Middle of the week already; how?! Here's some photography inspiration to appeal to the child in all of us from the hugely talented photographer Lissy Elle - I adore her work! Particularly love how carefree and relaxing these images are; the perfect balance to a hectic London lifestyle.
I went back to work yesterday after 10 wonderful days off and, of course, an amazing holiday - and wow, the lifestyle change really did hit me. Two delayed trains, a queue of heavy traffic and several rude people meant stress levels were the highest they'd been in a week and a half - and all before 9am, before I even got into the office. A little bit overwhelming! Don't get me wrong, I love London, and I love to be kept busy - but going away and remembering what it is to relax and take life slowly and then being thrown suddenly back into such a hectic mindset and lifestyle is a little bit daunting. I'll get used to it again, and not feel so tired, in a few days time - but in the meantime, I love the photos above for their relaxing inspiration :)
How do you destress from your busy lives, and make sure that you have time to unwind? I've been thinking of trying a bedtime ritual, like burning lavender incense, reading a book, having a bath or doing yoga. Do any of you have pre-bedtime relaxing rituals?
To be honest, the UK's had a bit of a hard time recently, hasn't it? Phone hacking scandals, the ongoing rather depressing economy and sporting failures (oh dear again, Murray) - not to mention the weather being distinctly more autumn/winter than spring/summer. We all seem to be giving Britain a pretty hard time, don't we?
Here's a little injection of patriotic affection in the form of a blog post, then. These images show some of the things I love the most about where I live - red telephone boxes (and their link to long-standing traditions and history); gorgeous nature and forests that have stood for hundreds of years; cosy old cottages in the countryside with windowseats, open fires and dark wood beams; and large open fields with rolling hills. So pretty, non?It's so easy to forget all this, though, and I think we do, all too often. I think we tend to dwell on what's wrong with where we live, all the horrific news in the media, rather than focusing on the little things that make us smile, the things we take for granted, the ability these things have to pick us up when we need it; and, to me, all the little things mentioned above are very much to be enjoyed and celebrated. I think we tend to focus on the cities in Britain, the problems, dirt, crime, overcrowding and so on; and overlook - or dismiss - the countryside. But really, I've always found escaping to the countryside for a few days to be an instant pick-me-up; something to remind myself that I do really quite like Britain after all. The fact that I always think of going to the countryside as retreating - stealing myself away to a comforting, cosy kind of place - I think says it all.I was feeling a little melancholy on Saturday morning; I'd received some not-so-great news and was feeling tired of London and the hustle and bustle of my life. I knew I had to shake myself out of the mood I was in. And so my solution? I drove through the Buckinghamshire countryside, amidst rolling hills, to my grandparents' house. I walked the dog in the woods that have been standing hundreds of years and enjoyed being surrounded by nature; I had a big, comforting Sunday lunch in an old, dark and cosy village pub. I visited a second-hand bookshop next to a village green and a duk pond where I could surround myself with books for hours, quietly browsing, and I drunk a ridiculous amount of tea along with a few too many jam cream biscuits. Little things, I know. Quintessentially British things, I suppose. But I felt - instantly - so much better. Celebrating Britain a little bit more, I've written a blog post over at the lovely Cellardoor Magazine's blog this week on some of the best British-inspired exhibitions in London this year - do head over for a read if you fancy it!These photos are from Flickr user Jakem's Polaroid set; do visit his photostream for more gorgoeus photos which will make you want to venture out to the British countryside too!
A little bit of mid-week laid-back photography from flickr user _acido's today - balloons, butterflies, books and generally many beautiful images. Stumbled across her relaxed and atmospheric photography a few weeks ago and knew I had to post it - what a discovery! :)
Posting some lovely relaxing images while burning some lavender incense to a bid to help me chill out a little before trying to get some sleep tonight. I've been so so tired this week, but struggling to actually sleep - it's been impossibly hot and stuffy in London, and since I have a loft room here at home it seems to trap all the heat in (cold in the winter, warm in the summer, oh dear). I've had four windows open and a fan on and still have been lying on top of the bed for hours just waiting to get off to sleep... and it's resulted in me getting something like 6 hours of sleep for the past few nights. Yawn!
In other news, are any of you watching Wimbledon, and who are you supporting? I watch tennis religiously for these two weeks every year - I love it so much and always try to get tickets, although I didn't manage to get any this year. Very pleased in my most patriotic way that Andy Murray has got through to the semi-finals now, although anyone who knows me at all knows that my heart lies with Rafael Nadal (vamos Rafa!)... and so am struggling to know where my loyalties lie when it comes to the Murray vs Nadal match on Friday! Who gets your support - Murray or Nadal?!
It's a bank holiday here in the UK; another lovely day off work, and the first I've got booked up until August, although I think I'll be taking a few days off in July. It really makes all the difference having a three day weekend and a four day working week - a chance to relax a little bit more.
These photos envoke a sense of summer and laziness to me; found on Flickr user Luciecamp's photostream, I adore them.
I'm up bright and early today, because (surprise surprise) I'm off down to Brighton for the day. I have a meal out planned - Spanish tapas, one of my favourites - and then a comedy show in the evening. Should be fun! It's just a shame the sun isn't shining; the beach won't be half as nice when it's grey and cloudy...
As for the rest of this lovely long weekend? My boyfriend took me out for dinner on Friday night, which was delicious, and then, fancying a little cocktail, we went to a little place called Bourne & Hollingsworth - I would tell you more about it now, but I think it was such a great cocktail bar that it deserves its own post, so look out for it shortly. A little hidden gem tucked away in a basement, suffice it to say it was a great place and made for a lovely evening!
The cocktail theme of this weekend continued on to Saturday; it was a friend's birthday, and she'd arranged for ten of us girls to go cocktail making to celebrate. We took it in turns to learn how to make the cocktails, in pairs - and the one that I made was called (ahem) Pretty Pretty Bang Bang, made up of vodka, cranberry, raspberry and Red Bull. I have to say, it was surprisingly nice!
I'd definitely recommend learning to make cocktails as a lovely girly evening out, although perhaps book it for a little later than 5pm, when we went - we were all rather tipsy by the end, and it was still only 6pm, so we still had a whole evening ahead of us! Needless to say, it was a little messy...
How were your weekends?
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A little P.S: apologies for no Friday Fives or The Sunday Read this week. Blogger seemed to be down for me again - I couldn't access my dashboard, so couldn't post! Did anyone else have that?!
I've posted about Pull & Bear before - their lookbooks seem to be a weakness of mine, because I always love all of them. They're always beautifully shot and I love this hazy S/S 11 one in particular - the soft colours, the clothes, the composition... lovely!
Oh, and the photographer is the hugely talented Spaniard Txema Yeste - love all of his work. You can read more about him here, if you so wish!
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How were your weekends? Mine was very lazy but lovely - it consisted mainly of eating lemon tart, watching Eurovision, eating pizza, drinking wine, eating quesadillas (yes, there was a lot of eating this weekend!), going to the cinema and going for nice walks around lakes. And generally lots of being lazy! I needed a relaxing weekend though, because this week's going to be hectic, with events and seeing friends and tutoring, oh and working of course...
I've also been booking time off for holidays this week, which means that I've been thinking about holiday outfits - which means I've been thinking about toning up a little bit. Let me clarify at this point that I'm not a girl who's obsessed with my weight or body - I don't weight myself or measure inches, typically - and I eat fairly healthily, although I do admit to being a chocoholic! Although I work 8 hours a day and am out of the house for a minimum of 11 hours a day during the week, I currently walk fifteen minutes each way to the station near me and then a further ten between the station in London and where I work at least one way, meaning that I get 40 minutes, at least, of exercise a day. Enough to be not completely unfit, probably, but hardly enough to tone up or make any real difference - but by the time I get home at 7:30pm at the earliest and eat, there's really no time to go to an exercise class or the gym (and I doubt I could be bothered to venture out the house again anyway, if I'm totally honest).
So. In an effort to tone up a little (emphasis here is, by the way, not on losing weight - I don't really care about that, but I just want to feel more toned and perhaps a little healthier), I've been inspired by the Where are my Knees girls and have decided to try Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred this month. I've been looking for a good exercise DVD for a while, and the good thing about this one is that it's an intense 20 minute workout that burns calories really quickly and mixes up cardio, strength and abs - so you get a bit of everything and hopefully do some good in a really short space of time; perfect for my commuting lifestyle! Today was my first day doing it, and so far, so good - I started on Level 1 which I found manageable in terms of my legs (did ballet for years, they're very strong) but a bit of a workout for my arms! I'll be letting you know how I get on though - and, for the purposes of this little exercising experiment, I've also taken measurements, so I can also keep track of any potential inches lost over the next 30 days.
Have you ever tried it? What exercise would you recommend for a busy lifestyle?
Aren't these gorgeous photos?
Anna Aden is absolutely one of my favourite photographers, and one whose beautiful images I've included on the blog before - but I thought it was definitely time for her to have her own post. These photos are mainly from her Plainness set, with the first and fourth image from the Longing set. I just love the gorgeous colour of the girl's hair, which just makes me wish mine was a titian shade!
And I love how dreamy and relaxed these photos are - makes me want a quiet weekend tucked away in a little cottage somewhere, with time to read and paint and write and sleep. I never get enough sleep these days!
So anyway - I know I haven't updated in a little while; I'm sorry. Things have been crazy busy - I know I always say that, but this time, they really have. I've been so desperate to make sure that I don't have time to myself to just think that I've ended up being out all day, every day; every evening after work, every spare minute - and the past few weeks have blurred past with a lovely but hectic mix of dinners, wine, comedy shows, dancing, exhibitions, breaks, work events, more dinners and wine, tea and shopping. And more...
Particular highlights have included my amazing friend coming over to stay from France for a few very lovely girly days, going to an exhibition with some uni people I don't see enough, a very fun second date with a boy I met, and lots of dining out in lovely restaurants with family and friends. Oh, and not to mention Rome, which was amazing as briefly mentioned before, and which I still need to blog about. I will do it, I promise :)
Also, just wanted to say a quick hello to my lovely new followers - great to see you here, and thanks so much for the follow :)
This gorgeous photography is by Stefan Giftthaler, an amazingly talented photographer who has already, although only in his late 20s, had his work appear in many international Vogue, Elle and Glamour magazines. He just takes the most beautiful, dreamy photos and loves to experiment with polaroids, which I guess explains it!
This shoot is called Ballet and is just gorgeous - the quality of the photos almost make the photos look like paintings. I'd love a print of the first and second photos especially!
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Have you seen Black Swan yet?
I saw it last weekend - and wow. Just wow. I love dark, twisted films that make you think; and I also love ballet, having danced it (and quite seriously) for many years, which made Black Swan pretty much an ideal combination for me.
For those who haven't seen it yet, it's the story of Nina Sayers, a "sweet and innocent" kind of girl who is a dancer in a ballet company; and, when it's announced that they're putting on Swan Lake. Of course, Swan Lake requires the principal ballerina to dance two swans: the white, pure, good swan and the black, dark, twisted swan. Thomas Leroy, the company's choreographer and by all accounts a bit of an odd character who has taken a bit of a disturbing fancy to Nina, gives her the part, and so ensues Nina's journey to dig past her White Swan exterior and unearth the Black Swan persona that is inside her. And, while I won't give the game away in case anyone hasn't seen it, suffice it to say there are some quite dramatic consequences of her making her Black Swan persona come to the surface, and the film seems to muse not only on the true nature of ballet and what it can do to you, good and bad, but also on coming of age, the influence of others, and so on.
Yes, I think the film was full of cliches; yes, it was all a bit much at times; and yes, it's hard to know whether it's a work of genius or just plain weird (or, I suspect, a bit of both). However, the thing that I loved about this film (and anyone who has danced ballet seriously will be able to agree with me on, I hope) is that it showed some great insights into a dancer's life - good and bad. It showed the extreme dedication to the art form, the way that dancers tolerate their feet being covered in painful blisters (after all, it's to be expected when you're standing on blocks of wood all day, which is what's inside the pointe shoe), and, most of all, the search for perfection. Ballet is horrendously difficult, painful and, in the main, thankless; but, when it eventually goes right, even for a minute, it can give you a euphoric feeling like nothing else. When, after years of practising for hours each day with strict routines and regimes, you can stand in front of the mirror and do pirouette after pirouette without falling over, and you know that you look beautiful - that what you're doing looks elegant and effortless and painless, and more importantly, almost perfect - then it all pays off. And that is what the film captured (albeit quite dramatically); ballet is a discipline, a challenge to make the most difficult balances and positions look simple and natural and graceful, and getting your technique perfect, even for just one small moment after years of practice, really does make it all worth it. I used to call ballet addictive torture, and in all honestly I still stand by that now - and I think Portman captured that phrase quite perfectly in her performance - but I wouldn't trade my time dancing ballet for anything in the world.
This is the beautiful work of photographer Tim Walker - isn't it gorgeous?
English Tim Walker was born in 1970 and his love of photography grew so much over his teenage years that he studied it at university, graduating with a BA (Hons) Photography degree from Exeter College of Art. After graduating, he worked as a freelance photography assistant in London and moved to New York to take up a job as a full-time assistant to Richard Avedon.
At the young age of 25, he shot his first fashion story for Vogue - and the rest, as they say, is history; he's regularly shot for the British, Italian and American editions ever since.
What I love about Tim Walker is that he's not afraid to be different. I know that a lot of photographers claim to be, but Tim Walker really is different - look at the creativity and the imagination behind his shots. And he appeals to me in particular because what he loves more than anything is ethereal, fairytale-inspired photography; the kind of photography that makes every model a princess and every girl want to be one. It transports you away to some kind of dream world - the perfect photographic escapism - and, to me, one of the greatest things about photography is its ability to transport its audience to somewhere else; somewhere dreamy; somewhere better than real life.~
These are exactly the images I need to see during this drizzly week! What weather we're having (and how British I sound) - I'm longing for the days now where I can actually see some sunshine during the day, rather than going to and from work in the dark! Not too long now, surely?! :)
And how were your weekends? Mine was lovely and lazy - mainly involved relaxing with Richard, watching hour after hour of wonderful Tribe with Bruce Parry, and drinking just a little too much wine at a friend's birthday party on Saturday! Can't wait for next weekend already - I have drinks with friends, vintage shopping and London markets scheduled so think it will be a good one!
