July instagram

July was FUN. I heart summer. 

1. Trying out Rock the Lab tattoos at work. I like working in science, I do!

2. More science! We turned Edinburgh's Summerhall into another planet for Fuselab, a bootcamp for young innovators (who all put teenage me to shame). I got to sneak in and watch a morning session - not a bad way to spend a Tuesday.

3. Dinner at The Vintage Leith, an amazing bar & restaurant that opened up on the Shore this year. If you live in Edinburgh and haven't been yet, you have to go - it's so good!

4. Embracing my inner hipster, with a ridiculous pair of raybans (shh, I love them).

5. The weather has been incredible - almost 28 degrees (that's amazing for Edinburgh) and so scorching. After work one day I headed to the beach with pals, paddled, and watched the sun set. Perfect!

6. Raewyn, my Sri Lanka partner-in-crime, on the night that inspired this blog post.

7. Watching Jazz & Blues in Princes St Gardens as part of the Edinburgh Festivals Carnival (which launches the Jazz & Blues Festival). I know I go on about it a lot, but I absolutely adore living in a festival city.

8. Cuddling that idiot. He wasn't very happy, but he's very patient with me.

9. Assembly Festival gardens opened their doors in July, and it's the nicest place to go on a sunny day. It looks like they've got some amazing (and super veggie-friendly) street food set up too, so I reckon I might just move in here in August.

10. Look at my cherry tree! I grew actual cherries! So proud.

11. I bought my dad a copy of Neil Gaiman's Make Good Art speech and couldn't resist getting one for myself too. I'm a bit in love with all of it, but this page in particular stood out to me. It reads:

Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art. I'm serious.

12. Well, it might not be that good, but I'm making art. Here's the start of my next illustrated blogger, who is coming soon!

Outfit: swedish shoes

Here's another slouchy outfit (it's too sticky and damp for nice dresses at the moment). This is mainly an excuse to show off my LOVELY NEW SHOES, which annoyingly I can't really wear outside as it's very soggy, and I am scared I will slip and fall over (I am terrible at wearing heels at the best of times!).

Blazer - Urban Outfitters
T-shirt - Primark
Slouchy jeans - Primark
Wooden sandals - Le Comptoir Scandinave*
Necklace - Accessorize

This is pretty lazy dressing, but I hope the shoes make it a wee bit interesting! I've had my eye on a pair of Swedish clog-types for quite a long time, so was pretty pleased to find a pair that looked walkable in!

I got the blazer from Urban Outfitters pretty recently too, and it's so perfect for summer! It's really light to wear, but looks pretty smart - I've got a few nights out coming up so I am picturing myself wearing this over a nice dress (although, realistically, it'll be raining and I'll end up wearing my cheap and ancient raincoat that I am a bit in love with).

Let's just not talk about my ridiculous hair today. It can't handle rain. Or humidity. Or sunshine, really.

Book love

Each month I chat about what books I've been reading in my monthly Book Love feature.

The Crane Wife - Patrick Ness
Oh dear. I had such HUGE expectations for this book - I am utterly in love with Patrick Ness' Chaos Walking trilogy, and was so excited to begin his newest work. But it just fell flat. It's a story that retells a Japanese folk tale in a normal (fairly boring) world. There are very beautiful passages (he is a brilliant writer after all), but I just did not care about the main characters at ALL, and a lot of it felt like he was trying very hard to say very clever things, without actually succeeding. Wah!

E. E. Cummings - Selected Poems 1923 - 1958
Beautiful, quirky, lovely poetry. It somehow manages to both be simple and easy enough to dip into every now and again, and deep enough to catch your breath and give a little more sense to the world. If poetry just brings back memories of dire days over-analysing classic works in school, I hugely recommend looking out ee cummings - you won't regret it.

Thunderstorm wishlist

Well, I don't know if you've seen recently, but Scotland has been glorious. Proper, HOT, sunny-all-day, 28 degrees type of weather. Sunshine that lasted for WEEKS, rather than a few hours here and there.

Obviously it couldn't last. Once again the skies have turned grey, and the seemingly endless rain has also been accompanied by incredible thunder and lightning storms. Even though I have just bought two new pairs of lovely sandals that I now CAN'T WEAR (wah), I won't moan, I promise.

Instead, I'm going to try and look on the bright side of a rainy day, and have put together this thunderstorm themed wishlist to help me do just that.

Top row

Lightning storm illustration | Lightning bolt earrings | Models Own 'Thunder and Lightning' polish

Bottom row

Black Milk leggings | Snake vest | Hunter Short Wellies

Surely everyone wants a lightning storm on their knees, right?

The best things to see at the Edinburgh Festivals

Okay, it's LESS THAN ONE WEEK away. Let's talk about the cultural behemoth that is fast approaching my fine city's shores...

This year there are 2,871 shows taking place at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. That's 24,107 artists in  273 venues...  NOT EVEN including any of the fun things taking place at the Book, International, or Art festivals.

So how do you pick? Well really you should just go out and take a chance - open a festival programme at random and pick the show that jumps out to you from the page, wander down the Royal Mile and chat to performers and people flyering (as well as watching some ace street performers!), or ask the people sitting next to you in the pub what they'd recommend. Watching something TERRIBLE and finding amazing hidden gems is all part and parcel of the Edinburgh Festivals experience.

But if that sounds like too much hard work, then go and see one of these instead:

Comedy

 Tony Law: Nonsense Overdrive

David O'Doherty Will Try to Fix Everything

Iain Stirling: At Home  

Pajama Men: Just the Two of Each of Us

Books 

Unbound 

Science with Spiderman

Edinburgh World Writers' Conference  

End is Nigh! 

Theatre

Whatever Gets You Through the Night 

Squidboy

Long Live the Little Knife 

The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer

Music

Avenue Q

The Paul Simon Treatment

The Horne Section

Loveboat Big Band Summer Love-in

Something Awesome

The Wrestling II

Do We Need You After the Apocalypse? The Game Show

Hot Dub Time Machine. Best. Party. Ever. 

Auld Reekie Roller Girls: Die ARRG 

Something FUN

Late n Live

Best of the Fest

Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Awards

The Comedy Zone 

PHEW. Hopefully that helps! If you still feel a bit overwhelmed, then take a look at my guide on how to do the Edinburgh festival and have a cup of tea. It's going to be brilliant.