Putting My Feet In The Sea

Mum and dad came to visit the weekend after my birthday and when they asked what I would like to do I said to put my feet in the sea, so we went off to Cromer :)






And put my feet in the sea I did. I could stand in the sea all day, I love it so much.











Thoughts of chips covered in salt and vinegar persuaded me to leave the beach and we went in search of food.




It was worth it. Those chips were goooood ^_^



There are goats living on the cliffs for grazing! They were chilling out on a ledge, it was a pretty hot day. I'd love to see them roaming about on the steeper sections.




On the way home we drove round the coast and stopped off at Happisburgh.




I've only been once before, a few years ago, and how much more it's eroded is so strange. Places I remember standing are literally not there anymore. Coasts are scary business. Apparently you need to be careful in the water because of debris but it's still a beautiful beach (I don't have a photo of where you would hang out but trust me, it looked lovely) and there's the lighthouse to see too.





As well as taking me to the seaside they also added to how lucky I was on my birthday and gave me some great presents and bought cake so, you know, it was a pretty awesome weekend. Thank you mum and dad ^_^

Here's a video also so you can see the sea in motion.

I Got Older ^_^

Last week I had a birthday and it was lovely. I was oh so lucky and got many a lovely gift and I spent the day with Will in the city catching Pokemon (I got a Gloom!) and just generally chilling out.





This was such a good lunch. Those crisps are some sort of vinegar and chilli flavour vegetarian 'pork crackling' that's actually made from peas, it's sooooo good. Also see my new Pusheen bag (from Will's grandparents, thank you!) and my new Twilight mirror (from William). Told you I'd been oh so lucky, and that was just the tip of the lucky iceberg ^_^



We also got to see the touring piece The Aftermath Dislocation Principle by Jimmy Cauty which was outside The Forum for a few days. It's a shipping container with little viewing holes in the sides and inside is a miniature scene of a town after a riot. There's police radio sounds and the lights change in there like a helicopter searchlight. It was really cool. You can see some clips of it in my video.







We went up some roads we normally wouldn't and it was pretty.





Those My Little Pony hair clips were another gift from Will. I hit the My Little Pony jackpot, he found me so many bits ^_^







We had our temporary tattoos on because we're super cool.



My birthday gift to myself. She's one of my favourite ponies so I just had to get this lip balm even though it's probably awful to actually use. But I still will because I'm committed to my purchases lol.



Will decorated a cake for me and it was Gudetama!!! We can't really find any Gudetama stuff here, unless you buy it online but I love him. I was so very pleased with this cake. Look at that butt!!





The video is just random clips from the day, just like the photos but in video form with the extra perk of Will being a cow.


I had a lovely day and felt very grateful for the lovely presents I got. My parents came down at the weekend so there was more birthday to come too ^_^

Art Journal Flip Through July 2016

A flip through of my new art journal for July. I started at the end of June so the last few days of June are in there too. This is my first month doing it and I'm in love.



I record my life in so many different ways, this daily book is just one piece of that and it's where I concentrate on the positives even if it was an awful day. I get my negatives out (because it's important not to keep them squished up in your head), just not in this book.
It's mostly a much needed way of doing something with my obsession for stickers and ephemera and recording myself. I've collected ephemera (the tickets and labels ephemera not the buy it from a scrapbook brand "ephemera"*) my whole life and have always had a fondness for cutting and sticking so this is a really good way to organise it in a way that still feels like what it is, a collection of random bits that remind me what I've been up to and the act of doing it is super calming too.
I wasn't sure whether to call this an art journal or a scrapbook but art journal felt more right with it being daily (like a journal) and I feel like the collage aspect of it covers the art so I'm going with that ^_^

What really helped to make me have a go at this were Kaila's 'hobonichi with me' videos. Everything she does is so cute, check out her channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVu7QrezyF95lsneYwGSnjA


*I'm not saying anything against buying things to stick in your books, but the adoption of words by companies in order to market things to you often makes for confusion. Because let's face it, the definition of ephemera means it's not something you can buy. Companies basically change the meaning of words to their advantage and it makes me sad. Just remember that however lovely they are, companies are trying to get your money and will often use clever marketing to do that. Ephemera is such an example of it because it's a word that feels so perfectly scrapbook-ey for them to have in their blurb so you'll feel reassured that you're buying the 'right' things when really it means nothing, they're just ruining the meaning of a beautiful word. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with buying the things, but I think it's a good thing to be aware of while you're buying them. You do you ^_^

Norwich Pride 2016

Saturday was the 8th Norwich Pride (only my second) and it was so much fun. The route was different this year, ending in Chapelfield Gardens where there were stalls and a stage and it worked really well. As well as going in the opposite direction, the route was longer this year too which pleases me greatly ^_^ Seeing all the people gathered for the start of the march had me tearing up a bit. I've been so down on Norwich lately (although I'm pretty sure the negative people are getting too loud all over the country (and world) at the minute) and having all these people together just celebrating each other really lifted my lil' heart.




We headed into the city before lunch to check out the stalls in The Forum and were given free cake by a trans support group so I was happy lol. There were lots of stalls by all sorts of organisations and it looked like a lot of good information was getting shared (also, lots of sweets).
We stocked up on badges and headed out to where the march would start. We kind of watched the march from a few different spots and then joined on the end. The atmosphere was so good.






Once we were in the park the atmosphere was even better, all sorts of people having a really good time together. I was just so happy all day, it was awesome.




Rather than taking lots of bad photos of the stage I went with lots of bad video instead. Although the footage isn't technically good it makes me smile and if that isn't the point of recording a day out then I don't know what is. Look out for Steve the policeman. We'd seen him walking about, looking fabulous in his pink feather boa, the strap round his hat was Pride themed, he had rainbows on his cheeks and was just brilliant. Then he was up on stage saying hello to his boyfriend and dancing along with Ashley-Kate and it was definitely one of my top moments of the day, watching that footage makes me smile so hard.



It all makes me smile so hard. I can't say enough how much fun it was, can't wait till next year :D

I Am Enjoying Snapchat

I needed a new memory card for my phone, my internal memory is so small :'( and when I finally got one I thought I'd see what snapchat was all about. I wasn't expecting to keep it for very long, I don't have friends using it so I thought I basically wouldn't be able to use it but once I'd learnt how it works I actually got kind of obsessed. I realise this isn't really the point of snapchat but I have a real hoarding instinct when it comes to photos (I don't save all of them... but I do save most of them) and thought a blog post would be a good way to look back at them later. So here are some of my snaps so far.

I'll be sharing more work progress pictures, I just need more practise at stopping to take photos while I'm working. It will always be lots of my face plus filters though, I especially enjoy catching a filter when it's not on my face properly. If you want to follow me I'd like that ^_^  my username is vongarratt and I have my story set to public. I follow people back on there (and if it turns out to be a creep I quickly unfollow, keep your online spaces how you want them folks) but if you want to see my story without me seeing yours I'm cool with that, just ask me to unfollow you, I won't be offended ^_^

And here's the videos I've saved, not as much as the photos and mostly pets because they are often cuter in motion. (And I kind of forget you can do videos on there lol)

Recent Reads ~ First Bad Man, Batgirl, Saga, Paper Girls, Fangirl and Death Note

*Writing words is not my thing, reviews are not my thing. However, I love books so much and always want to share what I've been reading so I'm just going to go ahead and do it regardless. Also, I don't much care about spoilers so who knows if I say too much or not but I also rarely read anything new. Read at your own risk.*

The First Bad Man by Miranda July - This is classic why I don't try and do reviews territory. I guess this book is about a woman who is suffering with anxiety, loneliness maybe, being very constrained and then someone is forced into her life, literally living in her space and she starts feeling things rather than holding everything back. This makes it sound like a very different book though. The things she feels aren't necessarily healthy. And there are all sorts of off shoots. I dunno but you should read it. It's a little uncomfortable at times but that's not always a bad thing, this is a really good book.

Batgirl Volume 1 Batgirl of Burnside by Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher and Babs Tarr - I really enjoyed this. I haven't read any Batgirl before, but have a basic knowledge of her background. I thought how this was set now with the tech was handled well. Because I'm old and remember when stories didn't need to include the internet sometimes fake social media/apps in stories seem a little shoehorned to be 'current' and 'down with the kids' but this really didn't (let me tell you a story children about the days when not everyone even had the internet and mobiles could only call and text and you had to pull out the little aerial and not everyone had one of those either...lol). I really liked the art style and the use of colour was great. Also the diversity in the characters was very welcome in such a mainstream comic. The story was good to, lol. Reviews pro.

Saga Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples - I had obviously known of the existence of this comic for a long time. Everyone loves it, everyone suggests it to people who don't read comics yet. I hadn't decided not to read it, there's just a lot I want to read so not everything has been got to. Anyway, I read it in one sitting the day before I had to take it back to the library and I really enjoyed it. I hadn't read anything so fantasy in a while so it was nice to have so many different species? creatures? I dunno, characters. It definitely got me hooked, I got volume 2 out when I took this back.

Paper Girls Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang and Matthew Wilson - I really enjoyed this. Before I read it I wasn't really sure what it was about except a group of girls in the 80's (that's all I really needed to know) and then there was added sci-fi shit going down. I liked how the time differences were handled in terms of one of the girls often saying some pretty inappropriate things to current ears (always inappropriate, more 'acceptable' back then) and at one point the guy from the future is just like, "you're just an ignorant past person, things change love". I'm pretty sure those are his exact words. The art and colours are beautiful and I can't wait to see where the story goes. I'm kind of annoyed I've read it so close to when it was released because now I'll have to wait ages for the next trade. At least being behind the times works out well for that.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell - The blurb on the back of this book read to me like "she writes fanfic and is a nerd but now she's going to college so she'll have to stop that stupid stuff and grow up" which I obviously thought sounded really lame. But I kept seeing people love it that I assumed wouldn't think like that so I gave it a go. The first half of the book I found a little dull. Oh there's two of them and one is extrovert and maybe a little too into the party with frats thing and the other is too introvert in a rather unhealthy way, how different but the same, did we mention they're identical twins!! But about halfway through when the dad ends up in hospital I thought it got a lot more interesting and I ended up liking it. Mostly because she doesn't give up on being a nerd, she just fits it in her life with all the other good stuff she likes. The idea you should grow out of stuff like that bugs me so bad so I'm glad it didn't go down that route. I guess it might seem preachy to some people about the party/drinking thing with the whole "you must never drink now and come home every weekend" reaction but it didn't bother me because I don't drink or go to parties. And she was using it as a coping mechanism (same as Cath was hiding from everything) which isn't healthy... Overall, not sure how it gets so much praise but I did like it.
Sidenote: I will never stop being surprised by the US every time I remember you go to uni before you're old enough to drink. You're an adult now go off and live by yourself and be an academic, but no wait you're also a child and you're not allowed to drink alcomohol yet. Weird.

Deathnote Volume 1 by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata - This was not what I was expecting. In a good way, and I'm not sure what it was I was expecting lol. Ryuk is kinda adorable and Light is evil and scary. There's something to be said there about death not being scary and humans being twats but I'm not articulate enough to say it. I enjoyed this too.

Maybe I should just list all the books I've read and at the bottom put 'I enjoyed these' ^_^

Please tell me what you are reading or what I should read and add me on goodreads if you use that because I love it for finding new books to add to my ever growing list ^_^

Also, go visit your library if you don't already (and if you do then go an extra time, treat yourself), it's where I got all these books from. Libraries are magical, amazing and important and need your support. If you can't get to your local library look them up online, I know mine also do ebooks and stuff so maybe they can still help you out.