A Break in Belfast

I'm very pleased I decided on Belfast for a mini break.  I got back on Monday night, stuffed full of amazing food and having had a thoroughly lovely time.  Lots of people gave me great tips about things to do and places to go but special mention must to go to Hazel for being full of ideas about wonderful restaurants and especially for tipping me off about St George's Market which I loved.  I was only prevented from spending loads of money by virtue of taking a small hand luggage case with me and having no room to pack anything else into it.

We spent Sunday on a coach tour.  I am sometimes a bit sniffy about coaches but this was ace.  I didn't fancy getting to Giant's Causeway by public transport on a Sunday anyway but this covered loads of other stops - castles and views a plenty!

Yeah, I didn't dare go over the rope bridge.  I'm not scared of heights but I can't cope without a solid surface under my feet.  Stairs with no backs freak the hell out of me too.

Well, Giant's Causeway is a bit good, isn't it?  I must admit, on the approach down to it I was thinking "Pretty scenery and all but hmmm, it doesn't look that amazing"...

Then you get up close and it's all "woah, look at the ROCKS!"  So, um, look at the rocks everyone!  Isn't nature a marvellous thing?

Then you gallivant all over them and it's brilliant.  I was leaping from rock to rock, pretending I was in The Crystal Maze or Knightmare or something, and trying not to fall in the sea.

Everyone was super jolly too - a very nice Portuguese man took this photo.  I should track him down and get him to take all my blog photos!  I actually like it and I never like pictures of me.

Papa Odd Socks (excellent holiday companion that he is) took this one.  It's coming up weirdly out of focus here which it isn't anywhere else, but it does actually show what I'm wearing.

Coat - Very.co.uk
Jumper - Fat Face sale
Jeans - Dorothy Perkins
Boots - H&M
Ancient bag - Oasis
Arm warmers - no idea
Pose - bad idea

I love this jumper.  It's one of the three I bought in Harrogate last week and I really wasn't meant to be buying any of them, but when you're faced with lovely teal and cream stripes and waffly sleeves and general cosy jumperishness, what else can you do?

How To Outfit Post, Odd Socks Style

The night before, have a mildly angsty rifle through my wardrobe trying to find something blog-worthy that you haven't already seen before. Decide that I don't own any nice clothes. Give up and go to bed.

In the morning, go "argh" and shove on something that looks vaguely presentable.

Give up tea break to:

Go and stand in the freezing cold by my beloved brick wall.

Hi, brick wall! You are looking bricktastic today.

Having had to put sensible spare flats on to get to the brick wall, swap for shoes I've actually been wearing.



Prop camera up on picnic table, check I've got the settings right and fire up the multishot option.

Try my utmost to avoid being seen by any passing gardeners/visitors/school children. This often to leads to photos such as this:



Keep coat on initially, then decide that despite the freezing conditions, it really must come off at some point. Take a minimum of 50 photos.



Decide I look like a troll in all of them and ponder whether I'll ever be brave enough for an outtakes post. Attempt to distract from this by taking arty-ish closeups of the jewellery.




Run back inside and have v. large cup of coffee to warm self up.


Give up lunch break to:

Upload photos.

Groan almightily at the amount of them where I'm either looking gormless or have managed to zoom in too much and chop my feet or head off.

Narrow it down to a few that I don't actively loathe. Crop, resize, alter the exposure if necessary.

Upload to Blogger and edit the HTML coding so they show up as a decent size. Tag, add links, loudly curse Blogger's really annoying habit of inserting random coding in places and making it look a mess.

Get massively sidetracked by work (yeah, lunch breaks are a notional concept here).

Remember I haven't finished, go back and write something vaguely interesting to accompany it. Usually fail.

Think "oh feck it" and hit "publish post" anyway.

Feel guilty about my shocking lack of replies to comments.


Blogging. Weird pastime, isn't it?


Dress - AX Paris via charity shop
Shirt - Um, Gap, I think. I stole it from my brother
Shoes - Next, via charity shop
Coat - c/o Very.co.uk
Locket - Etsy

Giveaway Time

I have bad news and good news.

Bad news: I am not running the 12 Days of Christmas giveaway again this year. My brain can't cope with the effort of thinking of things for it. It was hard work last year!

Good news: I have a big shiny giveaway for you RIGHT NOW instead, partly to celebrate having 400 followers and partly just because you're all marvellous.

There are 4 prizes:

1. Your choice of either a single or double personalised silver banner ring from MerCurios .


I absolutely adore MJ's creations and I am very jealous of whoever wins this one. I strongly encourage you to go and buy something from her anyway. She makes the most gorgeous jewellery; all sorts of stunning statement pieces made with rock crystal, geodes and skulls, and of course a huge variety of beautiful personalised rings. The lucky duck who wins this gets to choose their preferred style of ring (single or double banner) and their own message to go on it.


2. A £50 voucher to spend at Very.co.uk


Fifty whole English pounds to spend on whatever you want! Now you could be sensible and spend it on Christmas presents (new Call of Duty game? toys for the kids?) or something practical like a new hairdryer, or you could take my advice and spend it all on yourself. Buy something lovely like shoes (I really want these!) or a new coat or a pretty frock. The choice is yours.


3. A lovely pair of boots from Natureshop.co.uk.


I always like to hear about companies that try to do things ethically so I was very pleased when the lovely people at Natureshop got in touch. The products are all made in as environmentally responsible a way as possible and they tell you all about it on the product page which I very much approve of. And who doesn't love a bright red pair of wellies or proper sheepskin lined boots? No more cold feet in the snow this year: hurrah! The winner can take their pick from the Merrell, Keen, Teva, Kamik, Chaco or Timberland ranges.


4. A book token for one book from Persephone Books (provided by moi).


Persephone reprint neglected classics by twentieth century (mostly) female writers and I can honestly say I've never had a bad book from there. Even if their books aren't quite to your personal taste (and there's a really good selection so I hope that at least one of them is!), they're beautifully printed and make amazing presents for people so you can always pass the gift along. I'll organise a book token for the winner which can be claimed against any book in their catalogue.

Given that multiple prizes are up for grabs here, I'm going to make the rules as simple as I can:

- Leave a comment on this post.
- You must let me know which of the prizes you would like (it's fine to say all 4) and give me a way to contact you - email address, twitter, whatever. If you don't do both of these things then your comment won't be counted, sorry!
- If you want to mention the giveaway on Twitter or your blog, feel free to do so. Just pop an extra comment to let me know you have done so and you'll get an extra entry.

The giveaway will run for one week, ending at 10pm GMT on Monday 28th November.
I'll pick the winners using random.org. Should the first number picked not want that particular prize, I'll draw another number at random.

That's all the formalities out of the way. Now go! Comment! Decide what you'll pick if you win!

Coats

Today I am thinking coats. Also, having typed the word a lot, am thinking what a weird word it actually is. Coat. Coat. Coat. Coat. Coat. Hmmm.

Anyway, would you believe that I only used to have one? It was black, it was from Asda, it cost about £20. Not that any of those things are necessarily bad - it was a good coat, just not very interesting. This is it (back in the fatter days, obviously...):

I seem to have developed quite the collection over the past year. It's probably very modest by a lot of people's standards but considering that I used to be restricted to just the one, it feels like a lot to me!

There's the Monsoon one that I sort of regret buying because it was expensive and I've only worn it twice. So pretty though...

And the super bargainous H&M jacket (£10 in the sale) which I love to bits:


I hereby share with you my top tip for coat purchasing: stalk ebay in the summer. There might not be as many winter coats listed but because not many people are thinking that far ahead, there will be fewer bidders and you will get bargains. I'm far too tight to spend a fortune every year on a coat - the ASOS and Topshop ones might look lovely but the prices make my eyes water. Unless it's going to last years and - let's face it, they never do - I'm not going to spend a lot on it (Um, Monsoon coat shall be the exception. I was under shopping pressure that day).

This H&M coat was about a fiver off ebay and still had the tags in:


Another H&M coat that came off ebay. This is the closest thing to a mac you'll ever see me in; I don't like flasher type coats.



So that's the bases covered really. Red coat, green coat, lightweight coats, frivolous velvet coat, work fleece, sensible waterproof Regatta coat and a whole heap of jackets (should probably do a separate post on them at some point).

The only thing lacking was a smartish dark coat. I know I was in need of one but as you've probably realised by now, I get very bored shopping for sensible basics. So when the lovely people at Very got in touch, I went "Yoicks!" and chose this very pretty herringbone coat with velvet trim and buttons. Even better, it came in petite as well as normal so I didn't have the usual hassle of flappy long sleeves. Super cute, yes?

ps - a great big helloooooo to all the new followers who have appeared recently. Tell your friends! When I'm up to 400 I'll pull together some sort of marvellous giveaway.

pps - I have guest posted on Where Are My Knees? Read, enjoy, see me in my scanties...