snaps from Hill Valley

Pics from the Secret Cinema event that everyone was talking about this summer. I know, I know, it's supposed to be a "secret" but it was in Stratford so anyone shopping at Westfield would have seen it, they were selling disposable cameras at the event AND it's over now so this isn't spoiling it for anyone. Justification over, here's what I thought...

Highlights (Pretty much everything! The hype was so right.)
★ The set - the attention to detail was amazing! It featured lots of little Hill Valley shops (which could walk into, explore and buy stuff from) - including recognisable establishments from the film (Lou's cafe, petrol garage, movie theatre) - as well as the school, Peabody's farm, the courthouse and character's houses (Biff's grandmother's, McFly household and the Doc's!).
★ The Fair. Candyfloss, a ferris wheel, need I say more?
★ The film (duh!) - one of my all time favourites being projected onto the courthouse = awesome.
★ The actors. They really brought the town to life (both before and during the actual screening). It was a lot of fun seeing them play out bits of the film.
★ Dressing up. I am so glad I made some effort as practically everyone was in 50s type outfits. Some of the actors' costumes were incredibly cool.
★ The music! Boy, was there a lot of music. Live bands played before the film, after the film and for a good proportion of the night at the school, for the enchantment under the sea dance obvs! And yes, I was in there dancing away to Johnny B Good and Earth Angel ;)

Not so great things
★ Although the diner was so freaking cool, the burger was kinda meh (I read a review that said it was "amazing" so I was a little disappointed - clearly this person had never been to an Honest Burger) and the milkshake I got was shit and cost a fiver!
★ It ain't no picnic. I get it that they want you to spend more money once inside but allowing un-opened bottles of water would've been nice.
★ Scary actor. Although 99% of the actors we interacted with were v.fun, one guy, playing a gym teacher, got a little too into it and started shouting at me. I ran away. He was a bit too Strickland-y for my liking.

Apart from those niggly little points it really was a fabulous evening - we ate popcorn, drank cocktails and Tab(!), watched a real life delorean driving around the grassy square where we sat (whilst simultaneously watching it do the same thing in the film) and we danced out of the place listening to the band play The Power of Love. The cherry on the cake was the surprisingly hassle free journey home! Would definitely do Secret Cinema event again.

tourist in my own city

The week before the wedding, which now seems like months ago, I had myself a couple of touristy days out in London. On the Monday I met my friend Kate for a roam around Tate Britian. I quite fancied the Folk Art exhibition (which has now ended - bit slow there, sorry) and, because Kate has a membership which allows a guest to visit for free too, that's exactly what we saw. It was an odd collection of curious objects, some more interesting than others. There was a room of ship's figureheads which I was expecting to like but it was pretty meh - there was a distinct lack of information about them which was probably what the audio guide was for. Still, the textile bits and pieces were cool as were the old shop signs and naval scenes created with wool and thread. After the exhibition we wandered around the rest of the museum. The art is set out in chronological order for obvious reasons but walking through the galleries it's fascinating to see how the painting styles change and evolve through the centuries. We rounded off the afternoon with a late lunch and a stroll along the South Bank.

Two days after the jaunt to the Tate, my cousin, who was visiting from New Zealand, and I climbed the O2. They suit you up in rather unflattering harnesses and special shoes (I was v.grateful for these shoes on the decent, I tell you), give you a talk about safety, fanny around taking pictures of you and then you're finally hooked up to metal safety bar and away you go! The walkway is made out of a bouncy material which kinda reminded me of a trampoline. It's not difficult, although the first and last bits of the climb are the steepest. Once reaching the top you get to admire the views…of er….. the docklands, canary wharf and the emirates air line?! (Seriously, you can't even see the Shard from the top, which is pretty impressive in itself to be fair, as Canary Wharf et al are blocking it, and FYI there's building work in the process which, once finished, will actually obscure that too.) Cynicism aside, my cousin and I had a good laugh, reaching the top was cool and I did point out the transmitter at Crystal Palace. It's a bit of fun and I'm glad I did it but I think it's one of those things that, if you're a Londoner, only do if your friend from out of town is dead keen.

felt grey seal

I made this little guy on Saturday as part of my sister's birthday gift. It might seem slightly random but she LOVES seals and I thought he'd look good on her shelf.

Rather stupidly I didn't take any pictures of the process as I was in the crafting zone - completely focused on making him and oblivious to technology. You'll just have to take my word for it, he was super simple to do. He's made from two pieces of A4 sized felt and uses 4 different templates (body, underside, front flipper and tail flipper) which I drew out on paper first to get the scale right. Once I'd cut out all the pieces it was just a case of hand stitching them together, turning them the right way out, stuffing them with toy filling and stitching them all together. I used black thread to sew the eyes, nose, smile and whisker holes and white thread for the actual whiskers.

I'm quite pleased with the ribbon/scarf which was just lying around in my sewing box, reckon it makes a good finishing touch.

You'll be pleased to know that my sis loved it :)

A Cornish Honeymoon: Part Three

On our penultimate day in Cornwall we headed down to Mevagissey to try our luck at a spot of mackerel fishing. Lots of 2 hour sea fishing trips leave from the quay-side but we opted for one lead by proper Cornish fisherman, Chris, who was a good laugh too. We had a nice group to fish with (a family from Essex and a bloke from Lancaster) who were all friendly and chatty (to be honest though, everyone we met on this holiday was friendly and chatty - one of the best things about getting out of London). Chris warned us that we'd catch a lot of mackerel so to kill some time he took us a little further out to see some seals. I took no decent pictures of this so you'll have to take my word for it, they were super cute.

Next Chris parked (?) the boat and we got fishin'. He really wasn't joking about the abundance of mackerel! Even I, on my first ever fishing trip, caught 12 of them! (12 which we could keep, I actually caught nearer to 20 but the others were too small and so went back into the sea.) Mitch also caught a lot of mackerel and was the only one in the boat to catch a cod! It was pretty informative too - Chris and my fellow fishing buddies had fishing stories to tell, we learnt that line-caught mackerel is better for the fish and their environment and that mackerel are sold to pubs and restaurants for just 2p per fish! Worth bearing that in mind the next time you order a mackerel starter for 5 quid!

 Just before we clambered back onto land we divided up the spoils and Chris gave us a quick demo on how to gut a mackerel. Seeing as we were covered in sea spray and smelt a little fishy, we went back to the farmhouse to prepare our fish and have a shower. I can proudly say that I now know how to gut a mackerel and successfully did so twice! Not going to lie, it was v.gross but because it was so fresh it really didn't smell all that bad, plus, it felt pretty cool to be able to learn a new skill and there's also the satisfaction of catching, cleaning & cooking your own dinner. With the fish prepared for our fish pie supper that night we went back to Mevagissey for ice cream and an evening stroll along the quay. I know I've said to before, and I realise being there on my honeymoon definitely rose-tinted everything, but I loved that little fishing town. I fully intend to go back out of season and see it in the winter - bet it's still beautiful. Stroll and musing about dream homes over, we went back to the farmhouse to make pie. I say 'we' but Mitch did most of it and he did a bloody good job. It was delicious :)

Our last day started with a first class breakfast (grilled mackerel & hardboiled eggs on homemade bread - so spoilt!) and was spent at Pentewan beach: toes in the sand, paddling in the sea, looking for crabs, posing like the little mermaid (me not Mitch), enjoying some food at the Driftwood bar, talking about the last 5 days and the days, weeks and months to come. Believe me when I say, I really did not want to leave. We'll be back Cornwall!

nice things in the post #3

 Black Sheep Wools are having a sale so I bought a fair bit of this chunky flecked yarn.

Although I own a few pairs of knitting needles I was lacking the size needles needed for my next knitting escapade.

Oh My Clumsy Heart had a secret sale on Tuesday and I picked up this little gem - pretty non?

Received anything nice in the post lately?

Reading & Seeing 20

original source - incidentally you can see more awesome fan art posters for Guardians of the Galaxy here. A lot of them are waaaay better than the official poster. 

Guardians of the Galaxy
A mismatched bunch of criminals (but who all have good sides too) are thrown together to stop the world ending, oh yeah and it's set in Space and stars Chris Pratt. Yup, this film easily plonked itself at the top of my favourite films of the year so far. Chris Pratt is perfect as Peter Quill and so watchable, the script is laugh-out-load funny and the soundtrack is spot-on - I wasn't bored for a second and could easily watch this again and again and again.

Last month I also saw Expendables III - packed full of all your action hero regulars, this was incredibly predictable but not as crap as I thought it would be. I actually laughed a fair bit (sometimes with it - it's clearly taking the piss out of itself with those one liners, sometimes at it); Rushmore - an oldie but such a goodie, can't believe I'd never seen it before. It centres around a school boy's crush/love for a teacher at his school and it's just perfectly told and framed - Wes Anderson, can he do no wrong?; and Easy A - I confess I remember seeing the posters and reading the premise when this originally got released and thought it was just another shitty american school "comedy". But I was wrong! It was funny and not shitty at all; I laughed out-loud and Emma Stone is ace.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane
I like Neil Gaiman but I did not enjoy this all that much. It was pretty unsettling (standard Gaiman) and showcased some really clever (albeit terrifying) ideas and concepts but, for me, it lacked depth. It scratched the surface of this strange world but that was it. It all came to an abrupt and unenlightenning end just as I was getting into it. I feel like in his other, longer books, he's got more room to explore the backgrounds of the worlds he creates - he weaves a history, creates a foundation for his story to play out on - The Ocean at the End of the Lane was just kinda flat. Also, while I'm ripping into this I'd also like to mention that cover is v.meh and a little safe considering the messed-up stuff that happens in the book.

Saga
Mitch brought this back after his most recent comic book shopping spree. It's the first in a new series about a couple who, despite being from opposite sides of an on-going intergalactic war, have fallen in love and given birth to baby - something that no-one thought would be possible between the two species. Both sides are after them and their child but luckily they're badass and have a zombie ghost child as their nanny. Sounds nuts but it's pretty cool.

We are all Completely Besides Ourselves
I really enjoyed this for a number of reasons: the writing style is right up my street, the subject matter is something I know nothing about so that was intriguing and lastly because you think you're reading one story and then a quarter of the way in you find out that you're reading something completely different. I don't want to say much more as it's better to stumble upon this "twist" (not sure that really describes it accurately) with as little knowledge as possible.

The Casual Vacancy
J K Rowling's forray in adult fiction (not that half the readership of Harry Potter isn't adult). On the whole I liked it. The characters, though almost entirely dislikable save one or two, are meaty and convincing; each with a role to play in driving the story forward. It kinda reminded me of those DK Cross Section books but instead of a building it's like a cross section through a small rural community. In some ways it also made me think of soaps partly because it's quite depressing but mostly because of the way the narrative seamlessly glides around the village bringing specific characters into the spotlight. The writing is clever and J K Rowling has some serious skillz when it comes to really getting into each of the characters' heads. There's a couple of amusing scenes but on the whole (especially the end) it's a pretty tragic read which I'd still recommend nonetheless.