Absolutely Gazeboed

• Dress from New Look
• Belt from New Look
• Necklace from Topshop
• Shoes from H&M

I seriously cannot get enough of this weather. Right now I’m kinda in denial that it won’t last much longer, and then we’ll be back to the rain and the chill until we get some Summer weather, which will hopefully happen at vaguely the right time this year! The sun is making me homesick for Aberystwyth though. Aber is glorious in the sun. I want to be sitting on the beach or at the pub on the sea-front. Some friends who are still there have appeared in my Facebook newsfeed, tagged in pictures at a fire on the beach. Definite pang of jealousy there! We used to do that quite a lot.

Anyway, today’s been quite busy at work. We’ve got Michael McIntyre at the end of next month, which went on sale today. As you can imagine, it sold out within hours! I can’t wait to see him; it’s going to be great. I really like his comedy, but I do think the same things of his are shown far too often. I know his Live At The Apollo stuff backwards by now, so I’m looking forward to seeing some new material.

I really hope this sunshine lasts over the weekend. Mum and I are planning to go to Warwick Castle on Sunday. We’ve been a couple of times before, but it’s great, so it’d be good to go again. The sun would just make it, especially for walking round the grounds.

How are you all enjoying the sun?

 

*By the way, I spent a worryingly long time walking out how to spell ‘gazaboed’, so I hope that hasn’t just passed you all by completely. It’s a Michael McIntyre joke, or Mickey Mack as the Box Office have taken to calling him. No, I don’t know either. 

Spring Picks

Spring Wishlist by caramellattekiss featuring black tops

Can you believe this weather? It's been so hot under all the glass at work, so I'm busy pondering what on Earth to wear that is cool, as well as office appropriate. Here's some of my picks. 

Today, I've been on an away day with to start planning the marketing for our Christmas shows (yes, really). There was plenty of silliness, but we got some good work done too, and it was nice to get out of the office for a while. 

This afternoon, we had a good clear-out of the store cupboard, and found loads of photos from a 1998 production of Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story...starring James McAvoy. 

Yes, that one. Apparently, it was his first professional production, or so those who remember it tell me. That was a bit of excitement. It makes me wonder what other future stars have been on our stage. 

In the summertime, when the weather is fine…

• Jumper from TKMaxx
• Skirt from TKMaxx
• Shoes by Davina McCall for Next

I didn’t realise I was such a TKMaxx advert until I started editing this picture. Sorry about that guys. This was Friday’s work outfit, although I actually spent most of the day without the jumper. Initially because, almost immediately after being told I looked sophisticated, I managed to spill coffee down my front. That’s just the kind of sophisticate I am. Oops. Actually though, once I’d dried out, the weather was so beautiful, I was perfectly warm without the jumper anyway. Me and one of our office interns went out for lunch, and sat eating sandwiches on the base of the Elgar statue outside the cathedral.
The office is crazy hot at the moment, so we’ve had the cupboard open lots, with it’s mysterious icy winds. It is going to be hot  in there when the weather heats up properly.
After work, a load of us sat out on the patio for a post-work drink (me still in my t-shirt) which was lovely. Summer is here, people.

I’m in Cardiff at the moment, staying with my Dad. Yesterday, we went down to the Bay, which was full of people carrying Dalek balloons. There’s a Dr Who Convention on in the Millennium Centre at the moment, so there was some sort of Dr Who treasure hunt going on, and these balloons being sold.
Last night, we went to the Rugby, to watch Cardiff Blues play Scarlets. It wasn’t a great game, unfortunately. We lost, and totally deserved it, I think. We had a few good moments, but it general the boys were a bit all over the place.
It’s the first time I’ve seen Gavin Henson play since he joined us, and actually the first time I’ve seen him play in person. I don’t think they used him enough really, but he seemed to be having a good game. When he’s good, he’s very good. He was looking much less orange than usual as well.

Grainy shot, I know, they were the other side of the pitch. But this is Leigh Halfpenny and Jamie Roberts waving around the cup from the Six Nations Grand Slam. Quite a few of the Cardiff Blues players are on the Wales squad, and were around with the cup signing before the game. I didn’t queue up for an autograph; the line was massive, but I did get a look at the cup.
EDIT: As pointed out in the comments, I got myself mixed up, and of course meant Sam Warburton, NOT Jamie Roberts. Roberts was there, being the Water Boy for the game, and I guess somewhere my brain got confused as I was typing. I knew who I meant, even if nobody else did.
Anyway, enough Rugby talk, this isn’t a Rugby blog. What has everyone else been up to this weekend?

Not Dead

I don’t actually have any pictures to share tonight, I’m afraid. I just wanted to explain my week’s absence. My poor little old Acer laptop, which has been on its last legs for some time, finally decided to die on Wednesday. It refused to get further than a distressed whirring in it’s start-up before turning off entirely. A laptop that won’t turn on is not terribly conducive to blogging.

Thankfully, I got paid on Friday, so I could go laptop shopping. I am now very happy with the Acer Aspire 5750, which I’d been eyeing. So far, I love it. The speed is great, as are the graphics. The keyboard feels very strange at the moment still; the dimensions are slightly different, so I keep hitting the wrong letters. I’ll get used to it eventually though I’m sure.

MrKiss was here all weekend too. We had a good evening out on Friday, where he met my workmates. Otherwise, our weekend was pretty quiet. We accidentally turned into an old couple and went to look round the cathedral. He’d admired it from the outside on his way to meet me from work the day before, and wanted to go back and look at the inside. I’m always impressed by old churches and cathedrals, I like them as buildings, but I’ve actually only been in Hereford’s cathedral a couple of times. It is very impressive inside, with beautiful windows. The rest of the weekend was taken up with playing with my Uncle’s Jack Russell, Nell, watching Star Wars and eating amazing Thai food. Also not terribly conducive to blogging.

The loss of laptop also meant I lost all the photos I had ready for posts, and I also forgot my blog log-in (no, really) as it was set to log-in automatically. But I’m back now! Other than a few photos, I haven’t lost anything of great importance in the laptop death, which is good news. Does anyone know how I can wipe the hard-drive though if I can’t turn it on? I don’t want to throw it out with the hard-drive still intact. How do you throw out a laptop anyway?

Back soon with a real post, promise!

You’ve Got The Love I Need To See Me Through. Florence and the Machine.

Last night, I went with my best friend to see Florence and the Machine at the LG Arena in Birmingham. I’ve never seen Florence before, so was just a touch excited. The LG Arena is a really weird looking venue, I thought. They’ve obviously tried to make it look a bit funky and trendy with weird swoopy lines and neon stripes, but it just looks a but odd. Inside, it was like pretty much every arena ever, a big empty space. The food was surprisingly good though, Shannon and I split a rather tasty Mediterranean chicken wrap, and there was so many different tills we didn’t have to wait too long to eat anything. Always nice!

Anyway, so Florence. The stage set was gorgeous. Shannon and I named it the Art Deco Transformer. It had a really obvious Art Deco influence, but the shape in the middle reminded me a bit of the Transformers logo. Can you see it? Optimus Prime influence, I think!

I didn’t manage to take many pictures of Florence, because that girl does not stand still! It was rather hard to keep the camera steady long enough to snap her leaping about. She twirled in crazy circles, she ran round the stage, she jumped up and down…her energy was amazing. She looked gorgeous too. I’m sure you’ve all seen the photos of her cape by now, but here it is. Again, quite Art Deco, and just fab. I would like a cape myself, I think.

She sounded incredible. Her voice really is as huge and stunning as it sounds recorded. Her songs are made to be sung live, and it. was. amazing. Her range is astonishing. What was lovely was that she was clearly really enjoying herself too, grinning away and leaping about. She had a good line in chat, and seemed genuinely grateful that we’d all turned up. Bless her. She also gave me a first. I’ve been to a lot of gigs, but I’ve never seen an act register the fact that someone is in difficulty at the front. If you’ve stood at the front at a big gig like this, you’ll know it gets very cramped and very, very hot. Feeling unable to hack it, and even fainting is quite common. I assume this is what had happened. Flo stopped mid-chat, to say that she hates it when she sees that and always feels a bit wrong carrying on when she can see someone being lifted out over the barrier. She did seem to be genuinely concerned and advised us all to drink lots of water. Isn’t that sweet? And true too, you always should keep hydrated down the front like that. The security guys should be handing water out regularly at a big gig where people are crushed up and can’t get out to get their own water. If they don’t, complain to the venue. It’s not safe. Usually, there will be somewhere to get water round the sides of the arena too for those people who can move about freely.

The gig was absolutely fantastic. Flo was in fine voice, the crowd were on good form and it was massive fun. She even dedicated a song to being hungover. The screens behind her were really impressive too. The backdrop changed to match the song, and they were all so pretty! Here’s just a few of the best ones.

Thanks for a bloody awesome night, Flo.

Red Dragon: Rock The Red Pump Project

• Wales shirt
• Shorts from Ebay (Bay, originally I think)
• Converse shoes

The Red Pump Project is actually an American movement, but I figure, the internet is global and it’s a pretty badass cause, so here I am, taking part in Rock The Red Pump.

In America, March 10th is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, as set up by the Office of Women’s Health. For the fourth year running, they’re aiming to spread the word by getting bloggers to rock their own red pump look.

I’ve spoken before about what’s happening in America regarding women’s sexual health, so I think this year the project is even more relevant. In the States, a woman tests positive for HIV or AIDS every 47 minutes. Just imagine how much worse that statistic would be if the access to information, protection and tests does become as limited as certain American politicians seem to want it to be. The whole thing is lunacy if you ask me.

So, where am I off to in my red pump look? The shirt should be a giveaway. I’m heading off to the pub with some friends to watch the Wales v Italy game.

Cymru am byth!

International Women’s Day

Image found on this blog.

Come on, you knew this post was coming, right? If any of you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw my tweets and retweets about today.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with that famous interview with Morgan Freeman about black history month, and how he’d rather there wasn’t one. It shouldn’t be needed. We shouldn’t need an International Women’s Day. But I think we do still need it. We don’t yet have the same rights as men.

In America, the question of a woman’s access to birth control, legal abortion and sexual health care is still raging. It may be that many American women find themselves with little to no free, legal access to some pretty essential services.
One in four women will be a victim of domestic abuse.
Two women a week are killed by their partner.
Every minute, an incident of domestic violence is reported to police.
Two thirds of the children denied school are girls.
In Africa, women produce 80% of the food, but own only 1% of the agricultural land.
Women earn only one tenth of the world’s income and own less than 1% of the world’s property.
Across Europe, there is a 25% pay gap in like for like work.
Women hold less than 13% of the world’s Parliamentary seats.
Today over 2000 IWD events were held. Would anyone be attending them if today wasn’t needed?

Today, I was actually pleasantly suprised that only one ignorant prat felt the need to tweet sexist idiocy into my timeline on Twitter. Comedian Michael Legge retweeted an unfunny joke about how IDW was supposed to be yesterday but we took too long to get ready, and then proceeded to tweet things like “I’m tidying up #internationalwomensday”. No. You silly little boy, don’t undermine the need for equality, awareness and understanding. Luckily, there were also people like Lauren Laverne, Sarah Millican and Bangs and a Bun tweeting sensible things about today.

What makes me angry is the ‘it’s only a joke’ attitude. I wouldn’t believe for a second that Michael Legge supports any of the statistics above (at least, I hope not!) but by cracking jokes, you do undermine the seriousness of these things. It’s this attitude that allows these things to happen. It promotes complacency about these things. It lessons the impact of these horrible things. That’s not right.

I suppose what I’m saying is, don’t be complacent. Take notice of these facts. Get angry. Do something. Be heard.

Born In The USA

• Cardigan from H&M
• Top from H&M
• Bandeau top (just seen under the Bruce top) from New Look
• Jeans from Next
• Shoes from Converse
• Bag from Peacocks
• Scarf (on bag) from Peacocks

Bruuuuuuuuce! I love Bruce Springsteen. My dad is a giant fan, so I always knew who The Boss was. I got into his music on my own though. Born In The USA is a great album, so I pretty much fell on this shirt with the album art on it when I spied it in H&M last weekend.

I guess you could say this outfit is a nod to the sports trend coming in for S/S 12. I always think of sports as that sort of All-American look, with letterman jackets and hi-tops. My cardigan has a big ‘H’ on, though you can’t see it very well in these pictures, and is quite letterman jacket in style. With the Converse as well, voila, one sports look, if not exactly the ‘sports-luxe’ the fashion mags are showing.

The Converse. These are one of my TKMaxx jackpots. I’ve found several pairs of Converse in TKMaxx over the years, but I think these are the cheapest yet. I love Converse, and do pay full price for them, but I much prefer to hold out ‘til I find a pair for a bargain. These were about £17, I think, instead of the RRP of £40.

They’re so cute. Perfect for Spring, with all the pastels coming in all over the place. I love the detail of the yellow stitching and the different coloured eyelets. I wonder how long I can keep them white for.

I’ve spent today shopping with my mum. I do like shopping with her, but I’ve never known anyone take so long to try things on! I’m sure she tries each item on about eight times. I can’t imagine how else it could take that long. We had a nice time anyway, and both bought some new clothes for the summer, ready for our holiday. We stopped for coffee, where I discovered a wonderous thing: carrot cake muffins. I’ll be back for more, without a doubt. So good!

Tonight, I’m heading over to stay with my two best friends. It’s while since the three of us were together, so I’m really looking forward to it. I expect much eating of pizza, drinking of alcohol and laughing at stupid things.

What are guys up to this weekend?