by Carla Louise | Sep 21, 2012 | Uncategorized |
I’ve had such a mad few weeks, I haven’t done a Happy Thursdays post for AGES. However I have been keeping my eyes open for small things that make me smile during the long and sometimes relentless weeks. Here are a few:
Perfect cupcakes before the Hurly Burly show, with Wendy. Gorgeous Sunday – cake, burlesque and one of my best friends, what more could a girl want?!
A truly spectacular moment on the way to the pub after rollerskating with Caroline, and planning our cabaret performances, her website, her new house and my future. It was glorious, and felt like a proper summer evening.
Lunch at the Folly with Lou. Full review coming soon (possibly on Project Pin Up) but I loved that they gave us our bill in a seed packet. It was fabulously quirky, suited us down to the ground AND there was a fashion shoot going on at the same time we were there.
Spotting an old but rather beautiful Maserati outside my parents’ new house. Sadly not theirs.
Deckchairs and screens provided in the middle of the City for workers to watch the Olympics and Paralympics on. Lovely, no? 
There are more, but I’ll leave you with those for now. I am off to get some sleep, finish recovering from this horrible virus I’ve had, and hope with all my heart that Poppy sails through her service and MOT tomorrow – it makes me unreasonably nervous!
by Carla Louise | Apr 26, 2012 | Uncategorized |
My to-do list is growing endlessly. I have a hilarious selection of tasks on it (ranging from ‘buy feathers’ to ‘washing up’ – the glam life of me, hey?!). Every time I cross something off it, I add three or four more things.
However, in the meantime, things that have made me smile in the past few weeks:
Earmuffs that are also headphones. These have transformed my cold early mornings! (and yes, I realise I’m really slow on the uptake)
Discovering the CycletoWork scheme and choosing this gorgeous machine to get to work (well, to the station) and back on – now waiting for admin to go through.
An Alice in Wonderland bike ride through London, which I am desperate to try and go on. A little more here.
These glorious saddle bags for bicycles (can you see a new obsession developing here?!) based around saddles. Yep, horse saddles 😀
The concept of a coffee and cake bike ride in London – will be keeping my eyes open for the next one! (Might even start a Colchester version…)
My first Etsy sale to a stranger. Appropriately, it was ducks!
Dressing up as a parrot and celebrating a special birthday, and meeting some fabulous people in the process.
Burlesque class! I love, love, love it – the people, the dancing, the dressing up. It’s a fabulous excuse to see several of my friends on a weekly basis, but even more than that I’d forgotten how much I missed dancing.
Dreaming I had mastered backwards skating and spins. I shall test this theory at the weekend.
Finding out that the company my Mum works for built the fans that power the life size Stonehenge shaped bouncy castle that is touring the country.
And also, continued weight loss. I’m still not enjoying it, and I still don’t feel any different, but I’m wearing a skirt today which hasn’t fitted for months, and the scales indicate I might fit into the dress by July – result!
All images link back to original sources.
by Carla Louise | Apr 16, 2012 | Uncategorized |
Ohh, how I love Instagram. Hoping for lots more week-in-photos kind of posts 🙂
Top to bottom, L-R: a wooden mouse I keep on my desk; the Move Dancewear catalogue making me daydream; a splash of colourful tulips outside St Paul’s Cathedral; me in my skates and new sparkly legwarmers; Dad waving me off from the balcony of their new flat; sugar free Polos – keeping me sane during the diet!
by Carla Louise | Jan 17, 2012 | Uncategorized |
Stupidly excited to discover that Rollerworld in Colchester, where I usually skate (when I skate indoors) was used in a Boogie Pimps video of a song I actually recognise!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBrnQwoshKw]
Doesn’t it look awesome? Here’s my other favourite skating inspiration music video…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE-dwpWpscU]
Fresh inspiration to find some lessons and practice, practice, practice… I WILL be that good! 🙂
by Carla Louise | Jul 5, 2011 | Uncategorized |
Rollerskating is definitely my new favourite thing. I’ve waffled about it on here before. I’m so glad I took the plunge and bought my own skates – completely in love with them! When I’m better at actually skating I shall decoupage them so they’re unique, but for now here they are…
I’ve been several times to my outdoor ‘rink’ – the last time I was significantly out-skated by a guy on rollerblades, not that he knew I was watching! Trying to be inspired rather than intimidated, lol! I also popped out to my local indoor rink on adults only night (the theory being that if I fell over and squashed anyone, I’d feel less guilty squashing an adult than a ten-year-old!) and tried to teach myself turning, stopping and backwards crossovers. I might have also developed a minor girl-crush on a fabulously talented but very nonchalant girl there – she was amazing! (for clarity and the pedants, girl-crush in that I wanted to BE her for a little while, not be with her).
I was sort of getting there but feeling muchly frustrated, and then someone very patiently showed me what I was doing wrong (aside from losing my nerve just before spinning, which I already knew I was doing) – I was trying to cross over the wrong way, and I have a lazy left leg. Bells are ringing in my head from when I learned to skate the first time, so I’m now working on crossing my left leg over my right at every available opportunity… and awaiting a chance to go out and practise!
(Ok, I know, gratuitous skating post… but I love it more than I thought possible AND I’m getting some much needed exercise!)
by Carla Louise | Jun 21, 2011 | Uncategorized |
So yesterday was super-stressful and today I just had loads to do… and then this evening after dinner I put my outdoor wheels onmy skates, put the roof down on the car, drove up to the train station and skated with headphones in for half an hour. Then sat in my car looking up at the sky and the gorgeous colours the dusk was making, and I felt the happiest and most content I have in several weeks 🙂
It really is the little things in life that make me happiest, I think.
(idiot me didn’t take a camera so will do my best to recreate the scene tomorrow evening when I get in from work…)
by Carla Louise | Jun 12, 2011 | Uncategorized |
I’m having so many inspired moments this week I might just explode!
Roller skating makes me really happy… but I need to re-learn how to stop. However, whizzing round the rink at speed after 11 years of not doing so is the most fantastic feeling! Sadly, like my car, the minute I stop I feel distinctly ordinary again – there’s clearly something about wheels!
Have had a fabulous weekend celebrating my gran’s 82nd birthday – we BBQ-ed in the rain and laughed a lot and it was just generally really lovely – although I see a lot of my family, it’s rare to see them all at once for longer than an hour or so, so it was gorgeous. Had a proper chance to talk my latest business idea through with Mum & Dad as well, to get an initial feel for its workability – they seem to approve and threw up some very salient points which I shall go off and investigate over the next couple of weeks, but it was rather encouraging!
I have also been drooling over firebox and Corsets UK – the first is dangerous because I adore gadgets, and the second is dangerous because I adore corsets! Had intended to dye my pink one purple this weekend, but failed due to the rain – I don’t dare get bright violet dye out indoors (especially not in my parents’ abode, lol!)
I really must go and dig out my camera charger so I can get some photos into these posts – they’re not terribly interesting otherwise!
by Carla Louise | Jun 9, 2011 | Uncategorized |
Because I didn’t already have enough hobbies and things to spend my money on, I’ve discovered street skating. Or should I say, rediscovered rollerskating, and realised you can do it outdoors with hundreds of like-minded people! Have spoken to the lovely people at DemonXtreme in Colchester and from Saturday will be the proud owner of a new pair of skates with indoor and outdoor wheels 😀 They’re going to be standard white figure skates as I’ll still want to skate indoors too, but once I get a bit better again, I’ll decopatch them 😀 Patchwork skates ftw 🙂
So once I’ve got my balance back and remembered how to go, stop, speed up, slow down… haha, I’m definitely going to be like Bambi on ice for a bit… then I can go have fun with these guys:
- Easy Saturday Skate – two chilled out laps round Battersea Park on a Saturday morning – no traffic. Yes please!
- Sunday Stroll – beginner/intermediate level amble round London on skates on a Sunday morning. Welcomes quads as well as inlines (and I’ve never got on well with inline skates, much though I’ve tried). Again, yes please!
- London Skate – this I’m hoping to do later in the summer when I’ve built up my confidence and fitness considerably, it’s a Wednesday night street skate sticking to main roads with no hills.
- LFNS (London Friday Night Skate) – this is for when I get MUCH better, an intermediate/advanced skate round London on a Friday night involving hills and sprints. Yeah… as I’m fairly sure I’ve forgotten how to stop, this is going to take a bit more practice!!
- The Goodwood Roller Marathon – is on 14th August this year. On the off chance I’m a) fit enough, b) have improved enough by then and c) not in Nottingham sorting out the rally car that weekend, I may possibly try one of the mini races. There is no way in hell I’ll be able to do the 22 miles, but may aim for that in 2012 as skating round a race track has to be a particularly awesome thing to do 😀
Yay 😀
Oh, and I’d love to go and see the London Rollergirls in action, but can’t see me ever joining a Derby team – could definitely get addicted to watching though!
