Auld Reekie vs London Roller Girls

Put the date in your diaries, pals! Auld Reekie Roller Girls vs LONDON!

In less than two weeks our superstar team, the Twisted Thistles, are going to take on the mighty Brawl Saints from London Roller Girls! This is a Big Deal, as it's the first WFTDA sanctioned bout to be played in Scotland.

I have been swithering for ages about going to this vs Rockness (sorry ARRG, I love you, but I've been wanting to go to Rockness for years), but my mind is made up. Roller derby won all the way.

So you should come too! Tickets can be bought on the door, or from this link.

FRENCH BRAIDS & WATERMELON NAILS

So. It's a rainy bank holiday Monday, I am skint (was promised to be paid on Friday.. turns out pay day isn't until tomorrow - argh!) & Craig is away on an epic cycling holiday across Europe (I'm totally jealous). I've spent this morning being miaowed at by the cat, reading (Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones - taking me a wee bit to get into) and watching the first episodes of Oz.

I have also continued on my "journey" of hair stylin', and did my best to copy this french-braid up-do thing from  Love Meagan (please note, my final creation looks nothing like hers).

It took me SO MANY TRIES to get it to a point I'm happy with (and it can CLEARLY be improved) - I don't think I've tried to do a french braid on myself ever, never mind at the back of my head, but hey. What I hadn't thought about was just how hard it is to take a photo of the back of your own head! How do these stylish bloggers do it? Maybe they have slaves?

Trying (& failing) to use my camera's self timer

Success! My hair is not this shiny in real life

You can clearly see how messy it is, but that's not the point. It's MEANT to be messy. And it isn't a bun or er, a regular plait, so it's different and sort of smart for me - which is good! It looks nice from the front too. Look.

I shut my eyes every time I tried to take a photo, so I compensated by trying to look like an owl

The other peril of taking photos of yourself (aside from shame, being too stupid to work your camera & just feeling like an idiot) is camera invaders! Riley usually tries to escape photo-taking, but decided to launch for the camera (or er, more likely the camera strap). What a wee dude.

Riley isn't smizing. Poor show, R Catz

Awww

Anyway, that's enough photos of me for one day, except to show off one last thing - my totally grown up nails!

They are meant to be watermelons (clearly) and are too much fun. I was going to take them off before work, but I don't want to. Fingers crossed I don't have any meetings with watermelon haters this week.

How to: heidi braids

It's a windy, grey morning and I'm all alone in the flat with the cat. I secretly love mornings like this - don't tell anyone - I feel more like drawing or writing or trying to be creative when I'm alone (as I get far too self-conscious if someone else is around, even my beloved). So I have been listening to self-indulgent folky music (currently swinging between this & Americana as music of choice... I've changed), and playing with my hair.

My hair is mental - it's really thick and uncooperative and doesn't really sit nice and straight (despite all best intentions), nor does it curl nicely* (instead it seems to be going for a lion mane/banshee esque appearance). If I have time I straighten the hell out of it (and get shouted at my by hairdresser), or I either put it in a messy bun or messy plait. Messy is the key word. 

Anyway, this morning I thought I'd stop being lazy and work out how to do something nice, but different with it. My first attempt was using my straighteners to curl it on purpose. It was painful. SO BAD. I actually made things worse? & weirdly, am now regretting not taking a photo. Moving on.

I then (somehow) came across this lovely tutorial on Orchid Grey. I didn't think I'd have much hope - I mean, look at her "unwashed" hair. Jesus Christ. There's no justice. But I gave it a go (a rousing folk song was kicking in at this point, I was feeling cheered) and mild, stabbing-myself-with-kirby pain aside, it worked! 

Tada!

I realise that this is probably the easiest thing in the world, but I don't care. One man's molehill is another man's mountain, yeah? 

* actually on reflection - there is ONE time in my ENTIRE life that it curled naturally and gave the impression that is was nicely styled on purpose (photo here). Perhaps I'll have to move to NZ for the perfect hair-curling weather?

The final frontier

Isn't space AMAZING? NASA launched the space shuttle Endeavour yesterday (off on its last mission), and I watched it live at lunchtime - just incredible. The video above is probably my favourite space video (we all have one, right?), and brilliantly it wasn't made by NASA themselves, but by a fan who was frustrated in how they've failed to market themselves properly to the social media crowd.

I don't necessarily agree, I love how they have astronauts who tweet from space (I still find this mental) like Astro Jeff & Astro Soichi, but it is massively sad that the space shuttle programme is ending this summer and no one seems to care? & there is SO MUCH going on right now (have a look at the missions list), including spacecraft which have been in space for thirty years, are on the edge of the solar system & are still reporting back (Voyager). It's amazing.

I wish I was an astronaut.

Wedding cupcakes

Oh, hiya. I've had a lovely couple of weeks, but they have been RIDICULOUSLY busy. I work at a magazine so I don't always get public holidays off (all depending on publication schedules, etc) but luckily I got the royal wedding & yesterday off & was able to chill.

It wasn't all just lounging in the (pale, pathetic) Scottish sun though. I'd been asked to make wedding cupcakes, so my last week was spent preparing, making sample cakes, & then finally the real deal - baking and setting up 170 cupcakes.

It went well though. Tada!

I used my go-to recipe for cupcakes, which I will post (with a how to) later. It's the loveliest (& easiest!) recipe ever - it is a little dense for big cakes, but perfect for cupcakes and comes out a lovely golden brown. I used the same buttercream recipe I always use (500g icing sugar, 250g butter) because it is THE BEST and nothing I've tried beats it. This makes me sounds like such an obnoxious baker, sorry. It is good though.

I had planned to roll out the hearts individually, but cheated and bought some in bulk because they had lovely embossing (which I wouldn't have been able to do at home). See? Lovely.

I have also celebrated the royal wedding happily (so beautiful, so lovely, etc) and have PASSED MY ROLLER DERBY MINIMUMS! Which means that I can officially call myself an Auld Reekie Roller Girl, go to more practices and skate with all the skaters in our league (who are all so brilliant and a bit terrifying to keep up with just now, but I'm telling myself it'll get better).

Happy days indeed.