May 2014 Edinburgh Holiday

It's my birthday today so this week we decided to take a trip away to Edinburgh (we never go far on holiday!). Disappointingly there was naff-all on when it came to art exhibitions and we had just missed the Royal Scottish Academy's annual exhibition by a few days. We did manage, however, to see a cool film by Camille Henrot at the City Observatory on Calton Hill which was really worthwhile. As usual there's always new things to discover and we did a lot of wandering about to find new places.

The obligatory hotel bathroom picture. I swear I'm looking more like that painting I did of myself, everyday.

Camille Henrot's art film 'Gross Fatigue'.

Miss Katie Cupcake's shop on Cockburn Street. It had some really beautiful stuff. A little bit different from the ordinary which was nice too.

Our favourite discovery this time was definitely The Coffee Mill near Grassmarket (and next to an amazing second hand bookshopwith tonnes of science fiction). The place was so good that, after having coffee and cake there, we went back the next day for brunch.

Cake at The Coffee Mill. The picture doesn't really do the place justice. The food is all made up fresh and the staff were so nice and friendly. We'll definitely be doing back there next time we're through in edinburgh.

I didn't get much time to draw, but I can't go a whole week without the odd daft sketch in my notepad.

And we treated ourselves to ice cream from Patisserie Valerie on the last night. I had pistachio ice cream in a waffle cone and Tim had the same with a scoop of double chocolate on top. It's the best ice cream I've ever had. So now I've had pistachio hot chocolate and pistachio ice cream. I think it's time I tried some actual wee pistachios (I've never had them. It's shameful, I know)!

Tattooed Mermaid

I don't always share my illustration or graphic design work on this blog, but I thought you folks might like this tattooed mermaid I completed the other week. I'm also hoping to have my etsy shop back in order again soon with prints, purses and other accessories and goodies which I've been busy working on. As ever, if you want to see more of my stuff you can follow my art blog.

Louche Vona Dress

I had a little trying-on session the other day at the Barnardos charity shop down the road and ended up buying this dress for five pounds. The label said it was by 'Louche' and I already thought it was a bargain before I got home and looked it up to see that the price for it online was £79! (Or £30, second hand from ebay) Not bad! It even fits really well too which is something I find difficult with tailored dresses.

I wore it to a joint birthday dinner for my Dad and nephew with some little heels (not something I wear very often). I got my Dad a book on Blackadder and my nephew a big book on stones and fossils. Charity shops rule, man. Seriously.

Discovering New Places

On Sunday we went to my sister's house to celebrate my mum's birthday. We had some hours to kill after church through so we decided to make a day of it in town. 

We sheltered from the rain for a while in a cafe and had pistachio hot chocolates. Pistachio hot chocolates are one of my favourite treats at the moment.

And we discovered a new place (ie. a place that's been there for ages but we never bothered to go to until now)! The savoury food looked flippin' amazing even though we didn't get a chance to try it and the sweets were to die for.

The amazing snickers brownie we shared. Also the coffee was Dear Green coffee which is one of the nicest coffees in the world in my humble and totally plebian opinion.

And I decided to wear my new exposure shrug from Cyberdog. It's a bit of an early birthday present. I absolutely love it!

Stripey Grey & Black Dress

Folk have been saying to me lately that I don't wear enough colour (I have bright pink hair! How much colour do you want?) so I decided to show them by wearing this very colourful black and grey jersey dress from h&m... Well... it's more colourful than a plain black dress anyway. Ok! I'm being a tease!

I've also started wearing slightly softer eye make-up lately  Not a huge difference, but my eyes look a bit softer and it suits my specs a little better. (Also, I swear my eyes weren't as bloodshot at the time as this photo makes them look. What's goin' on there?!)

Oh yeah, and the best thing about the dress is that it was 5 quid in the sale. Sco-oore!

The Lords of Salem

I picked up a copy of The Lords of Salem a while ago after seeing the Red Letter Media guys give it a pretty good review and finally got round to watching it the other night. 

I've not seen any of Rob Zombie's other films and, despite the decent review the film got, I kind of half expected, at best, a crappy shlocky horror flick, or, at worst, a jumble of images and visuals with no plot or sense to hold it together. Happily, it was neither! The Lords of Salem was a pretty good film with enough of a plot to keep it going and some of the most stunning visuals I've seen in a film in a long time.

Sheri Moon Zombie (Rob Zombie's wife in real life), plays a tattooed, dreadlocked DJ and recovered meth addict. Not only is she not your typical movie heroin, but the character wears glasses for almost all of the film which, as a recent convert to speccy-pride myself and admirer of all glamourous spectacle-wearing ladies, I was unreasonable happy to see!  

I don't want to give much more away, to be honest. The plot is silly, but enough to hold the film together like I say (radio station is sent a mysterious, unmarked record that, when played, has a strange effect on the women of Salem. Flash back to old witch trials of Salem yadda yadda), but it's the weirdly symmetrical visuals that really make the film something special. Especially compared to so many "horror" films these days relying on jump scares rather than haunting images like these. With a comparatively small budget, it's clearly a film made with a lot of care, love and skill.

First Summer Sunday

Sunday's are the best because it's the one day me and my husband and I have off work together so we can spend time with each other. 

Yesterday, after church, we had lunch in Siempre Bicycle Cafe again. The food is soo tasty and there's more than a couple of things on the menu I can eat which is unusual with my fussy taste. (I had a sandwich with smoked tofu, pickled daikon and carrot. Yum). 

After that, we toddled to The Kelvingrove Museum and punted the children out the way so we could see some of the exhibits before walking home again. I didn't spend money on a single train ticket yesterday (other than a tube ticket to get us to the cafe). I have no idea how my wee stubby legs aren't falling off these days with the ridiculous amount of walking we're doing.  

I also wore my posh specs yesterday and Tim declared it official Hawaiian shirt wearing weather since the sun's started to come out now.