Monday 29 August 2011

All things decorating

I have not posted in a while, this is because I have been so busy with having to be back at work, which i am really not enjoying anymore so when I get home I just want to look for work, or feel sorry for my self. Also because this week the plumber finally started work!!! It still isn't finished yet which is a major pain, but it's getting there.

This weekend my parents have been up so we've been trying to get the tiling done. Typically we had to be awkward and buy quite expensive tiles that have absorbed all my money and is taking a while to put up. It's only about half done so I won't post a picture. I hate things half done, I always feel it's such an uphill struggle from then on.

Here is the inspiration for the decor in the bathroom.














Basically what we had done in the bathroom was quite major. We bought the house when it only had a bath, no shower. I love my showers but also treat myself to a bath every now and then. Ideally we wanted to get an electric shower to have in the bath, maybe get one of those L shaped baths from the bathstore. However, our bathroom is ably very small, it also has a sloping roof. We have therefore had to move the bath to run along the sloping roof, move the toilet further up the wall, put a standing shower in the corner where the roof is highest, moved the position of the radiator, and exchanged it for a towel rail, and moved the sink a couple of inches. I don't even want to think of the price!!! The only thing that's kept from the old bathroom is the sinks and the taps.






I also wanted to move the lighting cables so we could have wall lights, but now I really just want things done. This will have to wait a few years.

I also want to change the kitchen floor eventually. The kitchen is the only place we haven't re decorated. We're quite lucky because its lovely, and came with the cooker, fridge freezer and washing machine. It came with a tumble dryer too but were not keeping that. The floor is lino. It's fine for the time being but eventually, probably a few years down the line I would like natural multicoloured slate flooring. Like this:






I came across this wallpaper on The style files. It's so much fun. I wish I'd have seen it before we pretty much finished the decorating.








Sunday 21 August 2011

Being home.




This extended weekend (since Thursday) I have been in North Wales. It's such a refreshing break from the relatively flat landscape of the east midlands. When I come to Wales, even though I grew up here, I like to try and fit some tourist stuff in.
On Friday morning I went for a quick run in Llanberis. usually I run over the lake and up to the hospital, today I chose to venture along the lake for a bit. Running with that kind of view is great as it is really distracting from your breathing. I also saw loads of goats! So cute.

Later I met my friend and we went shopping. I bought this top from a charity shop. I love it.
I also bought a black dress from H&M in the sale. £5 down from £12.99. Score! After shopping we decided to go and do something else, like visit a garden. So we went to Penrhyn castle, but decided the price was far too expensive to just look at some flowers and topiary. Then we drove over to Plas Newydd. Those gardens were closed. We gave up. We tried to make the most of the nice weather but other forces were obviously against us.



The next day my family and I went to Foel Farm for my nephew's birthday. I loved feeding the animals. So cute. These things were my favourite. They are like sheep with dogs faces. And they were really fluffy and timid. The one on the right was my favourite. He/she was blind in one eye. I wanted to take it home. Needless to say they got most of the feed I had.



Thursday 18 August 2011

A bit of light reading: Marie Antoinette




Today I am blogging from my parents home in Wales. I love it here in the day but in the evenings we tend to disagree on the tv programme choices. I don't usually watch tv so when I do, I like to watch something you do not have to follow. Something where you could watch episode 4 of 8 and not feel lost having missed the previous episodes. Or something factual. So to keep myself entertained I have brought a book with me. I bought Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette: The Journey. it's about 600 pages short so it will keep me quiet for a while. I have about given up on A Farewell to Arms as I have been in and out of too much in the past few months. Also my bookmark fell out the other day. Maybe it's time to give it a rest and try again one day

I've always had a soft spot for history, and have always want to learn more about the French revolution. I've seen the film in which Marie Antoinette was played by Kirsten Dunst. I find that film so very aesthetically pleasing, a bit boring, but so pretty. I love Kirsten Dunst anyway so that helps.


Yesterday I painted the stairwell White. Just to get it covered. I'm thinking of painting it duck egg blue. I feel it's what Marie would have done. Also there's an antique/vintage shop on Nottingham where we got our chairs for the dining room from, which is painted in this shade. I feel the colour really compliments wood quite well.



Tuesday 16 August 2011

Crawford Gallery



Usually I would try to do something a bit more creative to my posts, but as I have little time and resources these days, and given that I'm always on my iPhone and not on my laptop as I should be seeing as I paid so much for it, I usually have to make do with what I've got.


This is just to follow up from my Joan Crawford post earleir. I felt that she needed to feature a bit more. Sprry the images are so small. For some reason when I upload them straight onto blogger they seem to downscale unforgivingly. Any help or advice with this would be appreciated. I'm fairly new to this blogger world.



Going Home

Tomorrow I am going home!! Just until Sunday. By home I don't mean where my home is. That obviously should be where my house and all my stuff is. By home I mean the place I strangely keep thinking of as home, even though I have not lived there for 5-6 years! It is where my family lives, where my childhood home is, and where I grew up. Every time I go back I always wonder why I left that beautiful scenery and sea behind. Then I go for a walk around town and think 'oh yeah, that's why!'

Looking forward to going for a run around this lovely lake. Looking forward to seeing my f&fs, and I'm looking forward to my nephew's 3rd birthday. Then I'm looking forward to coming back to the Midlands as our plumber will be starting on the Monday (FINALLY). But I'm not looking forward to going back to work.

Fellini

So the other book I ordered was this one: Federico Fellini; His Life and Work by Tullio Kezich


I love Fellini's work. They are either so fast paced, or relatively boring (and I don't mean boring in a negative sense - more slow and lack lustre e.g La Strada). His films are so unique and recognisable. It would be interesting to learn more about the subject matter. The how's the what's, they why's. I have so much to learn.



I first fell in love with Fellini when we went to see Fellini's Roma at the Phoenix in Leicester. I had already seen La Strada, and had started to watch La Dolce Vita. I never got into La Dolce Vita, possibly because it was Italian and subtitled and I decided to try and do some work while it was on, so little attention was paid to reading the screen. Instead what I heard was simply a foreign conversation which sounded argumentative


But yes back to Fellini's Roma. I don't know how to describe it in a complimentary way. Roma is essentially an autobiography. The following text is taken from the back of MGM DVD case.


This Lavish autobiography, full of lush fantasy sequences and monumental pageantry, begins with Fellini as a youngster living in the Italian countryside. In school he studies the eclectic but parochial history of ancient Rome and then is introduced as a young man to the real thing - arriving in the strange new city on the outbreak of World War II. Here, through a series of visually stunning vignettes brimming with satire and sparkling with life, the filmmaker comes to grips with a sprawling, boisterous, bursting-at-the-seams portrait of Rome, reinterpreting with his inimitable style an Italian history full of rich sensual imagery and extravagant perception.

This is one of my favourite scene's (one of he few I could find on Youtube with English subtitles)
http://youtu.be/CYzRL9YIswQ

Joan Crawford





I'm never too sure if I am a Joan Crawford fan or not. I'm much more team Bette than I am Joan, but there is something about her which I find quite intriguing. I have only seen a few of her films; The Unknown, Grand Hotel, Mildred Pierce and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. And have read Bette and Joan the Divine Feud, and Mommie Dearest. I would highly recommend Bette and Joan the Divine Feud to anyone. It does help obviously if you are into classic Hollywood, but if not it is still such a great story of two women who could never get along, and yet really should have. I'll go into much more at a later date. This post is about Joan, I really shouldn't be listing why I much prefer Bette. Anyway if you want to read the book it is available here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bette-Joan-Divine-Shaun-Considine/dp/0751511749/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1313485174&sr=8-2 for a mere penny!!


There's quite a bit of mystery surrounding Joan's life. No one is entirely sure of her date of birth, her family or her past before Hollywood. Also anyone who has read or seen Mommie Dearest will know there's speculation as to what sort of woman she was behind closed doors. (For the record I really don't believe half the stuff in Mommie Dearest. Reading between the lines certain events may have happened, but not to such an exaggerated scale, and it is essentially a book by someone who was bitter that she wasn't left 'anything' in her will.) That is why I'm not sure about Crawford. I am not sure who she really is. I suppose I should invest time in a Crawford biography. When I saw her in Grand Hotel, I thought she was amazing!! (Garbo on the other hand - breathy and annoying)


There is no doubt however that Joan is a style icon, form her days as a silent movie siren, to a heavy eyebrowed starlet on the silver screen, and I most certainly envy her shoes. That is why when ever I see a pair of shoes similar to the ones Joan used to wear I feel the need to buy them. New Look have been doing well on this lately. Both these beauts are from there. Joan often wore peep toe heels, and an ankle strap. Obviously with it being the 30s/40s she also had a thick heel.



Just wanted to show off my shoes really. The black ones are very comfortable. The red ones, not so much. However I love wearing black tights and so the red ones work so well!!

Sunday 14 August 2011

Books!






I have more books than I have ever read. I tend to buy books because I like the look of them, or becasue I hope to one day read them. I would assume that I have read and finished about 25% of the novels I own. It has been a while since I last bought a book. I was given Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, and Stenibeck's Cannery Row and East of Eden for my birthday. I tried reading Cannery Row, but my reading pattern was too speradic. I gave up and thought perhaps I would be better with something I can get my teeth into. So I've been reading A Farewell to Arms since about March! I have so much going on in my ife that I rarely find 30 minutes to pick up a book. A bad habit I am determined to break. Although I have just bought a house and so am decorating. Once we are in I will finishes this book!! I will have to as I have slipped into an old habit and bought two books to read 'at somepoint in the future'.


This being book number one:



This is the beautiful new edition of The Last Tycoon from Penguin to mark the 70th anniversery of F. Scott Fitzgerald's death. It is part of a collection. Unforunately due to money being tight with the new house, and also the fact I have most of the books in the collection already, plus lets not forget I rarely have time for reading, I can not commit myself to buying them.



I have wanted this book for a while. It's about the decadent beginnins of Hollywood I believe ( I don't know, I have not read it yet) The book was also Fitzgerald's last before he died, and it is unfinished. This fact makes it all the more interesting. Hopefully I will at least get to finish reading what was left of it.



Here is the collection in all it's hardback glory:





My other book purchase is film related. Therefore I shall save for another day.