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Sunday 20 October 2013

Sometimes when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul

I escaped Leeds this weekend for a little trip to bonny Scotland, my second trip to Edinburgh this year (definite upside of having an Uncle who lives in such a beautiful city!). My Uncle likes using us visiting as an excuse for him to get out of town for a bit, so we ended up spending a lot of time skirting around the outermost fringes of the city. Although I missed having a chance to just wander up and down the Royal Mile and Princes Street, we saw plenty of the city centre from some great spots outside the hustle and bustle of the main tourist streets. 

I wanted to take a trip up Arthur's Seat on Saturday since we haven't done it in years and my Dad jumped at the rare chance to hear me willingly put a pair of walking boots on (I vowed never to touch them ever again after I did the National Three Peaks Challenge a few years ago). We ended up heading up there at the perfect time of day, my Mum and my Uncle thought we'd gone absolutely crackers as they were lagging behind and gave up when a huge cloud decided to engulf itself around them, promptly leading to them heading back to the car. We made it through the mist and had possibly the most beautiful view of the city anybody had ever seen before. We didn't get to spend much time up there as it was getting dark pretty quickly and my Mum had started sending frantic texts saying "COME DOWN NOW." but it was worth it to see my Mum and Uncle's jealous faces when we showed them how incredible it had been up there. Not that we were trying to rub it in or anything. Obviously.












Wednesday 16 October 2013

Fred Astaire's the man for you


On Monday, I took my first trip to what could well be my new favourite place in the world ever. The Belgrave Music Hall opened its doors in Leeds earlier in the month and I'd been itching to take a visit to Leeds' newest gig venue ever since. Luckily for me, San Cisco were playing so I had the perfect excuse to pay the venue a little visit.

San Cisco were pretty decent and their set offered me lots of opportunities to boogie around to a bit of indie pop (something I'm not sure I'd ever be able to resist) and their summery vibes helped me forget the horrible wintery weather I'd left behind outside. Although it was a lot of fun, at times it was hard to forget that I was again experiencing the sinking feeling that I'd inadvertently landed at an under 18's disco. Getting old is tough sometimes and its only when you're surrounded by cool kids who would have only been about 10 when you were there age that you truly realise it. 

That said, I'm glad I'm that little bit older than all the posy kids we were surrounded by. It meant we could fully take advantage of the Belgrave's facilities, they've got a huge bar downstairs playing some awesome songs, complete with a canteen style fish and chips shop and pizza stall (I was eyeing up the pizza all evening... definitely going back for a slice soon) and possibly the best roof terrace known to man, even in the rain it was a great place to sit and take shelter in a cosy wooden shed. 

Leeds, you're doing brilliantly at the moment. I love this city and the ever increasing amount of brilliant places to visit.




Sunday 13 October 2013

Maybe I'm wasting my young years

As usual, I've had a very cake filled Sunday with another Iron Cupcake competition- Death by Chocolate was the theme this month and even though I only managed to sneak a few little slithers of cake after the judges had passed their verdict (it was a very busy one this month!) I still felt like I was going to end up in a sugar coma. I'll probably do a post about it soon as if you happened to see my instagram feed earlier then you'll know there were some awesome designs amongst the entries!

Other than that, this weekend I had a pretty lazy one after a night out on Friday with some of my favourites. I wore my new favourite dress which made for lots of fun swishy dancing- great entertainment to liven things up since what has been my favourite club night for years was sadly lacking in any sort of atmosphere. I think I need to find a new favourite indie venue to satisfy my Dad-dancing needs. As well as buying myself a new dress, I'm having a bit of a jewellery buying phase (yes, I have added another moustache to my ever expanding collection... considering founding a moustacheaholics anonymous group if anyone cares to join me). I'd been hunting for a K watch for ages after seeing almost every other letter in Topshop. After months of trying I decided getting a T was the next best option, teamed with my scrabble ring it spells out my initials quite nicely.




dress: Topshop, shirt: Forever 21, shoes: Primark, scrabble ring: Vintage fair, watch: Topshop, bracelet: c/o Haus of Deck, moustache ring: c/o Haus of Deck

Hope you've all had a good weekend!


Saturday 5 October 2013

Love wasn't what I thought it once was

Monday was quite an occasion this week. After waiting and waiting for about 10 months to be able to sink my teeth into HAIM's debut album, the day finally came (and involved a fair bit of dancing around the living room). I was scared that it might not live up to all the hype after I'd spent most of 2013 getting steadily more impatient for the album. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Those girls did good. Very, very good in fact.

 I've spent about 80% of my time at work this week trying to decide what my favourite track on the album is (a week well spent, I'm sure you'll agree). I've come to the annoying (but also rather impressive) conclusion that ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO PICK A FAVOURITE. I'll listen to one song and think, YES, this is it. Then the next track will come on and completely change my mind. Over and over again until I've exhausted every track and ended up none the wiser than when I started. Albums tend to fall into two camps with me, there's the ones I listen to all the way through a few times but then end up falling back on the singles from the album since they've clearly put a lot more effort into those songs than the others, and then there's the ones that I turn into the soundtrack of my life for weeks and weeks whilst completely neglecting the thousands of other songs on my iPod and still fondly listen to track by track months later. Days Are Gone is without a doubt one of those albums as far as I'm concerned. Plus its given me a bit of variation for my walks to work so I can stop strutting down the street to the Arctic Monkey's new album every day. 



shirt: New Look, pinafore: River Island, t-shirt: Pull and Bear, shoes: Converse

Can someone let me be the long-lost fourth Haim sister now please? Its a dream I'm not planning on giving up on any time soon.