the future depended on it. Her voice was so enticing and her words so poetic that they needed to be recorded the cherished because the way she spoke was so soft, and even though the broadcast was to millions of people, you felt as if you were hearing the voice of a long forgotten friend speaking only to you. 

    On a similar train of thought, have you ever met someone who, as you part ways for the day, you just cannot wait to see again because all that matters at that moment to you is getting to know them even better. Sometimes it is inconvenient but since when is anything? But we do it anyway. 

"All I know is we said hello,

 And your eyes look like coming home 

All I know is a simple name,

 Everything has changed" 

Taylor Swift & Ed Sheeran

Everything Has Changed

    These are just some of the things going on in my head this evening. Enjoy your week!

Red

If you know me then you will probably be aware of my long lasting love of Taylor Swift and she has a new album coming out of which she released the title track yesterday. 

Autumn Rolling In

In England at present we have just come to the end of an ever so glorious week of sunshine which is fear may be some of the last that we feel for the year. Now we have cloud covered skies forecast for this week and it may be time to kiss goodbye to my favorite time of year. 

  I am going to try and put up pictures from this summer gradually as there are a great deal of them and I also have little bits of footage so I am going to try and put together a little montage! 

Sunshine

England is gripped in heat and there is nothing I love more than summer. I love the feeling of being tanned and all of the long summer evenings and these things cancel out the things about British summers which are rather unpleasant such as women spilling out of their clothing and the amount of drunk people falling about outside the pub near my house. 

On another note, my summer started on Monday as I am now on study leave and this heat could not have come at a better time! I have spent the days on the beach and in the sea which is gradually warming up. The pictures above were taken on Thursday after I had two exams when we went 'cave crawling' and swimming in the habour which probably wasn't the smartest idea as we missed getting hit by a boat by about 20 seconds and this boat created waves which almost washed over all of our phones and clothes which were resting on a rock nearby which would have been a disaster. All in all, my summer is off to a pretty amazing start!

One of my grandparents tortoises eating: I thought this deserved a spotlight as it's so cool!

Exam Season

Exam season has officially begun for me and the millions of other students. I have had fleeting moments of panic but I am pretty chilled about it all, probably too chilled but I am working but without that driving force of fear.

 This is my final exam piece for my GCSE inspired by the work of Tim Gagnon (timgagnonstudio.com). His work is mind blowing and defiantly worth a look. I also drew inspiration from one of the Narnia stories as it fits well with the theme 'sense of place'.

On another note, my friend Jess' ducklings hatched a few weeks ago and this is them when they are just under a week old. They were so tiny!

Cycling!

   The only way to carry these was hanging out of my bag which made me feel slightly French.

     This was a bench that a few of us stopped at whilst waiting for the others to catch up as the twins hadn't cycled in years and were very hesitant on their bikes. 

We were looking for somewhere to have our picnic and we stumbled upon a beautiful pond so naturally we had to take a trip back to our childhoods and feed the ducks! Although this led to Rita getting chased by a goose. 

This is our picnic with some people cut out as they didn't want to be in the pictures. 

  I stole Emilys' amazing vintage bike which, although is old is so nice to ride!


Overall the day was so lovely and we met lots of friendly people who stopped to have a condensation which is so refreshing because that never happens, especially with old people.
 

Hannah's Baprism

 A few weeks ago, my friend Hannah got baptized and I managed to get some photos of it even though some are a little blurry. It was beautiful and if I hadn't have heard her speech before hand I definitely would have cried full out. Congratulations to Hannah!

Jewellery Box Memories

I was going through all of my jewellery yesterday and the memories attached to them go way back and I thought it'd make a nice mini series on here to share some of those. This will be part one and I will see how it goes.

This is my jewellery box which was a Christmas Present years and years ago from my Grandma and I've had to glue it back together a few times but it does the job well.

I bought this necklace last year whilst I was staying in a tiny fishing village called Port Issac in Cornwall. The cottage we were staying in was one wall of an alley which is the smallest in the world called 'squeeze belly alley' and it really was so tiny that the suitcases got stuck when we went through it. It was from one of the shops there. Since then, it has been an on and off companion as it is perfect for living by the beach as it doesn't have parts to go rusty or break.

This is from a shipwreck museum in Rossilli bay on the Gower Peninsula in Wales where I went on holiday a few years ago. I think that it is just one of those standard pieces of jewellery sold in tourist shops everywhere. It is made of a blue stone called Howlite and it is meant to be a 'super calming stone' and 'an excellent antidote to insomnia due to an overactive mind' and all of that other weird stuff which is a bit weird and if you believe that, that's cool but I just bought it because blue is my favorite colour and I loved the changes in colours and as you will probably be able to tell through this series, I like natural jewellery.

This bracelet was made in Africa by some ladies in a village which name escapes my memory but a man from my church bought some back with him and sold them for about £3 or thereabouts and all of that money would go to them and I liked the look of it anyway but if you can help someone along in the meantime it's such a bonus. I don't know if you will be able to see from the pictures but the beads are actually made of paper. I have done something similar before where you get a long triangle strip and roll it up as small as you can but I love how you can barely tell as they are solid and take the appearance of wood. 

This was a gift from my Aunt for being a bridesmaid at her wedding which was mad but she went completely crazy with the wedding especially as we wore pearly necklaces which we got to keep. There is no specific memory attached to this piece but it's origins are a memory in themselves to me. On the wedding day, during the best mans speech I found out about how many cars my uncle has crashed and all about when he was younger. It was in Scotland and so I knew no one beyond my own family and when you are 12 as I was, you will never avoid the 'school' and 'future' questions from strangers who are just trying to make convosation.

So there we are, there are a few of the pieces in my little collection. I have so much wooden, stone and natural jewellery but that is my favorite type. Feel free to do this yourself showing the meaning and stories behind some of your jewellery.

London

Playing Rummie much to the displeasure of the commuters on the train.

Me and Sophie in our customary seats.
Sophie's blog is: http://wfwwwf.blogspot.co.uk/, go and have a little nosey.

Descending into Topshop in Oxford street to be met by the equivalent of all of the shops in my town.

Don't know the significance of Marble Arch but it is at an entrance of Hyde park which, is my name so naturally we visited it.

A lamp post in Hydpark which I intend to paint.

M&M Beatles.. I still can't understand why four floors of m&m's is necessary.

The Sherlock themed tube station at Baker Street.

This is a very picture heavy post of my trip to London on Monday which was very fun. I went up there with three good friends, Jess, Sophie and Emily although a few more people travelled with us. It was a beautiful day and although it is only the beginning of April, it definitely felt a bit like summer! We started by doing some shopping at Oxford street where we all got some really nice things as it is coming up to summer and of course we need new clothes! We then took a trip through Hyde park which I have wanted to do for rather a long time as it is my name and it is such a lovely place and it feels the most like home out of all of the places in London because you can actually see more than a slither of sky between the buildings although this made it feel nothing like London at all. We then took a tube to China Town which smelled absolutely divine and had a really cool atmosphere. Other than Oxford Street, the main purpose of our trip was to visit Baker Street because three of us are huge Sherlock fans bought on my both the movie and the TV series so we wanted to visit 221B baker street and there is a museum and a shop there now although someone told me it used to be a bank or something of the sort. Inside, it felt really old fashioned and we were the youngest people in there which was strange because all of the older people in there probably think of Sherlock Holmes so differently to us as they have had more experience of all of the stories made him. But we bought a couple of mementos and even picked up a few of the business cards that they had out which were amazing I thought. Finally, deciding to save visiting tower bridge for another day because we were too tired to appreciate it in all of its glory, we took a tube back to Victoria station and travelled home. We arrived at about 10.30am and left at around 6pm and we had a very full day of travelling and visiting some typically British places and I enjoyed myself immensely!
Again, I apologise for the lack of editing in these photos, my laptop is still being temperamental.

Country Lanes

When the sun comes out the town and surrounding villages come to life and although the population is made up of a lot of old people, you do get a lot more smiles. This weekend I had a morning to kill so me and my sister, Lucy went on a little cycle in the country side around where we live and explored villages we didn't even know existed.
Our first stop was the castle where on a good day you can see two miles down to the sea and the view over the fields really is stunning. We then traveled through some country lanes, past too many farms to be able to count them and up and down rather a lot of hills. All in all it was around eleven miles and was a lovely way to spend an early summers morning!
Just as a final note, my laptop has broken with my editing software on it and I have had to steal my brothers, so these pictures are raw from my camera resulting in some of the exposure and white balance being off but it doesn't matter too much.
Have an amazing day!

The Start of the Summer Days

This photo was taken on a recent day out with some friends. March is now underway and we have had a burst of good weather here in England which, dispite the earliness in the year, it is long awaited. We all cycled into my village and had a little wander while eating buns from the bakers and talking about what good times this summer will bring.

Master Chef

 On Saturday I woke up to the sun shining and looking forward to going for a run with Sophie but alas, England's changeable weather ruined our plans so we decided to bake some cakes for our friends who were coming round later.
  As I have given up chocolate for lent, we decided to bake lemon drizzle cake and a Victoria sandwich and not only did they taste divine, but we had a great time making them and the various random beverages that we concocted throughout the day including a kiwi, pear and apple smoothie which even now, I can't decide if I like.