A good kind of madness.

Every Sunday of every month, there is a fabulous Celebration of All Things Car-Booty. The Tansley Carboot. (I realise that was a terrible introduction!) The Sunday just gone, I dragged my good mother along with me to said Celebration of All Things Car-Booty (CATCB, from now on!), and we had a good old browse. It was a great day out, and I would really recommend it, but...this is not the subject of this 'ere postie! No. This post concerns what happens when my mother and I spot a little wooden table, piled high with old dolls. We stroll casually over, and I pick up various dolls. Having ascertained that they are each 50p, I ask my dear mother if I may have one. 'No,' she says, and --this is the punchline-- 'We'll take them all!' So...as we speak (Well, as I write) I have a vintage suitcase filled with old dolls, from every corner of the globe! The male stallholder explained, as we packed the 50 or so dolls into a crate (!!!), that his wife had collected a doll, in traditional dress, from every place they visited! The oldest, and biggest is from the sixties, but they are all fairly old, and what's more, beautiful! It's not just about individual value, they're a lovely set, and, gah, I just love them!

 So, I laid all the dolls out on my bed, and just...admired them!!

 I couldn't take pictures of all of them, so I collagified! I don't know where many of them are from, but I do know: Top left - Greek, Middle - Scottish, Middle right - Japanese, bottom left - Scottish, bottom middle - Norweigan, bottom right - Peru!

This is the oldest, and the biggest doll! She was the first in the collection, and is from Norway. You can tell I had fun messing aroung with effects on my photo editor! So - there we have it. The dolls. I hope you like them as much as I do! See you around, buddy!

Not all that glitters is gold.

I may not have posted in a while, BUT, (this is the guilt talking), I wasn't neglecting you guyzzz, I was just taking a miniature bloggity blog break. Anyway, I'm back! here! Hello! Now, one of the most EXCITING THINGS IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD LIKE EVER has happened! You may think I am exaggerating, but I promise you - am I not. Let me give you a clue: What do you get when you add jelly, sparkles and shoes together, in one big hubble bubble pot of loveliness? Answer - Jelly shoes! Yay! I have been wanting jelly shoes for ages now, so when I spotted these beauties on ASOS, I pounced. But then - tragedy struck! I ordered a size too big, so that when they arrived they had to be immediately sent back, and the replacement pair a size down DIDN'T ARRIVE IN TIME FOR ME TO TAKE THEM TO GERMANY WITH ME! It was tragic. However, that's just metaphorical water under the metaphorical bridge now, and when I returned from my holiday, I had such a lovely parcel waiting for me!

 I have been wearing them almost constantly, as they are so incredibly easy to wear, so comfortable and aaaaaargh they're made of jelly! (I know I'm not expressing myself very eloquently, but I've been seized with a passionate and all-engulfing love for these shoes, which takes away my power of speech/forming proper sentences that don't just consist of 'aaaaaaargh'.) Ooh, and I knew I had made a good choice when I saw this epically cool thingy on Rookie! Still on the subject of shoes, I need some new school shoes, and, after some Google exploration, I set my heart on having some T-bar school shoes! Blogger's being awful funny, and won't let me put any pictures up, but just click on this link, to see what I mean! It is proving hard to get my hands on some, but I shall NOT GIV UP! Over and out.

A very eventful day!

Hi there chummity chum chum! If you were in the good town of Chesterfield (Or 'Chezzy', as it is also charmingly known) on Monday 12 August 2013, you would have seen a motley crew striding out, armed only with Doc Martens, knee high rainbow socks, and a good deal of liquid eyeliner. But then again, what more do you need? That afore mentioned motley crew would be:

• Yours truly! (Me)
• Bronia!
• Hannah!
• Bexy!
• Daisy (Blogless)

Anyway, we had a fantasticamundo time in Chesterfield/Chezzy, and although I didn't actually buy any clothes, I still think it was a pretty successful day in terms of SPENDINGK. So, what did I buy? Let's find out!

 So, here we have it. I bough a one pound child's plastic princess beaker. But I shall not apologise! I am PROUD of my princess beaker, and I shall now submit you to a full tour of it!

 Right, having promised you a full tour, I have now realised that there isn't much to say, other than this beaker includes FOUR, yes FOUR of the classic Disney princesses (Belle, Aurora/Auraura/Auorara/Araraoura, Cinderella and Snow White - in other words, this beaker is a bargain, and altogether a great purchase!

 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Aaaaaaaaargh! Guys, I purchased this extremely snazzy velvet purse/makeup bag/pencil case for the extortionate price of £1.00, from Hilda & Miriam (H&M)! I love it, and I haven't quite decided what to do with it yet, but ohmygollygosh it's VELVET!!

 This just more and more exciting! Here we have a nice big pack of Self Adhesive gems, which I intend to stick..on...something...Oh I don't know, I just couldn't not buy them!

 Still on the subject of sticky sparkly things, we were all browsing around Fred's Haberdashery, and I happened to hear this:
Random customer (Showing assisstant iPhone picture) - Do you have anything that could do this?
Assisstant - No, I'm sorry we don't, the only thing like that we have is these Self Adhesive Gems.
Random customer - Oh, ok. (leaves)
And of course, when I heard that, within two seconds Bronia and I were browing those gems frantically! We both opted for these, as they look silvery at first, then the light shines a bit differently, and they go yellow and pale green and purple and pink and china blue! I'm in love...

 Then I bought a metre of this gingham ribbon, which I just adore!

 There was a little wicker basket of lace bundles, each for 40p, so I chose this bundle, and plan to make some lace ruffle socks.

Then I bought two metres of white flower thingymabobbies, which I plan to do something extremely exciting with...but probably won't get round to it!

 And finally, and un - exciting little zip which I shall use on the tartan purse I have almost got round to making! Now, moving on from shopping, and onto Grill Gangs. Oops...I mean Girl Gangs! My friends and I are, of course, avid readers of Rookie, and we were just so inspired by THIS post, ooh, and also THIS post, so what could we do, but create our own girl gang! Well, obviously this gang was only formed on Monday, so there isn't a huge amount to say about it, but here's the logo (which I sketched/painted/outlined only this morning!)

Yep! We are called S.A.R.G, and I shan't tell you what that stands for! (It's ridiculous, but awesome.) We spent so long brainstorming name ideas, that I am pretty proud with what we ended up with! (It must be said that at the time I was dead set on the idea of calling ourselves 'The Snazztastics', but I now realise the error of my ways, and also thank my friends for kindly pointing out that we would have sounded like a middle aged, triple denim wearing rap group!) We have tons of ideas for a gang 'uniform' of sorts - we spent ages in Claire's crying over all the tiaras/unicorn hairclips/unicorn diaries/fluffy pink things we couldn't afford, but 'watch this space', because we will  do something exciting in future! Near the end Hannah and Bexy had to leave us and trudge off to meet their mother (cue sobbing), but Bronia led Daisy and I to a very very very exciting wall of graffiti, and we all posed like mad - here are some of the best shots!

 Daisy's beautiful necklace

 We put all our bracelets on Daisy's wrist, and thought they looked epic! From left to right - Daisy's, Daisy's, Daisy's, mine, mine, Bronia's, mine! Yay!

 Me, looking stupid..please ignore my face, I don't normally look that awful!

 Daisy, strutting her stuff, and posing for all she's worth!

And finally Bronia, looking gorgeous!

And there you have it my dearies! A very very very long post - I'm sorry! I hope you enjoyed it!

Shall I compare thee to a summer's (holi)day?

(May I please just beg a minute to say that I am really like this photo! There we go - narcissistic indulgence over.)
Obviously, as the fact that I am writing this post suggests, I am back. Hello! I hope that your holiday has been full of sun, sea, sand and whatever other generic holiday clichés you want to add! Mine has...not really been full of sand...or sea, but of sun there has been plenty. It was a really good holiday for reading as well, so I munched my way through:

• Pride & Prejudice
• King Solomon's Mines
• Madame Bovary
• MAUS

 Now for the....obligatory photo overload!

 We arrived at Dover port on a blazing hot summer day, and had a grrrrrreat (note icy sarcasm) time queuing. We then got a Ferry over to....France! In France we stayed uno night in a cheap hotel, before a tortuously looooooong journey over to Alemania! (Germany.) We went to the Black Forest part of Germany, and stayed in a really sweet flat in a tiny town called Todtmoos. Here is le view from le window:

Sweet, no? Because my parents are my parents we went on a load of walks...and this was the first one, where everything was so lovely and...well, woody!

My parents looked very small compared to the massiveness of the trees. (This photo should be especially appreciated for how fast I had to run to catch up after taking it. I am not a born runner, it should be said.)

Here is a cross, on it's side, which I can tell you Absolutely Zilch about. Not the next day, but some day following that walk, we ventured over to Basel! Which is not in Germany, but Switzerland!

First observations of Basel - the inhabitants (Basellians? Baselites?) seem to have a mania for covering streetlights with knitted covers, or little felt shapes. Which is very, very cool.

They had loads of really sweet, or really impressive buildings!

On the left is the Swiss flag, and on the right is the flag of Basel. Just as I took this photo the weather had a drama queen moment and went all moody and grey on me.

 Above is a view across the Rhine, the river through Basel, and all the lovely waterside buildings!

I didn't have time/was too lazy to take a proper outfit picture, so you can use your wonderful imaginations to fill in the blanks!

This was intended to be a college of Rad Street Art In Basel, but it ended up just being Rad Stuff I Saw Around Basel Not Necessarily On The Street!

There was a Climbable Tower attached to the Not So Climbable Cathedral, so of course it Had To Be Climbed. And this is the view that the One Who Climbed The Climbable Tower is rewarded with! I didn't go any higher (I have vertigo!) as the Climbable Tower Was Quite A Little Bit High.

And to round off a lovely day, I got given a free bottle of iced tea - I mean, that is a good omen! Thank you, random Swiss employee of Nestea!

Some day after that, we visited Todtnau - et here is the church.

And some sweet blue flowers...

On the side of the hill, they had a wiggly woggly rollercoaster, which (dang and blast) I wasn't allowed to go on. It was very sad.

I found a gorgy, sad little shrine in the woods, on another walk. I'm sorry I just thought it was so pretty!

Then we climbed up and up and up and upppppp to this waterfall - which I promise you was more spectacular in person!

We went on a very long walk on a very hot day. Bleurrgh. However, I had a nice mini photo shoot with a most obliging dandelion.

And...me messing about while the parents peered at some map... We were just getting tired when we stumbled upon a tractor convention! Yay! We talked to some muy nice local farmers sporting LEATHER BRACES! Whooo! Way to tell fashion who's the boss of it! (This may sound sarcastic, but I really did like their embroidered leather braces.)

 And on the last day, I took some nostalgic pictures of the church. And thus ends me holid- wait a minute! There is more! Yes the German part has ended, but after a little time in a smelly car, we arrived back in France, and as we were sleeping in a cheap hotel in REIMS we had tons of time to spend mooching aimlessly around REIMS! Which, it turns out, is a very nice place!

The cathedral is lovely!

And...here is a close up of Joan of Arc's stained glass face...

We found a magical carousel of happiness and joy and yay! ...Which wasn't moving (sob sob sob sob). And I think that concludes my happy post-holiday ramble! I do love you VERY much, and I shall see you next time!