Edinburgh Fringe

The last few years that I have been living in Edinburgh the Fringe Festival has kind of been something I just had to deal with and when you work in the center of town its sometimes becomes a nusance. I have wanted to take part but everytime you step out into it it feels over crowded and clostrophobic. I think I have found the solution!

Previously when I went out onto the Royal Mile it was becaue it was my lunch time and I had to get there get food and get back to work, impossible! This year I avoided that bit of the Fringe and Daniels sister Hayley and I actually took part, saw shows, ate at the street vendors, took flyers and had an all around good time!

We ended up seeing 5 shows we paid for and about 4 or 5 free shows, I would say all bar one of the paid shows was brilliant and all bar one of the free shows was shite. Not to say that all free shows are crap but the ones we kept stumbling into definately were.

The highlights of my Fringe were seeing Brendon Burns and Rhyse Darby, also the inside of the Tron Church, and getting to hang out more with Hayley. Can't wait for next year!

 

Black and White

I got a bunch of film back from the printers earlier this week and I am really excited about some of the pictures, plus some of them are a few months old now so its nice to see them again, but I really should start printing my film more promptly cause the events are more fresh in my mind.

National Museum of Modern Art

 

 

 

There Be No Miracles Here

Edinburgh

 

 

 

 

 

This film is the first Black and White I've done so it was fun to see the way they all came out.

Happy Anniversary!

Its already been 6 days since our anniversary but that doesn't make this post any less special. It was our second anniversary, but it kinda felt like our first as most of you know, Dixon and I were apart this time last year for what felt like forever. In reality it was 6 months, which feels like forever when you are waiting for something or someone. This year however was awesome! We both had to work, there was no point in me getting the day off to be by myself if Dixon couldn't get the day off too. But we woke up bright and early to exchange gifts! Daniel got me a Nintendo Wii and two Records that have yet to arrive! So naturally I have been spending most free moments playing Mario Kart or Super Mario Bros 3 it has been awesome!

Daniels Gifts

My Gift C:

 And in other news I got off my lazy behind and got some Holga photos developed, though I have one more roll finished and another half finished in my camera that I really want to get developed of Cramond Island! These ones date back all the way to when Caryn was here and some from down in Blackpool as well so those later.

And there should be a post shortly about the Fringe cause its winding down and a lot of the shows I was off to see will be done soon!

Rebellion Festival

For once I haven't been blogging because I have been doing nothing, now I have been so busy doing things that I haven't had the time to put together a cohesive post!
August is always a super busy time in Edinburgh more so when you are working during the largest international fringe festival in the world! On top of that every year Daniel and I like to go to Rebellion Festival down in Blackpool, and that is on exactly when the Fringe starts. Luckily I got it off again this year and we were off to see a fairly impressive line-up.
Thanks to Steven we had a lift down in his car, so no trains for us! Which is nice considering in a car its about a four hour long drive.
Blackpool is sort of a weird town where tourism really is its main source of income but people don't really go their for the sights it more for Stag party's and the like that make it down there and so the place really reflects that, with the centre being almost completely full of B&B's. But usually when I have been down before during the festival, the centre seems overrun with Punks! This year it seemed much quieter, which was a bit weird cause they had some of the biggest bands on it this year.
All that aside it was a really great time, and I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to but I suppose that is the price to pay for drinking too much and having far too much fun.

In the end I didn't see as many bands as I would have liked to but it was still an amazing time, I got to see Social Distortion, Star Fucking Hipsters, Rancid, the UK SUBS, just to name a few, though I only saw a a couple more haha.

After the madness was all over we decided to head over to Pleasure Beach the Roller Coaster Park for the day but I think I will talk about that a bit more later!

Instagram

So last week I lost my phone but this week I got my shiney new iPhone, which has been fairly addictive to say the least so with my shiny new toy to play with I have photos to share!

The National Gallery is soon having an exhibit that will largely feature Van Gogh so they have this massive mural up, as well as a thistle, its Scotland I had to.

 

With Edinburgh being so lovely this is what everyone does find a bit of green and they make sure they enjoy it, and speaking of sun Mama Gail got me some Sunflowers cause they came over for dinner last night! And they are awesome!

And finally I got some more film for my cameras, this doesn't mean that I have developed my finished film but I am hoping to take my Holga down to Blackpool for the Rebellion festival and get a bunch of pictures then hopefully september I will have money to develope!!

Film News

I recently(ish) recieved an email about the film from my Grandma's camera, and they said it has been finished! With the email they sent me a sample photo so we can work out when the film is from and quick as you like my mom had a really good idea even though the film was shot when she was around 13. Now they said they would be get back to me soon with how to pay and everything like that but so far no news. They were either going to send an invoice with the photos, which I haven't recieved yet or an email of how to pay online, also which I haven't recieved so hopefully more news soon cause the pictures loook awesome!

In other film news I went to see The Dark Knight Rises on the 20th and it was awesome I don't want to say too much as I'm not reviewing it so no spoilers here! It was so good me and Dixon almost went to see it again on Sunday, but decided we would see it next week when the cinemas have quieted down!

And for fans of Batman and comics in general check out this awesome tumblr Little League!

Thats all for now hopefully I will have some more updates for you soon! Maybe some art and hopefully a bunch more photos!

Bread and Butter

Dixon woke me up this morning at 7:30 am, on my day off no less, and istead of being able to get back to sleep I decided to make dough, ah the Rock 'n' Roll lifestyle! I hope that I kneaded the dough long enough, cause I don't have a mixer so it was hand kneading all the way but I let it rise for quite a while so tha seems to have worked cause it definately rose in the oven! But the proof is in the taste! And it tastes awesome!

This is the Recipe I used;

500g Wholemeal Flour

(I used 300g Whole Meal and 200g White)

25g Butter

1 1/4 tsp Salt

1 1/2 tsp Yeast

350 ml Warm Water

2 tsp Sugar for more flavour and thicker crust (optional)

1) In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar (if using) and salt, rub in the butter and then stir in the yeast.

(Instead of stiring in the dry yeast I added it to the warm water to wake it up while I was incorperating the other ingredents)

2) Stir in the water and mix into a soft dough by hand

3) Knead dough with a Mixer with paddle attachment for five minutes or hand knead for 10

4)Shape dough and place into a 2lb tin or baking tray and cover with a clean damp tea towel and let rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours

5) Uncover and bake for 30-35 mins

The baked loaf should sound hollow when tapped underneath!

6)Let Cool out of the tin

Now I wanna make some thing else!

Zesting Time

It is a beautiful day outside today, and even after three solid days of rain , I have decided to stay indoors and bake cupcakes. And delicious cupcakes they will be!

Hayley got me a cookbook from the Hummingbird Bakery so I have been pretty excited to try to make most of the things in there, I started simple with the Vanilla cupcakes you might have heard me talk about before and now I am making Lemon Cupcakes! Mostly the same but now I get to use my nifty lemon zester. Soon I will graduate to something a bit more challenging but for now I think I will play it safe and bake something I think I can do! Though I do think I need to invest in som piping bags. My icing skills are not what they used to be.

Now that all the baking is done and the cleaning is moooostly done, only need to wash the floors now I think I will take a wee break! Maybe I can convince Dixon to go for a walk later, just a wee one.. he has been working though. So.. we will see C:

Just Thinkin

I haven't had a lot of ambition to do too much of anything especially blogging. Its a bit because there hasn't been too much to blog about. My film is still waiting for me to finish another roll or two before I will go get it developed, so that probably means next month, the film from my Grandma's camera hasn't made any progress as far as I am aware. I sent an email but no news yet, they did say August so I can't really complain.

I had to lighten it a bit so you could see it better the lines on the Nautilus are a bit more defined

I have only just today done a bit of sketching, so there went my drawing at least once a day way way way out of the window. But I have done two sketches today and hopefully more later, so if I do more or hopfully a painting that might come tomorrow.

Facinating Mummies

Caryn and I also went to the Mummy Exhibit, you are going to start to think all we did was go to Exhibits and Galleries, we are so cultured, haha. Again we were not allowed to take any photos, but it was amazing.  It was such an interesting new way of looking at mummies with the x rays and digital imaging of the insides of the wrapped up mummies. I did get a couple postcards of the artifacts so I have those to share.