(Nearly) Christmas in Canterbury!

Some photos of mine and Sophie's trip to Canterbury last week...(courtesy of Soph)









I'm spending Xmas in Cheltenham but am having lunch with my sister today first :) bought some yummy food yesterday which I can't wait to eat tomorrow :D

Disappointed at the rubbish TV though!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE XXXXXX

Where are you snow???

Everywhere seems to have snow except for Oxford!

Still crossing my fingers for a white Christmas though...



Burrard Lucas

Busy busy busy!

Dear Blog,

I am truely sorry to have neglected you for the past two months. Please forgive me and don't take it personally, I have just been crazily busy.

I promise to write more often, I have missed you lots.

Beki

It's been a crazy 2 months here in Southampton and I regret to say I have had so many things to do that I have indeed neglected this blog. SORRY GUYS :(

But i'm back now and I promise to write more often, in fact i've really missed rambling along in my little blog and can't believe it's been two months already. I haven't caught up with any of the blogs I follow in ages and this makes me sad! But my life is kind of crazy at the moment...I have some HUGE major deadlines coming up and have two in the last two weeks which is not good!

Apart from work I haven't been up to much, apart from gym-going and the occasional run with Sophie, which has been fun, if slightly painful. I'm going to my first Salsa class on Monday which should be hilarious as I have no co-ordination and cannot dance for love nor money but it's free so why not?!

I went to the LG Snowboard FIS World Cup last weekend in Battersea which was AMAZING. These guys just blow me away, they were so awesome. Sadly, the two brits Ben Kilner and Jamie Nicholls didn't make it to the final, despite an amazing 1st and 2nd round! But I had a great time and saw a few famous faces, including Rick James from T4! haha! I tried to catch his eye but he just walked on by...he is literally a GIANT though - like 7 ft tall! haha!



Sorry for the crappy quality, I think this is Jamie Nicholls but it might be Ben so I apologise in advance...it's very hard to tell from that shot. I was closer than it seems it's just my rubbish camera...anyway you'll have to take my word for it but it was amazing! These guys deserve more credit than they get.

My only concern was the serious lack of GIRLS! Where are you ladies? Snowboarding isn't just for guys!

x

Crap!

Photo


I AM SO CRAP!

I haven't blogged in like 3 weeks, it's awful really but I am lacking in blogging inspiration and since my camera is temporarily dead i also have no pictures for y'all.

Blogging will resume asap !


P.S I am totally craving this right now but can't find it anywhere in the UK - gutted.



Photo

xxx

hair envy

I was on Gossipgirlnet.com today and saw this photos from the set which are a few weeks old, but i had to post them! I think Blake looks great in this outfit, even if it is a little daring for the rainy Manhattan weather they were having at the time! What I really like about this though is the hair, which you can see better in this picture (below)

Here Blake is kissing on-screen boyfriend Sebastian Stan, but while he is rather nice to look at, what i'm really in love with here is the hair! It has that perfect summer-beachy-look that I could NEVER achieve with my barnet!

"Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is a robbery"

So last night my mother and I watched Thelma & Louise for the first time. I know - talk about late in the day but it's a film i've always wanted to see but never got round to. My dad used to own a copy and it was one of his favourite movies but i don't know what happened to his copy, so i rented this out from the library and we watched it last night ! What can I say? AMAZING.

If you've already seen it then this is gonna sound like old news but I didn't expect it to be so good, I mean, I vaguely knew the plot and anything with Susan Sarandon in it is bound to be brilliant but I didn't think it would be so funny, nor so captivating. I thought it would be much darker, more like a thriller, but actually it's much more of a chick flick, surprisingly feel-good and really uplifting, despite the sadness in some parts.

But I really enjoyed it :) totally re-inforced by eagerness to do a road trip around America - especially the West. I was name-checking all the places they drove through - such amazing scenery, you couldn't have shot this movie anywhere else !

So anyway, aside from watching Thelma & Louise, i've mostly been sleeping in, getting through series 1 of Sex and the City (the best series inmy opinion) and going to the gym when I can.

It's a lovely day today but a little too hot, and I woke up in a sweat which wasn't very nice, with the bedcovers wrapped around me and with creases on my face which lasted until the afternoon!

Off to Pilates with mother tonight (i've never normally this active in one day I assure you !) and i'm in the midst of entering this writing competition for a well known magazine so will be working on that this evening and tomorrow I expect. I haven't written in so long so I have little confidence in my writing ability but it can't hurt to try right? Oh and am making my way through The Lord of the Rings troliogy and absolutely loving getting lost in that right so. Still can't get over how much they've missed out of the films !

Au Revior,

x

(p.s 8 days until I finish work ! )

how time does fly !

I am the world's crappiest blogger. It's offical. I have no excuse but to say that I have just been majorly busy with work and have been too exhausted to even think about constructing a blog worth reading. I have a day off today and tomorrow so decided it was time to blow the cobwebs away and actually start writing again! I have finally found my camera lead (another one of the reasons i have not blogged) so will be gradually uploading some of the lovely photos from my summer so far!

Beach huts at Bournemouth !

Me looking like an old lady

My mother is so photogenic, i hate her for it. And so tanned as well!

Le beach

The view from the pier

People

Monkeys !

The monkey that jumped onto my shoulder seconds after this was taken !

I like monkeys.

The cutest couple ever.

Ardvark :D

"Simples" hahaha

There are loads more pictures but those are two of the best days out i've had since summer began. Tbh my summer's been pretty crap since i started work, all i seem to do if work, eat and sleep, and am being really unsociable.

I finish work at the end of this month and the weekend after I'm going to stay with my mum and her boyfriend, which I haven't done for ages, and we're going to go to the seaside and have roast dinner :) i can't wait. Hopefully going to Wales for a week as well, and then moving into my student house! Have been buying loads of little bits for it already and spent a fortune in Ikea (!) but it's all worth it to make my room all lovely and cosy :) it'll be a world away from horrible student halls !

Pictures of recent buys to come soon - spent loads in MAC today which is not great for my bank balance, and as for the saving i'm supposed to be doing...

x

King of the swingers

I had such a good day today!

Went to this wildlife park about 30 mins away with Liv (one of my good friends) and saw so many animals, it was wicked! Haven't been there since i was about 10, and i used to go all the time, so it was so nice to go back again.

I will post pictures asap but i can't find my camera lead! The best part was going into the monkey enclosure where they roam around and walk by you and stuff. This one Lemar monkey was fascinated with me and my bag and they never normally go that near the humans but this one jumped onto my bag and wouldn't let go! It was so funny, the woman who worked there didn't know what to do as one had never jumped onto a human before! haha it was trying to get into my bag but it wasn't being vicious or anything, it was so funny.

The Meercats were hilarious as well ("simples") hahaha and i saw the biggest tarantula of my life, it was massive and so hairy.

As i said, will post pics when i find my camera lead!

I had such an embarssing day yesterday - I fell off my bike in front of like 5 cars, in the middle of the road, flat on my face! I had tried to signal and accidentally turned around too much and overbalanced and fell! So embarssing, I have a huge lump on my knee now!

ANYWAY...

Apart from that i've been working mostly, and seeing Liv a bit, which is nice :) So bad with the blogging but will try and do it a bit more, i just seem to be working so much atm and going straight to sleep when i get home!

x

I'm the new slick rick

Hello!

So fashion related posts from yours truely have been a little thin on the ground recently as I have been so busy with work and just so exhausted that I really haven't got round to blogging. I've been thinking about the blog and I think i'm gonna change the name as I rarely post anything fashion related, and i'm not dedicated enough to post pictures of myself in outfits as on a normal working day i'm just in jeans and a tshirt as I need to be comfy for my job! So really by calling the blog 'The Ramblings of a Trainee Fashion Journalist' is kind of giving off the assumption that the blog is all about fashion, or at least fashion journalism, which it really isn't! It seems to be mainly just me rambling (as i am now) about my pretty boring life!

I think the issue is that although I love fashion and have been studying it for the past two years (prior to fash journalism i studied design) i find it really hard to stay on top of everything that is going on in the industry, and would never be able to keep up to date as, say, someone like Susie Bubble, who has the most fantastic fashion knowledge and the dedication to her readers.

I love the IDEA of fashion, I love clothes and I love the image one can create by using them. I think that my disinterest in keeping up with trends and designers is really going be a problem in my chosen career, as I would much rather look at how people on the street dress than see how designers dress their models, in clothes I couldn't possibly afford. I don't know if that sounds totally ignorant, but I find it hard to be a dedicated follower of any one designer when I couldn't even begin to afford their pieces (expecially not on £6 an hour anyway!) Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of Luella Bartley and would happily sell all my wardrobe for her S/S 08 collection (still my favourite) and all her collections since then, but I find it
hard to keep track of everything else that is happening in the fashion bubble, and even if i did, I think it would feel like a chore if anything!

I think maybe exposing oneself to fashion is the best way to become more involved and excited by it, how it evolves and what the seasons bring. I think the problem is that since leaving London I have had little involvment with the industry, and went straight from being at LCF, working with fashion obsessives and learning from stylists, designers and photographers, and really emersing myself in that creative bubble, to living in Southampton, toning my style of dressing down a bit to be more student-y and finding myself lacking in the time or the energy to keep up to date with the lastest news and goings-on in the industry.

This is not an excuse - I know that the power of the internet means that you can live in the Amazon and feel as though you are in any given fashion capital, but when you take yourself out of that sphere and meet other people, and concentrate on other things, (until this term I was studying Journalism, not Fashion Journalism, and it couldn't have been more dull, or exausting) I think it makes the whole thing more difficult.

Saying all of this, I don't believe that you need to know everything about each designer, or every trend on the catwalk, to call yourself a 'fashion follower', as, at the end of the day, fashion is constantly evolving and changing, and while trends come and go and designers weave in and out of the public eye, the idea of fashion and the wealth of inspiration it can create will never change, and this makes me feel a little bit better about slacking off!

Juicer extraordinaire turned designer

Sooo apologies for the lack of posting recently but I had a lovely weekend at my sisters with all the family over, a big BBQ and some lovely long walks in the woods :) It was great but back to reality!

Just saw on the Guardian website that Philippe Starck, best known for the 80s phenomonon Juicy Salif Alessi juicer, has collaborated with Scottish label Ballantyne to create his first ever collection, which was shown in Florence 2 nights ago.

According to Lizzy Davies of the Guardian, Starck doesn't want you to look at his clothing as 'Fashion', but as something beyond it.

"The public will take maybe three years to ­understand the concept. It's not ­ fashion. We won't be very big in the newspapers. The clothes are non-­photogenic. But intelligent people will know to discover us."

Starck aims to show how sustainable, contemporary clothing can be wearable, but says that he is not "idiotic enough to do fashion".

Somehow I feel that this isn't enough to convince the fashion elite that this is anything different from, say, Hussein chalayan , or Martin Margiela, who produce revolutionary designs which could be classed as pieces of art more than fashion garments.

I can't find any pics of the collection yet, other than the small one on the Guardian website. You can read the article here.

Tweet it

So I've just discovered this fabulous site which lets you find out which celebs have a Twitter account and updates their Tweets as they write them.
I wonder though, is this a sign that the Twitter obsession has gone too far? On the one hand, and speaking as someone who is always up for some celebrity gossip, it is very insightful to see what certain celebs are getting up to in their spare time, for example; through this site, CelebrityTweet I can see that Lance Armstrong is reading the Wall Street Journal at his home in Texas.
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are also two very famous Twitter enthusiasts but have recently threatened to boycott the whole thing because of the level of attention they are getting for it. It has also been alleged that a TV production is under way to document the rise of Twitter , and, not wanting to be involved in this, the couple have said that if this was to go ahead they would no longer use the social networking site.
But did they bring it upon themselves in the first place by openly using Twitter ? And all that business about Kutcher posting pics of Demi in her bikini, which is obviously going to get you more attention, especially from the press!

It is fascinating to have such an insight into the lives of celebrities who normally keep themselves so private, especially when this insight has been consented by the celebrities themselves. However, I do fear that all this media attention celebrity Twitter pages are getting is going to cause celebs to either stop publicising such intimate information (e.g pictures of their other halfs in their swimwear) or to stop using the site altogether.

I personally have a Twitter account ( you can access it through my profile -->) but hardly ever use it, and only have 2 followers! (One is Stephen Fry - I love him, and my sister!) I guess also, the people I really want to know what i' m doing are all on my Facebook page anyway, and the 'What's on your mind' button does exactly the same thing as Twitter just on a smaller scale.

On another less debatable note, I went charity shop shopping today (something I ALWAYS find time for) in Oxford and came across two rather lovely items which I have to show you.



The skirt was £4 and ideally would be great a little smaller so it would sit better on my waist but I think i'm gonna wear it as a dress with leggings as it has a great elasticated back.

The scarf is such a pretty colour, you can't really see it properly in the picture but I have a thing about scarfs and I can add this one to my ever-growing collection! It was only £1, which I thought was pretty good!

Jean Genie

Sooooo.. I have quite a lot to blog about today, FIRSTLY i'm excited because I scored myself a job finally :) had an interview today (which lasted about 5 mins) and basically i start on the 22nd :) the job is at this Oxford University campus store, which basically sells hoodies and t-shirts with 'Oxford University' on them! pretty cool shop, full of all this old Oxford memorabilia, such as rowing oars and the like. So yeaah, i'll be getting £45 a day and working 4 days a week, until August.
:D
Oh and the best part is I get to wear my own clothes as the dress code is 'casual and comfortable' ! how amazing is that? I hate having to wear a black uniform (like at my two previous jobs) so this is pretty perfect for me, as I am a naturally scruffy person! haha.

On another note, I need your opinion (if there is anyone out there...!!) on these new jeans I bought from Zara today; they're light denim with rips down the front (not as bad as they seem) and would be great for summer, EXCEPT I never wear jeans and live in dresses so it's probably not the wisest way I could have spent £25..but it was kind of a treat for landing myself a job...!



They do look better on, although I had to jump around in the changing room for a good minute to try and get them round my thighs...which probably should have told me something ahaha. I think I was just so happy to finally be able to fit into Zara jeans that I went a bit crazy, plus the fact that the mirrors in there are rather forgiving!

Anyway, moving on, I had a sewing day yesterday to try and alter some of the billion vintage dresses I own which I buy when they are either far too big/long and tell myself I will change them, only to forget all about it.
Well yesterday I decided to make a start on this dress I bought from a little shop down Brick Lane when they were having this amazing £10 deal, where you literally piled whatever you could fit into a bag and got the whole lot for a tenner! One of the items I bought was this particular dress (along with a a huge but beautiful 1940s dress coat, which swamps me) which someone had obviously made for themselves, but it was such a strange, unflattering shape i knew I had to do something with it if I was ever going to wear it.

Here is the finished result, although i'm not happy with the hem as it was an A-line dress and because i've shortened it the bottom now kind of sticks out in a 'space-y' kind of way, which looks a bit shoddy so I may do that again..



Tbh,seeing as I basically guessed how much to take it in by from the sides, it more or less fits me perfectly, but the sewing is so bad in places when the previous owner had made it that i'm scared I might sit down on the bus one day only for the whole thing to burst at the seams! Anyway, I guess at least attempting to alter my existing wardrobe is better than buying more new clothes which I really don't have room for!

Think the mother and I are going to do a car boot sale in a few weeks to try and make some money from all the stuff i've gotten rid of recently which is currently sitting in the garage, instead of the car! (what else are garages for if not to stash away my unwanted clothes..?!)
I normally give away my clothes to charity, and have a huge clear out every few months, but I absolutely love car boot sales so I may have to sneak away from time to time to check out some of the other stalls...you always find the best stuff at places like that!

Corfu Deux

More pics from Corfu!


Ahoy there! Sophie on the pedelo we hired on the last day :)

Some pretty sea!

This made me smile! We never went in there though :(

The most amazing coffee I had all holiday..the picture doesn't do it justice!

Even in Greece my mother still drinks tea..and look how tanned she is! Needless to say I'm still pasty..


Those are the best ones which really sum up the holiday...I didn't really take that many as I was having too much fun to whip out my camera ! I did have a lovely bikini from the Kelly Brook range at New Look but the dye started to run on the second day and dyed half my back blue! Not exactly the holiday glow I was going for! Anyway, if you guys are interested I have a link to it here.

I'm also in love with the blue dress I was wearing in the mirror pic! I bought it from a tiny little shop next to our apartment, and it only cost me 12 Euros!

Unfortunately that same night I managed to get beer spilled down it (someone else's, not mine!) and it also stinks of smoke so i need to get it dry-cleaned before I can venture out in it again without smelling like a pub garden!

On another note (I said this was gonna be a long post...) I'm really dissapointed today as the work experience placement I had lined up for next week has fallen through as the magazine in question haven't replied to my phone calls or emails to confirm that it's all going ahead. I was supposed to start on Monday but haven't heard anything since last week, so I guess it's not happening! Bit gutted but nevermind eh?

I also handed out loads of CVs today around Oxford in the hope of finding a part time job for the summer. Managed to give all the ones in that I printed out so fingers crossed I might get some interviews!

Corfu Baby!

Yassou!

Sorry for the massive gap between posts, if you hadn't guessed already i've been in Corfu for a week with le mother and the fabulous Sophia :) Got back a couple days ago but haven't had time to post until now, but this is gonna be a super long post to make up for it!

It was lovely to get away after having such a hectic year at uni, but i've realised that i despise airports now that i am no longer of the age where flying is exciting!

Two early morning flights in one week do not a happy Bee make. Eugh. Had to sleep for two days to shake off the constant state of tiredness my body was in!

But anyway, enough of that, here are some pics from le vacance;



The entrance to our apartment complex

Moi et Sophie on the messy night out we had in Sidari. True toilet class.

Corfu Town - couldn't resist taking a pic of these birdies on a window ledge in the town centre, so pretty!

I was VERY excited to have some alcohol

So was Sophie!

The lovely resort

boats!

...More pics coming up :)

Food for thought

Hello :)

Look at the sun! GLORIOUS! Hope it's sunny where you all are, it's been lovely in Oxford today :)

So I went to see Angels and Demons last night which was pretty awesome. I really didn't know what to expect as I confess to not reading any of the books and only half watching the Da Vinci Code whilst trying to sleep on the way back from Paris on a coach!
My mum is a huge fan of the books/films and I'll happlily watch anything if it means a trip to the cinema, apart from maybe Drag Me to Hell (which looks pretty horrible for someone who isn't good with horrors...)

I won't spoil the film for any of you guys who haven't seen it yet but at first I was really unsure about how I was going to understand what was happening, as the first few minutes are filled with jargon and then there's all the historical stuff etc but it actually really doesn't matter if you don't know anything about science or religion (like me haha) as the plot develops really well and it keeps you glued.

It left me with so much to think about, which I think is the sign of a good film, and it made me want to know more about the history behind faith and symbolism.

One thing I did notice is that the few journalists in the film were portrayed as being pretty useless in conveying what was going on, and were getting everything wrong! I thought this was interesting as we're always told that the role of the journalist is to find out the truth and convey that to the public, but in this case the journalists were very unreliable sources of information. Hmmm..



Oh and i've spent the whole day with painful ankles because of my lovely new Topshop plimsoles , which are nice to look at (and even got my grandmother's seal of approval) but horrendously painful! I literally have 3 plasters on my ankle to try and stop them rubbing and they still hurt!



But who said fashion was confortable eh?

Links..

Yeah so for some reason only one of the links seems to be highlighted in that last post...they all work though so i'm not sure why only one looks like a proper link!

If you want to go to any of the sites mentioned just hover over the name and the link will work i promise :)

bear with me while i try and get my head round HTML!

Oh My!

Just saw these insanely beautiful Jonathan Kelsey shoes on The Out-Net, a designer-discount site from the
Net-A-Porter team.(thanks to Elisabeth of Thrills and Frills for bringing this gem of a site to my attention!)
I never normally get excited about designer shoes and prefer vintage but these are just amazing.

At £154 (down from £385) I would snap them up in a shot if only I could walk in heels :( but sadly flats are my calling.

Oh well!

CVs, Caffeine and Corfu...

So this is my first blog post!

I'm going to keep this short and sweet, you can have a look in the info bit if you wanna find out more about me :)

I'll try and update as much as possible, although I have a bad track record for blogging (this is my 2nd or 3rd blog so far...) and I don't check my emails as much as I should, but there we go...
i'm not really selling myself am I?!

So, right now i've just finished my first year at uni in Southampton, where I study fashion journalism. Looking for a job (eek) and hoping to get some work experience with who ever will have me!
Oxford is pretty mundane and there isn't much going on, so i've mostly been spending the last couple of days sorting out my CV (yawn..) and spending faar too much money sitting around in coffee shops and buying very expensive magazines. (a bad habit of mine)

I'm off on holiday to Corfu on Monday which I am a little too excited about, so I am TRYING to wean myself away from any food that will make me look a litle too much like a beached whale.

...Problem is that I would have to eliminate all the food in my diet to do this, (see coffee shop example above) and I have little willpower, so the plan doesn't really work.

Anyway, I'm dragging myself to Pilates with my mother tonight so I guess that kinda makes up for all the lattes i've drunk this week...or the one I had today at the very least...

So, now i've outed my coffee addition and my lack of exercise, I have also managed to ramble for much longer than I intended to! Oh well, at least i'm staying true to the name of the blog right?