tea potter on tour: brighton

The lovely Laura and I are both fans of the genial beverage, and so it was clearly time to take the Tea Potter on tour to the seaside.  For the uninitiated, a tea potter is an annual tradition I began one year for my birthday.  Think pub crawl but instead of pubs, it's tea shops, and instead of beer, it's tea and cake.

We've only explored London venues so far, but the Easter holidays seemed like a good time to head to the coast and explore the many tea shops of Brighton.  We had a lovely day pottering round, absorbing the tea and cake, wearing weather-inappropriate dresses and playing photo shoots.

Kisses xxx

P.S. The next tea potter is scheduled for May - camera at the ready!

before I'm 30 I will...

This weekend to celebrate a friend's birthday (and because I was keen to go), the friend and I completed Go Ape.  It's a tree-top climbing course where you swing on ropes, dangle in a harness, clamber through barrels, scale cargo nets, balance across beams and zoom down zip-wires.  All while many feet up in the air. Which, let's face it, is what makes it fun!

For me, that's another mission complete from my list of things to do before I'm 30. Time for a quick update then to see how it's all going.

So far I have completed 38 of my goals, and I have 52 left to go. Of these, one is nearly complete (I have sewn together #56 and just need to stuff it), I've got an item for #32, #52 will be complete in July, and I have a voucher for #65 - so excited to do this!

Here's the list so far, linked up where I can, highlighted item completed.

#1 Make cake pops
#2 Make a multicoloured layer cake
#3 Go on a canal boat
#4 Play Dungeons and Dragons
#5 Play hooky for a day
#6 Get a film projector and screen films in my own little cinema
#7 Go on a sleeper train
#8 Have tea at the Ritz
#9 And Claridges
#10 See 2 London Shows in a day
#11 Make a photo wall display
#12 Build a den.  A really cool one.
#13 Road trip in the USA
#14 New York, New York
#15 Go glamping in a fancy tent with fairy lights
#16 Buy an expensive set of lingerie
#17 Sew something to wear
#18 Get married
#19 Make a set of jam-jar cocktail glasses
#20 Make blueberry gin
#21 Play ultimate sandwich
#22 Learn how design this blog the way I wish it looked
#23 Go skinny dipping
#24 Milk a cow
#25 Learn to make pasta
#26 Get up early to photograph the sunrise 
#27 Swim in the Hampstead ponds
#28 Stay out all night
#29 Do an Escape Room
#30 Play the tube game
#31 Have dinner at Dans le Noir
#32 Re-vamp some second hand furniture
#33 Go to a cult Rocky Horror screening
#34 Go to a burlesque show
#35 Go ape
#36 Go to a Secret Cinema screening
#37 See a play at Cornwall's Minack Theatre
#38 Go on a helicopter
#39 Make my own ice cream (malteaser, peanut butter and caramel flavour?)
#40 Have dinner at Dishoom
#41 Take part in a Murder Mystery Treasure Hunt
#42 Buy a bikini
#43 Go to an auction
#44 Get my eyebrows shaped
#45 Inhale helium
#46 See the Northern Lights
#47 Go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
#48 See New Zealand
#49 Stay in a tree house
#50 Have a bash at karaoke
#51 Go to a roller derby
#52 Travel to South America
#53 Ride a motorbike
#54 See a film at a drive-in cinema
#55 Go to a sh*t-faced Shakespeare production
#56 Make a new giant floor cushion
#57 Have an indoor pool party
#58 Learn to scuba dive
#59 Have a go at spinning
#60 Go for Mad Hatter's Afternoon Tea

#61 Go to the circus

#62 Learn to knit from a chart

#63 Knit a lace pattern

#64 Start a teacup collection

#65 Go on a Segway

#67 See a midnight matinee at the Globe

#68 Complete a BOGUK badge

#69 Visit the Cutty Sark
#70 Go to a Casino
#71 Go stargazing
#72 Eat a deep-fried Mars bar
#73 Have dinner at Veeraswamy
#74 Have a day at Thorpe Park
#75 Ride a camel
#76 Have cocktails on Madison Terrace
#77 Play Dinosaur Safari Adventure Golf
#78 See a baseball match
#79 Go to Bounce Below
#80 Visit the Rough Trade Photobooth
#81 Swim in an infinity pool
#82 Ride a tandem
#83 Cook a roast
#84 Make something out of leather

#85 Get my International License with Girlguiding

#86 Go to a Christmas Market in Europe

#87 Dine in a Michelin star restaurant

#88 Go on a photography course

#89 Design a Lace Shawl

#90 Visit a Guiding World Centre outside the UK

Kisses xxx

P.S. I always like to have new things to add though.  Anyone else have any goals? Anyone got any suggestions for things I should try?

biscuit-cookie-cake

When I first heard about Cutter and Squidge, I knew it would only be a matter of time before I applied myself enthusiastically to one of their creations.  This was due in the main to the creation of the biskie: a cross between a biscuit, a cookie and a cake. With a lot of delicious mixed in. And available in a large number of varieties to boot.  YUM. 

My favourite was the Marathon Runner: a lovely blend of chocolate biscuit, salty caramel and peanut and every bit as gooey and sticky as a girl could hope for in a chocolate dessert.  I sadly don't have a picture of the Marathon Runner biskie because I ate it. But only thing more satisfying than composing the perfect biskie selection box is eating the biskies in your perfectly curated selection box.

Kisses xxx

P.S. Now they are all gone, but please can I have another one?

Catching a Film at the Drive-In

I'm a big fan of event cinema.  I just love it! I like going to the cinema anyway; there's something about watching a film on the big screen with an audience that feels special.  But give me a drive in, or an outdoor screening, or a cinema in the snow and I'm there. 

When we heard that the Drive-In Cinema was coming back to London for another round of screenings, we scanned the listings eagerly.  I think you've got to watch the right kind of film at a drive in.  And we scored a winner. One March evening found us heading to Ally Pally's car park to watch Back to the Future!

I love the concept of the Drive-In. Your car is your kingdom, you tune the radio into the right frequency and you can play the sound as loud as you like.  You can recline your chair, talk if you want to, but once you get out the car, you're in silence.  The whole shebang is run by the gals and guys over at Rooftop Film Club who put on a range of different cinema experiences across the capital and beyond.  The Drive-In works out at pretty good value at £22 a car, regardless of the number of occupants.

This was our second trip to the drive-in (we went last year to see Godzilla in a car park near Brent Cross) and we arrived early to make the most of the snacks. Popdogs knocked us together a yummy hotdog each, and the man had a chilli dog so packed and overflowing with delicious that they gave him a plastic glove to wear while he ate it. There just isn't a delicate way to eat hotdogs like that.  We deemed it wise to scoff them before getting back in the car.

The view was a treat: the attendants park the cars well, wide gaps between rows ensure that there's no way the car in front blocks your view, and headlights off is strictly enforced to reduce light pollution.  Having said that, we were culprits, not victims of this particular crime.  Given that the car had to be on with the keys in so we could pick up the sound, the vehicle helpfully decided that, as it could detect the darkness, it would keep the side lights on too.  In the end, the friendly high-viz clad attendants gave us blackout cards to stick over the lights as we couldn't get them to turn off.

Little piece of advice: as you're paying per car, it's tempting to cram tons of mates into your wheels and make the most of your ticket.  However, through extensive research (where I peered into the cars next to us) shows that anyone in the back seat has a slightly awkward time leaning uncomfortably round the seat in front.  With just the two of us in the car, we could push the front seats right back, recline them, and even prop our feet on the dashboard.  Yeah, baby. Feeling pretty smug compared to the losers crammed in the next car.

The final pre-film entertainment comes in the form of the roller-skating waiters.  I kid you not: switch on your hazard warning lights at any point and a chirpy roller-skater glides to your window to take your cinema-appropriate snack order. So we opted for a popcorn and some Maltesers and the waiter drifted off into the night.  I few minutes later, a tap on the window announced his return and we wound it down to take delivery of the goods.  Boom!

While it's definitely better value to load up your car with your own nibbles, there is no small amount of retro pleasure in having popcorn arrive in this way.

All that remained was to settle down and enjoy the magic of cinema in our own cosy little world. We had the two mouses for company, the sound turned up to eleven to fill our den of cinema, and we watched as Back to the Future played silently outside to the night.

Kisses xxx

P.S. There are so many pop-up or outdoor cinema events in London during the summer months that we're spoiled for choice! You have to be quick though: we were sadly too slow to score tickets to Jaws screened at an outdoor pool where the audience watches from floating rubber dinghies...

P.P.S. Probably a good thing: I may never have got back in the water. 

knitting and commuting

A few months ago I treated myself to a lovely skein of yarn in a beautiful soft grey colourway from the magical land of Etsy.  I was saving it for a special patter, and over Easter I cast on a the first stitches of my next project.  The yarn is from indie dyer Kristin of Voolenvine Yarns and she hand dyes skeins of yarns in the most beautiful shades I have ever had the fortune to happen across. She also produces a rather charming weekly podcast from her home in Brooklyn across the pond. This was no an inexpensive purchase, but the skein has almost 900 yards of alpaca, silk and cashmere goodness spun into 100g of fine, 2-ply lace weight. The colourway is named Poe and it is my favourite skein I have ever bought.

It was quite exciting when it arrived; the yarn was packaged beautifully and Kristin had included a little chocolate, a teabag and a lovely postcard in with the yarn.  Little touches like that make it really worth supporting independent small businesses.

I decided to knit it into a lacey, beaded shawl and I found a pattern called Fragile Heart by designer Boo Knits that I thought would be ideal.  I'd like to make it quite large so it can go around my shoulders and keep of the slight coolness that can descend on summer evenings.  I'm adding in some extra beads and some extra pattern repeats to personalise it, but I've knit patterns by Boo knits before - 3 to be precise - and they've all turned out wonderfully.

Every day I ride the London Underground for just under an hour. After a couple of weeks knitting this is where I'm up to.  It's riding to work with me each day and now the rows are quite long, so I tend to get 2 or three rows done a day. Perhaps more if I hit a row with fewer beads.  I like knitting on the tube.  It keeps my hands busy while I listen to podcasts, I enjoy the rhythm of it, and it makes the journey fly past.

And I've got to say, you simply cannot imagine how soft this yarn is.  It's like silky, sleepy, gossamer kittens,  I don't think the shawl looks like much here (lace never looks very impressive until you block it and stretch it out to see the pattern), but trust me, every time I get out this knitting, I first have to put my face in it and breathe in.

Monday morning?  I've got it covered.

Kisses xxx

P.S. One of my goals is to design my own lace shawl, and now that I've made a few can see how to put one together, I'd like to give it a try. What a shame: I'll need to get another skein of yarn...

one photo and twenty words

Give Guide Leaders blankets, and they'll think they're on camp, no matter how fancy their dresses. (Actually it's a wedding)

Kisses xxx

P.S. One Photo and Twenty Words is hosted by the lovely Abi over at Creating Paper Dreams. You can pop by to see the full collection of pictures and words.

handwritten, handcut: a scrapbook page

Back in January, I started a scrapbook page. It was a scrapbook page to celebrate the man and my second anniversary together.  Well, it might be 3 months later, but I have finally found the time to sit down and work on it.  My goodness, I love to scrapbook! 

The main element of this design is the hand cut title, which is a technique I really love using lately. Hand-cutting my own letters can certainly be time consuming, but I love the effect of the title being in my own handwriting, I never run out of letters in a pack of stickers, and it's a very inexpensive way to add longer titles to a page. I think it completely personalises the design.

I put together my title in two sections: one to go above the photo, and one below.  I sketched out a few possibilities in pencil until I was happy, and then went over it in thick, black marker pen.  I did all this on scrap paper, as this was just a template, and will not end up on the final page.  Using a template means that you can make as many mistakes and changes as you need, and you can see in the photo above that I even altered my 'final' version in black pen! 

It's useful at this stage to make sure that there are enough joins between words. I moved around the word "we're" several times so that it was attached to "when" and "together" securely.  Without this, the final title can become very flimsy and difficult to work with,

Once I was happy with the template, I cut it out using the edges of the black marker as a guide.  I didn't cut out every single little chink however; to save time at this stage, I left the middles of letters in place, as I can sketch those into the final design without needing a template. It also helps to make the template a little more sturdy.

I wanted my title to be in white cardstock, so I flipped the template upside down, stuck it to the back of the cardstock using washi tape, and traced round it. I always make sure I do titles in reverse, as then my pencil lines will be on the back, and I don't need to worry about getting stray marks or lines on the front of my title.  It's also good idea to tape the template in place, as that will stop it slipping around, but the washi tape is still easy to peal off when the tracing is complete.  Once I'd drawn around the template, I added in the extra lines I needed, such as drawing in where the middles of the e's and o's should go.

The final step is simply to cut out the title!  There's no denying that this is what takes the time, but in my opinion the delicate, lacy effect is more than worth it. So make a cup of tea, put something charming in the DVD player, and snip away!  I did this over a couple of evenings as I was in no hurry, and I find it quite therapeutic.

And it's done!  I trimmed off a couple of the hearts from my original title design to fit with the page better, but I'm delighted with the results. And actually, the title is such a feature of the design that it didn't take long at all to create the rest of the layout.

Finally, the journalling. I'm not normally a fan of hidden journalling.  I like to see my writing on the page, and be able to read it.  However, at the same time, this was quite personal writing, and I didn't want it completely on display.  I came up with this idea to give me the best of both worlds. My journalling is just visible behind the photo, safely sealed in a vellum envelope.  From the front, it looks like it's stuck in there permanently.  But if I turn to the back of the page, it's quite easy to slip the paper out of the envelope!

I cut a slit in the back of the envelope before I attached it to the page, and a similar slot that lined up with it on the background. You can't see the opening from the front of the page, but it means I have secret access to the writing when I want it.

I feels good to be scrapbooking again.

Kisses xxx

P.S. I love this driftwood-coloured background paper, it makes such a beautiful neutral.  Please may I have lots and use it forever?

a day at the zoo

Singapore Zoo reckons on being the best in the world.  I wouldn't disagree with that.  I can't remember the last time I went to a zoo, but it was a real pleasure to wander the avenues here, watch the animals and exercise my camera.  There was a lot to learn, and the enclosures were spacious; the zoo had a whole range of different environments and there was so much to see that I easily spent the whole day there.

I need to learn to sleep like this.  It would be extremely useful on the tube.

One of my favorite areas was the rainforest walk, where you could mingle with the creatures and see them up close. The bats were amazing; curious, aloof and incredibly expressive.

At the end of the day, I headed to the night safari, which is unique to Singapore.  It's a zoo that only opens at night when it's dark so that you can see nocturnal creatures when they're up and about.  I rode on the special tram enjoying the tour, and then wandered dense, leafy trails in the dark.  As I was by myself, it was incredibly atmospheric and almost disappointing to round corners and see other tourists, as the feeling of being lost in the jungle would evaporate.  It was quite incredible to chance upon night-time animals; I was always surprised to see them looming out of the dark, and they were always well aware that I was there!

I didn't take any photos at the night safari - it was too dark, and not fair to use a flash on the animals - but it was the kind of experience I really wanted to share with people.  Unique, and incredible.

Kisses xxx

I really hope I can go back to Singapore one day.

supertrees by night

Yikes, it's been a busy month!  But that means lots to blog and share and I'm looking forward to getting a bit done on the blog! I hope you have a wonderful Easter and have chance to spend a few relaxing days with family, friends and loved ones.  Meanwhile, I have my last few photos to share from Singapore's Supertrees in the Gardens by the Bay.  At night they light up to music and a completely compelling light show takes place twice nightly.  It was truly wonderful to lie on the stone plinths beneath these majestic structures, warmed from the heat of the day and relax, and marvel.

Kisses xxx

P.S. Coming up: I actually did some scrapbooking!  Yay for the holidays!