This weekend has been absolutely lovely, as I finally got round to celebrating my 16th birthday, albeit ten months late. I've wanted a sixties themed part for absolutely ages as I love the music, fashion etc, so I rallied the troops clad in mini dresses and fake eyelashes so we could dance the night away :)))
this is like a really rubbish powerpoint polyvore
I wore this beautiful mini dress from The Vintage Wardrobe instagram account and I absolutely love it! It's incredibly short so I had to wear shorts underneath to protect my dignity. I also wore these platforms from Topshop which my friends brought for my birthday last year, and some tights with Mary Quant-esque daisies running up the sides. I had my eye makeup done at MAC by an absolutely lovely artist called Tasha with amazing purple hair and she was just really really cool.
beth, me, han, log and gab; me and livvy; laurel and eloise
florrie and alex; beth, me hannah, laurel and gabs; gaby and hannah; polly, alex and florrie
these are my favourite photos <3 me and gabs; me and han
It was so nice to get together outside of the common room at school; we spent the majority of the night dancing away to the hairspray soundtrack and discussing the possible outcomes of having a bath with your pet snake. My dad made a groovy playlist with a load of really great songs, the best of which I've left below as a little treat for you all.
Why am i always tired? I feel like I yawn more than I actually speak. It took me 4 attempts to spell speak and it's only half past eight. This is what I'm talking about.
I haven't written for week and a bit because I've been waiting for something more exciting to happen excluding the great british bakeoff (I'll never forget you Howard). School has been super tiring and I'm starting to feel the effect of maybe doing too much already whilst still trying to fit in all of my work. I've had barely any lunch times to just relax; two of my friends and I are setting up a school newspaper and we went to a meeting on Wednesday, only it just turned into a discussion about feminism and literature which lasted the entirety of lunch. Pretty much every other lunch has been dedicated to hastily choreographing a dance for our school's opening evening and has resulted in me pulling every muscle in my right leg. Stairs are proving very difficult.
ig photos from last weekend: ootd, laurel's room, laurel
In other news, I'm growing up. I went to a university fair the other day which has completely freaked me out as I feel completely unprepared for the lack of security I'm going to have in two years time. It's sunk in a bit more now though, and I've found myself getting more and more excited about the possible courses and locations; Edinburgh and Leeds seem to be up there at the moment.
Some more (marginal) excitement: I am going to the launch party of the new electric BMW car thing!!! My design and technogoly class went for a special talk about it and it was really really interesting. We've all been given the chance to have a go at redesigning the car in order to win a prize and I really really want to win like REALLY. Although, I'm not sure how I, as a sixteen year old who can even drive, am going to be able to improve a car designed by professionals. But hey ho.
boop boop boop, not much else has really been happening so I've left you with a link to my etsy andsome old journal pictures. Might do a room tour soon.
So, I've had my first full week back at school and I'm absolutely exhausted! I think it's the transition of doing almost nothing but lying down watching friends non stop to actually moving and thinking. I'm really enjoying my lessons, though I wasn't so sure initially as they weren't necessarily what I'd expected. I'm currently doing my AS levels and I'm studying chemistry, english lit, graphics and spanish. It's an odd combination of subjects, but they're the ones that I enjoy the most, even if they're hard and make my brain hurt. I'm really enjoying being a sixth former as we can wear our own clothes (though it is a massive effort and it takes me a good 20 minutes panic to work out what I'm going to wear) plus having the luxury of a common room complete with microwaves, sofa chairs and table football which I suck at. We also have free periods which are beautiful things and entitle me to nap between lessons. I do not understand how I lived with having five lessons everyday for five years; I had one full day on thursday and I was so tired I wanted to cry.
Some of my recent instagram photos ft pretty gals in the common room, beyond retro in brighton from last weekend, polaroids and my new dress, graffiti wall in Urban Outfitters, more polaroids and me on the way to the V&A museum in London (which was amazing).
Also this week, my entire year had to go for a 'team building' day at Carroty Wood which I'd been dreading since the first one in year seven. It turned out to be a pretty fun day actually and I was in a group with Polly which was good as we're already a damn fine team. Each group had four different activities and ours were team development, which involved crawling through tunnels filled with mud and leaves blindfolded, geo-caching which was kinda dull so we just played explorers surviving in a post apocalyptic world, abseiling and high ropes. We had to do the 'leap of faith' whereby you had to climb a - TALL - pole, jump off that - REALLY TALL - pole and grab onto a trapeze. My knees were knocking together for a good 5 minutes afterwards.
Other than the above, nothing particularly exciting has happened except I've been listening to the Les Mis soundtrack an awful lot and actually been doing my homework and handing it it on time, which never happens. Ever.
This what I've been wearing to school this week (note no outfit for tuesday as I was just wearing leggings and a big tshirt mostly clad in mud from Carroty Wood). The weather has been really annoying this week and I've been rubbish at working out what to wear as a result. Although in some ways I'd still rather be wearing uniform as it's so much easier, as of this academic year our school has been so harsh on uniform. Teachers have actually been standing by the entrances ready to pounce on unsuspecting pupils and demanding them to lower the hem on their skirts. It's been a brilliant source of entertainment I have to admit, but I'm pretty glad I'm not in that position!
So, it was Gaby's seventeenth birthday on Friday and everyone is getting too close to being eighteen which really scares me because growing up. For her present, me and a load of other people got her a really really lovely blue polaroid camera and a load of films so she could take a million photos straight away IT'S SO NICE. Twelve of us all went back to gaby's house after school for a 'muder mystery' party which actually involved us playing cluedo for approximately 10 minutes before giving up and watching brother bear. We also ate loads of pizza and took some photos in her garden.
a montage of gaby hugging polly, hannah and me; a picture we like to call 'classic hannah'
left: laurel and beth, middle: the gamma gals, right: laurel and eloise
We were also treated to a spoken rendition of 'dancing queen' by Gaby's mum, which I believe to have been thoroughly enjoyed by all, so big shout out to Sue Ellen.
The next day, me and Gaby went to Brighton to spend Gab's birthday money and thanks to getting slightly a little bit lost WE FOUND BEYOND RETRO. It was a massive warehouse type building filled with so many beautiful clothes. I brought a really lovely dress although I would have brought so much more had I had more money (I'll do and ootd at some point). Also at one point a pigeon flew into my head and Gaby and I found a nice singing boy who we wanted to befriend so we hatched a plan to pretend to be foreign and think he was Justin Timberlake so we could have a picture with him. I don't know why we chose Justin Timberlake because neither of us even like him. Needless to say, it didn't work.
me in urban outfitters and beyond retro
me and gaby on the bus and brighton pier
Just a little post to pay homage to the lovely weekend I've had and to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAB!
Hi everyone! ((or undoubtedly no one at this point but, ahem, welcome to my blog!))
Quite a while ago now it seems, my two bestest ever friends came to stay with me for a week. I barely ever see them anymore as we live about 135 miles apart now after having lived in walking distance for about three years. The weird thing is that I feel much closer to them now than I ever did before and whenever we meet up it's as if we've never been apart. Yes, please control your tears, 'tis a tragic tale.
and here are the three amigos
One of the main reasons for luring my friends to my painfully middle class town was so that we could go to the Gentlemen of the Road festival in Lewes for the weekend. So, on Friday morning, laden with various camping equipment, the three of us set of to the bus stop to meet with my other friends who were coming with us. Mollie and Laura had only ever met one of them before but everyone got along so so so well, and it was literally the happiest I've ever been because I had all of my friends together ::)))
Once we'd gotten off the bus we had to trek to the campsite which was no mean feat omg THE HEAT AND HEAVINESS OF MY BAGS. I could have died, but I just complained a lot instead. Thankfully, our teepee had already been set up by lovely Polly's lovely brother so we all crashed out for a bit before proceeding to set up the other tent.
top left: mollie, bottom left: beth, gaby and alex, right: eloise
The time soon came for us to, very excitedly, go to the field where the festival was situated. The aesthetics of the whole place were really folky and reminded my of boy's scouts. Of course the most exciting aspect was getting a wrist band which I plan to never remove no matter how many times I dip it in my dinner. The atmosphere was just as you'd expect it to be and I was thouroughly excited to 'get stuck in' as it were.
I didn't really know any of the bands on the first night, however, we weaseled our way to the front nevertheless as Mollie and I in particular were determined to be as close to Ezra Koenig as possible without actually leaping onto the stage. Vampire Weekend are one of my absolute favourite bands and I am plagued with an unhealthy obsession with them, so I was incredibly excited at the fact they were headlining. True to my expectations they were incredibly and I ending up breaking my bag from jumping up and down too vigorously.
top left: beth, top right: mainstage screen, bottom right: GOTR welcome sign, bottom right: gaby and beth
At about 11o'clock we stumbled back to the campsite on painfully sore feet, stopped to grab a burger before going to brush our teeth. There were no shower blocks so we had to make do with a couple of taps next to the portaloos, which was surrounded by a minefield of people's toothpaste spit, so you had to be really careful of where you stood. We then spent the duration of the next couple of hours playing truth or dare, which ending up turning into just 'truth or truth'.
We all arose far too early on Saturday morning due to the unwelcome premature arrival of the sun. Feeling much grubbier than we'd have liked, we set about having breakfast and spent the majority of the morning lazing around the campsite and eating handfuls of cereal straight from the box, as modeled by Eloise below:
top right: aforementioned eloise, top middle: teepee door, top right: polly's OTP, bottom: gaby the model
The doors didn't open until 1 on Saturday, so we all wandered down to Lewes town to have a look about and grab some lunch. We all got a bit split up at this point, but Mollie, Laura, Beth, Florrie, Alex and I all had lunch my the castle, where we accidentally photobombed a poor woman's wedding photos; oops! Florrie and Alex went back to the campsite to find the others, and Beth, Mollie, Laura and I went down to the festival to lie down in the some and listen to some of the lesser known bands, before Johnny Flynn. I'm extremely glad that we did come down early as we all discovered a firm new favourite band, Bear's Den, who had a brilliant 30 minute set. This is my favourite of their songs live from the festival:
I even got to meet them afterwards, and they signed the EP I'd just brought! The rest of the gang then came and joined us we we began our journey to the front of the crowd. That day we saw Johnny Flynn, the Mystery Jets, the Vaccines and ultimately Mumford and Sons who were absolutely phenomenal. Our feet were even more sore than yesterday, plus we had a couple of bruises from middle aged men's failed attempts at crowd surfing and we were all so dehydrated that we could only communicate our euphoria by nodding quickly and smiling lots. After gulping down buckets of water it was back to the tent where we spent the night talking, much like the last.
top left: sleepy laura, top right: beth and I with our watermelon, bottom: the gang! ft mollie's photography
And then we had to leave the next day :(((( I really didn't want to go but it was so nice seeing everyone together! We all packed up the tent and had a last little 'play' in the field before we all waved goodbye. I can honestly say it was one of the best weekends of my life which is cringey and cliched but also very true! Here are the last couple of photos <33333
left: gaby and beth- champions of the tent, top: me and gabs, bottom: our laura in a bag arrived!
left: idek what this is ahaha, top: me, loz and eloooisee, middle: the teepee packer uperers, bottom; me and elosie
left: florrie, polly and me, right: me and alex
everyoneeeeeeee
I hope you enjoyed reading this, it was really happy to write!
