by Carla Louise | Jul 30, 2012 | Memories, Photography |
Last week my weekend started on Thursday really – I arrived in London at what felt like silly o’clock, ready to battle the crowds to watch the Olympic torch. Except there weren’t any crowds, because I was too early! I had the privilege of watching from the top balcony of this gorgeous building, next door to St Paul’s Cathedral, with Bucks Fizz and pain au chocolat, at the invitation of my friend Caroline who lives there –
People thronging the street, waiting for the torch to arrive –
Party buses!
Slightly blurry, but I was very excited to see a girl on skates in the procession. White quads, no less – squee!
Torch holder approaches… 
And lights the flame of the waiting holder, who then started to run and was quickly out of sight …
It was surprisingly emotional to watch, and certainly kick started my excitement for the Olympics, which had up to then been rather lacklustre!
by Carla Louise | Jul 25, 2012 | Thrifting |
Haha… 100 days of no spending… with the few weeks I’ve just had my resolve has been sorely tested. My bank balance is still looking a bit sad, but certainly better than it would have been if I’d been spending with complete abandon. Good.
Wedding week was a write off – I knew that when I started the challenge. Loads of expected and unexpected expenses, so just tried to be sensible. Charges still cropping up and my credit card bill is horrific. And I may have indulged in a magazine or three for the flight home. Oops.
Otherwise I’ve been very good – had one slip up for a grey maxi dress which I can wear to work, and have totally failed to keep my three-dinners-out-a-month rule – it seems more like three a week at the moment! But you only live once.
I’ve been exercising on skates and on the bike, both of which are free – and really looking forward to burlesque class tonight, I missed a week for wedding, skipped a week due to tiredness and there was a week with no class so it’s been AGES since I danced!
Camping weekend yielded much loveliness, most of it free/swapped – which is brilliant. By the end of this year Poppy will be sporting a badge-free exterior, a spoiler, red engine bits and maybe a twin exit exhaust. Excellent.
I have sold some makeup on ebay and will be adding more makeup, clothes and other things as I clear out, and the DF shop is slowly building sales too. Mainly in stationery, oddly!
I have also taken part in two craft swaps and the things I received were amazing – will definitely be doing more of these, it’s so lovely to receive presents and is challenging me creatively too 🙂 (my polka dot swap is yet to be sent to its recipient – that’s this weekend’s job!)
Not much on my wishlist – have been too busy to notice much besides the things I want for Poppy!
So overall for these first six weeks I’d give myself a 6 out of 10 for achievement and an 8 out of 10 for effort. Definite room for improvement – and I’m planning a nice gentle August!
by Carla Louise | Jul 21, 2012 | Adventures |
I have no idea how it’s Saturday again already! This time last week I was in a field with a group of people who, two years ago, I met for the first time. With no reason to meet except they all had the same car as me, I ventured to Duxford to meet them en masse and camp for the weekend. I took one of my best friends for moral support, in case it was horrific.
Three camping trips, many meets and hundreds of ridiculous conversations later, I count them among my dearest friends. I don’t see them as often as I’d like, because we’re scattered around the country, but I cannot imagine not knowing them… and I look forward to the meets when I can see them, chat, catch up, drink and relax. It never fails to amaze me what a fabulous bunch they are, and how accidentally I met them. (and how nearly I didn’t meet them – I almost chickened out of that very first meet!)
Anyway… here are some pics of the weekend for anyone who hasn’t seen them already – some stolen from others as I was driving solo much of the time, and misplaced my camera for half the weekend. It turned up with some brilliant photos on it, very few of which I’d taken!
Fitting many MR2s onto Rob’s driveway…
A line of cars driving to breakfast on Saturday (not my photo)
My Poppy at breakfast after a gorgeous drive through the Yorkshire moors 
I found a pony at breakfast (of course I did, I find ponies everywhere. I did however miss the real ones on the treasure hunt!)
Setting up camp. This is Pete’s take on a camper van…
(more…)
by Carla Louise | Jul 17, 2012 | Memories |
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGH0YMBWJiM]
I promised a friend I’d look into embedding videos on WordPress, and the only ones I had to hand were these of my cousin and I riding her horses four (FOUR!! Where does the time go?!) years ago. It’s made me desperately want to go riding again! Anyway, here we are with them. I’m in purple on Floyd, the bigger horse and Mimi is on Arnie, the smaller. Happy memories 🙂
by Carla Louise | Jul 15, 2012 | Memories |
I have been ridiculously busy for the last few weeks, and each of the events deserves a proper post. However, as I’ve just arrived home from CAE 2012 (camping with the car club in Yorkshire) and I have washing and other such glamorous things to do, I thought I’d do a bit of a sneak peek with some photos, and link to the posts when I write them over the next couple of weeks 🙂
Here goes:
The first weekend in July, I did a stall at the Maldon Motor Show with the fab Annastasia Midorigreen and her other half Dan – we sold handmade, vintage and Star Wars figures. It definitely gave me the bug and I came home all inspired. The classic cars that showed up (all 700 of them) were amazing too.
Then on Wednesday I flew out to Jersey for my best friend’s wedding. I was one of four bridesmaids and it was a fraught lead up but absolutely gorgeous day, despite the pouring rain. Julia is now a Wilson and it’s still not quite sunk in!
And this weekend I have been to Yorkshire camping with my car club. This is always a highlight of my year – you couldn’t hope to find a lovelier bunch of people, and I always look forward to the meets we have throughout the year. This one is the biggest by far, with usually around 40 cars. Much eating, drinking, talking and laughing goes on…
Friday morning: How many MR2s can you fit outside one house?! (black is Rob’s, blue is Russ’s, red is mine, silver is spare)
Anna and I when she arrived, catching up and looking cute:
Laughing despite the rain with Ally and Luke:
Dan, Brad, Nige, Karine & Jim demonstrating that rain will not stop us having fun… 
More on all three later – now I’m off to find food and catch up on sleep!
by Carla Louise | Jul 6, 2012 | Memories |
My oldest friend is getting married tomorrow – quite literally in the morning!
I’ve been over in Jersey (and MIA from the internet) since Wednesday evening and it’s been gorgeous – very busy but lovely!
She, me and the other bridesmaids are now in our hotel suite, painting toenails, trying to order room service and putting on face masks.
The dresses are ready, the rehearsal was this afternoon – and silly though it might sound, I’ve only really just realised the wedding is tomorrow -and she is marrying the most lovely man ever and i am SO EXCITED for her!
by Carla Louise | Jun 14, 2012 | Creating, Memories, Thrifting |
I know it’s now Monday, but I was so enthused when I wrote this post, and having been to Startup Saturday I’m even more determined, so I thought I’d share it anyway. I promise the next post will be relevant. Or at least up to date 🙂
Wow, how is it already Thursday?!
Feel like I need more than a week’s round up… I had last week off following the Jubilee, with the intention of spring cleaning. Instead I passed the week in a delightful blur of family, friends and making, with so much inspiration along the way!
I spent time alone and with people, at home and out exploring and with family and friends old and new. I made plans and dreamed, created and experimented, and felt my drive and ambition return – they took a hike a while ago and I was left somewhat floundering.
I was inspired, delighted, busy, saddened, gloriously happy and newly determined – and that was a snippet of how I feel my life should and could be. Will be, if i can only work out a few small details like financing it. Changes shall be afoot!
So what did I get up to?
Did quite a lot of helping parents to move house – and we managed to have a bbq!
Dyed my pointe shoes, did some sewing, finished first burlesque routine… and laughed a lot with friends. Had brunch with two fab people I don’t see often enough, and wrote letters to some I see even less often! Carbooted (on a Wednesday, which felt delightfully quirky) and came home with a sewing machine and two vases.
Had a whole day in London with Lou and talked and ate and talked and ate – and made friends with the lovely couple who run Lily and Lush / Fairy Gothmother in Spitalfields.
Then Friday I met Louise Craftyguider and the fabulous and very well behaved craftyguidelets (I wonder, if I have children will they be ducklets or ducklings?!) for a gorgeous pizza express lunch and borrowing of badge machine. It was so nice to meet in person after lots of tweeting!
My Gran turned 83 so we did lots of eating to celebrate, mostly of cake.
Miraculously, the bridesmaid dress still fits. May have to get some Spanx to go underneath, but at the moment it looks just fine 🙂
I spent a fabulous Saturday shopping and lunching with my mum, then decadent afternoon cocktails and food with Annastasia and Dan – so inspiring! Blogging workshops, crafting, a fair at which we hope to share a stall, burlesque and just the general goodness of life… Wonderful. Must do that more often.
Sunday I did attempt to go to Pulse London to look at expanding what the DF shop offers, but unfortunately the trains broke so I went home again.
And now I’ve done almost a whole week at work, spent the first two days in a state of emotional exhaustion and now the sun has come out I feel like a different person. Also started a new burlesque routine last night which is fast, fun and has the added benefit of an.old friend joining us 🙂
So let’s see where these days have led me, and how I can change my life to match my dreams 🙂
by Carla Louise | May 28, 2012 | Objects of Desire |
While shopping for boring electrical stuff yesterday, I might have had a sneaky look at cameras, radios… and also landline phones, weirdly. I appear to be showing signs of being a proper adult. Meep. Anyway, on my wishlist are now these babies:
Excuse the terrible photos – quick sneaky snaps on my phone while I was conscious I should be doing useful things instead! 🙂 If the orange one came in blue or purple… I think I’d have come home with it, £99 price tag or not. The Roberts radio is on my Christmas/birthday list. I ADORE it.
by Carla Louise | May 27, 2012 | Adventures, Memories |
So, having planned & booked this trip in January, we suddenly had freak sunshine for our week off. Woo yay! Monday morning, I headed for Oundle to find the others and the marina. Oundle is pronounced OWndle not OOndle. Obviously. (Obviously I am not a local!) Said hello slightly self-consciously – holiday was with Rob and his friends – I hadn’t met Andy & Gemma before (they live in Australia) and the first & only time I’d met James & Jo, I was dressed as a parrot in a corset (of course!) and had had a few too many jelly shots. Ahem. Anyway, it was lovely to meet them properly.
I’ll do a proper photo post/album when I’ve got my pics off the big camera, but in the meantime here are a few, in no particular order, that I’ve managed to persuade my phone to transfer…
Instagram of the bow of the boat – ultimate tranquility…
Watching a wrecked narrowboat be righted and towed away in Peterborough
We took a steam train ride on Wednesday while waiting for Jo to join us…
…and disembarked somewhere that felt a lot like Hogwarts!
View from my bedroom window on the last morning – it really is a gorgeous way to wake up!
It was fabulous and over much too soon – so good to really slow down, there is almost no signal out on the river, and I learned to do locks all over again, and ran over the roof, and tried to master my fear of jumping off the boat when there’s water between the boat and the side, and we cooked and drank and talked and read and took photos and drank some more and it was gorgeous. Also gave me time to have a proper think about life, the universe and everything (:P) and I’ve come home and started a huge spring clean. Which I think is a good thing!
We also managed to meet Jenny and Craig (from Team Allegro, when we were rallying with Rusty) for dinner on Wednesday night which was really nice, as I hadn’t seen them since September 🙂
More pics and such soon – I wish I was still there, I do not in any way want to go back to the real world tomorrow!
by Carla Louise | May 27, 2012 | Memories |
Ooh, I’m back. The last nine days have been utterly glorious – but I’m having issues with technology so there may not be as many photos as I’d like. (These issues would involve me having lost my phone charger & transfer lead. Oops.)
So last weekend, I headed up to London to meet the fabulous Hannah for a production of Swan Lake on Ice by the Imperial Ice Stars at the Royal Albert Hall.
The tubes were, as usual at weekends, completely useless, so I went up early and planned a bike ride through Hyde Park to get there instead. Here’s my first ever Boris bike.
The ride was fantastic – I can’t wait for my Pashley to arrive 🙂
Here’s me being a blogger and taking a sort-of outfit photo, before I got on the bike:
Last time I went to the Royal Albert Hall, I was performing. So it was bizarre in the extreme to be walking round the normal parts instead of sprinting round the underground connecting tunnels, half in and half out of my costume, panicking because a crystal had fallen off my hat/boot/face.
Here’s Hannah and I outside… (I’m on the right)
And Hannah and her lovely mum Sue, who also came with us:
We had Prezzo for lunch so I abandoned the diet (the dress was loose by then, woohoo) and had honeycomb smash cheesecake 😀
The performance was utterly brilliant, blending skating, ballet and trapeze seamlessly. I could happily have watched it for several more hours!
Then Sunday was a packing-for-holiday and chilling out kind of a day, punctuated by buying a ridiculous amount of snacks in Asda for the boat, and coming across (and yes, buying) this – butter with a free brownie tray. Why wouldn’t you?!
Most excitingly, I had a proper sense of achievement when I tried the dress on and found it was actually loose. So having completely stuffed myself for a week on the boat, I shall now be trying to maintain this weight for the next seven weeks until the wedding. 🙂
And I shall continue in a separate post for the pics I have of the boat trip 🙂
by Carla Louise | May 7, 2012 | Memories |
Just a really quick post this evening, I’ve spent the bank holiday weekend in Loughborough (where I went to uni between 2004 and 2008) with the girls I lived with there – we haven’t all been together for a ridiculously long time and yet we pinged magically back into our old ways and ease with each other… a mark of true friendship, I believe 🙂 We are muchly lucky to have each other!
Here is, L-R, Val, me and Mo…
And back in the doorway of the halls we met in, L-R Annie, me, Hols, Mo and Han.
I was nervous about going back to campus (although not of seeing the girls, obviously) and while it was lovely to see all our old haunts, I don’t feel any mad desire to go back. That was then, and this is now, and the future looks even more exciting 😀 However, we definitely need to all meet up more than once every few years, so we’ve now decided the May bank holiday will be our weekend to see each other every year, even if we don’t manage it in between times. Happy Carla.
Hope all your bank holidays were as successful and nostalgic and lovely!
xxx
by Carla Louise | Apr 29, 2012 | Adventures, Creating |
I’m finding it increasingly hard to believe we’re still in a drought and still have a hosepipe ban – it has done nothing but rain for days!
My weekend has been rather lovely though – went to see Mum & Dad’s new flat, including their thoroughly gorgeous blue sofas and Dad’s reading lamp – wish I could sneak that out without anyone noticing, hehe (the flat is not ready to move into yet, but it’s getting there!):
I ran around town buying last minute stuff for the next three weekends (uni reunion in Loughborough over the bank holiday, Julia’s hen do in Paris and canal boat trip with Rob and friends) including surprises for Jules and a proper waterproof jacket – lol!
(hmm – no photo, waterproofs are not flattering. But hopefully will keep me dry!)
Then saw lovely Sharon and had icecream to celebrate having tried on the bridesmaids dress and found it now does up. Yup, my weight loss worked – but after this weekend I’m now fairly convinced it doesn’t fit again, lol! Back to le diet tomorrow… sigh. Loooong phone catch up with Lou, designed my business cards which I’ll order this week and was generally very productive. Although did nearly get flattened in the car park by wind and rain (which seems a tad unfair, if you’re going to be flattened in a car park you’d expect it to be by some large and impressive vehicle, surely?!)
Today I hibernated and worked on Ducking Fabulous until the rain stopped, and then I went for coffee with Wendy with the roof down – squeee! We went to Thorntons, it was lush:
And as we left, I left the water-themed keyring I’d made for the Out of the Blue Curiosity Project (which I talked about in this post) on the table – I hope someone picks it up!
People thronging the street, waiting for the torch to arrive –
