Travel Trinkets

I love travelling and one of the best experiences of my life was the 5 months I spent backpacking around Asia 3 years ago (you can read posts about the trip here and here). Drifting around from city to city and country to country, and with so much time to savour it all, was such a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Alas, reality inevitably started clipping at my heels again and foreign holidays are back to being infrequent and all-too-fleeting. To add some colour and a touch of the exotic to the stationary moments in my life I’ve started collecting mementos anytime I travel – be it just a fridge magnet or an Indian statue of the god Ganesh (that takes up almost your entire baggage weight allowance!!). I also love decorating my apartment with photos I’ve taken abroad and even my phone cover is an image of an old map. It’s my way of couch-surfing!

The guys above are my favourite travel trinkets which I brought back from my honeymoon last summer in Mexico. One of the biggest Mexican celebrations is the Day of the Dead and skeletal art is everywhere in Mexico. These poor guys are quite fragile though and have already sustained a couple of injuries. The rather dapper guy on the left has lost his walking stick twice and the lady on the right has lost her hat! But they're still alive (!) and kicking :)

Most of my money lately is spent on flights home to Ireland! But I'm going to Norway for a wedding this August which I'm very excited about. If anyone has travelled in and around Oslo then any tips would be much appreciated. And as I said, I love couch-surfing so if any of you have any blog posts aboutyour own favourite trips then please link below. I'd love to read them!

Something Old, Something New...and Something Blue

Well, it’s been a while! A new city (Edinburgh), a new job and a printed-and-bound dissertation later and I’m finally getting a chance to blog again. It’s been a really hectic couple of months full of a lot of newness and a slight sense of disconnection – with all the moving I’ve been doing the past 3 years would think I enjoy it but I find it really tough starting afresh each time. I’m a bit of an old change-hating curmudgeon at heart. On the plus side though Edinburgh is beautiful. And now that I’ve bid a cheerful goodbye to academia I’ve been enjoying exploring it. Plus the summer is jam-packed with so many festivals I’m like a child in a candy store – a film festival, a literary festival and the Fringe! It’s gonna be a summer-long sugar rush.

Anyway, onto the pics! These were taken several weeks ago when I was still living in Glasgow. My husband and I took a trip out to Kelburn Castle a short drive away. The grounds around it are beautiful and fun to explore but the castle itself is amazing (see below). A group of graffiti artists were let loose on the main section of the castle a few years ago and the result looks like the imaginings of someone on a magic mushroom trip. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but it’s apparently only temporary and is soon going to be restored to its original condition soon. In the meantime I think it’s beautiful and I love the slightly unsettling feeling of two very distinct worlds colliding – the stuffy stateliness of the castle and the free-spiritedness of the graffiti.  I’m glad I got to see it and have the pics to prove I wasn’t hallucinating! I’m looking forward to lots more Scottish adventures over the summer!

Outfit: dress and bag, vintage; cardigan, Urban Outfitters; shoes, Red or Dead.

Some Tunes and a Be Right Back

Life has been more than a little hectic lately. I started a new job two days ago which by itself would be enough to keep me busy but I'm also moving to Edinburgh next week (hoping this will be the last relocation for a looong time!) and trying to write up my dissertation before the 1st of May. I'm a little all over the place! So blogging has, as you can see, taken a backseat - along with pretty much everything else in my life right now. I really enjoy blogging but I've had so little time lately and my efforts have been really sporadic so I've decided to take a little hiatus and return in May when life will be all sunshine and giggles and academia a distant memory :) In the meantime I'll still be posting on my Twitter and Instagram accounts if anyone is interested in seeing the odd glimpse of me not working/writing up a storm :)

To soften the blow of my temporary departure (!), I leave ye with one of my favourite playlists to date. I absolutely love every song here but Frankie's Gun and Boxcar are my favourites. My husband gets a great kick out of the names of my favourite bands - Trampled by Turtles and Elephant Revival being prime examples! Anyway, hope you enjoy the playlist and see you all in a few short weeks.

PS: You can find me here on bloglovin for when GFC calls it quits!

Paris, Je T'aime

...that's probably one of the most over-used titles when it comes to blog posts about Paris but what can I say - I fell head over heels for the city. I’ve actually been there twice before (when I was 15 and again about 4 years ago) but for some reason the chemistry just hadn’t been there on those two occasions. Both trips felt a little like dizzying carousel rides – with all the sights and sounds melting into one as I raced around the city trying to see all the big attractions. I came away not really feeling like I’d gotten a proper sense of the place.

This time round sparks were flying. It being Valentines weekend probably didn’t hurt! But also because I’d already seen the main attractions we were able to stroll around at a more leisurely pace and wander off the beaten track from time to time. I also tasted my first – and 100^th – macaroon too. Having ticked off several other blogging clichés like taking copious amounts of cupcake pictures, getting bangs, and (shortly) getting a cat, macaroons were one of the last big things on the bucket list :) Anyway, here are a couple of pics from the weekend.

The Dali exhibition in the Pompidou Centre was amazing. We didn't know it was on so it was a very pleasant surprise. It was quite a surreal experience to see so many of Dali's amazing works crammed into the one room. Plus we even got to co-star alongside Mae West's lips (and as you can see I do in fact have a head afterall!) I think the exhibition runs until March so for anyone planning a visit it's definitely worth a visit. It's even worth visiting Paris especially to see it.

The last picture is a chocolate chess board - ingenious - it would certainly sweeten the sense of victory if you could eat each piece you capture from your opponent! Anyway, a big thumbs up for Paris. It's such a beautiful city. From the architecture to the street style, the food and the shops - there's a real finesse to the city with picture-postcard scenes around every corner. I'm already dying to go back. In the meantime, for anyone planning/dreaming about a visit, I'll be posting about some of the food/sights/beverage/shopping highlights from my visit so tune in next week.

Into the Blue

Outfit: Skirt, vintage; jumper and blouse, New Look; bag, vintage; necklace, Etsy.

I wore this outfit (under a very heavy coat and wooly scarf!) on a recent trip to Loch Lomond just outside Glasgow. The loch stretches across the Highland Boundary Fault which separates the highlands from the lowlands and it makes for some pretty amazing and dramatic changes in the landscape. One of my New Year's resolutions was to explore Scotland more so this trip was the start of that. One of the nice things about living abroad is that trips like this have an extra twinkle of adventure because you feel more like a bonafide wide-eyed tourist.

Speaking of adventures, I'm off to Paris tomorrow for a long weekend and can't wait. I usually just wing it on holidays and don't plan too much in advance. But I don't want to waste a minute in Paris so I've every single minute of the weekend pretty much accounted for! Happy Valentines in the meantime - hope ye all have a lovely one!

An Ode to Valentine's Day Stationery

While I’m a huge fan of romance, I’m not so crazy about Valentine’s Day. It can feel a little too scripted and I’d nearly rather get chocolates and flowers any other day of the year. Having said that, I’m a sucker for pretty stationery 365 days of the year. I think it stems from collecting pretty paper as a child – or’ fancy paper’ as we called it - to swap with friends. Scented paper was the most lusted after and gave you the best bargaining power. Did anyone else do this?

For someone who isn’t mad about Valentine’s Day it’s kind of ironic then that I’m going to be spending it in Paris this year! It was a surprise birthday present from my husband. It’s probably going to be a bit of a battle to find any elbow room amongst all the other doe-eyed couples but, congestion aside, I can’t wait! I’ve wanted to revisit Paris since a very fleeting trip there a few years ago. If anyone has any recommendations for cafes/bars/shops/sights to see outside of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, please send them my way!

Anyway, the Valentine’s Day cards below are some of my favourites. I gave the ‘You’re a Fox’ card to my husband last year as with his fuzzy bearded face he looks quite foxy – all he needs is the monocle, pipe and top hat! I love cards that give a cute twist to mushy outpourings – like ‘Love you like no otter’ and ‘You’re the cat’s pajamas’. Having an excuse to give cards like these wins me over just a little when it comes to Valentine’s Day.

Sources: You're a Fox ¦  Sucker For You  ¦  Happy Valentine's Day  ¦  Timber, I've Fallen For You  ¦  Love You Like No Otter  ¦  You've Stolen My Heart  ¦  You're the Cat's Pajamas!

Lately

Reading: I’m half-way through The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It’s a young adult novel set in Nazi Germany. Expect a mini review soon so the jury is still out for now. Progress has been slower than normal though as my new iPhone has been eating into my bedtime reading...I’m going to have to start leaving it in the sitting room at night!

Watching: I’m obsessed with Downton Abbey at the moment. I’ve spent the last two years turning my nose up at it, presuming it was just another stuffy period drama. But it’s full of scheming and back-stabbing and I can’t get enough of it. And the clothes are amazing too!

Listening to: Anything by The Felice Brothers. I’m all about banjo-esque foot-stomping music at the moment. Check out this great song for a taster.

Working on: My dissertation. Zzzzzz. I won’t bore you with the details… all I’ll say is roll on 1^st May.

Looking forward to: Seeing my lovely husband again. We’ve spent most of January apart as I’ve been in Ireland doing research but we’ll be reunited next week.

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So what have you guys been up to lately…?