2013 in music

If you're a regular visitor to Sunshine Days, you'll be fully aware that music plays a mahoosive part in my life. Looking back, I've been to some bloomin' brilliant gigs this year (above is a little snapshot with some rubbish quality photos... I'm far too busy actually enjoying the music at gigs to watch it through my phone screen!) from little gigs like The Family Rain who played the Brudenell Social Club to a mammoth expedition down to Suffolk for a weekend of fun and vodka at Latitude. Other highlights included HAIM, an Old Skool Cribs gig a few weeks back and stumbling upon a tiny Pigeon Detectives set in Leeds Trinity and ending up on the front row (even though we don't really like them all that much...). 

While I'm thinking about music of 2013, I thought I'd put together a list of my top tracks of the year. I did this back at the end of 2012 too and its a great way to look back and remember songs from a particular time in your life! Last year I narrowed the list down to five songs, this year I just couldn't whittle it down to any less than ten. Miss Indecisive 2013 right here.

Why'd you only call me when you're high? Arctic Monkeys

My Number Foals

 The Wire HAIM

Lovesick Peace

 Hearts Like Ours The Naked and Famous

Biblical Biffy Clyro

 Trust Me... I'm a Genius The Family Rain

Wasting My Young Years London Grammar

Best of Friends Palma Violets

Youth Daughter

What have been your favourite songs of the year? Hope you've enjoyed some of my top ten too!

Roll on 2014- its already shaping up to be a good one for me music-wise... so far I've got tickets for Foals, Bombay Bicycle Club and *ahem* McBusted (not ruining my indie street cred at all there...).

Also, for once I've not used song lyrics in my post title- yet more proof of how indecisive I am... I couldn't pick one of the 10 songs above as the most worthy of the title! I was discussing with my friends the other day that I really should get an app or something that will make all life decisions for me!

I give a little into the moment like I'm standing at the edge, I know.

On Friday night, I spent my evening in possibly the best way ever... with my homegirls Haim. The gig sold out ages ago (they were only playing Leeds Met, which if you know Leeds at all you'll know its a pretty tiny venue!) but luckily after many hours spent trawling twitter on a quest for tickets I managed to find some for my housemate and I. 

I've heard mixed reviews about Haim's live performances. A lot of people have said their vocals aren't brilliant live so I didn't have my expectations set too highly. But seriously, I couldn't fault them. They've all got incredible voices and they really know how to own a stage. They're like a new generation of girl power with all their hair swishing and guitar riffs. It's made me want to be adopted as the fourth sister even more now. Plus, they all munch on Percy Pigs between songs... Girls after my own heart right there. 

Anyway, whilst I'm at it rambling on about my ever-increasing love for the band, I thought I'd show you what I wore to the gig. Since it was a Friday night and all that jazz I decided to put a bit of effort in (usually I find myself judging people who treat gigs as a fashion show when they're just going to end up soaked in beer and sweat) so managed to quickly take a few snaps of my outfit before rushing out of the house. I love this Primark crop-ip, it's just the right length for me and I bloomin' love anything velvet at the moment so this was instantly a winner with me.

top: Primark, skirt: Topshop, boots: New Look, necklaces: Joy & Urban Outfitters

Falling- Haim

And I'll never look back, just hold your head up

When I tell people that I work with teenage cancer patients, I often find myself cringing as I wait for their reaction. All to often I get a pained expression of sympathy that I have to do such a 'sad' job, and others just look at me like I'm absolutely mad for wanting to work in such a 'depressing' job. Its a good measure of people though, if somebody reacts and says something like "that must be really rewarding" or even just a "ooh that sounds like an interesting job" I generally have far more respect for people with that sort of reaction rather than somebody who has an automatic assumption that my job is all doom and gloom. 

Ok, so there are times when inevitably working in the big bad world of cancer is pretty tough as sadly not everybody has a happy ending, but 99% of the time its actually a pretty brilliant place to work. Cancer patient or not, the kids are still just normal teenagers most of the time and some of them are bloody hilarious... I had one 16 year old yesterday who was telling me that she was planning a house party at the weekend because her Mum and Dad were going out all the while her non-English speaking Dad was sat right next to us thinking she was telling me about how college was going. 

One thing my job really has taught me is perspective. I know so many kids who've had to go through some truly horrible, life changing stuff. I know a fair few who've lost a limb to cancer but they somehow manage to get through that and still come out of it the other end with a smile and a crazy amount of determination to make their future everything they've ever wanted and more, seizing every opportunity because they're just so thrilled they've got their lives back. It really makes me think about things if I've had a bad day or if something is getting me down. Moping about things doesn't get you anywhere- having determination to pick yourself up and make things better is what life is all about. Cancer doesn't have to be the end of the world for the teenagers I work with, and our own problems don't have to be the end of our world either. Life is for living and enjoying, none of us know how long we've got on this planet but we really owe it to ourselves to make the most of it and do everything we can to enjoy it.

Image: Pinterest

Falling- Haim

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.

Honey and I- HAIM

But I fumbled and when I came down to the wire

Image: Pinterest

Earlier this week I spent half of my afternoon chatting to one of the kids at work. I know you're not meant to have favourites but its impossible not to sometimes when there are some brilliant characters amongst them. When this girl first came into the hospital I was told she was really quiet and sensible but the first time I met her I had more trouble getting her to stop talking! She comes out with some brilliant stories and comments, and this week's took the biscuit. Out of nowhere, she came out with the comment "When I'm an adult I want to be like you... I mean you're a grown up but you're not at all grown up". 

At first I wasn't quite sure how to take that one but actually I realised she'd summed me up in a nutshell and it definitely wasn't a bad thing. Yes, I can be an 'adult'... I can do my own washing, pay bills and have a job with a fair bit of responsibility, but on the other hand I love nothing more than having the sense of humour of a 10 year old boy, dancing like I'm at a school disco and pulling faces at my friend from work when we're in meetings. Growing up and being a grown up are two totally separate things. And actually, I think I'm pretty proud that this girl decided that I made a good role model- I think I've got the best of both worlds as far as adult life goes, being able to live independently but also knowing not to take life too seriously. I want to look back on my life and think about how much I enjoyed myself and all of the fun memories I had, not how great it was to be a full time grown up person who didn't take the time to enjoy herself or let her hair down every once in a while at every possible opportunity.

The Wire- Haim

And I'll never look back, just hold your head up

Last night I had two of my friends over for a night of burgers and brownies. Quite frankly, I'm not sure there's a better way to spend a Monday evening. Or any evening for that matter.

I got this recipe book for my birthday and I literally spend whole evenings gazing longingly (and dribbling a little) at the arghsoincrediblyyummy looking pictures and recipes, so I've been dying to get stuck in and actually make something from the book. I started in quite an odd place for a burger recipe book, going for one of the few veggie offerings instead of a real, meatilicious burger. I blame the halloumi for sucking me in, its just too tasty not to be eaten at every possible moment. 

Needless to say, the halloumi didn't let me down, the burgers tasted INCREDIBLE (even if they did look a bit like fancy baby food in a bun). And since the book was such a success with the first recipe I tried, I'm going to have to make burger night a regular occurrence. 

And just because I'm a nice, thoughtful person, I thought I'd share the recipe for anyone else who's as enthusiastic about burgers, halloumi and sweet potato as I am. 

Sweet Potato and Halloumi Burgers

450g sweet potato
175g broccoli
3 cloves of garlic
1 red onion (finely chopped)
2 red chillis
175g halloumi (plus extra to fry for the tops of the burgers)
2 tbsp flour
Salt and Pepper
1tbsp ground coriander (the recipe said fresh coriander but I decided I wasn't buying a whole bunch just for a tbsp... ground coriander worked just as well!)

Cook the sweet potato in a saucepan until tender (about 15 mins or so should do it). Once it is cooked, drain the water and then mash. 

Meanwhile, cut the broccoli into small chunks and cook in a saucepan for about 4-5 minutes. 

In a bowl, get together the garlic, onion, chilli, cheese and seasoning then add the sweet potato and broccoli to the mixture, mixing well until all of the ingredients are incorporated with each other. 

Shape the mixture into 4-6 equally sized patties, pour the flour onto a plate/worktop and coat the burgers in the flour. Then put the burgers into the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C and cook the burgers for about 15-20 minutes until cooked through. Flip the burgers half way through cooking. You could grill the burgers too, I just chose to use the oven because I was making potato wedges and can't use the grill at the same time! 

If you fancy adding a bit of extra excitement to your burgers, fry more red onion in a pan along with the remaining halloumi to add to the tops of the burgers. 

And now on to the second part of my B&B night, I was sucked into the creme egg brownie club after seeing so many people posting pictures of their own versions on twitter and instagram. I already had the brownie mix I got as a birthday present which I posted about here so it seemed like the perfect excuse. Plus, creme eggs were 8 for £1 in Home Bargains so I think it was meant to be.

I haven't got a recipe as such to post since my mixture came from the jar, but I've seen plenty of posts about them including this one on Cat's blog if you want to try them yourself. Which you definitely should do RIGHT NOW. I've ended up eating a few slices this evening and they somehow taste even better cold than they did warm last night. Amazing.

Falling- Haim

If you say the word then I'll say goodbye

You might remember I mentioned in a post a while ago that I accidentally bought a lomography fish eye camera back in the January sales. The pictures from my first film weren't all fantastic, the only film I had at home was a redscale film which is better suited to the great outdoors when you're not playing with an SLR that you can change the settings on. The first two pictures were by far the best, due to the fact that it was a crazily bright snowy day. But still, they're not a bad little bunch. I like the red, grainy effect and the fact that there's a definite charm to these less than perfect snaps. It definitely makes a nice change from taking 'proper' photos. I've bought some different film this time which should be better as an all rounder to play with on nights out aswell as in the daytime so now I'm desperate to whizz through the film so I can see what they turn out like too.  

If you've got a fish eye or another lomography camera and have posted your pictures then send me the links, I like being nosy!

(Oh, and next time I might consider getting my film copied onto a cd when I get it developed... taking vaguely decent pictures of the photos proved pretty flipping difficult!)

Forever- Haim

Cos I can't go on, if your love isn't strong

This weekend has been a brilliant one. Yes, there was snow, but that wasn't by any means one of the most memorable parts of the weekend as with the exception of enjoying the satisfaction of the untouched snow making that crunching sound under my wellies (does anyone else love that as much as me?!) as we wandered to various places, we really didn't spend much time in the great outdoors at all!

It was a special weekend because we were finally reunited with one of our lovely friends who'd been off galavanting around the world for a few months (too jealous). True to our form, we celebrated with too much food, a night out (which after a poor effort from the taxi company turned into a night drinking in our pjs whilst playing Singstar...), and just generally spending a lot of time being the silly little souls that we are.

Oh and we went to see Les Mis too. This is pretty much the main reason as to why we didn't really get to see much snow. The cinema dominated our entire afternoon as we'd gone to Cottage Road in Leeds, an incredibly cute little old fashioned cinema with a lovely atmosphere and an added bonus of being insanely cheap compared to the big name cinemas, so old fashioned that they had an interval in the middle of the film. I can't complain about missing the snow for the film though, it lived up to all the hype and was absolutely mesmerising! Inevitably, we then spent the rest of the weekend bursting into song at every possible moment.

Don't save me- Haim