Dreaming of the ocean!

This week's been a mixture of ->

• Ringing up the Student Finance team and then running around freaking out like a headless chicken because I still haven't received any of my forms back yet.
• Trying to judge which way the weather wants to go today like some odd roulette game you might find in Vegas - Is it gonna be rainy or sunny today? Place your bets!
• Meeting up with friends for a drink (Pepsi for me, I don't drink) and laughing at old school memories and the funny people we've known.
• Rediscovering my old Pokemon cards to be sold and my old Jurassic Park duvet cover, which is not being sold but may well come with me to university. Nostalgia ensued.
• And dreaming about white, sandy beaches while listening to The Sea by Morcheeba.

 I hope you enjoy the photos below, none of them belong to me but are all from imgfave. All credit to the respective owners, but they've been the subject of my dreams this past week.

Anyone have a spare ticket they want to kindly bestow on me? ;)

I hope your weeks and weekends have all been fun and interesting. I can't believe that next week is the last few days of August! 

xxx

What my weekend looked like...

I've been disappointed by the rate of sunlight we've all been getting in Britain as of late, it's just not good enough for August. I remember that summer's when I was about 12 seemed to go on forever! The nights were always too hot for covers, the garden was my favourite place to be, my friends from school would always knock at my door and we'd go and hang out at the park or play on the small hill just across the street, I'd end up eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in the garden and it was cold Coke all summer long, but as I've reached 21, the holidays seem to have gotten less amazing. Has anyone else felt that way before?

Though the sun doesn't seem to be shining down on us at the moment I'm still holding on for that last burst of sunshine, and the last two days haven't been too bad but it could have been better. 

At least the garden is still nice enough to attract these very pretty moths. Not sure which species this is, does anyone know?

And I've still been able to enjoy Sanpellegrino's new aranciata sparkling water, which is perfect on a hot summer's day

And next door's cat Prince was kind enough to come to see me in the garden today, looking very much like the cat who has the best life in the world as he just lounges about all day.

And it's sad to say but the rose petals are finally wilting as you can see in the photo with Prince. They bloom and wilt so quickly :(

I also tried to cheer myself up by painting my nails in two colours, but the yellow on my little finger looks a bit wonky as I rushed myself at the end, so just ignore that one. The two colours are Rimmel's Sunshine and Barry M's Mint Green if you like the colours. 

And after a very stormy and wet day, a rainbow was followed by this beautiful and strange sky.

How was your weekend?

xxx

So no one told you it don't matter where the road leads!

It's not too long before I go off to university in September and I'm trying to enjoy every moment I've got. There are still so many things I really need to do before I go, I'm running out of time! I've been spending a lot of time in my garden lately as when I leave I won't have access to a garden at all! :'( *weeps* But I do know that Bath Spa University does apparently, according to their website, have their own grounds which is pure countryside to walk around in, so I'll be out every morning for a stroll.

And while I am really looking forward to the move, nothing will compare to home as the saying goes, it's where the heart is and of course I will miss so much about it.

I'll miss my bubbas, Patch on the left and Smudge.

I'll miss next door's cat, Prince, and his daily visits to our garden. Though he's not our cat, it sometimes feels like he is because he's so prevalent. ^_^

I'll miss lying down on the grass in the garden, catching the sun.

I'll miss walking through this archway every day on the way to volunteering :(

I'll miss walking to the park and seeing this tree with yellowy-green trees.

I'll miss seeing all the different insects in the garden.

And of course, I'll just miss the garden overrall!

But I am super excited about university so all the things I'll miss will just be sweeter when I come back home at Christmas time :D

Hope you all have a brilliant weekend.

xxx

Nature Continues to Amaze!

First of all I wanted to say thank you to everyone as I've just hit 57 followers. The fact that anybody would want to read my little blog is amazing to me. I'm not an established fashion blog, aren't particularly funny, crafty or a photographer so it does mean a lot that that number is, in my eyes, quite high considering the above, so thank you! I don't have the means to do a give-away at the moment but in the future, possibly once university is well under way, I shall sort it then. 

On a different note, Discovery's new programme, Mutant Planet, featuring the weird and wonderful the world over has got me sucked in already. A lot of readers will know how much I adore nature and animals and reading up about them and finding out more, they always continue to amaze me, so I thought I'd share with you my favourite "weird" animals, haha, enjoy!

1. Leafy Sea-Dragon

 Photo from Wikipedia

The name alone is magical enough but as these delicate seahorse-like creatures drift about in the water, their leaf-shaped fins resembling a piece of seaweed, only a swivel of a tiny eye would give this beautiful creature away.  This stunning video, from the amazing BBC documentary Life, shows a lovely scene featuring two sea-dragons in a courtship dance under the waves in the moonlight. The leafy sea-dragon gets top marks for camouflage from me.

Roses are red, and pink and white...

This week's been quite slow and apart from meeting up with friends for a drink last Thursday evening, I haven't been up to much. Though I'm meeting up with a friend for a morning walk tomorrow and due to volunteer again on the Thursday I've been spending most of my time in the garden, as usual and Mum's roses have bloomed amazingly this year! It's almost as pretty to make me forget about the poor lilac tree that's only half-way come back from the dead :( So I wanted to share my rose photos and some poetry to match!

Rose oh rose, where have you gone
You promised you'd be back at dawn
Rose oh rose, I should have known
That you would leave me all alone
Rose oh rose, what did I say
To make you want to go away
Rose oh rose, what must I do
Without you here I feel so blue
Rose oh rose, come back to me
I need your beauty to set me free
Rose oh rose, I see you now
Dead and withered and I don't know how
Rose oh rose, I miss you so
I wish you didn't have to go 

 -

Nichole Baptista

A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.

- 
Leo Buscaglia

 

But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes 

  And I will make thee beds of roses 

And a thousand fragrant posies;

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

-

Marlowe

I hope everyone's had a good start to the week!

xxx

Meerkat Manor

In light of what's been going on in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester recently I thought I'd try and lift the demeanour of everyone by posting some more photos from my birthday trip to West Midlands Safari Park a couple of weekends ago. When I went to Whipsnade Zoo with my friends a few years ago, the meerkats were definitely our favourite part of the whole day, so when I saw the baby meerkat's at West Midlands Safari Park, I fell in love all over again.

The meerkat's at the safari park had babies a couple of weeks or maybe a month earlier, so of course there were lots of people crowding round the enclosure trying to get a peak of the little bubbas. One of them was sleeping, very contentedly on a little piece of wood, while two others were huddled together comfortably when Mum decided she didn't want to be the sleeping blanket anymore. I hope the photos cheer you up a little bit and to anybody living in or around the areas mentioned, I hope you're all safe and well.

xxx

A Different Festival Experience

With the summer being the prime time for festival-ling (my new word) I thought I'd go in search for the more alternative festival experiences for a bit of fun and to inspire you and cheer you up if, like me, you're not going to a festival this year. There's always next year! I've never actually been to a festival before but there's a huge part of me that wants to at least drop into Glastonbury before I die. It just looks like so much fun!

First up is the Edinburgh Art Festival which runs from the 4th of August - 4th September. Now I've only ever popped into the Tate Modern gallery and it's something I've always wanted to go to, a proper art exhibition. I love drawing and painting and loved art while at school and having an artist in the family means I'm even more interested! I would love to go to something like this at some point. It's a little bit of culture, a bit of creativity and a lot of inspiration.

This is my favourite piece so far from the selection of photos on the Guardian website. It's called Rattlesnake Figure by Thomas Houseago. 


Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival

Photo from the Sea Shanty website



Once a year this amazing maritime festival involves shanty singing pirate look-a-likes coming together in Falmouth to enjoy a brilliant day of singing and fancy dress. Started in 2003, it was founded to help create funds for the RNLI, and it still does today, so it's a festival with a conscience. I love pirates any time of the year so this just seems like the best fun ever, and who hasn't ever wanted to be a pirate, at least once? There are some brilliant photos on their flickr here. Avast ye land lubbers!


Wayne Hemingway's Vintage Festival

^
Dance lessons at the Rock n' Roll Bar, via the Guardian website.


For all of you vintage fans out there, this amazing festival boasts style, crafts and stalls selling music, clothing and accessories from the 1920's onwards. It's a thrifter's paradise! You can browse for some retro memorabilia and bargains or just soak up the nostalgia. I really want to go to this one! This one ran from 29th - 31st July 2011. Next year's dates should be available on the website in due course.


The Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye, Wales.

^
A brilliant written on sign-post at the Hay festival, taken from the Guardian website.


My top one to go to in the next few years. Three words. Books, books, and more books! Hay Festival showcases old and new talent from authors like Marcus Sedgwick, who was there this year to finding vintage authors and book titles that you may never have discovered before, Hay is the best festival for a book-lover, and from what I've seen the village even has whole shops dedicated to certain genres of book. Wow. The Hay Festival runs from 31st May to 10th June next year, 2012.


So there's four interesting and varied festivals for you. Of course no one can forget the big ones such as Glastonbury or Reading but I wanted to show some of the other, different types of festival you can get.

Does any one know of any other odd/quirky/fun/alternative festivals outside of the UK?


Hope you're all having a brilliant week, and if things aren't going that well or life is crappy at the moment, then just think of next weekend, or an up and coming holiday or something nice to look forward to.


Take care everyone
xxx

The Very Happy Birthday List!

I should have put this post up weeks ago because the 27th of July, was my official birthday, but I've been busy these last few weeks. I've still got lots of animal photos to come and another scheduled post about alternative festivals too. I know, I'm actually planning my blog posts for once!

Instead, for today's post I devised a list of the ultimate birthday gifts, as last Wednesday I turned 21. This list is just a few things that you would love to wake up and do on your birthday regardless of current situation, money, geography etc. So for example if you had the money I bet someone would love to wake to a really expensive pair of shoes that they'd been longing for for a good while. So here's my list, enjoy!

1. This mermaid earring.

My ears aren't even pierced but if they were I would definitely love to wear something like this, just once. It fulfills my fairytale adoration and looks quirky and cool at the same time.

Creepy Crawler

Yesterday I posted about West Midland's Safari Park and showed you a few photos, and because I love the animals so much I wanted to show you all of them, rather than a select few. So this post is going to be all about the bugs! So if you're squeamish and don't like creepy crawlies, look away now.

You can't see him very well but this is an assassin Bug. He's perched right on the side of the log of wood to the left side. To see a more detailed photo of an assassin bug, go here.

A giant cockroach. Sorry this photo is blurry, the glass and lighting don't work well in my cameras favour.There were hundreds in this single tank and several other tanks filled with them. Amazing how large they can get.

Giant Cricket! There are apparently only four species, all found on the island of Hawaii. Interesting fact - One species is found only in lava tubes on the Island of Hawaii.

Giant Stick Insect. I was looking for ages to see where it was and he was hanging upside down from a branch about the same thickness as the insect himself! Amazing.

As if all the other insects weren't enough, a little shield bug turned up at the meerkat enclosure :) I couldn't resist taking a photo of him too.

Tarantula! Interesting fact - There is a species of wasp called the tarantula hawk that feeds on tarantulas. I can safely say I don't really want to encounter one of these in my lifetime, I don't like wasps at the best of times.

Has anybody ever been brave and held a tarantula before?

I've only ever held one once and that was back at middle school as a friend of mine's Mum used to keep them as pets. While I'm not scared of spiders I don't know if I'd keep one myself. I did go through a phase of wanting a corn snake and a little Chilean rose tarantula but the thought of them both escaping and running riot in the house used to make my parents on edge, haha! 

Does anybody have/had exotic pets?

We used to have 3 giant African land snails but they're very easy to keep.

I hope everyone's week has gotten off to a good start!

xxx