I have no rose tinted tales from the nineties for you today only an outfit...
Vintage 70s suede jacket , 60s dress, 50s booties, 90s lurex jumper, M&S tights, knitted mohair hat, soapstone & macrame earrings, a plethora of bangly things (all thrifted from car boot sales and markets)
We went for a quick stroll around the park earlier and it was VERY cold.
I forgot to bring my gloves, so by the time we got to the park I had what I would describe as "hypothermic hands".
Last time I felt like my hands were going to break clean off was in February last year when I was kneeling on a training platform at the bottom of Wraysbury lake.
The water was three degrees Celsius and my life was flashing in front of my eyes.
Still one of the best experiences I had in 2012.
I'm absolutely hankering to go diving again...hurry up spring!
It looked really groovy from the outside and the scent of burning incense drew me in.
I wasn't going to buy anything but I left with two albums, which
were
'Nirvana –
Nevermind' & 'Pearl Jam –Ten'.
I wasn't even
into that kind of music then but the owner of the shop was so convinced that I’d
fall in love with them that he even told me that I could bring them back for a full refund if I didn't.
I brought them
home & listened to them all weekend, then I went back into the shop on the following Monday & shook the dude’s hand.
After that pop
was dead to me, I weeded out all the inane crap to make room for proper music.
I was an alternative rock convert, hallelujah ;)
The record store became a regular haunt for me and my mates.
The owner had an uncanny ability to unite people
with music that they never thought they'd like; he also had a really
infectious love of rock music & an almost encyclopedic knowledge of bands.
It was an exciting time of my life and one that deserved a more kick-ass soundtrack than the ten a penny pop I'd previously favoured and a kick-ass soundtrack is just what I got.
Later that year I bought the first album by 'Rage Against The Machine' and my life was never the same again ;)
The last record that I
bought from the store, before I moved away from Sweden in ’93 was ‘The The – Dusk’
which is still one of my favourite albums.
I love all the
songs on this album and I think they've kept fresh.
What 90s albums do you have that you can still listen to and enjoy all the way through?
I’ll leave you
with another wonderful song by 'The The', enjoy…
After waxing lyrical about the overlay function on PicMonkey earlier, I decided to go one further and do a basic tutorial.
It really is easy peasy lemon squeezy ;)
I chose a photo of my mum from her modelling days in the late 50s & a photo that I took in Eastbourne last year.
As they both have a neutral & uncluttered background they are easier to blend together.
I also used a plain white base image to layer the pics on but you don't have to, I just like doing it this way cause it offers more scope of movement.
So here's my little tutorial...
Find two images that you want to merge together and a plain white base image if you want.
Go on to PicMonkey and click the 'Edit a Photo' option. I chose to work on a white base image but you can just open one of your photos instead.
Now I have opened my base image and I want to add my two pics onto it. I do that by going to the 'Overlays' tool, fifth icon from the top on the left hand side of your screen and click the 'Your Own' option at the top.
Here I've added my two pics to my base image and now I can start having some fun with them.
In order to really blend the two images together, the best course of action is to tweak around with the fade slider and the blend modes. There is also a handy eraser tool.
Lined up and blended to my liking. With some images it is quite difficult to completely get rid of the seams where the two images overlap.
Now I want to crop the layered image , so I click the top icon, then simply adjust & apply.
If you want to add more effects to the image, you can do so by clicking on the second icon from the top to access some awesome stuff. Not all of the effects will be suitable for your new image cause they make the overlap seams show up again...play around with it :)
You can also add a frame to your image by clicking the sixth icon from the top to access frames.
As a final touch you can also add some text by clicking the 'P' icon to access loads of cool fonts.
When you are happy, save your masterpiece by clicking the 'Save ' button above your image and save photo.
All done, now you can make someones day by posting your good work onto their FB page or sending it to them in an e-mail ;)
I'm sure most you clever cookies already know about PicMonkey but just in case there is still someone out there unaware of its awesomeness, I thought I'd better do a quick blog about it.
I've been using the same antiquated photo editing software that came with our very first scanner for years; I'm actually too embarrassed to tell you how many, it's that long.
I just got used to it (read:LAZY) and thought that learning anything new would be a complete hassle, so I didn't.
I was always admiring photos on other peoples blogs, convinced that they had all been edited by Photoshop wizards using mega expensive software.
Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon PicMonkey which is a partly free photo editing website.
The service is a so-called 'freemium' with a whole bunch of ad-supported features that you can use to your hearts content at no cost and some premium features that you can only access though paying a monthly membership.
So far I have only used the free stuff but I have to say that I am very impressed with how the pictures are coming out and needless to say my old editing software has finally been retired....and there was much rejoicing!
I have been playing around with it for the past few days and my favourite feature is the 'Overlay' cause you can add your own.
So now I can finally create those dreamy layered pics that I've been hankering over.
It's pretty straightforward, even I (a complete cave dweller when it comes to stuff like this) was able to get a handle on it after a few hours.
So if you haven't used it before, pop over and have a play around, I'm sure you won't regret it.
Just in case you are wondering, PicMonkey did not give me a bagful of cash to sing their praises (if only), I genuinely want to spread the word about this service cause it ROCKS & a lot of it is FREE which in my book makes it even better!
Are you using PicMonkey already, if so for how long have you been using it and would you recommend paying the monthly $4.99 for the Royale membership?
One of my layered images ;)
HAPPY FRIDAY everybody, I can almost smell the weekend ;)
I’ve had the black velour jumpsuit that I’m
wearing today for over twenty years.
All throughout my teens my mum would let me
order a few bits from the mail-order catalogue each season.
What would usually happen is that I would scope
out the things that I fancied & then hang on until the sale to get more bang for my buck or kit for my krona as it were.
Invariably the things that I’d chosen ended up
in the sale, perhaps cause I would usually favour the more impractical &
ostentatious garments.
Whilst my mates took their fashion inspiration
from Beverly Hills 90210, I sought my style stimulus in music videos; I wanted to look
like the chicks on MTV, hell yeah!
The early 90s saw my wardrobe embrace a holy
mishmash of clingy, second skin like leggings, jumpsuits & mini dresses, jewel tone long velvet waistcoats, ridiculously oversized jumpers in a kaleidoscope of colours anda rough and ready camouflage print bomber jacket.
I also bought my first ever pair of DMs and wore them to death.
My favourite shade of lipstick was called
‘Chocolate Kiss’ and my perfume was New West by Aramis. I know that some people recoil in horror when faced with photos of their younger self, mainly because of the clothing they were sporting back then but I see these photos as little snapshots of a journey. Personally I love seeing how someones style has evolved throughout the years and although my own long & winding road has been laced with a fair few fashion disasters, all-in-all I'm pretty pleased with where its taken me. How about you?
Back in the early 90s I spent a summer working in a very
well known holiday resort on Costa Blanca.
An older friend of mine had done a few summers there in the
late 80s and had enthralled me with his tales of excitement, adventure and
really wild things.
So after I finished college I booked a flight to Alicante
and blagged a seat on a package holiday transfer bus to the resort.
Once there I managed to find some very cheap accommodation
in a grotty hostel situated in the old town and set about looking for a job.
For two nights solid I was job hunting, going to almost
every bar & club in the resort but everywhere was the same story, fully
staffed.
I did have a back up plan, which was to go fruit picking in
the south of France, but ideally I wanted to stay where the buzz was, I was
only eighteen after all.
At first I thought he was just some random perv trying to
chat me up but he turned out to be a real diamond geezer; after making a few
calls to his mates he’d sorted me out with a club propaganda job.
I started sharing an apartment with three of my workmates
& although it was bordering on claustrophobic we had a whale of a time that
summer.
On a good day we’d borrow some mopeds and head for the
cliffs further down the coast, listen to loud cheesy techno music, drink cheap
beer and play truth or dare, in which the dare usually involved launching
yourself into the sea off a steep cliff.
In the evening we’d head back into town, feast on huge
plates of tuna pasta and drink cheap plonk out of cartons.
Some times we had to do special promotions or leafleting on the
beach during the day but most days we just worked from 9pm until 2am and after
we would join the throng of punters inside and party until sunrise.
The busy season started slowing down in late September and
one by one friendly faces sloped off.
By mid October the resort had been transformed into bingo
heaven for well-heeled old timers spending the winter abroad.
I bought a bus ticket to London and endured the most
excruciatingly long bus journey I’ve ever taken.
My diamond geezer had offered to buy me a flight ticket but
I quite stupidly turned it down cause I didn’t want to feel as if I owed him
anything.
I think that I must have really hurt his feelings cause I
never heard from him again.
Sadly I have very few photos left from this time of my life
cause I “lost” them in a particularly nasty break-up from a jealous boyfriend a
few years later but I will always have my memories.
The awesome vintage ski jacket I was wearing today was bought for a tenner fifteen years ago in a Fort William charity shop.
At the time hubby was doing snowboard instructing at a ski center and I was trying really hard to find a job.
As we were quite skint we rented a microscopical room in a house owned by what we thought to be a widower.
Only after we'd moved in he told us that his wife had not long eloped to Spain with another man.
It was an odd experience to say the least, we'd hear him argue and plead with his wife on the phone in the middle of the night and whenever we went into the kitchen he'd corner us and talk incessantly about her.
He was also rather keen on wandering around in his underpants when he'd had a few too many swallies.
Our little nook comprised of a double bed that dwarfed the room and a chest of drawers with a black and white camping telly & a kettle perched on top of it, there was also a small built in wardrobe, that you couldn't open properly cause there wasn't enough space.
There were no jobs in Fort William so I spent a whole month holed up in that tiny room watching crap daytime TV and eating Pot Noodles.
In the end I had to leave my beloved to his snow covered hills and jump on a bus to London.
This jacket was bought with giro money on my last day in Fort William and I remember wearing it for the entire duration of the ten hour bus journey down south cause it was absolutely freezing.
I sat together with a bald, toothless weegie who had just been paroled & he was plying me with sickly sweet MD 20/20 and telling really crap jokes but he still had me in stitches.
I've had fifteen years of wear out of this jacket and it is still going strong.
I'm not the only one in this house who poses for pics by the way.
Here's Mark showing that anything I can do, he can do better...
Mark has been feeling a little bit blue this weekend cause the ski center that he used to instruct at is open for business with powder galore, I believe my man is pining for the hills.
To cheer ourselves up we revisited the pub that we went to last Sunday cause they were hosting a vintage jumble today.
I'm hoping to get a space here myself next time, fingers crossed.
The pub has got a really nice, laid-back vibe & the monthly vintage jumble was well stocked, cheap and cheerful, just how I like it.
Tonight is Burns Night and as an adopted Scot I am celebrating it with gusto.
Veggie haggis, neeps and tatties for din-dins and even a small bottle of malt to follow.
In honor the man I decided to wear a bit of tartan today...
Vintage 20s tux jacket, vintage 50s blouse top, vintage 80s Ralph Lauren tartan trousers, vintage 80s suede hiking boots (still dirty from when I helped mum do her kitchen up over a year ago, tut-tut) & a sequin beret (that looks a bit like a Jimmy hat when teamed with my hair) to add a bit of quirky glam to the proceedings.
When I bought these pants last November I couldn't do the zip up but now they fit like a glove, I love loosing inches without even trying.
Maybe I'm burning more calories trying to keep warm, eh?
I felt a little sad today (post-holiday blues no doubt) but a healthy dose of my all-time favourite comedian George Carlin soon had me giggling again :)
Here's a selection of my fave George Carlin quotes....
"Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town."
"I don’t have pet peeves — I have major psychotic fucking hatreds!"
"If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little."
"If it requires a uniform, it’s a worthless endeavor."
"I don’t like to think of laws as rules you have to follow, but more as suggestions."
"I love and treasure individuals as I meet them; I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to."
"Property is theft. Nobody “owns” anything. When you die, it all stays here."
"The future will soon be a thing of the past."
"The only good thing ever to come out of religion was the music."
"Atheism is a non-prophet organization."
"The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it."
"Instead of warning pregnant women not to drink, I think female alcoholics ought to be told not to fuck." "You can prick your finger but don't finger your prick"
"What was the best thing before sliced bread?"
"One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor."
"As far as I’m concerned, humans have not come up with a belief that’s worth believing."
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house."
Sadly George is no longer with us but thankfully his masterful comedy still is.
Lot's of love,
Jennie
xXx
I love snow so for me these past few days have been a real treat.
At lunchtime we swung by the £1 shop to get some grub for the wild birds before hitting a nearby parkland trail.
En route we ventured into the snow clad undergrowth to place fat balls and scatter some seed mix.
Not that I think that our feathered friends in this area are particularly hard up but it's a nice thing to do just in case there are a few of them going hungry in these snowy times.
We spotted a black bird and a robin but both were way too fast for me to get a photograph.
There were a lot of people out and about walking the trail, many more than on an average Sunday.
What I like the most about snow, is its seeming ability to make strangers smile at each other and even spontaneously break into conversation, something that is sadly not commonplace in London.
Snow is magic!
It wasn't actually that cold but that probably had something to do with the umpteen layers that I had piled on.
Re-emerging from the undergrowth. One chap stopped and asked if we'd lost our dog to which I replied "No, we're just feeding the birdies", he did look a little bit bemused...hehehe!
Once we'd reached the end of the trail Mark and I rewarded ourselves with a quick pint at an all but empty pub before making the trek back home.
As promised here is my account of the nightmarish speedboat journey that we undertook whilst on holiday a couple of weeks ago...
Island hopping, sounds lush doesn't it?! Sitting on deck topping up the tan for five hours, or not. Twenty minutes into the ferry journey all but a handful of people had gone downstairs. The speed boat in this picture was the same size as the one we travelled on from Koh Lipe to Langkawi.
On New Years Day
we left Koh Lanta to head for Langkawi.
As we were
leaving Thailand and entering Malaysia we had to stop off on Koh Lipe to go through immigration and
also to change from the ferry to a small speed boat for the last part of the journey.
All the way from
Koh Lanta to Koh Lipe the ferry was rocking to-and-fro and sitting on deck wasn't very comfortable, so we spent most of the five hour journey inside.
I was knocked out by the heavy diesel fumes and slept most of the way.
I was really
happy to get off the ferry on Koh Lipe hoping that it would be a quick 90
minute hop from there to Langkawi but I should have known better.
We made the same
trip from Langkawi to Koh Lipe two years ago, so I kind of knew
what to expect.
On that occasion the weather was pretty bad with lashing rain, thunder and lightning
but the boat was bigger and felt slightly safer to be on, the crew also gave
us life-vests & rain ponchos as soon as we boarded and our
luggage was kept in a hold underneath the deck.
The boat that we
boarded on Koh Lipe this time around was no bigger than the speed boat that Mark and I had dived
off a few days earlier which to me felt a little bit disconcerting especially
since all the bags were simply tossed to the back of the boat in a jumble &
not secured or covered up in any way.
At least on a
good dive boat everything is meticulously secured and you get a briefing about
safety on board (the whereabouts of life vests & first aid kit
etc) before you even get on the thing.
We were last on
to the boat as we chasing the connection and it was already stuffed to the
gunnels with luggage and people.
A yummy mummy with a tiny baby in her arms, families with young children
and even a pregnant woman...my immediate thought was "This is going to
be interesting".
I'm just going to
break off in a wee rant here before I go on cause I feel I need to vent!
Why oh why, do
some parents think it's a good idea to bring a tiny baby on holiday to places like
these?
Firstly going to
a tropical country you will probably have to inject your zero-year-old with
some nasty shit so it doesn't contract some serious illness, then put the poor mite
through the trials & tribulations of a long haul flight, then it’s the shock of going from a very cold to a very hot country, exceedingly strong sun,
stingy things in the sea & a plethora of insects that just want to eat you
etc etc etc...
Why this outburst
I hear you ask, who has made your
spleen erupt this time Jennie?
Well, maybe I'm
unfair cause I'm sure there are some parents that are quite capable in coping
with bringing a small child on a holiday like this, that's not to say that I
personally agree with their choice.
However on our
boat there was a particularly mad mother that had obviously OD
on YouTube videos sound-tracked by chill-out music
depicting happy bronzed Swedes sitting on the deck of a boat gliding over a
tranquil sea, sunning themselves and looking happy.
It is my belief
that she had not taken into account that the sea is unpredictable and as a rule
does not behave like those glorious stills featured on travel sites.
We had just about
hit the open sea when the boat stared rocking slightly and said woman started
screaming that she demanded the boat to turn around and go back to Koh Lipe and
if it didn't she was sure that the boat would turn over and we would all drown.
If the other little kids weren't pooping themselves with fear before, they certainly were
now.
I looked at the
crew and most of them were still upbeat and smiling, so I figured we were still
safe to go ahead to Langkawi; after all they make this journey everyday and
unless they were a crew of suicide-boaters, I reckoned they didn't want to die either and if they though it was safe
enough to go ahead, it probably would be.
The crew asked
the passengers what they wanted to do and most of us wanted to continue to
Langkawi but it was agreed that we’d proceed with caution, so two of the motors
where shut off, which significantly added to the journey time.
The swell was
building and sunset was fast approaching.
The waves were
hitting us side on, so at times it did feel as if we were going to tumble right
over.
By now the crew
had issued everyone with ridiculously substandard life vest.
Both the light and
the whistle was missing on mine and only one of the clips was in working order,
so I tied the vest to my body and grabbed our Scubapro torch from the dive bag,
better safe than sorry.
In my head I was
also working out a safe route to leave the boat, over the mound of unsecured
bags (that were now absolutely sodden where they lay) and the two motor blades
that would still be rotating.
All of a sudden a
big wave mashed into the side of the boat and as the bow hit the surface the hull made
a loud cracking sound.
At that point I
thought we’d had it but thankfully the hull was still intact.
It was around and
about now the crew started displaying some slight signs of being worried
themselves and they periodically lifted the floor panel to check that
everything was as it should be.
I was starting to
get a wee bit worried cause the sun was quickly disappearing over the horizon and I
still couldn't see Langkawi.
Granted looking
for land wasn't the easiest as every time you peered over the side
you’d get hit in the face by a furious whip of water.
Darkness fell and
we were still running on only two motors.
The
crew weren't very forthcoming in updating the passengers on how much
longer we’d have to travel before we got to our destination.
Then all of a
sudden hubby spotted the lights of the Langkawi cable car far away in the distance,
it was like seeing the holy grail!
We came onto the lee side of the island
and the waves all but abated, the captain put the boat into full throttle and
we were soon in the harbour.
Sodden to the bones, shivering and still
buzzing with adrenaline.
This was one of the most pant-soilingly
scary yet at the same time thrilling boat rides that I've ever taken.
When we arrived at the resort just before
midnight we had to hang up everything in our bags to dry.
Of course had I been smart, I would have
packed everything into bin liners and got a rain-cover for my
rucksack but alas I didn't, I will do next time for sure.
Unfortunately going by boat is the only
option to get to a lot of the gorgeous islands in this region but Langkawi has an airport so should you
want to visit and don't want to brave the waves you can fly there.
Here are a few clips from the journey
taken with Mark's GoPro (water resistant) camera...
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