Undead Matilda Halloween Dress Up!

November 4, 2015November 4, 2015Leave a comment

Helllllllo readers, hope you’re well. Today is a spooooooooooky post *wails,* because it’s all about halloween.

I never really liked halloween that much until I went to university and it was a fully fledged thing that you went out dressed as a witch/ghoul/skeleton, then drank enough snakebite to kill off a vampire and spent the end of your night digging your fingers into a steaming hot greasy pile of chips, cheese and beans. This year I kinda went all out with my halloween party; there was a massive mound of chilli (and a vegetablarian option for T) some wild alcoholic punch and just some hella crazy fun. But, the reason I’m telling you all this is because I went to the party dressed as ‘the undead Matilda.’

(me and Derek Zoolander)

I wrote a post last week about my top ten halloween outfits to wear out and how to recreate them and it seemed to get a lot of likes so I thought I would share what I actually dressed up as. So firstly I went to Newlook and picked up this long sleeved blue flowered playsuit which is really similar to the one that she wears in the film. Also *utter BARGAIN,* the playsuit was a mere £3.50. Sorry wuht. When does that happen?

(Spooooooky goings on)

I skipped along to Claire’s (my favourite shop as a smaller child) and forked out another £3.50 for a very sparkly red headband with a pretty bow affixed to it which is very similar to one Matilda wears. I was tempted to buy some funky tights but I thought keep it simple. I then wiggled along to Wilkinson’s and bought a face-painting palette which came with a really little bottle of fake blood which I didn’t use because I kind of want to keep the playsuit to wear again and you can see the results here ^. I didn’t get a fullll length shot (I’m no lifestyle blogger and totally forgot) but you get the idea.

For my makeup I applied my lightest shade of foundation and then concealer over the top to get that dead-pan look and then blotted on some extra white facepaint just to make it look as ghostly as possible. Make sure to add extra white facepaint in a semi-circle under your eye to make it look like your eyes are huge! Then using my liquid eyeliner I applied a ring under my the white circle (extra -eyes) and added vertical lines underneath to look like eyelashes. I then drew a line over my eyes (do this with your eye open so you make sure it can be seen) and added more eyelashes. It doesn’t matter if it’s a little messy. Lips are just simple putting a little colour in the middle smaller than your actual lips and then lining them and adding stitching

^ I found this at Little Miss Katy – all credit to this fantastic look is her and you can see the tutorial in full hereerere.

ALSO shout out to the wonderfully epic Oliver Birch who went out as a bunch of grapes and drank a hole lotta wine and dressed up like this. #legend.

Gerald’s Party by Robert Coover

August 27, 2015November 2, 2015Leave a comment

Hellllo readers, another day another review; today’s book is a really interesting novel that I picked up when at my local library. Libraries are brilliant for us who hoard books (book bloggers I’m looking at you.) Quite often I read books and although I enjoy them, I’m not truly happy with them and I don’t feel the need to necessarily keep the books. The memories of reading the novel are enough and this was one of those books. I can’t decide whether I *liked* this book yet, but it was certainly an experience as such. My review of Gerald’s Party by Robert Coover

Robert Coover’s wicked and surreally comic novel takes place at a chilling, ribald, and absolutely fascinating party. Amid the drunken guests, a woman turns up murdered on the living room floor. Around the corpse, one of several the evening produces, Gerald’s party goes on — a chatter of voices, names, faces, overheard gags, rounds of storytelling, and a mounting curve of desire. What Coover has in store for his guests (besides an evening gone mad) is part murder mystery, part British parlor drama, and part sly and dazzling meditation on time, theater, and love.

Gah I think I might have gone classic crazy; I’ve gone from detesting them to utterly adoring them in a matter of months. Little Women, and Ulysses are both on the cards although we’ll have to see how they go. In terms of today’s book the narrative follows the almost hallucinogenic nightmare of confusion and turmoil of the rather simply named Gerald’s Party. The book follows the absurd affair as we follow Gerald and his unnamed wife as they entertain dozens of different character. There’s Vic, Dickie, Kitty, Iris, Lloyd, Patrick, Allison and her husbands and numerous others but you would need a checklist to keep an eye on all of them.

Additionally as the blurb suggests there is the body, curled up on the floor amongst the partiers that belongs to the actress named Ros. With a gushing hole in the centre of her chest the mayhem is stirred and her jealous husband Rodger gets a little frantic. With the Police called; (Fred and Bob) and their homicide detective (Nigel Pardew) a rather odd character who immediately demands the watches of all those that have entered (later deducing that the murder happened half an hour before they arrived.) It sounds pretty normal but the writing style is anything but. Dialogues over-lap, characters movements do too. We’re in the garden, bare feet against the grass, then suddenly in the kitchen seeing Gerald’s wife cooking more and more food for the stacked table, then with his son Mark and his mother and law. It all overlaps haphazardly and confusingly. Characters melt into one.

The thing is that ‘Gerald’s Party,’ is noticeably about time, quite obviously shown in the removal of the watches. The party seems to stretch for hours whilst the guests waver in and out of drunkenness. They’re also piles of sexual activity. Each of the couples appears to have at least one other sexual partner at said party and at one point we see Gerald wiping the bottom of a woman who has to put it nicely ‘lost control of her bounds.’ The sexual energy during this is scene is both baffling and amusing. It is riotous read that ploughs through taking the reader whether they want to or not.

I must admit I think I will one day when older I will maybe try this novel again. The effect of the writing for me becomes a little too excessive. The repetition at the beginning is exciting and intriguing but it quickly wears off. The startling acts of the characters becomes too over the top and audacious. For me it is a very evocative and fascinating book that was a bit to jolty to really carry it off and although the idea of time being non-existent at the start was exciting two hundred of so pages in I was starting to lose my stamina. I found that the book felt like a jigsaw puzzle I had to put back together again but had no chance of doing so.

Overall I will probably look at this review in a few years and feel silly but right now this book was really difficult for me to read. I found it really interesting to read and I would definitely recommend but it is honestly nothing like I have ever read before.

Linkkkkks

Amazon

Goodreads

101 things in 1001 days: Host a dinner party and make it beautiful

April 27, 2015April 27, 20152 Comments

So, I’ve been meaning to do this for a while and with many of my 101 things being to improve my ability to cook this one seemed like a good one to test out my newly improved skills at the stove. It’s not that I’m bad at it, I just never make the time and when I do it’s something easy or quick. Although it often tastes rather wonderful it’s never exactly a culinary masterpiece. Now, as you all know I recently moved into a new house and despite telling myself I would have a housewarming it’s been a couple of weeks since I moved in. Perfect excuse for a get together and to invite a couple of wonderful friends round; on the menu, dips and chips to start, vegetarian chilli for main and chocolate fudge brownie dessert for dinner. Pretty simple but pretty tasty.

I started by buying a number of little tea light candles and crimson napkins. The house is so beautiful and the colours are so warm that once I had set the table with the round smooth chocolate coloured plates and had put out the jewel coloured coasters; a criss-cross design of ruby, emerald and sapphire squares it all looked a little wonderful. I then set about on the chilli. I started by cutting up two onions into little squares and two peppers; one red and one green. These were gently softened in the pan with some oil which took a little longer than thought but all in good time; let em get all soft and yummy. I then added the Quorn and browned that off which is a little difficult to do when it starts and ends the same colour but I cooked it off a little. Then I made up 400ml of vegetable stock. It did say 200 and a glass of red wine but I had none in so I just popped in a little more stock. After adding this to the pan with a tsp of chilli powder, ground coriander and cinnamon I pushed up the heat and let it bubble away. I then added two tins of chopped tomato and a tin of kidney beans and turned down the heat. I then let it cook for a little longer and then added a few more shakes of chilli powder.

When my guests arrived I stuck the rice on and popped a stick of garlic bread in the oven and turned the chilli onto a low heat to warm up. I served the food with guacamole, sour cream and a bowl of chopped up chilli just in case it wasn’t hot enough. Chilli probably wasn’t the best choice because I had no idea for the life of me how hot people like their chilli. If it’s my mother cooking it you better be ready for some serious heat but I just wanted a kick at the end and then everyone could add heat accordingly. I must admit I think it tasted pretty good and was just the right amount. The only small error is I didn’t quite cook enough rice which is a little silly because when it’s me I always end up with a huge amount left over but for five I wasn’t sure how to judge it. Saying that people did have seconds and there was a little left over for dinner the next night. I then served the pudding with passion fruit frozen yoghurt which I think went down a treat.

Overall I think it was a roaring success but then it is me. I’ve always marvelled at my mother’s ability to organise a three course meal and even with almost everything ready I was a little stressed and flustered despite being overly prepared. (Printing out four different chilli recipes and having dinner cooked an hour in advance, I was looking pretty good.) I’m really intrigued to do this again and serve something a little more complex. I make a mean Thai green curry and think that would go down a treat. It was the perfect way to celebrate my new house and the move, and something I will definitely be doing again.

101 things in 1001 days: Taste five cocktails I’ve never tried before

January 22, 2015January 22, 2015Leave a comment

Recently I’ve been really struggling to complete any of the tasks on the 101 things in 1001 days list and I’m slipping behind a little in terms of my schedule. Browsing through the list yesterday I spotted one that I had missed, that being ‘taste five cocktails you haven’t tried before.’ In the past few months or so I know I’ve tried a number of new cocktails that definitely add up to over five however I’ve picked a few of my favourites.

Last year, sometime during July me and my then housemate Laura discovered the Coconut margarita cocktail; the usual recipe with a dash of Malibu. This has started a little bit of an obsession with this new type of margaritas. Tequila is a favourite of mine; however recently our bar of choice for cocktails changed hands and was re-named (The Kiln) quite suitable seeing the provenance of the potteries to Stoke-On-Trent. Although the menu is now missing the delectable coconut margaritas they have introduced two new flavours; the first passion fruit the second raspberry. Despite trying the two a number of times me and my cocktail buddy Ollie have yet to decide which is the better of the two.

The next new cocktail of choice, came about when me and my darling mother travelled to Glasgow for a weekend away; if the margaritas is unavailable I will normally go for a Cosmopolitan made rather famous due to being the favourite of the Sex and the City gals. This ‘cosmo’ was laced with strawberry and burnt orange and was rather wonderful however my mother decided to go for a orange based cocktail with a chilli kick. Blended with a dash of Tabasco this cocktail was delicious to say the least and although I don’t remember the name of it so well it was incredibly lovely. The next new cocktail choice came on a night out in Milton Keynes only a month or so ago; my dear friend Leanne is a big fan of the creamy cocktails either with a hit of coffee or chocolate liquor. We went to Las Iguanas a favourite of ours and tried the utterly delicious Crema Chido. A blend of Mexican liqueurs, Xta, with honey & aniseed
flavours, shaken with Kahlua, cream & almond syrup. It’s not something I would particularly pick however it was really good.

The final cocktail is one that I had whilst once again frequenting the bar The Kiln with one of my philosophy student friends. When the chain swapped hands they definitely increased their range of interesting cocktails and this one was named Wine gums from their Candy Shop menu. Sporting St-Germain elderflower liqueur, Chambord, Bombay Sapphire, apple juice and lemon and at the bottom of the glass was a selection of actual wine gums that became sticky in the alcoholic liquid. It not only tasted delicious but the wine gums were devoured and were pretty great. There are a number that I haven’t mentioned that didn’t make it onto the list however these were my favourites of the bunch!