My 12th Blogiversary!

What do you know?  I missed out on writing about this Auspicious day two days ago!

Yes, I can proudly announce that two days ago was my 12th Blogiversary! I began on April the 6th, 2005- you can see my post here.

This means I have actually been blogging a whole THIRD of my life!

It all started twelve years ago when I was a PA to the Head at the Royal Academy of Music with much time on my hands.  In my spare time, when I wasn't at rehearsals, I wanted to write and when I saw that my University friend Rachel (at this time PA to the Head of a Bible college) was writing a blog, I was inspired to have a go as I do love writing and it seemed an ideal incentive to write.

Over the years, things have changed in the blogging world (sorry to do the whole retrospective but it's rather obligatory on such occasions, rah, rah, rah...): the friends I first had blogging- Rach, Amy, Chris at the Chrlog, RJ, have mostly stopped blogging but a few still persevere (looking at your Stephen/ven!).  In around 2009, I gained some lovely new blogging friends such as Sophie (in the Sticks), Laura at Daisychaindream, Lauren at Someonelikeyou, The Two Birds and a few others who are still blogging.  Later on, I met the lovely crafters, the amazing Ang Almond, the fabulous Dinoprincess Char and others.

Then for quite a few years, there have been some of you wonderful, wonderful stawarts who I have met through here and I value greatly and love their blogs still to this day. I apologise if I have missed anyone- the list includes: Julia, Tasha, Vintage Vix, Louise, Lisa at Jumble and Jelly, Anca, Nevena, Gretchen Joanna, Alison Dormouse, the Julies  Hazel, the Jans, Donna, Ivana, Linda, Denise, Fil, Ally, Anna, Bev, Melanie, Pom Pom, Imogen, Salazar, Maggs, Susie, Lizzie, Corinne...

And finally, recent new friends: Ann, Fiona, Johnny Jumps up, Thriftdeluxe and anyone I have missed out (I am sorry if I have- just thinking off the top of my head!)

Anyway, it is to you I say thanks. I am quite sure I might not have continued for so long if it wasn't for your lovely comments, support and friendship.

I thought it might be quite nice that if you wish to leave a comment- rather than doing a giveaway in the usual sense, if you leave me a comment and I will pick one person to make a card for to send it to you! And if I think I can just your taste, I might possibly send something little with it!

Thanks for reading and do leave a comment- I'd love to make a card especially for someone!

xx

Jubileh 1? Fairycakes

Hello!  Thank you for your recent kindness in visiting, it's lovely to have my loyal blog friends and new friends visiting and being so kind! 
This weekend, I actually did some baking (a rarity in Kezzie-world!) in anticipation of our Jubilee tea-party at church and CBC's house barbecue (which I am now at, sheltering upstairs from the drunken renditions of The Cranberries- it's quite fun but the singing is appalling! ;-)  )

We used the Susanna Blake cupcake book and decided to make summer fruit FAIRYCAKES (for you Alex if you are there?) and lemon and blueberry ones also.

 Here are the finished articles of the former...

 But before that, there was prep for CBC's party!  We prepared 10 metres of Union Jack chains

 ...plumped the Tescos cushions

 Strung the sad-looking bunting...

 CBC chalked a Union Jack onto the pavement

 Found innovative ways of hanging up the chains!

 I couldn't believe making cakes was so relatively hassle-free!  Why have I not tried it sooner!

 The fun part was decorating the cakes with the fresh summer fruits.

 CBC went a little mad with the icing sugar...

 And we went a little too far with the Jubilee themed Decorations (did you realise that I chose them because of their colouring too?!)

 The lemon and blueberry ones were a little more complicated, with more ingredients including polenta! But I zested a lemon for the first time!  (yes, I hear you gasp and roll your eyes at this, but it's exciting for me to do something new!)

 I was going to attempt to wear red,white and blue all weekend but I don't think this will last, not least that the red was solely in the earrings!! The daisy suited the colour-scheme!

I did try to make my socks match the dress though! (why do I look like a lobster?)

Hmmm, was just finishing uploading the last picture when it said I'd run out of Picasa storage and needed to buy it now!  Help!  Anyone know about this?  What do I do??!!!

Linking to Annie the Felt Fairy's Make a month for 2012

50's and 70's girl!

Yesterday was an extraordinary day!  To celebrate the jubilee, my school hosted a special picnic day.  It has been long in the planning.  I was a member of the committee, but the hard work was down to my deputy head teacher who was simply fantastic!

Each year group was given a decade to study and learn about, encompassing all those in the Queen's reign (50's to 2010's!) over this half term.  This included study of the technology, clothing, music, key events etc, culminating in today's special assemblies presenting their work.  But first, the picnic.  Therefore the dress code was YOUR decade of study OR red, white and blue.  Technically, I was in Reception and Year 2 who were studying present day and the 90's respecitively.  But I am mostly in Year 4 (70's) and my heart in the 70's! 

We had a special jubilee breakfast organised by the breakfast club- so it was hilarious to see all the different outfits whilst we sat and ate croissants and red and blue fruits.  There were some amazing Union Jack maxi dresses, some 80's neon affairs, several 70's dresses (my floppy hats were worn by both year 4 teachers!), a wonderful 60's mini-dress, 50's capris, our head in a demure 50's outfit, and the best, a dinner lady who was Brittania!

The children had made a wonderful effort with sprayed hair, accessories, and those who had gone for decades were astounding!  One girl in year 6 was wearing an almost identical oufit to mine with the colours in reverse which were Mum had made and she had designed and chosen.  A whole plethora of 60's hippies dashed around the playground, several masssive afros alla Jackson 5 wandered around and many many Union flags were crafted into amazing outfits!

 I decided to go 50's in the morning and went in my Vivien of Holloway vintage-inspired rockabilly dress and petticoat.  I accessorised with a hand-me down cardie, used a Vivien cherry brooch attached to a polka-dot headband vintage and thrifted pearl necklace, earrings and sunglasses!  This dress always makes me feel special!  It was also an experience walking to school in it!  I got lots of looks!

 The morning was spent looking after Reception who were dashing around playing whilst mass-face-painting occured, each class had a slot on the bouncy castle.which I helped to supervise whilst getting them to sing "Jubileeeeee, Jubileee, jubileee, jubilee for the queen..." to the tune of "Ingerland" (that annoying football song).  I dashed off for a practice with my samba band!

Lunchtime, the dinner providers had excelled themselves with a wonderful picnic for the children of Coronation chicken rolls, cheesy pinwheels, chips in a cone, salad bag and then an ice-cream for all.  It was kind of exhausting but the happiness of the children was evident!  As a 40's sounding hit came onto the music system (a professional outfit was hired), I taught 2 girls some basic lindy-hop and one of them really got it and followed my lead!

As all the children gathered in the playground for a disco, one or two of us sloped off for 5 minutes sit down and to eat our lunch!  To play with my samba band, I changed into outfit 2, my Mum's 70's home-made kaftan (it took years of persuading for her to part with it. She's got an even nicer one which she's still holding strong on.  Give me time...), worn with ASOS Sienna gladiator sandals, Monsoon feather earrings, Dream catcher necklace (gift) and thrifted purple, felt hat!
I felt SOOOOOOO comfy wandering the playground in it! (and walking home, despite the looks which I frankly didn't care about!)  The samba band performed in between prize-awards which went amazingly and everyone was very impressed. I was really happy with them!

 Time had flown SO quickly and then we found ourselves going back in to get their things to go home, myself with year 4 now.  As various commemorative gifts were given out to the children, I sat and looked at around at the smiling faces!  This was community and we were all very pleased.

 I noticed one little girl's hat (Hmmmm, I don't have one like this and I'd like one!) plonked on top of the cupboard and remembered how she looked EXACTLY like me!  I have a picture of her and it's like looking at Mini Kezzie- big hat, turquoise flowing dress, and necklace.  The other kids were calling her Miss A ALL day!

Finally, to top it all off, they were given a special Jubilee cupcake! 

The day was amazing!  Did your work do anything special to celebrate it?

Ding dong the bells are gonna shine! (LTEH 35)

This weekend heralded a much anticipated return to Northumberland for THE wedding of the year!  J, CBC and I were forming the Penguin musical trio to entertain the masses!

The day began with some last-minute practising back home then we dressed up in our finery to head off to the historic Hexham abbey for the ceremony.

 CBC and dressed and it was nice to be able to have a photo together!  I decided (thank you to everyone for your advice!) to go with the white ribbon Coast dress in the end, based particularly on Vix's thoughts, that 'How often do you get to wear something like that in English weather'- I concur, especially as I realised that I could wear the Joy spotty Peterpan dress to more varied occasions.

The hat is from the RIP 'Hat Box' shop, the handbag from some swanky boutique on Totteridge High Street North London, the shoes from Aldo, the blue sparkly cardie from Primark.  Pearl necklace- vintage thrifted and pearl earrings - craft fair.

In typical Kezzie 'hat obsessive' style, I present to you another hat, one that I haven't featured on this blog before, my 'Judy Garland at the Lousiana Purchase exposition white chiffon hat, bought for my Mum's wedding (She insisted that we all wear hats!  Fine by me!)

 The abbey looked wonderful, decked in flowers and cool despite the hot sun outside and the flock of shoppers milling around the streets

 WOMOTM and J looking lovely!  It was SO nice to see them!  They really feel part of my family and I miss them lots when we are not there! 

J in a beautiful shade of orange! I'm so into seeing orange on people at the moment!  It looks great!

 Straight after the ceremony, we headed off to the reception venue, a brewery with marquee up on the Roman road, with beautiful surroundings- fields. Rural and lovely.  We set up our music stands and realised we had forgotten a crucial element of playing music outside- PEGS!!!!!!  The music tried its best to escape at many a moment- we improvised with small rocks from the ground and poor WOMOTM had the terrifying ordeal of being page-turner for J at the piano (I've been a page-turner, it's on the edge of the seat stuff!) That said, he seemed pretty chilled!

We had great fun playing a selection of Palm Court Piano trios- the type of stuff you might have heard in the Ritz in the 1920's, a set of Klezmer wedding music and some little bits and pieces.  When CBC and J had a break and I played Moon river, Take 5 and a couple of other pieces.  Strangely and slightly irritatingly, it was this that the bride remembered hearing!  It was a good 1.5 hours before we stopped but we were pleased and people seemed to enjoy it.

 It was also a chance to christen my new lace parasol I bought in Bruges as we haven't exactly had the weather for it so far!

 After snaffling some canapes and drinks (elderflower fizz for me!), it was time for the food, so we headed into a beautifully decorated marquee with elegant place settings cheered up with bright balloons and bunting made by the Mother and Father of the Bride.  Here's a sneaky shot of the Bride and Groom cutting the cake.  I didn't want to put one of their faces up here as obviously they wouldn't know about my blog and that's a bit naughty to put one up, but I thought this back shot might show you how beautiful the bride looked in a white dress (not ivory or cream)- it had a gorgeously ornamented front (V) and it was a halter.  She looked stunning and I was so pleased to see a wedding dress that wasn't strapless, as whilst I think every bride I've seen in one (every wedding I've been to in the last 10 years) looks lovely, I just like something different! Apparently, she was adamant that she didn't want strapless!  She looked cool and fresh all day and made a point of chatting to everyone in a lovely chilled manner!

 The food was a wonderful buffet with lots of delicious choices! Healthy too!  I liked it being a buffet rather than sit down meal! There was also roast lamb as part of it! (underneath in the shot)  The chocolate mousse desert was also delectable!

I managed to drink a glass of champagne for the toasts and speeches.  The Father of the bride was really great!  The best-man was cringingly embarassing and also included our being given individual pictures with shots of the groom!  Funny but embarassing and all I could think was "What a waste of ink and paper!"

After dinner, CBC and I decided to go for a walk as we were in such a lovely setting and we went for a wander, planning for a slightly longer walk except that we entered a field which had lots of cows up the other end and spookily, as we entered it, they all cantered towards us with stern reproach on their faces.  When we stopped, they stopped.  When we walked again, they menacingly headed towards us!  It was unnerving! CBC bravely stood his ground as I ran for the gate, then he ran too where he took shots from the safety of behind the gate!

 When we came back, my favourite part began- the ceilidh (for my international readers, this, if you don't know, is a Scottish dance.  An equivalent of your American Barn dance) had begun.

Many keen folks took their places for different dances, including CBC and I!  We had to perform a 'basket' move- one where two men and two women run quickly in a circle holding shoulders and the girls end up flying in the air with their legs in the air behind them!  It worked the first time but because our partners were so mismatched in height, we didn't get it a second time!
The final dance was a grand Orkney style 'Strip the willow'!
Here I am advancing through the set...

 Getting nearer...

 And nearer...  (note the sensible change of shoes!)

 We had lots of laughs including CBC and I messing around with silly photo shots! (i.e. the champagne glass above!)

 The cake, made by two incredible ladies!

 After the ceilidh, it turned into a cheesy disco which isn't so much my thing!  But it was fun to watch people and classy dance styles (e.g. the step from side to side, the backwards and forward, the chicken arms, the choo choo train, the lean and up etc!  My own one is 'train wreck'!)

 We even spotted Kate Middleton at the wedding! (tee hee!)

Finally, we headed home to Hexham town, tired but very happy and grateful to all the efforts of the family to make it what it was- a wonderful wedding!

 CBC will kil me for this (but he shouldn't put ideas into my head by saying, everytime I even contemplated a shot, "Meeeya, you only want to put horrid shots of me on your blog!" Well, I wasn't going to, but now I am!  Ha ha!!!!) but here we are, me in pajamas and cardie, eating cheese and rice-cakes at midnight!

How was your weekend lovely people?!

Are you off to any weddings!

What's your opinions on wedding dresses?!

My impending aging day- Callooh callay, Callooh, callay!!!

Unfortunately, I am just about to hit the anniversary of the day I entered this world, it being notably, a common multiple of both 10, 2, 3 and 5 (guess which!)
Now, I am not renowned for doing anything exciting upon the celebration of my birthday. I terribly disorganised when it comes to celebrating events. However, this year, I decided that I would do something (read that as 'bullied constantly by CBC to do something).

Ideally, the following would be what I would like to do:

1. Hold a Regency ball ideally at Valentines mansion where I ask my Regency dance teachers (who are lovely and accommodating) to come and teach all my friends.

Unfortunately, the costs of hiring it are just too high!

2. Go with a group to the 100 club to learn the Lindyhop. CBC and I went 3 weeks ago, and it was wonderful fun! I may not be the most stylish dancer (read that as I look awful when dancing!) but I love to learn routines, and I am quite adept at recalling and retaining a routine. Then we would dance the night away to the live band! Dressed up in vintage clothing of course. I think I'll definitely do this one as it's actually on my birthday! If you know me and want to come, please let me know! I'd love you to come! (only problem it is a school night!)

3. Hold a kitsch tea party. (I've done this several times before, so not scared about this one!)

Vintage cake stands, bunting, cakes, board games, Jelly Roll Morton music etc. The only trouble with this one is my TINY, messy house and there are so many people I want to come! I think I will do this one.

4. Hold a wild ceilidh with a live band! A big hall full of my favourite people. Dancing for hours! Sounds great!

5. Go for drinks at Calloo-Callay (which kind of means Hooray!). I love the Jabberwocky and the bizarre and fantasy world, especially of Lewis Caroll! Plus it has a secret room in a wardrobe! LIKE Narnia!!!!

6. Go orienteering and treasure-hunting. Even having to hunt for several items like 3 feathers, a long stone, a sycamore leaf, an acorn, etc etc! Fun!

7. A picnic on the beach!

If only my birthday was in the summer!

Am probably going with numbers 2 and 3. Which would you do?

Or any alternative suggestions???