what the FUCK is a gruffalo?

that dress from the last post is one i've regrettably rarely had the chance to wear.
the only time it's been out of the house was on my birthday this year, when we were dirt poor and could barely afford the train fare to london to wander and go to the british museum and SEE THE ROSETTA STONE.

oh actually it is on this blog, right way back at the very beginning when i was lonely and playing in my room.

so i got this trenchcoat off ebay for £6 (£2 for the coat and £4 for the shipping), which i figured was just the right price for me - if it didn't fit or look good, no problem!

i'm not 100% still, but i'm playing around.
and i LOVE the pockets.
it's not warm enough for this weather, really.
also i feel like i should apologise for the background - i always seem to leave laptops open/tvs on/mess untidied.



dress: etsy
belt: op shop in perth
trench: alex&co via ebay.

where did it all GO?

how did something that looked like this in april...






end up looking like this now?








this australian is confused.
snow is pretty, but hazardous to your car/balance/mental health and therefore bank account.
remi is broken, and i don't know if we can fix him.



dress in the sun: etsy, from ages ago when i was in america.
scarf in the snow: mum sent it to me from a market in florence.
it really was freezing, but we'd just gone for a long walk and i frolicked a little and so i was momentarily hot.
it didn't last.

christmas back home.

mum sent me a christmas card to remind me that it's summer in real life.

knitting.

for basically the whole of this year, i've been in the process of knitting a cardigan for toby.
it's from a pattern from 1924, and i'm ALMOST done.
just one more arm and the neckband, and he's got a 100% australian wool one-off cardigan for life.









i'm quite proud, actually.

movies and bizniz...

speaking of how awesome the lost world is, we've seen a lot of movies lately, as usual.

where the wild things are
it was disappointing, really.
although it was filmed in australia which satisfies my notion as a child that it was an australian story (i'm sure all kids feel like that though, not having any conception of perspective and geography outside their own).
basically, there was no magic in the story; the wondrousness that was such a theme in the trailers was completely lacking in the actual film.
really, though, in general it was just a bit long, and quite boring. and after nearly two hours, nothing had really happened.
i was sad about that, because the trailer had been so glorious i thought it really might be one of those memorable, exciting, geniune films.

2012
OH GOOD GOD 2012 WAS RUBBISH.
the WORST movie of it's genre, full stop.
i didn't care about any of the terrible characters or their children or romance or DOGS, woody harrelson made me want to stab myself in the ears and eyes, and i especially love the part where america has one ark and everyone else in the world has two to share between them.
my real problem, though, was that the filmmkers seemed to be glorifying in the destruction and loss of life. the scene where LA is falling into the sea, where the buildings and subways and bridges are flying around in all directions, people are hanging screaming from the highest floors of offices, beside their cars on freeways, KNOWING they're about to die horribly and unimaginably, and the camera focuses on them, hesitates for a moment to hammer it home: "look at us, look at the inventive ways we thought of for people to die! aren't we clever?!"
it was a little sickening.
i'm sure if you've seen it you won't need reiteration, but the cherry on the sprinkles on the icing on the cake was that it was filmed in digital. the end scene where they're implausibly trying to escape the water-filled chambers before the 'ark' hits MOUNT EVEREST (!!!) looks like a bad 'making of' documentary.
worst movie of the year, without a doubt.

this week, Avatar.
HOW SHITTY DOES THIS LOOK?
i'm already sick of people wanking james cameron off about his 12-year project.
one quote i saw said 'while the concept itself is mindblowing...'
excuse me, but what is mind blowing about this? the idea of one mind controlling another body?
NOTHING, that's what. apparently there's some 'injokes' about gaming and its addictiveness. shock me, shock me, shock me.
and as for the rest of it, a native people (imaginatively named the na'vi) facing off against a more powerful, technologically advanced colonising force for the control of their known world?
ISN'T THAT HOW WE ALL GOT HERE???
this theme is DONE TO DEATH, both in films and in history.
not even the CGI is new, although they're going to great lengths to tell us otherwise.
i'm going to see it because it's free, or i would never bother.

toby and i were trying to make a top 10 movies of the year recently, and we found it really hard.
there's been about 5 that we've really enjoyed, and the rest were struggling to make up the list.
it's been an average year.

there's another island, with dinosaurs, NO fences this time...?

jeff goldblum is a legend. the lost world is such a funny movie.
'where you're going is the only place in the world where the geese chase you!'

today i received my uniqlo shirt in the post, it's incredibly soft and silky, 100% cotton.





ironically, i bought another shirt in a charity shop while i was out today, before i got home to find the package, which was almost identical. ralph lauren, i think it's boys make, for £3.50.
BARGAIN.





i'm in the process of organising all the documentation we have for our application for Toby's australian residency.
it's kind of terrifying, having to prove that you're a real couple so we can stay together.
it's like that adoption conundrum, where people who are awful and negligent can biologically have kids and no one can say anything, but adoptive parents have to jump through a thousand hoops to prove their worthiness.
still, it's all worth it in the end. luckily, we've been vigilant in our paperwork-keeping.

p.s. happy 100th post!

fuck you google, i'm a person, you're just binary!

i have spent the last three or four days working, coming home, taking toby to work and then online shopping for THE ENTIRE DURATION OF HIS WORK.
i know this will sound hilariously indulgent, but it's actually depressing me a bit.

i feel addicted, and kind of like i don't want to spend more but at the same time not being able to stop myself.
it's unpleasant.

so far i've bought the one vintage slip that really stayed in my mind after my binge of favouriting, the gold watch i wrote about, the tie and pin i wrote about for toby, and a cute patterned blouse, all from etsy, plus a trench coat, an OPI and an essie nailpolish from ebay and a shirt in the uniqlo sale.

OH MY GOD.
for someone who's grown up stingy, where spending any money is like ripping off fingers, that's a shitload of stuff.
it's an addiction, i tell you.

in other news, we watched russell brand's latest live comedy show (not AS funny as the last one), which made me want to watch forgetting sarah marshall, so i did.

now i'm watching jurassic park, and i'm getting off the computer because it's getting out of control.
just wanted to check in...

code.

just sprayed my armani code for the first time in probably a year.
something about it still intrigues me. i haven't worn it in that long because it is inextricably connected to my miserable time at Penn and i can't stand that. also it's VERY overpowering.
i just sprayed it in front of me and walked through it and it's almost too much.



this girl is styling.
pc. lulu letty

note to self:

When mum sends you £70 in a christmas card as the first part of your three-part present, stop trawling ebay for things you don't even know you need yet, and buy this.



then go make dinner, because you are hungry and all this online shopping will make you waste away.

/note.

late lunch.

a late lunch in stevenage old town with toby, courtesy of tesco vouchers.
CLASSY.






dress: dotti
coat: h&m
tights: wilkinson(!)

that last photo is what my face looks like all the time outside these days. RAWR.
bought these grey tights from work the other day, i've been wanting some grey ones for a while now, and these are lovely, and go with everything.

sitting in my room, drinking beer, pretending it's not the height of summer back home...