Gwithian, Godrevy, and Seals

Last Sunday began with a drive to the Cornish North Coast with Sam.

When we arrived, our first port of call was Godrevy Lighthouse. We walked along the coastal path behind Gwithian beach towards it, and, despite the overcast weather, were still welcomed with incredible views of the sea. What was probably a 45 minutes-or-so walk flew by; before I knew it, we were staring at the lighthouse head-on. The brooding weather provided a great opportunity to see the sea crash against the island of the lighthouse, creating a very gothic, Frankenstein-eque scene. Also, Sam informed me that Godrevy is allegedly the exact lighthouse that inspired Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse. Apparently she on the other side of the St. Ives Bay (in St. Ives) when she wrote it. Cool, right?

Roskilly's Farm and Porthoustock Beach, Cornwall

Aidan visited Falmouth at the beginning of January, so we decided to continue our tradition of driving to Roskilly's ice cream farm and Porthoustock beach! 

Hogwarts in the Snow

On Tuesday I surprised my best friend, Chloe, with a visit to the Warner Bros. Harry Potter Studio Tour. We have both visited before, in April 2012, but since then they have added the snow feature for Christmas, the Hogwarts Express train, and the Backlot Cafe. In addition, I knew that Chloe would never expect me to plan something of this scale, so I knew it would be a fabulous surprise. When we arrived at Watford Junction station I was frantically looking around for the shuttle bus (which, incidentally, we did not get the first time we visited), and when it arrived Chloe was like "no Angela, are we really?! I didn't think it was here, I thought it was further out in the country? ANGELA?" 

The Shed, Falmouth

At the very beginning of December a few my friends at uni invited me to their house Christmas meal at The Shed in Falmouth. To be honest, I wasn't aware The Shed served anything other than their quirky cocktails, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear they served food.

Why The Hell Not?

Not too long ago, Kate Powell (a 19 y/o, moderately well known artist) tweeted a quote about how some people wait for inspiration to motivate them to work, whereas others simply get on with things, and don't wait for a burst of inspiration to drive them to create. It didn't take me long to realise that I am undeniably someone who waits for bouts of inspiration before starting or finishing any creative project. It's embarrassing, I know. You can probably tell from my abysmal post count how infrequently inspiration comes to me - I've had two posts drafted since June, with no excuse for not finishing them! The same applies to the artwork I (try to) produce in my free time; I've had an 18-week summer to experiment with creative projects, but I have only managed to complete one (a measly embroidery piece pictured below).

Working in Adventureland by Aidan McGuire

Left: James played by Jesse Einsberg. Right: Em played by Kristen Stewart.

Hello all,

Since watching Adventureland for the first time, the movie's biggest fan, Aidan, has been persistently asking me to review the film on my blog. Eventually, I told Aidan that he was welcome to write the review as a guest post because I didn't have the time to do it myself. I'm assuming that because of his adoration for the film, and his passionate hatred for his student job in catering, Aidan's post became a bizarre hybrid of a synopsis of the movie and a rant about summer jobs. For the sake of being appropriate, I had to edit his post slightly, but I can assure you that his original piece was a spectacularly morbid spiel about dead-end student jobs that left me in fits of laughter.

I hope you enjoy reading it anyway.

Lots of love, Ang

Brand New

Brand New supported by Dinosaur Pile-Up in Gorilla, Manchester.

I decided against titling this post as a ‘live’ review simply because I realised the bulk of my ramblings would be about my four years of anticipation for the gig, and how it impacted my experience. Also I’m not knowledgeable in the protocols of live reviews so, although I’ll attempt one in my own way, I know already that I won’t do the band or gig any justice.

'(500) Days of Summer'

Usually when I watch a TV show or movie with company I notice strange nuances in the plot or characterisations that I generally wouldn't pay close attention to. For instance, last week I watched S05E08 of Game of Thrones with my friend and, for the first time EVER watching Game of Thrones, I pinpointed things that didn't fit coherently into the episode. For instance, that entire scene of Ollie talking Sam felt forced, and I was left with the impression that it was inserted for those who cannot follow the plot correctly; whereas when I watch Game of Thrones solitarily it always seems flawless, leaving me in awe. So, up until watching (500) Days of Summer with friends, I thought (as most people do) that Summer Finn was a bitch who used Tom, broke his heart, then flaunted her engagement in his face. But I began to notice how Summer had treated Tom more-or-less fairly - she ensured that there was no uncertainty between what she and Tom were by reminding him on numerous occasions that she did not want a serious relationship.

Hair Experiments (September 2014 - May 2015)

My hair has gone through four main waves of changes in my first year of university, each being (for me at least) huge jumps of bravery in terms of colour and length. I'm still not entirely comfortable with the thought of dyeing my whole head an unnatural colour, or cutting my hair super short, but I'm gradually getting to a state of not caring, which is good. 

I think a lot of my fears about hair colour have simply been because I have never been sure about whether a particular colour would compliment my skin tone. From roughly the age of 15-18 my hair had fluctuated from being ombre dark blonde/ginger to just natural, boring black. And that concluded the extent of my experimenting. For length, I had emotionally scarred myself from ages 10-14 by both having unflatteringly short hair, and from badly cutting my own hair. I don't know why I did it or continue to do so?! From age 14 onwards, I absolutely refused to have a haircut, which resulted in having incredibly damaged past-boob length hair; I negotiated with myself to keep it long for prom, but to cut it to collarbone-length in the summer of 2014 so that it could be healthy.

Stress Spots

I'm 99% certain that exam stress is the cause of my annual May-time breakouts. Although I wasn't too stressed about exams this year (first year doesn't count towards my final degree), other silly stresses compensated for it, meaning that this year I still suffered from stress spots in exam season! (Hopefully next year will be better.) Accordingly, I thought a post like this would be helpful to remind other unfortunate souls like myself of what can be done to reduce stress-induced spots. The reminders are a good kick up the bum for exam season, but are also helpful to remember on strenuously busy days.

Lacking Motivation

I had pictured pretty flowers and pinecones on my windowsill for the header of this post, but I feel that the above image is more fitting. In it lies a feral Angela in her natural habitat: sprawled across her bed, tired and lacking motivation. (Captured by Ollie.)

'Retro' by Mac

Alternatively titled: Day-To-Day Mac Lipstick: Retro

I have long been frustrated by the cosmetics industry and their halfhearted attempts at catering for darker skin tones. Just consider for a moment the limited range of drugstore foundations and nude lipsticks that exist for darker complexions... Make-up isn't equally weighted for all skin tones, right?

The Versatile Blogger Award

Hello everyone, for this Sunday's post I was nominated by Louie and Coco to complete The Versatile Blogger Award. Thank you both for nominating me; I'll try my best to include facts that I haven't already mentioned in my 'About' page.

Instagram by Oliver Cole

Hello all,

Ollie kindly agreed to guest post this week for me. I'm short on time at present because my course has unloaded two major deadlines on us all, so I'm moderately stressed and did not want the pressure of my blog timetable (Wednesdays and Sundays) to stress me any further. Ollie has been the backbone of my blog since the start, and now you can see for yourself how wonderful he is for investing his time and effort into this post for me - thank you Ols! Oh, and if you would like to find him on social media (namely Instagram and Youtube), his username for everything is 'rescw' (he insists it isn't pronounced 'rescue').

Lots of love, Ang

Classic Polaroid vs. Fujifilm Instax Mini

Sorry, I realise my pictures (the DSLR ones for this blog) are too blue, but I hadn't noticed until I uploaded them onto my laptop, at which point I didn't have time to retake them.

Before beginning I'd like to clarify that I will be referring to the Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 as 'Instax', and to the classic Polaroid 600 Sun camera as 'Polaroid'. This is probably an important distinction - the Instax is NOT, as much as people may wish it to be, a Polaroid camera in make or nature, it is an instant camera. As you will find in the post, the cameras and films of both the Instax and Polaroid are entirely different. Also, all Instax cameras and films are made by Fujifilm, whereas all Polaroid cameras were either made by Polaroid years ago or are refurbished by The Impossible Project; all Polaroid film production was ceased by Polaroid, and now is only made by The Impossible Project. Incidentally, The Impossible Project have a few stores dotted around Europe - I stumbled across their adorable shop in East Berlin - but as far as I know, Fujiflm do not.

New Year's Resolutions

First and foremost, I'd like to say a belated happy New Year to anyone who is reading this!

Throughout the Christmas break, Ollie's dad was life-coaching Ollie to change his daily routine for the imminent New Year, and then, in the first few days of 2015, I stumbled upon this blogpost which in essence was what the life-coaching entailed. I think the blogpost affected me more than I had anticipated, and was my primary inspiration, along with the advice I had heard for Ollie, in changing my own daily routine for this year, and hopefully for as long as I physically can. I have pinpointed 3 aspects of my life which I would like to change, and that have so far proved successful in making my happier and healthier (I think)!

The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future

I've chosen the Los Campesinos! title for two reasons: they played in London this week, which I missed as I am still in Cornwall for a few more days; and I went on a walk along the sea (for 5 hours) with Ollie on Saturday, and as it happens the sea is a good place to think about the future, as well as the present. I'm not usually one willingly wanting to walk for a ridiculous amount of time - being from London and catching the frequent bus or tube service for two or more stops hasn't done me any favours in that respect. Nevertheless, Ollie coaxed me into doing it with the promise that I would be able to use his Canon 60D camera, yay. Here are some of our pictures:

Snowball

So my university, joint with Falmouth University, held a festive Snowball event to kickstart the Christmas season! Here are some pictures from the night in no particular order:

As you can see, I wore a sparkly blue dress, from New Look, that I mentioned a few weeks ago in my first blog post. Unfortunately, the dress isn't on their site anymore! It fit me really well - I styled it with black heels, and a small black bag from Coach. We were given santa hats upon arrival, so I suppose that was a part of my outfit too haha.

This is a shameless toilet cubicle selfie with the girls in my flat, Tara and Belinda!

These are the reindeer which were brought for the first few hours of the event! They're called Dancer and Prancer (of course), and they are fully grown reindeer, aged 5 and 7. I was able to stroke one and was almost impaled by its antler,  whoops.

x x x

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Christmas (Flat) Dinner

The title of this post is slightly misleading, as the early Christmas dinner was not with my flatmates but was with Ollie's flat. Even then, only 4 members of Ollie's flat were present (out of 6), the other 14 of us live elsewhere! Anyway, the chef of Ollie's flat, Charlotte, managed to organise this huge, and yummy, Christmas dinner for all of us. I didn't manage to get many pictures but here are they few that I did:

Veg! I'm 100% sure I'm a roast potato fiend. 

Pigs in blankets. I didn't have any because I do not like bacon, but Ollie said they were 'tender, succulent, juicy, and piggy'.

The mammoth turkey. Still not too sure how it fit in the oven, but glad it did! So yummy.

My plate (left), and Ollie's plate (right). I ended up giving him the sausage and my parsnips, and stole some of his sprouts (and got more turkey). 

Charlotte's homemade berry pavlova. I stole the berries off Ollie's one because I don't like pavlova, but he gave it a solid 10/10.

 Chocolate roulade! This one was made especially for me (aww) because of reasons above. Was so tasty. Chocolate is always a win.

Bye for now,
Ang

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Bag on the Beach!

Hello! I should be sleeping right now, or being productive elsewhere by revising for my mock exam tomorrow, or the essay I have due in 5 days. Instead, I thought I would update you all (not many) on my Saturday night that has just passed. I went to an event called 'Bag on the Beach', and it was basically this lovely movie night, featuring marshmallows, a fire, and a trampoline - all experienced whilst on the beach and facing the sea (not that you can see it in the darkness haha). So my night started with my boyfriend: we went to Spoons for some cheap-ass dinner and a few drinks, then headed on a lovely walk to the beach!

When we got there we saw this:

A screen that was playing short movies. It was blowing in the wind

which was actually quite cool. Haha, get it? Wind? Cool?

A trampoline! IT WAS THE BOUNCIEST TRAMPOLINE EVER.

Such fun. It was lit up pretty too.

A lovely fire sanctuary that was going out at the time I took this photo. It was

cosy to sit by, all snuggled up on a blanket. Plus, free marshmallows!

Although we had to rush to catch the train (that we ended up missing anyway), it was a lovely night. I've only been to the beach a few times in my life, and this is the first time I have been to the beach in the dark. It was incredibly relaxing, so I think I'll be having a few more late night trips to the beach in the near-distant future.

Bye for now,

Ang

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