Get lucky!

Picking all those pennies up off the ground must have had an influence on my luck, because I am on a massive run!

First, I won an absolutely beautiful print of the sea at Golden Bay from Mike Hill Photography:

And then today, my name was picked out of the hat from a competition that I entered via Oxford Today and I've won a £65 'flare' saucepan!

I had read about these pans in a magazine somewhere and was really impressed - they take about 40% less energy to cook compared to a normal saucepan due to the heat being channelled up the sides of the pan by the 'flares' in the side. However, given their price and the unlikely possibility that we would have gas cooking back in New Zealand (possible, but not as ubiquitious as it is here in the UK) I dismissed the thought of getting some. But clearly the universe was listening and my I came up trumps!

So, while this is a horribly boasting post, I'm writing it so that hopefully my accumulation of luck gets shared with you all and lots of lovely things start happening to you. And don't forget, see a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck!

Gratefulness part II

Rounding off the final part of my gratefulness challenge, here are the last two days:

Day six (3rd November):
1. A free workout as a result of doing a favour for a friend
2. After many, many bad kiwifruit this year, finally a perfect one today
3. A beautiful sunset from the office stairwell

Day seven (4th November):
1. My new shampoo bar that arrived in the mail – can’t wait to try it!
2. Looking forward to a (hopefully interesting) talk tonight on the role of language in society as part of the ESRC festival of social science
3. And finally, the best part of each and every day, this guy.

So there you have it, seven days of gratefulness. It was actually pretty good to stop and think about the little (and big) things that make you happy. Some days there were lots of things (like today I found two pennies on the ground within a minute of each other - lots of luck for me!) and while other days were a bit simpler, there was no shortage of good things. I firmly believe that happiness is a state of mind and being optimistic and looking forward to the future plays a big part in that. So here's to lots more exciting things happening in the coming years!

Gratefulness

I was recently challenged by a friend to do this gratefulness challenge online - basically, you have to say three things a day that you're grateful for, for seven days, and then each day, also nominate someone new to take up the challenge.

Realising that most of you who read this aren't also on Facebook, I thought I would repeat it here. I've already done five days out of seven, so I guess I'll split it into two posts.

Day one (29th October):
1. The wonderful people involved with LSE Bees! Despite the rain, we had a brilliant honey festival today (I will put photos on the LSE Bees blog at some point too...)
2. There being a single bus from my house all the way to uni that I can get on rainy days like this, laden with things
3. The freedom to spend my morning icing cupcakes and my afternoon talking to people about bees – I will miss you PhD when you’re gone…

Day two (30th October):
1. Lunch with a friend rather than at my computer
2. Looking forward to dinner with some of my lovely NSEP peeps who continue to delight me so many years down the track
3. My awesome new 'party pants' - if you can't have fun with fashion, what's the point?

Got so much love for my floral trousers!

Day three (31st October):
1. An inspiring and productive meeting with my co-author
2. Sunny London weather making for an invigorating ride in and a beautiful view out over the city from my office
3. Great new tunes from the 2014 Mercury Prize winners Young Fathers:

Day four (1st November):
1. Bopping out to cheesy music while spending a Saturday in the office
2. Stunning fireworks display in St Albans and having the opportunity to hang with lovely peeps after said day in the office
3. Finally finding the perfect outfit (not) to wear for when I finally graduate (read the reviews, they're hilarious)

Day five (2nd November):
1. A lovely lazy sleep/lie in complete with masala tea from Nepal and listening to the rain beat against the windows
2. Making roasted butternut squash seeds - I really like finding a way to do something with things that you may otherwise have thrown away
3. Buying tickets for next Friday for this completely random cabaret - I'll let you know how it goes!

And that's it so far - stay tuned for the last two days!

Planting poppies at the Tower of London

We had a very unusual Thursday morning today, as instead of going to work, we went to the Tower of London as volunteers to help plant poppies for their remembrance art installation for WWI called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.



There are 888,246 poppies being planted in the moat to commemorate every single British death and each poppy is handmade and then planted by us, the volunteers. Apparently there are nearly 300,000 left to plant which seems incredible given how many there were already there! Here's a short (3 minute) video showing how they're made:

It was fun to be part of, both making the steel rod/washer combos to support the poppies, and then the actual installation of each poppy. The fact that it's something so iconic is great as well, particularly given how much I enjoyed our trip to the Tower of London a few years ago - absolutely one of my tourist highlights of London. I also laughed at all the tourists taking photos of us - total paparazzi!






There are some more photos here, and if you're interested in buying one, they're selling the poppies for £25 each after Armistice Day here in support of six different service charities.

Apparently they also need volunteers to help remove them come November, so get involved!

Bestival

A couple of weekends ago we finally went to something that we've been looking forward to for months (having got the tickets absolutely ages ago) - Bestival! Bestival is a music festival on the Isle of Wight, and is basically the last festival of the season (and generally always happens on the first weekend of September).

It's got such a nice, relaxed vibe to it and generally gets lots of bands and other musicians who we like, so having first been five years ago in 2009, we headed back this year with big expectations. And fortunately it didn't disappoint! The weather was absolutely amazing - warm and sunny, although not too sunny that you couldn't sit outside for hours (which was our main festival activity of choice), and it clouded over most nights which meant it didn't get too cold. It's also got a fancy dress theme, and this year it was 'Desert Island Disco' which saw all sorts of brilliant takes on sequins and Hawaiian shirts. Although the complete ubiquitousness of bum bags was somewhat astonishing - clearly I'm way too old to know that they're in fashion now!

We went with a group of friends and because it's a reasonably small festival (unlike say Glastonbury which takes forever to get anywhere and you're never going to meet up with your friends no matter how hard you try), we managed to just run into each other most days or meet up for lunch etc. between bands which was great.

Favourite acts for me included Beck (despite him falling doing his brilliant dance moves and hurting his knee), La Roux, Sam Smith, Disclosure, Laura Mvula, Candi Staton, The Kooks (surprise guests!), and DJ Yoda, as well as the brilliant Mr Motivator - an '80s exercise instructor who got the crowd up and moving on Sunday lunchtime.

We also did all sorts of silly things like have a go on a toboggan ride, try out unicycling, learnt all sorts of cool stuff in the science tent (did you know that sounds make a difference to how you perceive the texture of the food you're eating? For example, if you crumple some crackly paper, it will make potato chips seem more crunchy in your mouth - something I did not know!), and just generally hung out and had a good time. The rest of the photos are here if you want to have a look.

Here's to more festivals in the future!