Over.&.OWL-t.

There's a severe lack of owls on this blog (& blogs in general, may I add) & I'm sure anyone who's anyone would agree. But for what is lacking here is certainly made up for in my life. I actually think it would be almost impossible to catch me without a single owl on my person - be it my earrings, ring, necklace, key ring, phone charm, t-shirt, socks, panties...there's always one hanging around somewhere. Being wise. And cute.

In the last few days two friends wrote to me on facebook about this - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-14111152
It took me quite a while to build up the courage to click on the link for fear it would tell a sad sad story of a dead owl, but thank goodness he only left with a headache. Poor chap. I hope a kind owl chum of his winged him over a bit of paracetamol (or ibroprofen if he was drinking alcohol that night).
Another friend posted this site on my wall - http://owls.pie0.me/
IT HAS LITERALLY MADE MY LIFE.

And then I received the most wonderful letter through the post from an anonymous sender. Inside was a book called 'The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark'. I just don't know how I managed to miss this book when I was young, but thank you kind stranger for sorting me out. 


So a few weeks ago when I was packing up my room in Durham the hardest part was dismantling all my birds.

 Some owl-tastic owls & cards. 

The older you get the better you get (unless you are a banana) Good point eh? 

Owls definitely get better AND wiser.

Socks & panties ooh la la!

 Some owls chilling with my alcohol. Wasters.

Every owl is indiviu-owl to me although I do tend to refer to them all as Marmaduke. Not entirely sure why.

I had a fish called Marmaduke who only survived for 2 weeks. He had a red head. I loved him so much & in fact I think he died from too much attention.

Oh.What.A.Lovely.FLOOR.

In the brief periods at Glastonbury between getting stuck in the mud - photographing the mud - getting stuck into some good music - photographing music - I did a number of other things. Remarkable eh?
One afternoon after having a bit of a boogie to groovy band i wandered around achieving a number of life goals in the space of about half an hour. I chilled in a tree house. I wrote 10 lines of a book that will be published. I got a tattoo. I got married.
Ideal.

Kind of sad my tattoo is so small & only says 'Mum'..If only it was 5 times bigger - saying 'Mum & Dad'. That would be incredible. Particularly for my street cred.

My book was about an owl, of course.

I'm not entirely sure what my new husband is called but he was a hunk. Tears of joy - I promise.

One day I gave myself a little project of photographing broken sunglasses in the mud.

Why not?

Speaking of sunglasses I saw the most ridiculous pair in Burberry today - bright pink plastic FOLD UP ones. They honestly looked like a 5 year old's toy, retailing at £151. I just don't understand why it would be worth having a fold in the centre of your sunglasses just so they take up a tiny bit less handbag space. Most odd.
Hang on a second - I was in Burberry? Yes, quite a change from my usual charity shop dwelling but I was there on a mission.
Earlier in the day my dad informed me that we'd be cruising along to the Burberry shop in Covent Garden. I couldn't believe it - what had I done to be treated in such a wonderful way? Write a book? Get a tattoo? Chill in a treehouse? Get married? OH my wedding present perhaps??
No, no, no & most certainly NO. It turned out that we were going to Burberry in order to check out the shops' floor. Yes, the bloody floor - I'm not even kidding. We are getting a new wooden floor in our house & according to certain people in-the-know about floors, the one we are getting is also in Burberry, Covent Garden.
So there were my dad & I, in Burberry, browsing the high end fashion, handbags & sunglasses whilst speaking in hushed tones about the woodwork. It was actually quite a fun mission, I'm not going to lie. 'Oh this leather jacket is to die for...hmm it's quite dark, nice grain & knots in the boards...'
We particularly liked how the floor had be laid on the landing so spent sometime there. I think the shop assistants were slightly perplexed by this - the one place in the whole shop where there was actually (in their eyes) NOTHING to see.

Mud.&.Music.

When Glastonbury festival is mentioned there are two words that almost seem to go hand in hand - music & mud. The music was wonderful...& the mud? Not so much.
I do remember a time when mud was wonderful, making mud cakes in the park as a child to offer generously to my mum. She always seemed thrilled with the sticky mess to dirty her hands & from what I remember, she enjoyed it more than an ACTUAL chocolate cake & I always felt satisfied with this reaction. In retrospect I'd say she deserves an Oscar for her performance - & one for the pure joy she expressed when I made her toothpaste & shampoo cocktails.
Oh to be so young & naive.
After a kind introduction to mud I was put off it's wonderfulness on one of those bloody PGL trips. There was this ridiculous activity where we had to literally leap around in mud & climb through mud caked tyres. Random. I absolutely hated it & cried until they let me leave. I generally found that trip quite ghastly & even a bit creepy. I felt it was like 'Parents Get Lost' so that perverted activity leaders can have lots of little kids all to the themselves & force them through mud tyres. Wow, how funny to remember thinking in that way. I thought I was young & naive? That obviously got lost somewhere in the mud.

So Glastonbury 2011 & a whole lot of fab music & baf mud (the opposite to fab, I guess). It poured like a mentalist on the days leading up to the festival, creating a lovely mud world for all the music revellers to splish & splosh around it.

At least a bit of milk was having fun...

Mmm aren't you just dying to make your parents a cake out of that?

Walking around the festival in the mud was absolutely crazy - with every step you'd sink in & have to pull yourself out. People were getting stuck & falling over like they were totally wasted (which they probably were too).

All of a sudden, in the midst of this mayhem, the mud became wonderful to me again. I found a penny! All muddy & wonderful. In the photo of me grinning like a nutter about my penny I'm wearing my nicely constructed rain attire - a bin bag & a recycling bag. I felt most chic.

Someone passing me one day thought it appropriate to point out that the glory of my pink wellies was rather lost in the mud. He had a point.

So there's some mud for you. In terms of music I'd say my favourite acts were Little Dragon, Lyyke Li, Warpaint, The Low Anthem,  Nico Jaar, Dylan LeBlanc & Cailin Rose. I'd recommend all those. CHECK 'EM out.

Blue.Peter.!.?

I like to float around my area - taking snaps of this & that - doing bits & bobs here & there - listening to a bit of music...it's all about James Blake's new album at the minute. Listen to 'I Never Learnt To Share'. Wow.

There's a bit of a cheeky fox that seems to like popping up on my journeys. I think he may be following me, but then again, one can never be sure.

Today on my wanderings it was not only the fox to appear before me, but a rather funny chap. He appeared out of nowhere as I pottered along with James Blake - quite frankly giving me a bit of a fright.
He begun by asking whether I speak English & went on to compliment me in a rather interesting manner.
'I thought you may be Scandinavian...I'd like to give you a compliment' he said.
I can't remember his exact words, but he seemed to like the fact I was merrily smiling as I walked along eating a frozen yogurt & he seemed intrigued by my 'eclectic & colourful outfit'. He liked my positive vibes. And my beret. And my socks.
All very flattering.
However, ESSENTIALLY what he was getting to was that he thinks I should be a kids tv presenter. Blue Peter, apparently, was made for me.
Still flattering? I'm not entirely sure. But there we go. Ended up being quite a nice long chat until I realised Boots was about to shut & was carrying some dead batteries needing to be popped in the dead battery box.

Waste.Not.Want.Rubbish.

I have chatted rather a lot about picking up pennies (I picked up two in Tescos today in fact. One I acquired quite subtly, however the other was under a self check-out machine which a lady was using when I spotted the shiny copper fella so had to pretty much dive under her to retrieve it. She may have thought me to be a little odd, but it was SO worth it) but I'll have you know that my attraction to collecting things on the street does not end at pennies. Certainly not.

Hokay so, I was cruising down the street with a chum past some rubbish bags. Big black bin bags hanging out by a lamp post with one orange transparent recycling bag amongst them. Of course my eye was immediately drawn to the black sheep of the bunch (black sheep - orange recycling bag. Standard comparison) & I almost did a double take - there, inside the bag, was a Grazia magazine! THIS WEEK'S copy! 'What unbelievable luck!' I thought & set to work on ripping open the bag with much glee, only to be confronted with another copy of Grazia...& then another & another...The bag was blaaady well full of the things. Not only Grazia - Hello mags, Men's Health, one about tennis - you name it, it was in the black sheep. I'm not even kidding. I picked up as many as I could manage when my chum was like seeeriously just take the whole bag. So there we go. I returned home with about 30 magazines & a whole lot of appreciation for sheep that are black.

This next story may be a little harder to comprehend. It also involves bin bags, in a manner of speaking. Be prepared.

There was an occasion a while ago which led me to a back alley off a cobbled street in Durham which turned out to be the alley behind Tescos & it's self check-out machines. I was in a photoshoot for a friend's magazine which required me to climb into the big blue wheelie bins. A little strange but completely wonderful because I discovered them to be brimming with Tesco's food. 

Packets of biscuits, muffins, loaves of bread, beer cans, pastries, doughnuts, gift bags & loo roll (?!) etc etc. Pretty much all the wonders Tescos have to offer..for free. 

Apparently there's only a certain amount of food that Tescos can put on their 'reduced to clear' shelf, but the rest has to be binned. Such an awful waste & in fact really upsetting with all the mouths that could be fed with it. Surely it shouldn't just be put in the bin? But I guess with health regulations it can't be handed out if it's about to go over the sell by date. But still.

My housemates & I, the students & free loaders that we are, have no concern with sell by dates. None at all, so decided to capitalize on the waste & give it the enjoyment it deserves. 

Such sweet smelly fun.

 Only in your wildest dreams....