Returning to the Biggest Carrot Show and playing with my Nikon D3300 DSLR

In preparation for my Year Abroad, I've invested in a new camera to take with me to Germany. It's a Nikon D3300 DSLR, which my camera-savvy dad tells me is a nice little starter camera for somebody who, a year ago, was relying on an iPad for photographing purposes. It's considerably smaller than his own camera, and nice and light to carry around, which makes it perfect to take on any potential trips and outings at home and abroad.

Once I'd remembered to take off the lens cap, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy the D3300 was to use; at the moment, I have everything set to 'auto' while I learn what all of the different functions do, but I've still taken some nice pictures. The seven photos in this post were taken last week before, during and after the Latchley, Chilsworthy and Cox Park Show, which, as you may remember, I visited last year at the very start of my blogging escapades, way back when everything had to be Instagrammed to oblivion.

Editing-wise, I've not done a great deal to the photos I've taken with the D3300 so far, although I've enjoyed playing around with things like the contrast and gamma correction in IrfanView. I'm looking forward to experimenting with some of the camera's inbuilt settings once I get used to it a little more, so I'll keep updating as I learn more - and, of course, as I go on the trips to take the pictures in the first place!

Just a quickie - the end of reading week

This week has been the university's reading week, which is something like a half-term, although I think the official line is that it's supposed to be used for getting work finished off and not going on holiday! But I managed to get heaps of things done earlier in the week, so Oli and I spent part of the weekend with his family in Teignmouth and stayed with his grandparents there. When we came back to Exeter today, we met up with my parents and sister for lunch, so we've been very lucky and spoilt this weekend! In the coming week, it'll be back to lectures and seminars, so it was nice to make the most of the time off while it lasted.

It's November now and I think winter is my favourite season. In Teignmouth, we took Toffee the labrador for a walk along the beach - it was quite cold and windy, but the sun was shining and it's such a beautiful time of year. Here are a few of the pictures that I took along the way...

Back to uni and moving into our new house...

This summer has been one of those peculiar ones which seems to have lasted forever, yet simultaneously flown by. Sometimes I actually feel as though I haven't been to university at all - summer has been so long that I feel like I've never been away from home!

But today I've been busy moving into our new student house, ready to begin our second (eek!) year. We're officially fully fledged students now, which is exciting and a little bit terrifying in equal measure. I'm very excited to have a kitchen of my own (well, we have two and they are shared between the six of us, but you know what I mean), so that I might be able to learn to cook some Grown Up Food rather than just cakes!

I thought that it might be a nice way to integrate my blog with Round 2 of my student life by showing you around our new home. As it's a student property, there isn't bound to be much in the way of decoration provided in our rooms, so another thing I'm really enjoying is making my humble abode seem a little more homely. In preparation for this, I've brought with me all of my posters, lots of books, some lovely handmade bits and pieces, and a couple of vintage and retro trinkets too. 

As a sort of leaving present, my sister made me a pom pom 'bunting' string, which is very cute; I've hung it around my noticeboard, where I've pinned some pretty vintage-style postcards that I found in my scrapbook box. (In other woolly news, I eventually succeeded in making a giant pom pom to hang in my window as well. It's all good). 

My pink bunting came from a Crikey It's Vintage fair in Exeter last September, so I'm rather late to the bunting party, but I think it's very pretty all the same. The ceilings in the new house are very high, though, so I needed a little assistance to put it up on the picture rail! 

At the moment, I appear to be having a small candle phase. For my new room, I bought an oil burner and vanilla-scented wax from a local craft fair - I'd had my eye on the fork-and-spoon oil burner for a couple of months after seeing it at the previous fair, so I thought that I would finally treat myself. The wax 'clam' comes from Sara's Waxworks, a Plymouth-based business which sells lovely scented wax in all sorts of fragrances - from perfumes like Chanel No. 5 to a fresh and simple 'clean linen' scent. I've not melted any of my wax yet, but it still smells amazing even though it's still in its packaging.

Sticking with the candle theme, I've brought with me the teacup candle that you might have seen in a previous blogpost, and thankfully, it's made it up to Exeter in one piece! Another craft-ish piece resulting from trip to Hobbycraft is my desk tidy. It was essentially six plain cardboard tubes in a shallow base and the idea is that you use pretty découpage paper to stick on and make it look nice. It's my first go at découpage, but I don't think it's too awful.

These retro advertisements and railway posters are from calendars that I cut up to make a collage for my room in halls last year and I thought I'd reinstate them this year because having things up on the walls makes everything a bit more interesting and homely.

The lavendar Jan Constantine loveheart was a generous gift from Vintage Life magazine and my many and various cushions have also travelled with me Up North. I'm amassing quite a collection now, with three rather patriotic, retro ones from Past Times (before it very sadly disappeared from our high streets), a handmade owl from the same Crikey It's Vintage fair as the bunting and a pretty cake draft-excluder-style cushion, which I might use to avoid falling down the gap between the bed and the wall.

The two posters above were made by teachers at my secondary school; they read Keep Calm and Enjoy German and Spanish! 

You may or may not know that I'm studying Modern Languages, meaning that most of the books I've brought with me to uni are either textbooks or not in English. I did, though, bring my Bake Off Everyday and a couple of Mary Berry's recipe books, and we currently have three copies of Nosh For Students by Joy May, so I think we're well covered in the cookbook department. In terms of more leisurely reading material (you mean you're not satisfied with looking at pictures of cakes for fun?!), one of the reading-for-fun books I've brought along is Letters Between Six Sisters. It's a volume of the collected letters sent to and by the Mitford sisters - again, if you follow my blog at all, you'll probably know that I have at least a passing interest in them.

I hope you enjoyed the brief tour of my new room; it still needs to be tidied up a little, but most things are sorted now and I'm looking forward to beginning my second year of university properly!

(: xx

Sightseeing adventures in our amazing capital city - days 3-4 in London

On the morning of our third day in London town (or rather Dagenham, where we were staying to be closer to Mum's family), we arrived promptly at the train station after a huge buffet breakfast, only to be told that all overground trains had been cancelled, but replacement buses were running from Barking. Ideal. 

Much to our delight, this necessitated a ride on the tube from Dagenham Heathway into Westminster. Mel wondered how far away the Houses of Parliament might be when we got off the train and this was her answer:

Our grand plan for the day was to walk up to Buckingham Palace and back again, taking a look at various other landmarks on the way. Lots of people were whizzing about on so-called Boris Bikes, but the proper racing was left to the professionals, who had chosen that day to cycle 100 miles from Surrey into London, thus closing all the roads - crossing at Whitehall was a nightmare and it was quite impossible to get over to Trafalgar Square. 

But we successfully (eventually, after having to rescue Mel from a traffic island by the Banqueting House) made it to the Mall, where the cyclists finished their race. We even saw the Mayor himself crossing the finishing line.

I did pop by Buck House to see if my mate Liz was there, but apparently she's on her holidays in Scotland, so she advised that I go back another time for tea and cake, which was nice.

We did, however, visit her rather lovely gift shop, stocking up on presents for grandparents - tea towels, fridge magnets and biscuits. I did have my eye on a pretty teacup and saucer, but it was slightly out of my price range; £49 for just one!

Once our bags were full and Dad's wallet considerably lighter, we made our way into the neighbouring St James' Park for refreshments. There were some lovely views back up towards the Palace, which feature in a small but v patriotic video over on my Youtube page (shall come back later with a link!)

Horse Guards Parade was the next stop on our itinerary - again featuring in my daft little video montage. Avoiding the poo left behind, we crossed the parade ground and arrived back at Whitehall. But, in true tourist fashion, this was not before we had had our photo taken with two very smart but mute guards. 

The changing of the guard took us by surprise and Mel and I were almost stamped on mid-photo when the guard (who we were standing next to at the time) banged his sword and began to march off! Oops.

But we lived to tell the tale and to subsequently catch a boat to Greenwich. The trip, surprise surprise, is thoroughly documented on my little Youtube channel.

The naval college is a beautiful building and is absolutely huge. Unfortunately, Dad was banned from the maritime museum but there was little time to go ashore in any case. So we returned to Westminster on the river, with scintillating commentary from somebody who may or may not have been Ricky Tomlinson.

Our final day in London took us to the famous Tower, site of many executions and imprisonments and home of the Queen's jewellery box. 

It was extremely busy inside, but the Yeoman Warders did a fantastic job, giving very amusing guided tours, including a quick visit to the chapel where Anne Boleyn was buried ('not under the table, but underneath under the table'). I was surprised to learn that the Beefeaters actually all live within the walls of the Tower - with all the tales of ghosts and spectres, I don't expect it's a life for those of a nervous disposition.

Inside the White Tower (that's the big square one in the middle), we passed through a vast exhibition of royal armour; Henry VIII was not a small man, was he?! There were some fascinating pieces elsewhere in the various towers too, including crowns used at the coronations of George I, Victoria and Edward VII to name but a few. Sadly, there were no replicas in the gift shop, because I reckon I'd look rather fetching in the Imperial State Crown.

Maybe Liz will lend it to me when I next visit.

(: xx