Isn't she so so drop dead gorgeous? She seems so funny and down to earth from interviews I have seen and she comes across as such a fun and very likeable person. She has a flawless fashion sense and she is such an amazing actress. I saw 'Easy A' recently which I loved (and would recommend to anyone) and I can't wait for future Emma Stone films coming out soon. I am very slightly obsessed with this girl.
All the images on this post have come from various tumblr sites, mostly this one and this one.
A very photo heavy post! That might be happening quite a lot now since I got my new camera. These are some photos documenting my day out with my dad and sisters at the Edinburgh Fringe a few weeks ago. We went out for lunch in a lovely cafe near my new flat and then went to see my dad's friends show, they are duo called 'The Sorries' who perform Scottish songs and their own interpretations of traditional Scottish songs. It was a really good show and they certainly keep the audience very entertained with their witty banter and great musicianship. It is a great show to have in the festival because it is perfect for tourists, it's so traditionally Scottish and gives foreign people a great insight into Scottish music, Scottish history and Scottish dress (as both men are kitted out in their kilts). However it is also a great show to see if you are a fan of traditional Scottish music, like I am. The show had already been running for a few weeks when we went along and they said to my dad that they had only had five empty seats since they started which is amazing!
After the show we wandered down the Royal Mile and took in the festival atmosphere! We stopped and watched a really funny street entertainer who had the perfect mix of comedy and impressive knife juggling to keep an audience of hundreds entertained for about an hour. We then ended up in Chocolate Soup where we all indulged in a massive hot chocolate with cream etc, which was perfect as by this time it had started to rain. I had never been to Chocolate Soup before but it seemed really nice, I had a hot chocolate with cream and Malteasers in it! Yum!
This was really the only day that I have managed to take in any of the Fringe Festival. I have obviously wandered up and down from the flat to work most days but I haven't really done much in the festival this year. However...I am going to see Sarah Millican on Sunday which I am very very excited about. Can't wait.
I thought that I would give you a little excerpt of what I've been listening to recently. Some of these are fairly new songs that I've heard on the radio and absolutely love and a few of them are a little bit older songs that I've just been listening to over and over lately.
Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera - Moves Like Jagger
I really love this song. I have always been a big fan of Maroon 5 and I have never not liked a song that they have released. I am not too big a fan of the small Christina Aguilera part in this song but never mind, I love Maroon 5 and they definitely haven't failed to impress me with this song. I love it, I could just play it over and over and dance around my room all day!
The Feeling and Sophie Ellis Bextor - Leave Me Out It
I fell in love with this song as soon as I heard it when they were performing it on Lee Mack's TV programme. In the past I have probably been more of a fan of Sophie EB than The Feeling but I really like the combination of The Feeling's front man and Sophie Ellis Bextor's voices in this song. They just seem to be perfect together. And she is married to The Feeling's bass player!
Dionne Bromfield - Mama Said
This song is one of the songs that was on at work all the time when I first started. It is the ultimate feel good song and always seems to be able to put a smile on my face. It is a great cover by Dionne of this Motown classic originally by The Shirelles. After a while of hearing it at work I had to download it for my iPod.
Delta Maid - Of My Own
This is another song that was on at work. I didn't know who sang it but it definitely stuck in my head as my type of song. A couple of days later I was looking through my dad's music magazines and was looking up some of the recommended new artists on Spotify and as I listened to the first track by Delta Maid, that was it...the unidentified song from work. Again this song is very much my type of music and so I downloaded it straight away.
Juan Zelanda - Breakfast In Spitalfields
I first heard this song when it was Radio 2's record of the week. I think I am one of the only people my age that I know that listen to Radio 2 and not Radio 1. But the music they play on Radio 2 is much more to my taste. So this is another song, like a lot of the others, that I heard on the radio, listened to a few times on YouTube or Spotify and then just decided to buy. And since then it has been very much played on my iPod.
Brooke Fraser - Something In The Water
This song has been out for quite a while now but I am still listening to it over and over. I first heard this song on Radio 2 as well and I think I looked up the Radio 2 playlists on their website to see who sang it. This song again kind of epitomises my music taste, it is very much the type of music that I love listening to. From all of these songs this is one of the ones that I really recommend you have a listen to.
Patrick Wolf - The City
Yet again another gem of a song brought to my attention by the wonders of Radio 2. This is just one of those amazingly catchy songs that ends up in your head all day once you have heard it. I really love the style of Patrick Wolf's music, it sounds very much like it could be from the eighties or around about then however it still has elements that make it very modern and unique to everything else around at the moment. I think that's what makes songs like this stand out to me and probably one of the reasons I prefer Radio 2 to Radio 1. I sometimes feel that a lot of the 'modern' R n' B music just all sounds the same and very generic. Don't get me wrong, I do like a lot of that stuff but I prefer to hear some different music like Patrick Wolf. I challenge you to listen to this song and not have 'Top, top, top, top of the morning' going around in your head!
James Blunt - I'll Be Your Man
This is another song that I first heard at work. I have always been a fan of James Blunt's music. I know that it gets a lot of stick and a lot of people don't like James Blunt and think he is a bit boring but I do like his voice and he has never released a song that I haven't liked! I will admit that quite a lot of his songs all sound the same and to be honest I felt like I had known this song for years after hearing it in the background at work a few times however it's catchy and I like it. James Blunt has yet to fail to impress me.
Admiral Fallow - Squealing Pigs
I first heard Admiral Fallow on a programme that I was watching with my dad about Scottish bands and musicians visiting a music festival in America. They only showed a very small clip of them but I remember thinking that they looked good and I kind of mentally remembered the name of the band to look them up later. This track was the most popular of theirs on Spotify so I listened to it a few times and then had to download it. They were playing in Edinburgh last week as part of the festival but unfortunately I was too late in finding someone that would go with me but I'm sure they would have been great to see live. I like finding new Scottish bands!
Caro Emerald - That Man
I am running out of things to say about all of these songs, I just like them all...that's why I've had them all on constant repeat! This one is just so amazingly upbeat and you can't help dancing around, even if you are sitting down it's impossible to not even bop up and down to this song. I love how this song has quite an old fashioned style and is so very different to a lot of the generic music in the charts at the moment. This type of music would be amazing to see live, it just seems to make me want to dance!
Blondie - Mother
I, like a lot of others, am a fan of Blondie's older material like 'Call Me' and 'Heart of Glass' but I never imaged that I would like the band's new songs as much as I do. I saw them perform at the Isle of Wight festival last year where they played a lot of the new songs but at the time everyone just wanted to hear the old classics and weren't too bothered about any new songs. And a lot of people were saying how bad they were live! However now that the new material has been released and is getting a lot of radio play I really really like it. This was the first song that was released from the new album and I think it was a good choice in terms of being extremely catchy and memorable.
Blondie - What I Heard
This is the second Blondie track that has been released from their new album and I love this one too. To be honest the whole album sounds pretty good to me. My mum was saying that the new songs are so obviously Blondie and I think it is great that after so many years they have managed to maintain a signature style and sound with their music. I'll admit that they are all getting on a bit and they were certainly not the best band I have ever seen live but I would definitely listen to this new album and I can see it being one of those albums that I could listen to all the way through again and again. If you haven't heard any of Blondie's new songs then I do suggest that you have a wee listen.
Will Young - Jealousy
I have never not liked a Will Young song and I have been a fan of him since he won Pop Idol, which I was very slightly obsessed with when I was about 12. I just really love his voice and the style of his music. He has such a distinguishable voice and so when I heard this song on the radio I knew who it was straight away. I have been listening to this song on YouTube but it's not released until tomorrow but I will definitely be downloading it very soon.
Britney Spears - I Wanna Go
I am not really quite sure why I love this song so much, I have never been a huge fan of Britney Spears and this song isn't quite in the same category as a lot of the other songs I have shown you here. However I saw this song on a music channel one day and it instantly stuck in my head. It is so catchy and a great song to dance to, or get ready for a party to (like me and my friends were doing last night!)
Do you like any of these songs? What have you been listening to recently? I'd love to know!
I am now sponsoring Sailboat, one of my all time favourite blogs. I am very happy to be sponsoring Sailboat at the same time as giving my blog a little bit of publicity. Sailboat really is one of the few blogs that I always check up on on a daily basis, and Jennie the blogger is so so lovely. It is blogs like Sailboat that inspire me and keep me blogging. Please check it out....and you will see my little advert alongside a link to another one of my favourite blogs Influence, which I also strongly advise you have a look at.
I'm a bit behind with this post since I have already moved! But before I post some photos of our new flat in Edinburgh I thought I would share a few of the sad photos I took of my old room all packed up before I left! It really was so sad to see the room that I had lived in for so many years all packed up in boxes and seeing all the walls empty! It was like seeing my life all packed up into some boxes and bags.
I thought that I was going to get some sort of leaving the nest syndrome. This is the first time I have ever lived away from home and the whole moving out thing was very new to me. To be honest I have been in the flat for seven days now and so far I'm loving it. I have had the odd moment when I do really really miss home and I especially miss my family and the countryside. I think it will take a while to adjust to the noise of traffic all through the night here since at home it was literally silent outside from about 10pm! And as hard as it is to believe I definitely am missing all the harmless bickering that goes on between me and my mum and sisters at home, it's very quiet here in comparison! Moving day was pretty sad too, seeing my mum, dad and sisters help me up the three flights of stairs with all of my stuff, hang around for a while and then eventually leave...without me. Leaving me here to start a new chapter of my life....'country girl adapts to new life in the city'.
I have loved spending some much deserved time with the girls this summer. We don't see each other that much during term time at uni and so it has been great to catch up and have some lovely girly times during our holidays. Especially since I have now moved to Edinburgh it was great to have some nice catch up time before I moved up here. I'm so glad that we have maintained such a great friendship since school, we have all made lots of friends at uni, however I love that when we are all 'home' we can get together and we'll get on just as well as we did when we were at school. We are all working and so, even now, we don't have much time to see each other but we have managed to fit in some fun times like cinema trips and nights out. I am also very excited for future events like my flat warming party in a couple of weeks and our Edinburgh festival day out to see Sarah Millican! I can't wait.
Just a wee shout out to 'the girls'; Rachie, Amy, Rebecca, Rhona and Sophie! Glad to have such lovely friends!
(I wasn't at all of these events, stole a few photos from Facebook. Just wanted to have a photo of everyone. They all look so lovely!)
My 21st birthday was four months ago, however my Grandma and Grandpa and my other Grandma had both given me some money for my birthday which I had put away into savings until I decided what I might like to buy. I definitely needed a new digital camera since my old one (a very cheap one from Tesco) had come to the end of its life!
So after lots and lots of deliberation, two trips to Jessops, notes in the back of my diary of possible cameras, a lot of time looking at photography blogs and review websites, and one last trip to Jessops in which I took more than an hour of the assistants time trying to decide which one to buy (I know, I am so very very indecisive!)....I finally bought this Olympus VR-320. I am very happy with my decision and I'm sure you will see lots of photos on here that I have taken with it...including lots of photos of my new flat in Edinburgh! (Just moved on Monday and I love it!)
My blog is soon getting a much needed re-vamp. I have been so so busy recently, I have been working lots and lots and as I have mentioned before I am spending a lot of my time travelling! I have also been spending most of the free time I have at home packing up my room for moving out next week! I was also on holiday for a week so haven't actually been on my laptop much at all recently. I am SUCH a useless blogger though , I really really am!! But I do, as always, aim to keep up with my blog and I have been meaning to give it a big re-vamp, change of name, change of layout etc for a long time now. Hopefully I will get that done very soon.
The story of my life:
I have decided that I am going to try and make some weekly or monthly features on my blog, hopefully encouraging me to keep up with posting on here. In the past I had a feature called 'Sunday Songs' which I kept up with for only a month or so, creating a playlist at the end of each week to show you all what I had been listening to that week and what new songs I had discovered. I would like to keep a monthly feature about introducing my readers to new music since I myself love hearing of new musicians and bands.
I am thinking of having a feature like 'Musician/Band of the month' where I will showcase either a band or musician that I really like or ones that are new to me that month. I am also thinking of doing a monthly post along the lines of 'Trend of the month'. The idea for this is that I will write about a certain trend that I am liking at that specific time. It is likely that this feature will mostly be about fashion trends however the idea is that the trend could be anything from fashion to food, interior trends or blogs that I like.
I would also love to make a feature showing images that have caught my eye. I could spend hours browsing through image websites like We Heart It and Tumblr blogs and I always stumble across so many lovely images that I would like to share on my blog.
I am also hoping to start a feature about film soundtracks since there are so many songs that I love simply because they are featured in some of my favourite films. There are so many amazing film soundtracks and I would like to share some of my favourite ones with my readers.
Hopefully I will start some of these features very soon. I promise I will be a better blogger one day!
