Holly Hobby.

Apart from writing & blogging, my other interests include reading classic literature, watching films with emphasis on French new wave and Hitchcock (I'm pretty much game for anything unless it is horror or the ones where they mock other films), the usual hobbies for a lass like me. 

However, one hobby I enjoy that you may not have known about me though is, when the weathers right, gardening. I admit, I was a bit lax last year with it but I am pretty adamant about getting back into it this year. Whilst at university, I worked on my own gardening magazine focused on getting it into the lives and minds of younger people. The magazines you get in the shop are ridiculously boring and are aimed at a much older audience, trust me, I know I did my research. I focused on DIY's and growing your own food, the aesthetic side as well as the sustainability. Does anybody else enjoy gardening? I am heavily influenced and inspired by nature and the outdoors, being environmentally friendly, growing your own foods .etc. which sometimes isn't always seen as a cool thing for young people but I don't think you should ever be ashamed of something you like, be it gardening or cross stitch. (I like both) Don't ever care what other people think, do what makes you happy. 

Anyway, I want to get back into gardening this year as we have our own allotment in our garden and it's just lovely to get outside and it always feels good to taste the fruits of your labour at the end of it all. 

It is quite an obscure object to dream of owning but I've fallen for this Victorian-esque terrarium from Terrain (on the right) which I believe would look a treat perched on my side table. 

Other than gardening, I would like to get into playing the ukulele as a hobby. Man, if it was my birthday, it would so be on the top of my list but unfortunately, that doesn't arrive until the end of the year. 

So, it's just sat on an invisible wishlist, ready to be worked through when I am in the position to do so. It's either that or I luckily just find one at the side of the road one day, lonely and cold and in need of a home. I doubt that will happen though. 

I played the piano through a lot of my child/teenage life, for many years come to think of it, so I have always wanted to return to my musical side. The piano dreams haven't gone forever, I plan to face them at an undisclosed time, later in life, when there is room and space for such an instrument in my abode. Thus, for now, a ukulele is an appropriate size and has become a new ambition in life.

Share your hobbies, it would be lovely to read what any of you enjoy spending your time doing?

Sweet emotion.

I enjoy going out, swaying to the sound of music but sometimes I love just staying in.

During the week I sorted out the spare room so it was able to do what it says on the tin and be spare. My brother moved out a good few years ago now and I have lived in selfish limbo owning two rooms and finally this week I gave in and surprised my mother by sorting it all out and now it is just a delight. I have found myself spending sometime in there since because it is wonderful to be able to go somewhere and sit with yourself. 

This evening I have been doing just that (hence the onslaught of posts) and dressing up, trying on items from my wardrobe and dancing around the room to the sounds of Aerosmith, Canned Heat, Dusty Springfield and The Doors among others. I have done this ever since I can remember and despite turning twenty-two this year, I don't think it will ever stop. 

All that glitters...

My boyfriend has treated me a lot this week and one such item he treated me to was this Fred Perry Hawaiian shirt. I have wanted one for a while now and I think the yearning for one originally came from seeing this shirt if I remember correctly. However it was very expensive when I saw it originally but we saw it in the sale on a recent shopping trip and he refused to put it down until he had paid for it as much as I said no because of it's price and even after I had walked out of the shop. I love it so much, it is the most perfect Hawaiian shirt, ready for my holiday.

Excuse the creases.

Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face...

...stars to fill my dreams.

All items via Topshop

Life in the fast lane

So, it's been a while since I posted last but I have been caught up in a whirlwind of busy bodying around. My boyfriend moved house last week and their internet is yet to be set up so whilst I have been over there, I haven't been able to blog and then on Thursday until Sunday we were away at the Hop Farm Festival which was amazing. I had a super duper time with my boyfriend and his sister and saw lots of great music. 

I survived the weekend washing with wet wipes, eating 'just add water' pasta from a pot and burning my forehead to the point it got a teeny bit swollen. 
It was scorching hot so I kept my hair up, out of my face the whole time, living in shorts, vests and dresses. 

My feet did too much rubbing on the Thursday from my 'Marc Bolan' boots, as my boyfriend calls them, which resulted in having a limp for the rest of the weekend. I ended up living in my old converse and the same red socks wishing with every step,  that I had thrown a pair of flip flops in my bag when packing. 

I went crazy with friendship bracelet making during the week leading up to the festival, after following the Honestly...WTF tutorial as I wanted to add some colour to my wrists without paying ridiculous prices . It is also an excellent way to leave you with a gentle feeling of self gratification. 

I also found myself constantly eyeing up other people's outfits and getting lots of ideas to work with. I fell in love with these boots as well as the rest of the outfit as my eyes slowly followed upwards in admiration as I sat on the floor melting in the sunshine. It was just perfect from the rings on her fingers to the hair on her head. 

Her suede vest left me drooling and pinning for one of my own, sadly it looked vintage so I will just have to continue searching far and wide for something similar.

I wore my sneakers but I'm not a sneak.

I am always ready to draw inspiration from anything, anywhere, at anytime. They say you can't get blood from a stone but I think if you gave me time I am pretty sure I'd find inspiration in one...somehow. 

Each time I dress I imagine myself becoming somebody else, almost like fancy dress but to me, a bit more serious. Clothes can turn you into anything you want to be, and that may mean that sometimes I want to be an elderly grandpa with knitted jumpers and elbow patches or sometimes I may want to be an Ivy leaguer with my navy fitted, gold buttoned blazer, shirt and loafers. 

Image via 360angel

Like many people I presume, I also draw inspiration from the world of music and the musicians who live, breathe and play there. As I have grown, admittedly, the genres and era's I've drawn from have developed into a place which I would think was more accepting within society. These days I turn to the sixties, to the summer of love and to the three days of peace and music with the aid of flares and bell bottoms, crochet, fringing and tie dye, whilst at the same time trying to avoid looking like the last thing left for me to do is carve a pumpkin ready for halloween. 

This wasn't always the case nevertheless, as in my early teens I didn't take the route of listening to The Cure, Pulp & Leonard Cohen (a soundtrack sitting, waiting, wishing for Holden and his red hunting hat to hit the silver screen) like a stereotypical frustrated teenager. To think back, a phrase which sounds pathetic when I only turn twenty-two this year (my memory is dreadful), I wouldn't say I was a frustrated teen in the same way it is portrayed in film and in literature. Even before hitting my adolescence I quite often had a vendetta with myself but rarely at the world and thus, Morrissey to me wasn't manna from heaven that frosty, winter morning in late 2002 when I woke up to the sound of the postman delivering my thirteenth birthday. 

It makes sense, I get it, I can see the reason why people make this connection to the likes of The Smiths and why they are bound to J.D Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye as if they were the book's spine, the poetic simplicity of their existentialist sentences talk directly to them as if they alone were the writings sole subject and purpose. 

For me however, I found my youth down a yellow brick road headed straight for seventies New York. Not to Bethel and not even to Manhattan but to the Bronx and to the birth of hip hop...

Image via Star Pulse

All areas of hip hop interested me, it's history and culture and not solely how the music sounded; although greatly important. I am slightly embarrassed but at the same time proud when thinking back to the extent this whole new and at first, slightly hazy lifestyle took over my life. I submerged myself in it to the degree that not only did it flood my ears, my mind and my heart but it began to saturate my wardrobe. I remember my first wage packet at the age of fourteen and how it went straight on a pair of Levi anti-fit jeans which I had had my eyes and heart set on for weeks before hand in anticipation. I had desired jeans that had ample room to fit myself and a whole other person in, incase; without meaning to sound crude, I ever felt the inclination. I wore Nike Dunks and Billionaire Boys Club t-shirts whilst the recent and still unfamiliar feeling of my pocket burning holes flirted with basketball jerseys on shopping trips and my baby blues eyed up my best friends pristine Air Force One's all in order to be like the hip hop artists at the time. 

I was white and I was female but it didn't stop me. I wore G-Unit earrings to school, chose the history of hip-hop as my talking point for presentations in English classes and one day my friend and I even drew a teardrop on our faces with the closest Bic biro in sight. 

Recollecting and seeing these memories compiled together on screen, it all seems a bit cringeworthy now and at times a bit too far fetched but that love affair with hip hop still remains, pumping through my veins, indomitable as ever but now more like an old friend, one who always welcomes me back with open arms. 

Make no mistake however, there is a forceful impediment and restraint on it ever coming into contact with my wardrobe again!

Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.

www.hopfarmfestival.com

Excited.
I've never been to a music festival before where it's been over a few days with camping so this will be a new experience for me. I am not very high maintenance so I think I will be quite suited for this malarky!

I have seen The Eagles before and they are definitely rated in my top three of live acts so I am very much looking forward to seeing them again. My boyfriend is a huge Smiths fan, as well as Velvet Underground so I know he is much more excited about the Saturday. 
As long as we have food and a camera I know I'll be more than happy, soaking in the atmosphere, ears leaking with the sound of drums beating and guitars gently weeping.

The biggest question I have to ask myself though, what will I take to wear?

Fringing, denim, studs? 
Wellies if there's mud?
Short Sleeves, straps or none? 
Chic, boho or just plain fun?
Something new or just some tat?
One thing's for sure, I'd quite like a hat!

Images via weheartit, google images