Friday 30 March 2012

Ski Time

Today I go skiing with my university and more importantly, my gorgeous girls, for a whole week. It'll be a perfect way to celebrate finishing university and get a lovely goggle tan!

But don't fret readers (if there are many of you!) I am hopefully going to get someone to post everyday for me!

So have a fabulous weekend in the sun this weekend and an even better long weekend in the Easter weekend! For now I'll introduce you to my gorgeous girls who will be with me for the week!


{I think you can see that this holiday may not be exactly a relaxing family holiday at all!}

Will post ski photos when I'm back, the themes alone deserve a good couple of posts!

Thursday 29 March 2012

Hello World

On Monday and Tuesday I worked on a friend's film in the studio, I was PA (who calls all of the shots and cameras for the vision mixer) and also had a little directing debut! One of the scenes starred the director in a little cameo so I was left in the gallery to direct the rabble of crew!

The first day was just set up so not a lot to do on my part but the sets looked amazing!!


{Clare, one of our set designers, at work}


{The Jungle Scene}


{The Futuristic Scene}

The basic scenes were a Crystal Maze spin off with two areas for the contestants, the jungle and futuristic. The humour was the team captain is in a wheelchair and keeps taking the physical challenges, to no success and the team begin to get royally cheesed off. 

The second programme is called Don't Bang The Gong where the contestants have to simply make sure they don't bang a gong in 15 seconds, unfortunately all of them do and are taken away to a terrible fate! Dark humour from our director what can I say!

The second day however was a little bit manic! We had three scenes to do in one day and everything was running late! But everything turned out well and good, the sets and the costumes looked amazing, I just hope that the director can use the shots in the film! Here's some photos from the days taken by the lovely Lorna Rose Clift again, she is handy with that old camera of hers!



{Me feeling the power with my new role + Rikki our Vision Mixer}


{SO many notes, my script was barely legible}


{Tom the presenter for 'Don't Bang The Gong'}


{The director Rob's cameo in the Crystal Maze}


{Charlie concentrating on his camera}


{A little snippet of our view from the gallery}


{Our floor manager Andy and lighting Ben having a play in the wheelchair, SO unprofessional!}


{Classic Crystal Maze fashion}


{Sound with Jennie}


{Our view for two days}


{I think the camer was too tall for Emily!}


{Sound man Dave}


{So many leaves! Our set designer Lauren}

I can't wait to see the result in the film! I'll keep you posted!

Wednesday 28 March 2012

The Real Apprentice

Now that the new episodes of The Real Apprentice have begun to grace our television screens, it's the perfect time for me to show you my documentary about Apprenticeships in the South, titled the very corny 'The Real Apprentice'.

I wanted to show people what the other options are compared to just university and I think a lot of people think that apprenticeships are for people who aren't good enough to go to university and it's just so wrong!

Anyway, give it a look and let me know what you think!

Tuesday 27 March 2012

The Oyster Shed

This weekend has been full of birthday celebrations and now I'm back in Bournemouth reality has hit again! James turned 21 on Saturday but he stretched the celebrations to THREE days, greedy.

On Thursday his birthday present from me was a meal at the Oyster Shed, it had been a recommendation on Emerald Street (I told you it was good!) and was perfectly situated with a view of the Shard.

The food was so yummy, a really busy but relaxed place, reasonably priced for the centre of London and the portions were huge!

When we got there it was full of after work drinkers but your food is served on the observation deck. It's a lively place with music and everyone enjoying themselves.



{Downstairs bar and Observatory deck}


{It's situated underneath a very posh Japanese bank}


{Cute fishing decorations}


{This is where we sat!}

So, you want to know what we had to eat right? We started with a couple of glasses of yummy Prosecco to celebrate. The had a sharing board to start with smoked salmon, spiced prawns, mackerel and fish goujons. (Sorry about the terrible photography, my camera doesn't like darkness which isn't very useful!)




We also had these delicious Oysters (you kinda have to have them while you're in an oyster restaurant) I thought I hated oysters from the last time I tried them but these were so nice! It came with a spiced relish and lemons too!




Then for main James decided to go for the hugest steak and I the very tall burger with all the trimmings, unfortunately most was devoured before I could take a picture. We were so full after we could barely finish. 



A lovely place for a relaxed atmosphere but with great food and a little bit of decadence, my purse strings feel very empty now though!

The rest of the weekend was a blur of Pimms, curry, WAY too much wine and a cute picnic with cocktails in teapots at the Wills' house. A very good weekend all round, how was everyone elses?

Monday 26 March 2012

Monday Eye Candy

I feel like some Mondays just need a bit of a perk me up to get you going with the week so here is just what us girls need: Monday Eye Candy posts. 

From now on every Monday will be dedicated to some truly beautiful men to keep us going for the day, maybe keep this page up for the day and have a peek back every half hour or so.

The first post is dedicated to possibly my favourite man of the moment, Eddie Redmayne. Just look at him and you'll know why:


{Smart in Burberry}


{This is the massive billboard up in Regent Street, I did stop walking to have a good stare}


{Truly jealous of Cara Delevingne}


{Looking smart at the BAFTAs}

For more of an Eddie fix go and watch Birdsong and Tess of the D'Urbervilles and you'll be as smitten as me!

Happy Monday girls! (sorry guys this post really isn't for you)

Friday 23 March 2012

Watch Listen Tell

Watch Listen Tell is one of my favourite Youtube playlists, it has gorgeous shots of singers and bands who are really on the cusp of becoming in the mass audience so its a great one to keep a look at to keep up with new music.

They show artists acoustically who write their own songs and sing so beautifully, they definitely deserve people hearing them.

Some of my most favourite artists star in their videos including their very first post which is an extremely young looking Florence + the Machine with her band and a stick.


{Florence + the Machine 'My Boy Builds Coffins'}

I absolutely love their little intros at the start, you can really see the characters of the artists more than just boring interviews you often see in music magazines.

Here a few favourite videos of mine but honestly they're all just brilliant and well worth an hour of watching!


{Michael Kiwanuka 'I'm Getting Ready'}


{Ben Howard 'Old Pine'}


{Young the Giant 'I Got'}


{Lucy Rose 'Night Bus'}


{Villagers 'Becoming a Jackal'}


{Two Door Cinema Club 'Something Good Can Work}


{Bombay Bicycle Club 'Dust on the Ground'}

Most of these links are bands who have now become household names in the charts so who knows what will happen to the bands in their new videos? Their twitter is @watchlistentell so follow them to keep up to date with their new video updates!

My weekends pretty chocka block full of seeing friends before I go skiing so hopefully lots of lovely thing to report next week! Have a lovely summery weekend everyone, crack the Pimms out!

Thursday 22 March 2012

The Ideal Home Show

Yesterday Mum Luce and I went to The Ideal Home Show, I wasn't quite sure what to expect to be honest (I'll admit I just came for the free ticket and for a nice day out) but it was a really nice day and different to the other kinds of exhibitions I've been to.


{Earls Court had a mock front and grass on the floor}


{Perfect summer's day on the grass}

It had four sections really: Home interiors, Gardens, FOOD and shopping (can you guess which was my favourite section?) but they also have a celebrity chef stage where they were doing demos. Suddenly the legend that is MARY BERRY stepped onto the stage and made some yummy cakes, absolutely love her, and she kept saying her trademark "No soggy bottoms!" teeheehee


{Mary Berry terribly zoomed sorry!}

It was all really interesting, some nice independent wallpaper designers and paint companies, not to mention the HUGE hot tubs! The food was fab, we went for a pork and apple roll and copious other samples!

Up in the shopping section we got to have a free manicure which was cute and we bought some nice bracelets from a company called 'Estella Bartlett', the guys told us there that it was going to become the new Pandora so watch this space! Obviously they could have been saying that, but its really cool stacking bracelets for £10 so I don't mind either way (some look a bit like Links of London sweetie and friendship bracelets).


On the way out we bought some AMAZING Bluetooth speakers which deserve a blog post on their own really, just trust me they're amazing and you'll all be wanting one when I tell you about it!

It was a very nice day, you can get tickets for about £12 if you buy in advance at http://www.idealhomeshow.co.uk/ but there is a Groupon offer for it too. The show runs until April 1st at Earls Court so if you like the look of it then pop over, theres so many things we saw that I haven't managed to mention so heres some pics:


{Little Treasure Trove}


{Smart Penguin}


{Lucy in an outdoor house}


{Champers and Seagulls go so well together, don't you think?}


{Rows of Verve Cliquot}


{Walking on Water}


{Old fashioned popcorn stand for sale}


{Mock Ideal Homes to look around for Inspiration}


{Ice Cream Van}


{Outside the Lodge}


{Incredible Jubilee Cake made by a 16 year old!}

To be honest this is an insanely girly day so boys you may be bored off your bottoms, but for the girls if you like cakes and shopping and looking at things that will be 'SO great for my house when I'm older' then this is the place for you! We even filled out a survey and got free tickets to the Grand Designs Show next month so expect another post like this soon!

Wednesday 21 March 2012

Lemon and Poppy Seed Loaf

This was a late Mothers Day bake I made on Monday and I'd never tried it before, its a really easy recipe, as long as you have an evening free to watch the oven!

It is a Hummingbird Bakery recipe, the first one kind of is the Bible but their new recipe book 'Cake Days' is basically the New Testament. It is very similar to my Banana Loaf recipe.

You will need:

190g unsalted softened butter
190g plain flour
190g caster sugar
3 large eggs
1tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 tbsp poppy seeds
2 tbsp lemon zest
25ml whole milk
80g ricotta cheese (you can replace it with yoghurt!)

FOR THE SYRUP:
Juice of 1 lemon
50g caster sugar

You need to do:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees and grease and flour your loaf tin. You pretty much need a Kitchen Aid for this recipe otherwise your arm will die. Cream the butter and sugar together.


2. Add the eggs one by one and push the sides down with a spatula. In a separate bowl measure the flour, baking powder, salt, poppy seeds and lemon zest. Now the lemon zest is tricky to measure into a spoon so I just grated the whole lemon in there.

3. You have to add these dry ingredients in thirds, mixing well each time on a low speed. After the second go add in the milk. Once its all in whizz it on high for a bit until its completely mixed in. Then add the ricotta cheese (or yoghurt)



4. Pop it all into your loaf tin and level it out. Put it into the oven for 50-60 mins, mine took longer than that but just keep it in there until your skewer comes out clean through the middle and its nicely browned on top.


5. About 10 minutes before it's all cooked make your syrup by putting the sugar, lemon juice and 100ml water into a saucepan and bring to the boil and let it reduce by half.


6. Once the loaf is cooked, prick a few holes in there with your skewer and pour your syrup over while the cakes still hot. Leave the loaf to cool a bit and then turn out onto the wire rack to cool it. Cut it into yummy chunks and eat away with a glass of cold milk. Enjoy!