Seeing out the old and partying into 2014

 

My New Year’s Eve was certainly not the best of recent years, not through any party problems, fights or anything like that, simply, I was ill and felt a bit rubbish. I was gutted to wake up feeling awful on Tuesday morning after shaking, shivering and sweating all the night before – it was horrible! I can cope with a regular cold, but this was a bit more than that. But I refused to let it get to me too much, I treated me and the boyfriend to two juicy steaks for tea which he cooked to absolute perfection for our last meal of 2013 and then after a rest I put some slap on and we headed round to a mate’s house for our annual NYE party.

Usually carnage, these parties have literally seen every type of crazy games, light shows, Chinese lanterns, alcohol, cocktails and of course, there’s been a couple of fights.. We always have so much fun and it is an amazing chance for us to get the whole gang together for a blowout with a few of us living away now. Last year’s party was organised by myself and the boyfriend when he was still living in the house with the others, Mark went all out and treated us to everything short of indoor fireworks and we had an amazing evening with a packed house of laughter and lots of shots. It was great! This year, the others had organised great decorations and even a party punch that was delicious, and a couple of games such as FlipCup – which was so much fun!

My team – The Blues – were the undisputed winners of the game which saw us drunkenly trying to flip cups off the table to land on the opposite side or even on top of another cup after shots, tricky but very fun! Then we joined in Twister while we were tied together in partners and I made it to the final with one other boy – pretty proud.  There was a lot of music, dancing, some funky laser lights and lots of good fun throughout the evening, all rounded up in the midnight kiss with everyone and the standard group hug.

It was another fantastic new year with great friends who I’ve shared amazing memories with this year, but sadly I had to leave a little earlier than usual because I was shattered and feeling a bit rubbish – for once I was the first to call it a night! I’m glad I did or I think I would have felt even worse yesterday and today than I have been feeling… But I’ve been well looked after by the boyfriend who dosed me up with painkillers and cuddles. I’m pretty excited about our promise to each other that next NYE will be spent just the two of us away somewhere, much as I love the huge parties, this year it was missing my two best friends who were also ill or living away and it was most definitely not the same. Next year I am looking forward to a cosy NYE in with a bottle of champagne and my favourite person.

How did everyone else spend their NYE? And who had the hangover from hell the next day?

 

 

‘When you and I were forever wild’ – The beauty of The Great Gatsby

On Friday I decided to treat myself to a copy of The Great Gatsby on DVD to watch that night. Having seen it at the cinema, I was wholly impressed by the quality of the film, cast, production and soundtrack – all incredible and I would expect nothing less from Baz Luhrmann. Although we saw it in 3D at the cinema, we watched it on our huge TV at home and it still had the same incredible effect. The songs gave me goosebumps and the words, cleverly constructed into the storyline by F Scott Fitzgerald all those years ago, gave me shivers.

After studying the book at school and university, I cannot help but look at the film and book in terms of the class differences and the commentary on society. The line that still gets me every time is said by Daisy, played by Carey Mulligan, when she says:

“I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

The implication of this line in relation to the treatment of women and the objectification of women, by women themselves, is horrifying and the characters resigned to it, preferring to live out the fantasy than face or fight the truth.

This is the first adaptation of a novel to the screen where I believe that justice has been done to a great novel. With others over the years there were always bits missing or parts were not presented in the way I felt they should have been – for example, The Time Traveller’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, was a particular disappointment. However, Gatsby was a magnificent representation of the roaring twenties that are pictured from reading the book, the flamboyance of the characters, the parties, the clothes and the music is perfectly executed on screen. The soundtrack brings the film bang up to date, while enhancing each scene – whoever put together the soundtrack and matched it to the scenes did an amazing job.

The actors chosen for each role were perfect, Carey Mulligan was exactly as I had imagined Daisy to be, Leonardo DiCaprio perfectly embodied the character of Gatsby and I loved Tobey Maguire’s dry and detached commentary of what was happening around him. My favourite scenes of the film had to be the party scenes, the day where Gatsby and Daisy are reunited and finally the scene in the hotel room that sparks the final demise of each character. Finally, my favourite part of the whole film has to be Lana Del Ray’s version of Young and Beautiful, a song that pierces my heart each time I hear it and brings a tear to my eye. Not usually a huge fan of Del Ray, I often find her music a bit heavy going and samey, but this track is stunning and flawless. Her voice is truly beautiful and the song perfectly matches the mood of the film, it shows the shades of darkness of the characters mixed with the light and hope shared by them for the future.

I love the line of the song, towards the end, that goes:

“He’s my sun, he makes me shine like diamonds.”

It just captures the feelings shared between Daisy and Gatsby so beautifully, a feeling I know well, that one look from the one you love can set you alight and bring you to life. Stunning all around. I love this film and I love the fact that this film has made by boyfriend, who has never really like Luhrmann’s films, think again.

Only problem is that I need to win the lottery in order to fulfil my wish of hiring a mansion or stately home to hold a fabulous twenties-themed Gatsby party with everyone I know. I want to have everyone dressed up in gorgeous flapper dresses, feathers and beads. Everyone would be swing dancing all over the place with my friends from Swing Patrol and the music would be big band and lively. Plenty of cocktails and sparkle everywhere. It really would be the party to end all parties, but how on earth I would put this on – why knows without the funds!

Who else has seen The Great Gatsby that has read the novel? What did you think of it?

 

YES! Halloween score!

It turns out that all my moaning about how much I miss celebrating Halloween has paid off and the universe has organised a party at my boyfriend’s house (at least until he moves out tomorrow). One of the other house mates is organising a Halloween party for tomorrow night and it is a perfect chance to party without having to clear up the mess the next day because we can go back to his new house and avoid it!

So, last minute fancy dress idea is all based around these amazing Paperself lashes I was given at the EA Bloggers Party a few months ago. It’s also quite a topical costume – I’m going for the black widow look.

I absolutely love them and was dying to wear them, so my outfit will all be based around spiders and I will attempt the following make-up from the tutorial it links to.

Black Widow make-up

The make-up is stunning and I can’t wait to try it out, but I might change it slightly to suit the colours I already have and to make it simpler. With it I am going to wear a new skirt I had already bought from Boohoo, a grey,  mesh midi skirt that will look gorgeous with my black velvet crop top and my new chunky black shoes. To make it more costumey – I also have a fabulous spider web cape and a pair of black lace gloves. Hopefully it should look quite glamorous overall and still like a costume.

I’ll be sure to post pictures of my outfit and make-up after the weekend.

Networking: Making new friends at the #EABloggerParty

On Friday night I headed to the beautiful city of Norwich in the rain with two photographer friends and a fellow blogger to the first East Anglia Bloggers Party, organised by the fabulous and lovely Gemma Seager – the woman behind Retrochick.

(From left, Mike Chivers of Rebel Heart Photography, myself, Victoria Arndt of Faerie Wishes and Emily Nichols, another photographer)

Gemma had organised the cocktail party as a chance for bloggers and creative types to meet in person instead of just online and it was a great way of developing a community between Norfolk writers.

Here I am hobnobbing with some of the fabulous writers I met at the party (pics courtesy of Rebel Heart Photography) over some gorgeous 241 cocktails – my favourite was the Freak Friday, although I rather enjoyed a raspberry Bellini as well!

 

It was a really lovely party, Gemma had gone to so much effort in organising goody bags, a raffle and tights competition, and I meet some lovely women. It was refreshing to go into a room of women with such a wonderful atmosphere, everyone just wanted to make friends and hear about your work. Talking about what I do also made me realise the value of all my work by seeing it through other people’s eyes. It is very easy to forget or underestimate yourself when you don’t take a step back to put all your work into perspective.

It was also fantastic to finally meet the woman behind Retro Chick – one of my favourite blogs and Gemma is such an inspiration for turning her passion for writing and all things vintage into a career – when she couldn’t find the job she wanted, she created it.

I’m really looking forward to the next gathering and keeping in contact with the bloggers I met.

For the tights competition, we had to choose a pair to take home and wear, then getting a picture of ourselves and posting them on our blogs to stand a chance of winning a hamper. Here’s my offering – and I love the tights I ended up with – gorgeous lace print!

The tights are by Pamela Mann – http://www.tightsplease.co.uk/brands/pamela-mann/

Networking: I’m off to a party this weekend

Have been invited to this event on Friday and I’m really looking forward to it. Am car-sharing with a group of fellow-Lynners who are a mixture of bloggers, photographers and event organisers so it’s a good group made up of talented individuals. I’m excited to meet the organiser of the event, a fellow blogger who calls herself Retro Chick, and anyone else who might be going along. I had better choose a fabulous outfit to wear and use the opportunity to meet as many people as possible! Will blog all about it when I am home.