feeling peaky

I've had a cold for nearly two weeks now... it started, as it always does, with a sore throat one evening and then progressively it gets worse. My nose won't stop running and I feel constantly tired. As soon as I lay my head down at night I start coughing relentlessly. It says something about the weather at the moment that colds are doing the rounds at supposedly the height of summer. Today is wet, windy and damp. Yesterday it was raining and I was cooking and the windows steamed up. Maybe these viruses and bugs are confused and think it's November...


 I've also cut my fringe back in again. And as soon as I stepped out this morning, lo and behold the wind starts up and within a few seconds my fringe has been blown out of shape and looks a fright. How I long to live somewhere with a consistent climate, like LA... somewhere where you can style your hair perfectly and not be afraid to step outside for fear of the wind making it look like you've been dragged through a hedge. Whenever I see pictures of Dita Von Teese it's always in sunshine, she is always drenched in sunlight so her hair looks gorgeous. I can't imagine her putting up with a climate like Britain's. If you want to look glamorous Britain is not the place to live. Curling and setting your hair is an exercise in futility for as soon as you walk out the door, the elements will decide to undo your hard work immediately. As soon as I got to work this morning I rushed straight to the bathroom, comb ready, desperately trying to salvage the curls and make my fringe do what it did this morning. Oh, and I forgot my make up bag. Today is not shaping up very well...

A new interest...

I had such fun taking photographs at the Hotrod Hayride this year that I'm seriously considering starting evening classes in photography or something.. Most of the photos I've taken before have just been of drunken nights out but at the Hayride I really got into creating compositions and trying to create an atmosphere. Most of all I wanted to make them look "vintage", as if you could imagine they were taken in the 40s and 50s. I love old photographs, be they black and white or colour. I love photographs from the 1950s of gas stations, cars and long highways, and also of people. I guess it would be impossible now to create photographs like that but you can still buy old fashioned cameras. The shop I work in sells holgas and pinhole cameras. I'm thinking of buying one and getting the film. I remember taking photographs at college and developing them myself in the dark room. I'd love to have another go at it. These are the kind of images I love.

I love these photographs and wish it was possible to recreate them today. Everything looks so clean and bright. I think I might start scouring second hand shops and junk shops for old photographs. I could spend all day looking at them.

A Fashion Dilemma

I've just bought a mexican style 'squaw' dress off ebay. I've been after one for awhile as I've seen other rockabilly gals wearing them although I wasn't sure if one would suit me. So I found one on ebay that was reasonably priced and placed a bid. To my surprise and delight no one else bid on it and the whole thing cost about £15 with postage. A great bargain as I've seen some of them listed at a lot more than that. I was worried it might not be that great or maybe a rubbish reproduction but it arrived yesterday and it's gorgeous. If you have no idea what I'm talking about then here's a picture of a lady on the 50s wearing one.

Mine is black and not as fancy as this one though you get the general idea. Now the lady in this picture is wearing flat shoes but most of the time I've seen these dresses worn with cowboy boots. Yes, cowboy boots. I loathe them. But now I'm thinking, hmmm maybe a nice subtle pair wouldn't be such a bad idea? You see squaw dresses are western wear, country singers like Rose Maddox and Patsy Cline wore them and they looked super cool in their western regalia, cowboy boots included. Here is a picture of Rose Maddox

Now how cool does she look? But I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to get away with a look like this nowadays for fear of looking like I'm wearing fancy dress. Here's a photo of Patsy Cline in similar western wear

I love the cowgirl look and I wish it was one that was easy to pull off, but unless I'm at a weekend (or a hoedown!) I can't see me being able to assimilate this look into my everyday wear. It's one of those looks where I think you have to be quite dainty to get away with it because otherwise you can look quite swamped by it. I'm not sure I'm ready to go the whole way with it, so for the moment I'll wear my squaw dress with either flats or espadrilles and I might invest in the odd western, fringed cowboy shirt. But I certainly won't be wearing a stetson and cowboy boots any time in the future.

Modern Life IS Rubbish

My life is completely immersed in nostalgia. I can picture things vividly in my head from decades before I was born. I can imagine how things must have been. I'm not at all superstitious but sometimes I do wonder if I had a past life. I guess I do view things through rose tinted spectacles and I constantly yearn to go back. I find modern life so utterly depressing and ugly in nearly every aspect, I admire people who create alternative worlds to the one that is outside the window. I'm particularly fascinated with the 40s and 50s but I have time for anyone who chooses a different era to the 21st century. For instance, I watched an episode of Come Dine With Me (one of my guilty pleasures, much to my boyfriend's disdain) awhile ago and there was a guy on there who had done his house out completely Victorian. It was amazing. My parents have a Victorian House and they have tried to keep it as authentic as possible; the tiles are all original as are most of the doors and windows. I was brought up to appreciate how things look but most people nowadays don't seem to give a monkeys about whether something is aesthetically pleasing or not. It all seems to be about grim functionality and making things easy for people. I prefer glamour and ostentatiousness!

I live in Birmingham and walk to work everyday. I have to walk down the Hagley Road which is the main road that leads into and out of Birmingham. It's mostly a concrete mess of office blocks but there's the odd treasure here and there such as the Oratory with its gorgeous green dome. Then you come to the horror that is Five Ways, a nightmare roundabout that connects all the roads that lead in and out of Birmingham. It's truly horrible and walking through the subway under the roundabout is a daily nightmare for me. Then after surviving that you find yourself on the equally horrendous Broad Street. It used to be the mecca for classy restaurants and exclusive clubs. Now it's just a sad, barren wasteland of empty, boarded up buildings and fast food places.

One thing that really upsets me is seeing beautiful, Victorian buildings with amazing features turned into horrible, tacky fast food outlets. I pass one every day and it breaks my heart. Oh, the genius of Victorian architecture, its skill and intricacy turned into a place for idiots wearing tracksuits to buy burgers and kebabs. I die a little inside every time I pass it. Likewise, there is another equally stunning Victorian building near where I work and that is now Flares - a 1970s themed nightclub. Nice. If I was the Mayoress I wouldn't allow such buildings to be used for clubs and dodgy restaurants. It shouldn't be allowed. It really is the disintegration of everything that actually makes me proud of this country (which isn't much nowadays it must be said).

Most things about 21st century life get me down. I've learnt to focus on my own life though and what makes me happy and to try and block out what saddens me. It is hard though when you have to go out everyday and deal with it. Things like litter anger me. The way people just don't care. The way people nowadays seems so cut off from each other, so remote, like we're all in our own bubbles or something. Back in the 40s and 50s there seemed to be more of a sense of camaraderie and pulling together and just being pleasant to each other. People today kick off if they have to wait in a queue for more than 5 minutes. I crave simplicity. There is way too much of everything nowadays. I understand why some people just leave it all and go off backpacking or leave the city and move to the country. I'd love to be able to create my own little 1950s paradise, the house, the car etc.. I guess just having it in my head all the time will suffice for now...

Hotrod Hayride 2010

I've just got back from the Hotrod Hayride in Surrey this weekend. It was the first one I had ever been to as I'm not really a camping sort of gal; I do like my plug sockets and hot showers. I would never have even considered going before but my boyfriend finally managed to convince me to go. I spent all last week worrying about how I was going to survive two and half days sleeping in a tent and not being able to have a proper shower. What were we going to eat? How was I going to take my contact lenses out? What shoes should I take etc etc. Although as the week went on I found that I was getting more and more excited about it. I tried to focus on the bands that were playing like The Caezars, Restless, Luis Wildfire and The Bonneville Barons and tried to forget about the camping side of it.

So at about 1pm on Friday we set off.  Van packed full with tent, sleeping bag, gas stove, plastic cutlery, folding chairs etc. I'd even packed my hairdryer and curling irons in some desperate, vain hope that there would be a plug socket on the camp site (I know, I'm a fantasist). Due to some horrendous traffic and an overturned land rover with a trailer carrying another land rover in the middle of the motorway it took us hours to get there. Finally we arrived. The first thing that I saw was the cars. The beautiful, amazing cars. Hot rods,Buicks, Cadillacs, Ford pick ups, Chevrolets, Mercurys, Pontiacs... you name it they were all there in their shining glory. I've been to all the other rockin weekenders and seen classic cars but never as many as this. They were everywhere! So after we unloaded the van we ventured over to the main area to do a bit of exploring. We found the stalls selling vintage clothes, repro jeans, records, T shirts, hair wax etc.. there was even an art exhibition and those crazy mirrors you get at the fairground. I immediately went over to the Freddies of Pinewood stall to check out their jeans. I love their jeans as they are highwaisted and so flattering. I found a pair of pedal pushers in the utility style and bought them straight away. We went over to the Hayride stall to buy T shirts. Then we headed back to the tent to get ready for the evenings entertainment.

The first band of the evening was The Caezars. I saw them for the first time in May at the Boston Arms and was blown away by them. Their energy and stage presence is out of this world. No wonder they have been signed by the LA record company Wild Records. I saw them again at the Rave in the Battle of the Bands and again they set the place alight. The hall at the Hayride was pretty small for the amount of people there, so we were stood near the back where we couldn't really see them very well, but the sound was still as powerful as ever. Sureshots were up next who also did an amazing set and were then joined on stage by Omar Romero, another Wild Records artist who also was sensational. But the highlight of the evening was definitely Restless, who shook the place to its foundations. Loud, wild and fast. Exactly how rockabilly should be.
I bopped and strolled a bit and we tried to jive but the dancefloor was so small we kept bashing into other couples. Plus the floor was so horrendously slippy it was impossible to hold your balance. So we called it a night and went back to the tent.

I had a fraught night's sleep and woke up at about 9 in the morning feeling pretty terrible. I managed to work out where the showers were and to my delight I found there was indeed a plug socket in there! So I actually had an OK shower and managed to dry my hair. I didn't bother with the curling irons though. One thing I always find when I go to a weekender is that my skin quickly starts to look pretty bad. I start getting spots and my complexion just looks dull. I think it must be the water as my hair doesn't fare much better either. Anyway I managed to do my make up just about and it didn't look too bad considering we were camping! So once we were dressed and ready we ventured over to the pavilion again. More shopping was done at the stalls, this time I bought a pair 1950s blue glitter sunglasses. I started taking lots of photographs of the cars. I have the worst digital camera in the world, it never works very well but I managed to take some pretty good photos. I took a lot in black and white and sepia as I wanted to make the photos looks authentic

I'm really pleased with the images I got, I'm going to print them off and maybe frame them. I'd really love to get a proper, decent camera and take more shots like these. I really enjoyed taking them and getting different angles and trying to create interesting, artistic compositions. I wanted them to look like they were taken in the 1950s. I'm going to pursue this from now on, and can't wait to go to High Rockabilly in Spain in September as I'm sure I will get some great photos there.

After all the picture taking we headed over to the Demon Drome, which you can see in the above picture. We'd bought tickets already and joined the long queue of people waiting to get in to see what was going to happen. Simon tried to explain to me what it was all about, basically they ride knackered old motorbikes round the walls of the drome but I didn't quite understand. We climbed the stairs into the circular "dome" and we all had to stand around and not lean on the barrier. I had no idea what was about to happen and I started to get very nervous! Eventually the fun began and a girl who must have only been about 18 got onto a motorbike and began whizzing round the dome, eventually gaining enough speed and momentum to ride vertically around the "wall of death". I couldn't believe my eyes but this was only a taster. Next up was a young lad who began in the same way, whizzing round and round the walls of the dome. Except he came up to the barriers. I was so scared I hid behind Simon. The next two performers broke all the rules. They went round the dome with no hands, sat on the side of the bike, t shirts over the faces so they couldn't see. It was truly unbelievable but very entertaining. The photo doesn't really convey the spectacle, plus my hands were shaking so much I couldn't really take many photos!


I had brought my new dress with me (again in vain hope) It's a gorgeous vintage 1950s Hawaiian sarong number that I bought off ebay. I wasn't sure if I would actually get to wear it or not but Saturday was such a pleasant day that I thought why not? So I ventured back to the plug socket and curled my hair, which sort of worked. And then changed into the dress. There were lots of women dressed up so I'm glad I took it with me.

Saturday night was great, we didn't really watch the bands though. We spent most of the evening in the marquee attached to the pavilion, or outside looking at all the cars. It was a great evening though and we did some more dancing. The DJ played one of my recent favourites - Darlene by Jack Southern. It's a really obscure track but I've managed to get it on a record called Rumble Rock vol 3. We bought some food at the burger stand and then stumbled back to the tent, exhausted. We slept much better that night and when we woke up on Sunday we went and got a proper breakfast in one of the other pavilions on site. At lunchtime the Bonneville Barons played a set outside the pavilion which was perfect Sunday afternoon music. And then it was time for the Soapbox Derby, in which people race each other in box cars they have made themselves. It was very entertaining and authentic with bales of hay to safeguard against crashes.

And then it was time to go home... we got back home both very tired, hungry and aching all over. All the hallmarks of a great weekender. I can't wait for next year's Hotrod Hayride, I even enjoyed the camping. Well, sort of...