Interiors again...

 When I went travelling I bought a Fuji Instax polaroid camera to take with me. I came up with the aim to take one good photo for each country I visited, and then I could compile them and make some sort of memoir. It's the first time I'd ever worked with film, and having James with me he was constantly wincing as I let full daylight into the back or dropped it in the ocean.

 Eventually I've managed to rust the rollers, meaning every photo I took at the end of my journey has nice blank lines through the middle. I think it gives a nice aged look to my trip. It did become a bit of a pain by the end: when I'd press the button at the crucial moment and nothing happened. The worst was when I was stood at the top of the pyramids in Mexico City and had the PERFECT shot ready and nothing came out. After I smacked it about a bit in my hostel room I managed to get it up and running again but had to settle for a photo of a view from my room, which was annoying.

 Plus when I arrived at Brazil, my last destination, I was up the top of some building over looking the sky scrapers and realised that while the camera thought I had 6 photos left, I really had none. So that was the end of that. However, I was only in Sao Paulo for 5 days so I figured I'm not at a huge loss if I leave that one out, this time. Plus that leaves me neatly with two rows of 5.

 Anyway, I wanted to do something different with the photos to make them look really good, so I went online and looked up a bunch of photos for inspiration:

 This is a rough idea of what I'm aiming for. I went shopping in Hay on Wye yesterday to find a cheap frame from one of their kooky second hand stores. Went into an antique shop and rummaged through frames which were about £30-£50... not what I wanted to spend. Managed to get a faux wood frame for £3 somewhere else, made to look like dark wood and with a gold line on the inside. So I've painted it with Annie Sloane chalk paint and am going to distress it slightly so the dark wood colour comes through a tiny bit, and possibly splatter it lightly with some black paint. Hopefully I can find some dark wood to put underneath it.

 I collected some photos of the projects happening in my house also. This is what happens when you let my mum lose in a playground...

The first thing she's big on now is flower arrangements, as I've touched on before. There's now become this weird mix in my house between bohemian items and fresh florals. Or dead branches...

The felted wall hanging I was on about...

Those dead branches I mentioned earlier?

Twig light fitting... obviously.

Up-cycled jumpers...

The staircase patterns so far...

Home

 Sat in my FREEEZING cold house in front of the fire, trying to design patterns for the staircase, while dad is in the next room belting out some classical music. I have one dog in my lap trying to eat my hand and the other pawing at my back because he's jealous of the attention. The cat has been in the same place on the sofa for two days because she's injured her paw. Upstairs I can hear mum banging away on her keyboard getting ready for the choir she's running tonight.

It's good to be back in the mad house.

 I've been diving back into my scrapbook this week and trying to fill all the pages with as much as I can find: memories, cards, places, people. It's good to document everything that seems important at its present time. I know that in months and years, what and who were the most important disappear, but I want to hold onto it and keep it all sealed forever. This week I'm going to add some drawings as well, it's been a long time since I drew anything. It was the only thing I was good at in art. People around me would be painting ceiling high portraits and gluing layers onto architectural sky-scrapers, while I was sat loudly singing Nero and sticking small papier mache shoes onto larger ones... But I could draw.

 It's the first time I've seen Mum since she had heart failure, and I was shocked at how skinny she looked. The latest is that depending on her up-coming results for something heart related, Barney, Joz and I may have to go for an echocardiogram to see if it's congenital. If it is, it means we have big hearts! I think that's rather nice. She's in good spirits and I'll be glad when she can finally slow her work down.

This is the design I've been working on for the staircase:

 I'll take some decent photos of the house tomorrow and get them uploaded. The latest projects seem to be: a curtain made from coffee sacks, a felted wall hanging and a new plan to make a vase from cardboard. Mum's current obsession are flowers. She's going to plant a new batch of local ones in the garden. Today I was handing out my cv for some part time work over Christmas here and unsurprisingly she was sending me to the florists to hand it in... I see where that's going.

 Last night we cooked a potato and celeriac tart de flette and covered it in cheese. Unfortunately we left it in the oven at 30 degrees and it was raw when we got it out an hour later, so that's dinner tonight. Typical week in my house so far.

Interiors

 Can't help but resist looking at the student houses for next year, I've been constantly thinking about interior design and what I want to do with my room next year. I love being in halls, but once you've put up a couple of posters and hung some fairy lights, there's not a whole lot else you can do to it - seeing as the furniture is glued in.

 Watching my parents move to their new country cottage and slowly pour their lavish taste into the building has really whet my appetite for the indoors. Next week when I visit I will have to take some photos of what they've begun doing to the house. Nothing inside is on trend in anyway, which makes it completely timeless. There's a real feel from my mum's side of bringing nature into the house. I'm not just talking about plant pots. I'm talking small dead branches with fairy lights woven into them, lampshades made of dried twigs. The lot.

 I would love to have a bedroom like this:

Nothing better than that shade of purple.

Not a huge minimalist fan, but I do like those bedrooms that are quite low down too, like beds on low wooden crate slats. This was an image I've kept for a while, it's a little colder than I'd like but it's a basis of a theme within the space.

Till next year I have to keep on with my room, dark wood and all. I do miss having a window without a netted curtain but it feels like home to me.

Here's an old draft I found... 2013

Here is my post it board of stressy things. I am currently working my way through "Tidy Room" but it doesn't seem to be going well...

To commemorate our final day tomorrow, I thought I'd do one of those imaginary posts about a made up day. A typical day at South Wilts.


  "POPPY ARE YOU UP?" I groan as I here Dad yelling and realise I am devastatingly late for the 6000th time. Fucks sake.
  "Yeah" I yell convincingly back as if I've been doing yoga for 3 hours.
I know exactly what is going to happen now. I will roll over, see that it's five to eight, panic, smash into the mirror sit up and see my face, get annoyed at my face, fall out of bed, put on an outfit which is going to make me feel cool until I step out the house. No breakfast. No lunch packed. No make up.

  And am I right? Of course I am. This happens. In amongst this are texts from all the "Harnham Crew" checking if I am walking. I am in a foul mood.

  Emily arrives at my house five minutes late and we reach James who is even later. We reach Rosa who is panicking that we've walked on without her. I am grumpy. So I ignore everyone else's optimism and just complain about how shit everything is. We get to Emma at the bridge, and accurately in this time I've managed to be a bitch to each one of the walkers. So now it's Emma's turn to hear about how fucking annoyed I am.

  We get to school with seconds to spare, hold all of Rosa's stuff as she ties up her laces and wait for Emily to pull her skirt down before we walk past Stamdawg. She scolds us for being late and we all give her death looks.

  I go up to registration and manage to convince my tutor into letting me off going to assembly. 'If any higher staff come in, I'll look sad and we just tell them I was having an emotional melt down?'

  Get to my first lesson, if I have one. Basically I'm either asleep on the desk or on the common room sofa. My class civ teacher thinks I've got problems because I keep sleeping in her lessons. Really it's because I was up till 4am last night doing an essay for her.

  Try not to annoy anyone over lunch by walking into the wrong social circle... god forbid I should get the South Wilts bitch face thrown at me again. I'll eat a packet of crunchy nut from Waitrose next to Bex and Ollie and catch up on the gossip or just take ugly pictures of myself on their phones when they're in the toilet.

  Trundle through whatever my last lesson is of that day and then walk home, normally by myself. If I'm not by myself I'm going along with my iPod in and head down in case anyone else wants to walk with me. I don't think anyone else needs to handle my mock sarcasm for the rest of the day. I've learnt that if you say how you really feel but do it in a sarcky tone - people laugh.

 Arrive home to an empty house... I don't know where my parents are as per. Which means I get to watch tv and eat nutella pancakes as quick as I can before they're back.

Downer

 Coming back from travel has been the weirdest phase of my life. You've spent five months trekking across the globe. You've learnt to use sunglasses as tweezers and what the best way to wash your pants in the shower is. You're meeting the most inspirational go-getters from every country in the world. All you want while you're out there, is to run back into your families arms, have a bath and eat something with good cheese in it. And then it's completely not how you expect.

 For the last two weeks of my trip, I was incredibly ill and exhausted. I had been on antibiotics for 4 days for a reoccurring problem over three and a half months, followed by a 22 hour bus journey that made me throw up all night, and then I arrived at altitude and got the worst altitude sickness I have ever had. This was just before my 4 day trek up to Macchu Pichu, which meant I was sick during my time and it made it very difficult. The fabulous landmark and the optimism of my team was a huge lift - I forgot for a minute that the only thing I can eat without being sick is crisps - the view was phenomenal and my group were the most positive people I have ever had the pleasure to spend time with.

 Then it was my last country, Brazil. I was chuffed to see an old friend, but counting down the days, desperate to get home. I went into a Macdonalds and tried to order a chicken burger in Portugese - I came out with a Mango Smoothie. It was going well. It got to the point where I was counting down the minutes and minus-ing off each minute that passed. All I could do was play the image of coming through the gate and seeing my parents and my boyfriend again. With my birthday the day after my return it was hugely exciting to be so close to the end.

 One eleven and a half hour flight back, I was crying at one point I was so excited, I was constantly looking out my window and checking the time. Then I arrived, and I ran so fast I overtook the 1st class people from my flight just to be out first. After the big collapse into them again I was so shocked, it felt surreal to be back with them again.

 It's funny how crazy that moment seems and then ten minutes later you're discussing what's going to happen next Tuesday to the dogs and it's like you've never been gone. You're expecting people to ask you what happened and to tell them everything about it and they don't. Because everyone has been getting on with their own lives, no one is really desperate to hear about your story.

 I'm not annoyed at all, but it was the weirdest thing. Life descends back to reality and after a couple of days of feeling like you've missed out on loads it's just the same as it always was. The sad part is I came back with so much zest for life and I was so excited to get stuff done. That all faded away when I was back. It felt very draining. But now I am at university and I have made such good friends already. I feel right at home and my course is going to be great fun, so I am happy now. I just found that side of my return very interesting; how quickly we acclimatise again, and you aren't an individual to anyone but yourself really. Hell can you tell the difference between people who took a year out and people who didn't though... at least I have that smug maturity.

Doobie

 I've been growing pretty frustrated recently on the hold drugs has been having on people my age. It's not the act of breaking the law or the defects it has on their body, that's their burden to bear. It's the complete disregard for anyone close to them and how it may affect those important people. It's not taking responsibility for the fact that you are putting people around you at major risk of getting in deep shit. And the people who are looking out for you, it's shitting on their outstretched hand.

How many friends am I going to lose to drugs? They seem to be a pretty good way of separating the friends who never cared about you anyway from the friends that do.

No Thanks

 This past week I spent two days in Aberdeen, two days in Wales and two days in London with two friends who happen to live in opposite ends of the country. Whilst I was up in Scotland I was hearing a lot about their Referendum that's coming up so soon. It's practically the only subject in conversation in the north. On the second night we went out in Aberdeen and met some people in a club and got chatting, as you do.

 This next conversation represented clearly to me what I believe is a huge and really frightening problem evolving as a result of social media - or rather, the ease in the gain and spread of information nowadays. One particular girl I spoke to told me quite openly that she was going to vote 'Yes'. She then said to me, that the only reason she had decided on this was because 'wages will increase'.

(In the Scottish Government's words this was put as: 'ensuring that the minimum wage rises in line with inflation' a grand promise)

 If you think for a minute about this statement, which has obviously been pumped out of Alex Salmond's campaigners, how on Earth are they going to guarantee that wages will go up. Scotland doesn't have a fully working government yet, on who's calculator was that phrase legitimised? It is such a vague and unconfirmed claim, for a country who do not yet have a running system and cannot yet have worked out the unforeseen costings that will come with their separation from Britain.

 Don't get me wrong, if Scotland wants to leave then I think it's a deep loss for us, but they must go if it's their wish. However, if people are basing their vote on such absolute gossip and vague ideas, then it will result in regret and a complete mess. Their first government will have lied to them, or guessed figures to please people. That wouldn't be a fantastic start.

 It's part of a wider problem I believe has been breached out of the lazy way we can now encounter news and gain national and international information. People generally will hear one comment from someone they know and that will become gospel. I know myself, that I've passionately repeated something I've heard on the grapevine as the ultimate truth, when it's occurred in conversation elsewhere, at a later date. To me, people seem rather vicious and aggressive about things they just don't know fully about or even understand before they back it.

 I am trying now to research and check my information before I go parading it as the absolute truth. We should be balanced and if we care about something, we should research and get our facts from more reliable sources.

 Recently, I wrote an aggressive article as an English experiment; I wanted to create something vicious and see what the reaction was. I sent it to my family and very quickly had a venomous email returned by one of my brothers, who was furious I had made such huge comparisons and broad statements without knowing anything on topic. He was right, but it was also just an experiment, I was at that moment in a hostel in Mexico with patchy wifi and only Spanish literature, which makes researching your point quite difficult. Interestingly, as he'd sort of been provoked, he then made huge stereotypes about the people I'd spoken to and the origin of the opinions listed. He was trying to deter me away from doing something that he then himself did, as he was so angry. So the circle goes on.

 We cannot possibly know the truth about many, many things that go on in the world. I suspect that a great deal of what we hear is bent slightly or an outright lie. So I urge people to think before they back something and to use common sense when thinking about important decisions, seeing as we are now eligible for voting and I daresay with our attitude that could be a scary prospect.