Post-holiday thoughts

Aled & I in France

My holiday really was relaxing. It was a carefree, easy week of days out, home cooked meals and trips to the beach. I really do love that part of Brittany. Sadly it was slightly faltered near the beginning when we found out Aled's Grandma had died. It was partially expected, but of course, still very sad. It's odd to be removed from your normal environment when something like that happens, especially for Aled. Needless to say, we still had a great holiday were luckily able to go to the funeral as it had been planned for a few days after our return. We were both really glad about this fact, as we were in America when his Grandpa died and therefore unable to attend the funeral. I guess we should stop going abroad, even Aled's Aunt joked she was next in line next time. The weekend was sad and happy in nearly equal parts for me. There were the obvious really sad parts, but, and even though it feels weird to say this, I really enjoyed seeing everyone. We saw family that we wouldn't have seen for ages.

Pembrokeshire coastline

At the moment, I am looking forward to the weekend as we are off to a festival! Lounge on the Farm, to be exact. I love festivals and my summer isn't complete without one. Like last summer, I am photographing this one too - and am really excited to have this opportunity again.

A small part of me just wants a restful weekend at home, especially after the past weekend was mostly spent travelling; Aled's grandparents lived in Pembrokeshire - a short 8 1/2 hour trip from London! Also, I hope the sunshine continues into the weekend, obviously I love a festival without rain, but this is mostly because my wellies are back in Salisbury and really don't want to have to buy new ones.

English countryside - A perk of the multiple train journeys.

Bonjour from Bretagne!

My grandparents' French cottage with an added Grandpa plus a lovely reflection of my legs!

I am here at my grandparents' place in Brittany, France. Aled & I realised we couldn't really afford the holiday to Barcelona we were wanting, but could afford flights to my grandparents. I am very lucky to have relatives that live abroad - always a great place for a last minute holiday!

 I reluctantly went for a run this morning which was hard but I really enjoyed it. It was so refreshing to run outside and in the beautiful, sunny countryside, which makes a slight change from Fitness First in Shepherds Bush. I am currently using my grandparents' French laptop and it's taken me an age just to write this post because the keyboard isn't a qwerty one. It is rather weird not being able to type so quickly as normal.

I am looking forward to a relaxing week. Days with my grandparents usually include country walks, discovering new towns and lots of delicious French food. Heaven!

J'espère que vous avez une bonne semaine et je serai bientôt de retour avec beaucoup de photos!

The Grand Eagle Ball

On Saturday night, Aled & I went to Secret Cinema presents Laura Marling. It was a 1920s themed black tie ball with live theatre, dance and mystery topped off with a performance from Laura Marling. We had to dress up and bring certain special items, informed by this website about the "Grand Eagle Ball" inspired by Laura Marling's new album "Once I Was An Eagle". We spent most of the day finding last minute pearls and bow ties on Brick Lane and then dressed up and headed to Hackney where a disused school had been made up to look like a 1920s hotel. The amount of effort gone into it was staggering, it looked amazing and all the hotel "staff" were actors, checking us into our rooms, serving us drinks and interacting with the guests with added arguments and drama and the odd interpretive dance. The evening finished with a performance by Laura Marling, who as always, was just perfect.

It was such an amazing and unique experience, and I really can't wait to see what they do next and with which musician or band!

Our group photo courtesy of the event's FB page. Can you spot us?
Does it look familiar to you? Love this creepy nod to The Shining.

Running up that hill

My fitness level is at a low at the moment. Even though I feel like my eating habits are getting better (albeit struggling a bit like always), I have really fallen out of love with exercise. Or, shall we say, fallen out of love with the motivation to exercise. My gym membership these past few months has been barely touched. I can really feel myself getting less fit and I need to do something about it! I'd like to start running again properly. I ran way back in 2008 and ever since then had been doing the odd run, but for the last year or so I have mainly stuck to the cross trainer, bike or rowing machine and have scarcely been on the treadmill longer than 5 or 10 minutes. You see, i've hit that wall of pain that always rears its ugly head with exercise. I have gone backwards and need to have an extra level of motivation and determination in order to get my tolerance back on track, otherwise I worry I will give up running altogether.

I've been longing for someone to exercise with for a while, as well as making full use of the gym membership i'm paying for. As if they were reading my mind, I had an email from my gym today offering a "bring a friend for free for July". This means Aled can come and work out with me for all of July which is great. I need motivation and he has been missing running recently. I'm hoping to start running 3 times a week to start with. I definitely can never say that I don't have time because I really do.

I recently downloaded the NHS Couch to 5k podcasts as a way of helping me get back into running. I'm not a complete couch potato, but I do feel not far from it at the moment. I've completed the first week and am enjoying the run/walk/run intervals instead of just putting my all into running and feeling very tired out very quickly.

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Also, instead of just the few and far between photo posts, i'd like to start posting more frequently on here, with shorter and sometimes photoless posts. I feel like I haven't yet hit a comfortable level of blogging, and whilst I really want to post more, I often end up lost for ideas to write about and almost wait for my next wave of photos. We'll see how it goes.

A wedding & a festival

I thought i'd share a few photos from the past two or three weeks. I spent a weekend at home recently for a friend's wedding and a family christening. The wedding was a lovely day, luckily with sunshine, and I may have gotten a bit tipsy (read: very). I love attending weddings and hopefully this is the first of many over the next few years, as we enter the second half of our twenties and everyone seems to slightly grow up!

A few weeks ago, Aled & I went to Bushstock, which is a one day music festival held in Shepherd's Bush, put on by folk indie record label Communion. I was only familiar with a few of the artists but had high expectations as the quality of music is always very high with any artist on Communion. I was lucky enough to be able to take a few photos for Aled's review. I love live music photography but am still very amateur. I haven't yet mastered the manual mode on my DSLR and I need to teach myself over the next few months so I am ready for a few summer festivals we are covering. It's only a hobby and hopefully I can slowly improve my skills. I have also picked out a new lens which is waiting in my Amazon basket for my next pay day!

These photos were taken during our brief week of summer here in England. It's now rather grey and dreary. Summer, you were great.

 

Our year away in photos (part 2)

Here is part two of my favourite photos from our year away. The first one was a must do, obviously.

Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles

Our engraved bottle in Lynchburg, TN

Somewhere on the road in Utah or Arizona (actually not sure!)

At the beach in San Diego, CA

Me, slightly drunk, in New Orleans, LA

If I had to pick one photo - it would be this. On the road, Utah.

Sunset over the Mississippi, Memphis, TN

Beale Street, Memphis, TN

Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia

Japanese Gardens, Portland, OR

View from Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, CA

Portland suburbia in Autumn

Dogsledding in Whitehorse, Yukon

Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island, BC

On the road between Banff and Lake Louise, AB

Snowshoeing in Lake Louise - honestly looked like Narnia!

On the ferry back from Vancouver Island, BC

Vancouver, BC

I definitely enjoy scrolling endlessly through my photos from that year. Trying to vicariously live that life again, somehow. I know I mentioned this before, but I honestly can't believe how quick the past year has gone since we got back. I feel like I am scarily hurtling through my mid twenties. Lets not talk about how soon late twenties will be upon me!

If you want to know any more about our travels in North America; advice, information, or just want to be a tad more nosey, here is the travel blog we wrote whilst we were out there. The better posts are written by Aled!

Our year away in photos (part 1)

This is the first of two posts with my favourite photos from our year away travelling America and Canada. I wanted to share a few of these on my blog as it was such an incredible experience. I am sure all my family and friends are sick of me talking about it (yes, stilll, a year after we got back). Hopefully I can do it all again one day. It was hard to choose just 40 to spread across two posts, but I didn't want to bombard the blog with reams of travelling photos, and it's nice to have little highlights like this.

In 2011 and 2012 we backpacked around Canada and America for 5 months and then lived and worked in Vancouver for the rest of the year. I would definitely recommend Canada and America as places to travel around - I want to go back and travel around all the states and provinces we missed!

The quality isn't the best as I had my little point and shoot camera, i'd love to return one day with my DSLR!

Anyway, on to the photos....

View over Lake Huron, Kincardine, Ontario

Looking out over Montreal, Quebec

On the Staten Island Ferry, NYC

Portland Harbour, Maine

On a 19 hour train from Quebec City to Halifax

View from the Rockefeller, NYC

Cabot Trail, Nova Scotia

Tilt shift Boston from the Providence building

Grand Canyon

Bat watching in Austin, TX

Inside The Venetian, Las Vegas

A diner in Nashville, TN

Korean War Memorial, Washington DC

Walking along the beach in Santa Monica, CA

Zion Canyon, Utah

The Vegas sign!

Blowing Rock, North Carolina

Pike Place Market, Seattle

Vancouver, BC - view from Granville Bridge

Snowshoeing in Lake Louise, Alberta with my parents