A-Z of me

Photo source

This little A-Z meme has been going round the blogs for a while now, it's a little retro fun, like those emails that used to go round (is this showing my age?). I really enjoyed reading everyone elses, so I decided to do it too.

Age: 30

Bed size: No idea, some kind of double size. Queen? It's Ikea anyway, they don't follow standard sizes so that once you have a frame of theirs, you are tied to shopping for mattresses there as well.

Chore that you hate: Doing the dishes. I actually hate the thought of it more than the doing it, once I get started I'm not too bad, but man do I hate the thought of it.

Dogs: Cats! I was bitten by a dog aged 12, and I'm not keen on most dogs, though I'm training myself to be better and at least not actively dislike them.


The younger of our two cats, Bertie

Essential start to your day: Tea and Ginger cuddles. The alarm clock is set for half an hour before we have to get up. I get up, put the kettle on, get back into bed, make the tea, get back into bed, pour the tea, get back into bed. At this point, our older cat Ginger, who usually sleeps on a chair in the bedroom will come sit on my belly, so I'll sip my tea with the cat purring a way. Makes for a good start of the day!


Ginge in his favourite activity

Favorite color: Sunny yellow, a warm spring green, orange, bluish grey like the sky before the rain. Ach, I love all colours!

Gold or Silver: I have more silver jewellery, and used to really not like gold, but in my old age, I'm beginning to like it more.

Height: 163cm. That's either 5'4" or 5'3", I never know.

Instruments you play: None. That's quite unusual for someone from my background, but I didn't particularly want to when I was little, so my parents didn't make me.

Job title: Senior Research Officer.

Kids: Not yet!

Live: Edinburgh, Scotland.

Mother’s name: Nelly

Nicknames: Frankling. This came from when I was on a girly holiday in Madrid. we were getting coffee and the server asked for a name to write on the cup. I said Franca because my then surname (Eirich) is pretty much impossible for non-Germans to understand or pronounce. But the barrista guy obviously wanted a surname, so I can only assume went for Franklin with an extra g at the end for good measure.


Photographic evidence that my name is Frankling

Overnight hospital stays: I had a hernia (is that how you say it?) when I was 15 or 16. It wasn't broken, just fractured, and much more painful after the operation than before.

Pet peeves: Many many things, mainly language related. People who say simplistic when they mean simple, don't know the difference between flare and flair or sole and soul, the use of 'however' in the middle of sentences. Would of instead of would've (I think I maybe talked about this before? How is this acceptable! It's not even shorter!). Being asked to 'pop in your pin number'. You may pop in the card, but not the pin number!

Quote from a movie: The choose life speech from Trainspotting. Mainly because Ewan Macgregor has the sexiest voice ever and can't do any different accent to save his life. He certainly does not sound like your typical Edinburgh drug addict. Oh, also Diane's comeback to Renton chatting her up from the same film. My girlcrush on Kelly MacDonald largely stems from this scene.


The choose life bit of the film


Diane and Renton outside the club

Right or left handed: Right

Siblings: A younger sister.


My sister on her wedding day

Underwear: Distinctly uninteresting. Almost all my pants, and most of my bras, are black and cotton.

Vegetable you hate: I wouldn't actively choose to eat celery raw, but I don't mind it in soup as part of the stock. I'm wildly allergic to Quorn though (it makes me projectile vomit), and that's vegetable based. So whatever the fungus that Quorn is made of. Greugh, just thinking about it makes me nauseous.

What makes you run late: Messing about on the internet.

X-Rays you’ve had: Just for the hernia I think.

Yummy food that you make: Many many things. My fallbacks are stir fried noodles and Tarka Dal.


The kind of lunch I'll make for myself if I'm lucky enough to be at home during the day.

Zoo animal: Penguins.

If you've done it, leave your link and I'll check it out. I love finding out more about people!

Everybody, Everywear: Maxi Skirt

Outfit stats: * skirt - vintage shop * blouse - people tree * shoes - clarks * bag - vintage shop in paris * butterfly brooches - one from when I was little, one from a charity shop

This is for Everybody, Everywear, where this month the theme is maxi skirts and dresses. I love this theme because it made me dig out this skirt, which has been stashed away in my box of vintage stuff that I never wear or doesn't fit me but that is too precious to get rid of. I used to wear it a fair bit when I was in my early 20s, but I never really cracked how to remix it, and I still find it difficult to pair with stuff. Not many colours go with that orangey/brown in my mind weirdly! Suggestions welcome!

Anyway, this time I paired it with a this silk puff sleeve blouse, and the result is a something like 1970s Victorian. I also found a new photo location, a car park/derelict garden, which is nearer my flat than the warehouse building I've been using recently. There is quite a lot of rubbish about that place, but I think I managed to keep it out of the pictures.



On Saturday when I wore this we were going to a 'my big fat gypsy wedding' themed birthday party. For those of you that don't know, this was a documentary series about the Irish Traveller community in the UK, with a focus on the weddings, where brides are really young and have the most ludicrously massive dresses, that are often so heavy that they pull the brides' skin. One dress weighed 14 stone! It was a big talking point and you couldn't miss it, even if, like me, you'd never seen it.

For the party, the birthday girl actually made herself one of those massive wedding dresses, with a lace bodysuit with glittery stones sewn onto a pink bra and fairy lights in the skirt. It was quite amazing. I decided not to dress up though, since travellers are the single most discriminated against group, and although I can't say anything about how respectful the actual programme was, I wasn't really comfortable with the borderline racist comments it provoked, especially on Twitter, and therefore with the dressing up in a taking-the-piss way. Plus, I thought this outfit was vaguely costumey anyway, if to a completely different theme.

Have you seen the programme? What did you think?

Stylish Blogger Award: 7 things about Amsterdam

I was tagged with the Sylish Blogger award by the wonderful Laura of For Those About to Shop. You're meant to share 7 things about yourself, but I did that recently, so instead I'm going to give you 7 things about Amsterdam, illustrated with some detail shots of the city! Enjoy!



1. I could see myself living in Amsterdam. I was a bit apprehensive before we went about it being quite sleazy, what with the red light district and it being such a popular stag do destination, but it wasn’t at all. We had to walk through the two red light district streets ever night to get to our flat, and I found it less full on than the equivalent in other cities. The whole city was really chilled out and pretty. It seemed less of a fast moving cultural and artistic, so the fantasy life I was leading in Amsterdam was more like the life we have in Edinburgh, and less the parade of gigs and exhibition openings I imagine I would have in Berlin or Paris.



2. It turns out I love Ethiopian food. It’s strange, but that was seriously the best thing on the whole trip (I told you I was a foodie!). I wasn’t hugely keen when Dave first suggested the restaurant because I was prejudiced against African food on the basis of my knowledge of Malawian food, i.e. mainly maize based stodge with virtually no veg and meat as the thing to provide flavour, and of course I don’t eat meat. But of course it is extremely silly to write off an entire continent based on one country, so off we went and let me tell you it was AMAZING. Huge trays with little bits of mainly lentil based spicy curry type things, lost of choice for veggies cottage cheese, yummy pickles, fresh salads, all eaten without cutlery with the help of sour dough pancakes. YUM! I am completely converted to Ethiopian food now and when we go to London in June, I’ll be making a point of seeking out Ethiopian restaurants. (recommendations, Londoners?) Sadly, the only African restaurants in Edinburgh are North African, and one South African deli.



3. The cyclists are mental! Amsterdam is basically a car free city because the roads are so narrow, though I did see a massive old Jaguar making an ill advised turn into a street that can only be called a lane. But cyclists are everywhere, though it’s certainly no Copenhagen style two wheeled utopia. The cyclists go really fast everywhere, including on pavements and ignore everyone else. The guide book actually advises anyone hiring bikes never to stop at red lights because other cyclists will get so annoyed.



4. We failed to procure drugs. For us, drink is the drug of choice, but given that we were in Amsterdam, we thought it would be weird not to visit one of the hundreds of coffeeshops. So one night, we left the pub early to visit one but we weren’t served. For once it wasn’t because I look young, but because there is a law that ID must be asked of everyone without exception. And of course I didn’t have any, since I don’t like carrying my passport around with me. So we went back to the apartment and had tea and chocolate instead. We did mean to go out again but inertia prevailed even without any hash related products.



5. Everyone speaks English really well. Being a multilinguist, I usually feel really bad for not speaking the local language and assuming everyone will understand English (this was a major thing in Barcelona), but in Amsterdam everyone’s English is to such a high standard that I didn’t mind. I mean, in Berlin everyone speaks English too, but they don’t sound like they grew up speaking it, which they do in Amsterdam.



6. This history of handbags is fascinating. We went to the handbag museum, which I thought would be a bit of an excuse to look at lovely 50s bags n(and there were lots of those, including some s, but it was actually a proper museum and I learn a lot about what things were like in the 16th century! Pretty cool!



7. We drank A LOT of beer. Dutch brewed, and a lot of Belgian. Almost all the pubs had the Belgian blond beer La Chouffe on tap, and la Chouff coasters. Through wich we discovered that there is a brown version of it called Mc Chouffe. On which the little gnome that is the La Chouffe mascot (see photo) is wearing a wee kilt. This amuses me greatly!



The rules of the award are as follows:

1) Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.
2) Share 7 things about yourself.
3) Award 10 recently discovered bloggers.
4) Contact those bloggers and let them know they’ve won.

So here are my newest discoveries:

• Archives
• By Anika
• Cloud of Secrets
• My Capacious Bottega
• Orchids in Buttonholes
• Penny Dreadful Vintage
• Statements in Fashion
• The Girl who stole the Eiffel Tower
• Watch me dress
• Big girl. small budget. tiny town.

Happy award and meme time! Obviously feel free to ignore if memes aren't your thing.

Spring 2011 Capsule Wardrobe Challenge roundup

So, here were are, all my 12 outfits from the Capsule Wardrobe Challenge in one place. Very inexpertly cut out, with bits missing! Sorry about that, it's hard to do and in the end I didn't think it was worth the effort to get it right. You can see what I was aiming for anyway!

Anyway, what are your fave outfits? I like 7 and 10 best myself.

I am really pleased with this collection of outfits, the box of crayons colour scheme worked well! The only black/white thing was the boots and in retrospect some brown ones would have worked better anyway. All power to colours! I'm telling you, a capsule wardrobe based around bright colours is exciting and totally doable!

I did have at least two more outfits planned but in the end, the daily picture taking and editing was getting to me and I couldn't be bothered. Right now I feel like wearing black trousers and plain jumpers or shirts, and not thinking about clothes. Mini blogger burnout! Hopefully I'll be back to form soon!

----------------------------

And in this vein, a couple of apologies for other things.

Today's Friend Friday is blog awards, with things like 'most creative', 'best beauty blogger' and suchlike. I did start doing this, but never got very far. There are so many amazing bloggers, all different in their own way, and to pick anyone that is the best just doesn't seem possible. Even where I had sort of picked someone, I was stressing out about whether my choice was actually, truly, the best. And I dislike this drive to be the best anyway, I'm into ambition, not competition. I know its just a bit of fun, and I shouldn't worry about it too much, but coupled with feeling ill and not having huge amounts of time, I decided to just not do it.

The other thing is that today is British Heart Foundation's national wear red day. I really really meant to do it, but I'm burnt out with the daily outfit pictures from the challenge, so I've got nothing except the outfits with red in them for the roundup. So, just a written reminder to get yourself over there and find out more. And consider donating!

Happy Friday all! I am SO glad its the weekend!

Spring 2011 Capsule Wardrobe Challenge: my choices

It's time for another round of Capsule Wardrobe Challenge organised by Jane of the Small Fabric of My Life. The rules are such:

• Choose ten items of clothing from your wardrobe and mix and match them for five days between Monday February 14th and Friday February 18th.
• You can have any combination of shoes, dresses, skirts, tops and jackets as long as it adds up to ten individual items.
• You are also allowed five accessories which include jewellery, scarves, bag, belts etc.
• Underwear and hosiery do not come under the ten items and five accessories!

I've taken part three times before, and both time I included a few grey and black pieces. Here are the links for autumn 2009, spring 2010 and summer 2010.

This time I challenged myself to live up to my reputation and include nothing but colour. You can see my items in the hand drawn sketches above.

I have actually been going for a week already, because I intend to make at least 10 outfits, so I'm slightly ahead and will be posting 2 outfits a day to catch up. I've done 6 so far!

I also made a subsitition, as I bought some new shoes and could not wait to wear them! I substituted them for the only thing I hadn't yet worn, the purple scarf.

Looking forward to showing you my outfits!

Friend Friday: 10 things

This week’s friend Friday is slightly different in that there are no questions. Instead, we’re each telling 10 random facts that people might be surprised to know about us. Because quite a few people have started following (hello!) since I last did one of these memes, and probably don’t know anything very much about me at all, I’ve decided to do it slightly differently and tell you all things that lots of people probably do know about me, but are a bit more interesting than anything I could come up with that nobody knows.

Here we go:

1. I was born in Luxembourg, but I’m not Luxembourgish, and my spoken Luxembourgish (yes, it’s a language, look it up on Wikipedia) is pretty rubbish, and my written Luxembourgish non-existent. My parents are both German, so German is my mother tongue and I went to a European school in the German 'section', as it was called. But I’ve never lived in Germany. I have lived in Scotland for eleven years though. If I was to say what my national identity was, I really wouldn’t know. If anything I would say I was European, because that’s an umbrella that covers all my countries. To be honest though, national identity doesn’t matter to me and other parts of my identity (being a city dweller, an educated socially progressive person, being part of a settled couple for example) are much more important to me.

2. My favourite type of holiday are city trips. I like going to a world city for a substantial amount of time (at least a week), staying in an apartment rather than a hotel, and exploring the neighbourhoods and bars/restaurants/clubs. It's a bit like living there when you've just moved there. My favourite city ever is Berlin, I've been there 6 or 7 times now and will keep going back. I'm not so into backpacking holidays, or tour holidays where you constantly move location. It's not even so much that I miss creature comforts, it's just that I like having a fixed base.

3. I love tea. All kinds. I drink gunpowder green tea at work, black tea with orange juice at home, and black tea with milk when out. My favourite teas are Darjeeling and a super expensive green tea with a Chinese name and a smoky flavour I get from a local tea shop. One of the guys in that shop has properly dedicated his life to tea and talks about it like it’s wine. I’ve had several 20 minute conversations with him purely about tea, and I hardly said anything, he just kept talking.

4. I used to be properly obsessed with indie music. I’m not obsessive any more, and I don’t have time to listen to as much music as I would like to these days, but I have kept a music listening habit where I will get a new album then listen to it over and over until either I feel I really know it or I get sick of it, them move on to something else. At the moment I have Broken Records, Erland and the Carnival, Agnes Obel and the National's debut as my new albums.

5. My undergrad degree was in Human Geography from Edinburgh Uni, then I did a Masters by Research in the same department. I had initially planned to do a PhD as well, but I quickly realised that the life of an academic wasn’t for me, and thankfully I managed to get a social researcher job at the Scottish Government before I finished my Masters, so I was never in the position where I had to choose between doing the PhD and temping. I fear I may have chosen the PhD.



6. My Masters was on ‘Constructions of Britishness in New Labour migration policies’ and I still do a lot of work on migration policy in my job now. Its quite a depressing thing to work on, and I will rant endlessly about the uselessness of the UK Border Agency given half a chance. Sufice to say that I will not react well to anyone having a go at migrants in front of me. I consider myself a migrant and the fact that noone minds me being here, basically because I’m white and super integrated and probably pass as Scottish if I don’t speak too much, just goes to show that other kinds of prejudice are never far from the surface. Did you know that about half the illegal immigrants in the UK are Australians who’ve overstayed their visas? But noone is suggesting a crackdown on that, are they!

7. I have always voted Lib Dem, but I won’t be doing that again. Watching Nick Clegg defend a budget that goes against every single thing they campaigned for in the election makes me sick. The Scottish Parliament election is in May and I haven’t decided who to vote for yet.

8. I’ve been vegetarian since I was 11. I really think I should be vegan, but I’m too selfish. I have my tea with orange juice and my oats with soy milk, but I will never again try and make a vegan béchamel sauce and I continue to bake with eggs and butter.

9. I do a lot of yoga. I originally started doing Iyengar, and a couple of years ago I started doing Ashtanga as well. I think the two complement each other really well, and I would never want to choose. Though I do think it’s better to start with a slower, more technical form to get familiarised with the poses before starting more energetic ones like Ashtanga and Vinyasa Flow/Power Yoga (which I also did for a while but didn't like). Many Ashtanga folk do seem to be quite gung ho about doing things without being properly prepared and if noone ever shows you properly what the things to think about in a pose are, it’s easy to get in the habit of doing it wrong, and pulling random muscles in the process.

10. I really fancy Ewan Macgregor. I liked him even in his emaciated Trainspotting 1980s junkie style. He's made some atrocious film choices, is hopeless at accents and I wasn't big into all that motorcycling around Africa business, but I'll forgive him anything because he's just so amazingly attractive.

There you are! Visit here for a round up the other posts this week.

English mesh lace scarflette and awards

I told you I was a productive crafter over the Easter weekend! Actually I cast this on ages ago, but then left it to the side because I haven't felt like knitting much. It's for my colleague who wanted a scarlette that fit snugly round the neck like a polo neck (rather than hanging downwards).

For the basic pattern repeat I used the 'english mesh lace' stitch from the Knitter's Handbook, which is an indispensable resource for anyone (like me!) trying to design their own patters without actually being a very advanced knitter. It's a great stitch giving a textured surface that's lacy enough to be able to put buttons through anywhere but not that lacy that it would compromise warmth.

I also got some awards! I got the sunshine and you're going places awards from both bobbins and bombshells and retro chick. Thank you both! I am relieved to hear that these don't come with a 'list ten things about yourself' meme, because I'm finding it increasingly difficult to think of new and witty information!



I also got the cherries on top award from thrifty schoolmarm, thank you! It comes with a meme of listing three things you like about yourself. so:

1. My desire to do anything I do properly. If I set my mind to something I will do it right!
2. My creativity and ability to make beautiful things
3. My ability to get super enthusiastic and excited!!!!

I am passing the awards on to
La Fille D'Or
What Would a Nerd Wear
Between Laundry Days
Smiles Go with Everything
Dearilou

p.s. and blogger still seems to mess up the formatting. If anyone knows what is going on, please help!

Award and wedding thoughts

I was given the sugar doll award by No Signposts in the Sea - thanks! I think I was also given one ages ago by Intrinsically Florrie, but can find no evidence of it now. Maybe I made it up! Anyway, the award comes with a 'tell us ten things about yourself' meme, and what I've decided to us it to bombard you with my half-formed thoughts about the wedding. I promise I won't bore you with this kind of thing too much, but I reckon since I'm newly engaged I'm allowed.


1. We have a ring! Well, we don't have it yet, because we are having it made and it'll not be there for three to four weeks. It's a slightly narrower version on an existing ring, so that we could stay within budget, and it's lovely! A square diamond, thick band, classic AND contemporary. I don't have any pictures even of the original one, but it's from Annie Smith, a small independent jewellers.

2. We are going to actually get married on a Friday, with just close family. I don't really want lots of people watching me say my vows, and I don't want lots of poems read and stuff. Ten minutes at the registry office is fine with me!

3. Then we can just have our reception on the Saturday, and I can have a nice lie in and still have time to prepare. I always think these full days with the ceremony in the morning must be so stressful for the wedding couple. I'm not sure I can focus for 12 hours straight! I'm still alternately excited and scared of the process of organising such a big party, so it's probably as much as I can handle.

4. We are not at all clear how we want the reception to be. Either a vintage 1950s theme or something really colourful with children's birthday party decorations and lovehearts or smarties as favours. It will sort of depend on what venue we find.

5. What we do know though is that it will be buffet food and people can sit where they want. Life's too short for seating plans!

6. Dave will be wearing his kilt, so I need a fairly formal dress for the party. I'm going to be looking for something vintage 1950s like the ones in this etsy shop, and my fallback option is this Vivien of Holloway dress. I'm open to either colour or white. Either way, I don't want a proper wedding dress, I want something I can wear again and I don't want to spend more than £200.

7. I'm sort of toying with the idea of a second dress for the actual ceremony - I'm thinking something like the vintage suit Carrie has in the Sex and the City film. Though again not necessarily white.

8. The obvious choice of music is to have a ceilidh band. I love ceilidhs but unfortunately Dave doesn't and is vetoing that idea, and it's probably not a great idea anyway because my German family will never have seen anything like it. And while the steps are easy enough to pick up, for ceilidhs to work properly you need at least 50% of people to know what they are doing. And we wouldn't have that.

9. I have made some tentative forays into the world of wedding inspiration, but I am slightly freaked out by what is happening on all these message boards. Do people really dedicate an entire year of their lives to micromanaging every last detail of a single day? Maybe I'll end up like that too (I do tend to get quite obsessive about organising events), but I'm hoping for everybody's sake that I won't! Also, all the websites are called something with the word bride in it, like the grooms get no say in the planning at all!

10. We have always said we'd go to Sri Lanka for our honeymoon, but I'm not sure whether the political situation will allow that - the Foreign Office is currently still advising against travel there. We'll probably end up just going to the South of France or somewhere, and save the big trip til later.

I'm gonna be lazy and not nominate anyone for the award, but please help yourself if you fancy the meme.

picture by Builders Studio.

Fashion Confessional

Sal at Already Pretty did a Fashion Confessional post the other day that I liked so much that I am doing my own. So here, a list of fashion-related silliness:

* I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and start thinking about what I’m going to wear.

* I have never had any sort of beauty treatment, but I am having my first massage next weekend. I'm weirdly apprehensive about it!

* I fantasise about cutting my hair into a short pixie cut more than is strictly healthy. I KNOW I don’t have the head shape for it, but that doesn’t stop me wanting it.

* I also have the urge to dye my hair just about every two weeks. But I know how long it has taken me to grow out any dye, and think about the money I’m saving by not having highlights done any more, so I’m staying strong.

* I don’t like lingerie. Almost all my underwear is functional, classic and cotton. I have a couple of nice pants and a lacy bra, but I never ever wear them.

* Being not naturally very edgy looking (round face, big smile, big hips and biggish boobs don’t make the best material for a messed-up but incredibly cool style), I sometimes think I should just roll with what I’ve got and become a pretty girl, with fake tan, fake nails, perpetually straightened hair and high heels. I reckon I could make that style work no problem. Then I remember: I am the least high maintenance person in the whole world. I would hate it.

* I LOVE the style of Blair from Gossip Girl, but find Serena so incredibly boring – anyone can be a Kate Moss copyist. It always confuses me when people talk about Blair being all conventional and polished and like someone’s mum. I think she’s completely exciting and wonderful and no one dresses like her in real life, making it perfect escapist eye candy.

* Sometimes when I’m bored I’ll put on really over the top make up just to sit around the flat and watch TV.

* I sometimes don’t epilate or shave my legs for weeks. Dave and I once had a deal that I’d shave my legs every day if he would shave twice a day (he’s extremely hairy, hehe). He didn’t go for it, but I don’t think either of us minds now that we're like an old married couple.

* It is much more important for me to be recognised as an original dresser than that people think my clothes look nice. I love all over the top clothes, even if I don't like them from an aesthetic point of view, if that makes sense. I just appreciate the effort, even if it ends up not really looking very good. I's much rather everyone tried and failed than everyone being dressed like Jennifer Aniston.

* Related to this, I am very interested in youth tribes with their own distinctive style of dress. In Edinburgh the three dominant ones are mini moshers, neon kids (not sure what their official name is, but they dress in black with neon hair accessories, belts and leg warmers and high heels) and proper goths, but I have seen a few lolita girls as well.

Tell me yours, I'd love to hear!

photo by Amadika.Labels: meme

Body Image Interview

There's a short interview with me on British Style Bloggers, as part of their body image campaign. Fits in well with yesterday's post, check it out if you like!

Divine blogger award

I got the Divine Blogger award, from the fantabulous Victoria Darling, thank you which comes with a surprisingly difficult meme - you have to answer all the questions in one word. I've also seen this done with as many words as you like, but I'm doing the original rules, so prepare for some random answers! I've had to run some of my answers that were two words into one, but I reckon that's ok, because I'm German and in German you always do that.

I've just done an award post recently where I nominated people, so will just leave this one for everyone and anyone to take if they fancy.



1. Where is your phone? Bag

2. Your hair? Brown

3. Your Mother? Excitable

4. Your Father? Book-obsessed

5. Your favourite food? Sushi

6. Your dream last night? Neighbours

7. Your favourite drink? Tea

8. Your dream/goal? Evolving

9. What room are you in? Office

10. Your hobby? Knitting

11. Your fear? Heights

12. Where do you want to be in six years? Mother

13. Where were you last night? Pubquiz

14. Something that you're not? Subtle

15. Muffins? Chocolatecherry

16. Wishlist item? Boots

17. Where did you grow up? Luxembourg

18. Last thing you did? Email

19. What are you wearing? Dress

20. Your TV? Big

21. Your pets? Gingerface

22. Friends? Love

23. Your life? Contented

24. Your mood? Lazy

25. Missing someone? No

26. Vehicle? Bike

27. Something you're not wearing? Nailpolish

28. Your favourite store? Charityshop

29. Your Favourite colour? Yellow

30. When was the last time you laughed? Today

31. The last time you cried? Today

32. Your best friend? Dave

33. One place that I go to over and over? Berlin

34. Facebook? Yes

35. Favourite place to eat? Outsider

Yellow, orange and neutral flickr faves and an award

I was awarded the Beautiful Blogger by the lovely Rebecca of baby sloth, thank you my dear! It involves sharing 7 interesting things about yourself, and I haven't done a meme for a while (actually, that's a lie, I have not that long ago!) so I'll do it. Not interesting things, more random thoughts though.



1. I drink massive amounts of tea. Since doing the vegan challenge, I have significantly cut back on the amount of black tea with milk I drink ( i still have it occassionally), and I now have green tea at work. My favourite tea is a chinese green one called Ding Gu Da Fong, which is lovely and smokey but unfortunately costs £5 for 50g, so I don't have it very often.

2. I have weird accent. I've lived in Scotland for 10 years, so it's part Scottish, but also when I get nervous I tend to go all posh English. There's also a base layer of something generically European about it. People often think that I am from the Scottish Western Isles, because people there have quite an unusual, Scandinavian sounding accent. It's nothing like mine I don't think, but I suppose most people don't know what it sounds like either, and it kind of fits.

3. Speaking of random accents, does anyone know what the accent of Daniels in the Wire is supposed to be? I checked and the actor is from Baltimore, but it sounds completely different from all the other characters, almost a little African.

4. Just now, Dave is reading out something about cat psychology from the BBC website. Apparently cats don't meow at each other, just at humans.

5. I love circular knitting needles. So many people think that they are some sort of advanced thing, but I think they are actually easier than anything else. You can just go round and round forever without thinking and its virtually impossible to drop a stitch.

6. I have recently discovered a taste for whisky. I used to not like it at all but now I love it! There's so many different flavours to discover.

7. I'm half considering joining twitter, mainly because I don't entirely understand how it works, especially the way you have conversations with people, and if I used it I would learn. But so I really have space in my life for more computer stuff? Do any of you have a full time job and use twitter? Would you say its worth getting it if you can't devote much time to it?

I'm passing this award on to the following blogs, feel free to ignore if you don't fancy it:

make do style

by hillary

side street style

intrinsically florrie

dearilou

a girl and her blog

plain jayne

Here are the rules that came with the award:
1) Thank the person who nominated me for this award.
2) Copy the award & place it on my blog.
3) Link to the person who nominated me for this award.
4) Tell us 7 interesting things about yourself.
5) Nominate 7 bloggers.
6) Post links to the 7 blogs I nominate.

Giveaway winner and award

There were 51 entries for the Personal Shopper giveaway and we have a winner:

Eyeliah of Style Symmetry! I've emailed you for details.

I was so overwhelmed by the reponse that I drew a couple of runners up who will get a small thing each:

Darla of Retro Ways - I cannot find your email, so please can you contact me, thanks!
Veronica Darling - have emailed you.

Thank you so much to everyone who entered, it was especially lovely to discover the readers who were first time commenters!



In other news, I've been given a 'one lovely blog' award by the wonderful Biba of Angels and Blossoms. Check her out! I'm passing this on to 5 blogs that are new(ish) to my blog roll:

I want you to know

Pineapplemint

In bug's drawers

Between laundry days

The small fabric of my life

Have a lovely weekend everyone! What are you up to? I'm going to start shopping for the giveaway, see the men who stare at goats, and of course knit knit knit!

10 questions - photo edition

I got this little 10 questions meme off Kyla of the Fiction we Live. She actually did hers ages ago, but it's taken me this long to finally do it. Play along if you fancy, it's fun!

1) A photo of your favorite place.

Vintage shops. Not necessarily this particular vintage shop. Any.


2) A photo of you very drunk or very tired (or even a photo of you just waking up)



3) The youngest photo you have of yourself.

I don't have many photos of me as a kid, so this is it.


4) One of your favorite outfits.

I'm not sure i have a favourite outfit, but I do like this dress:


5) A picture of you making a silly face.

So many choices!






6) A photo of you where you had no idea it was being taken of you.



7) A picture of you with someone you love.



8) A family picture of you.

My family don't like being on the internet, so just me and my sis.


9) A picture of how you would like to spend everyday.

On holiday with the girls


with a cup of tea and a book - although not this specific book - I started reading it but found it quite annoying.


10) A picture that fills you with happiness.

My two boys.



All photos are mine, except the tea one, which is thelinus.