#VlogChallenge Week 3 – Books!

by

So for Week 3 of #VlogChallenege, Nickie set the topic of books. Well, being a Vlog Challenge, Nickie can tell you herself & also answer some FAQs

I did have a really great plan, and wanted to do something cool. What you got was this…

 

Mostly because I only had this much time, and pretty much what you see is what you get with this video.

 

I picked the Fitz Bunny book whilst I was in New Zealand, in a comic book store, where I also discovered my love of The Authority comics.

Authority_8_1600x1200-375631And that neatly lead me onto the comics I’m currently reading, part of DCs New 52, The Futures End.

futures-end-00-01

I picked up issue zero on Free Comic Book Day, and it was surprisingly dark & gruesome, and I was a little excited to see The Authority in the early issues (I’m not telling what happens, no Spoilers!) But so far, it’s a great serise, although its a weekly comic, and I admit we normally pick monthlies at home.

But what you got was a wonder through some WFRP 2nd edition, and I didn’t really explain much about it. So there’s 2 videos for another time eh?

If you’re tempted to join in #VlogChallenge, then don’t dither just do! There’s a linky page (http://t.co/v9ZC8j60nE) so you can see everyone is just diving in & having a go!

#VlogChallenge Week Two #Beauty

by

Ah, week two.

Kate is Nickie’s partner in crime for #vlogchallenge. She is blogging queen over at I am Wit Wit Woo and the topic was a beauty (or fashion) Vlog!

So I sulked a bit, and then realized that I go to the effort of Hennaing (is that right?) my hair on a semi regular basis, and that’s a beauty thing. Isn’t it? Yeah.

I’ve been doing this for quite a few years now, and to me it’s quite an easy process, but I’ve been surprised from some of the Twitter / YouTube comments that it seems laborious to others? How easy is it to commercially dye your hair these days?

Anyway, here’s my Vlog, have a look and let me know if it seems like extra effort to go to!

I must admit I’m loving the Vlog Challenge, and although I’m unlikely to head down to London any time sooN, I quite enjoyed Tinuke Circusmum‘s Tips for getting around London!

The next #VlogChallenge is tomorrow & set by Nickie, so keep an eye on iamtypecast.com for the next topic!

Rock n Roll Liverpool Marathon.

by

It’s a funny running habit I’ve got. My husband described it as “do nothing for 6 months, then run a marathon.”

He’s right, that’s pretty much how I did the Rock n Roll Liverpool marathon this May, and it’s taken me nearly 2 months to sit down and write about it. Mostly out of laziness. Seems like my blogging & running habits are in sync.

So The Liverpool Rock N Roll Marathon.

indexLets start by saying a BIG THANK YOU to Stephen, a (not too) old friend I haven’t seen in years for letting me crash at his house the night before the Marathon. And also the other Stephen (two Stephens in one flat, confusing for blogging about, but possibly an awesome sitcom premise) who loaned me his bed & cooked a lovely carbalicious meal the night before.

THANKS GUYS. We’ll do lunch soon I promise!

The marathon, well it was mostly UP. I know Liverpool is very up, I saw the course profile, and the first marathon I did was Liverpool (different organizer) but I was expecting that after the UP there would be a little down. It’s only logical. There wasn’t. Liverpool defied all know geographic laws. I have reason to suspect M.C Escher was part of the route design team.

So it was a very up marathon, more up that I anticipated.

map

So I wanted a 5:30 marathon. Not massively ambitious.  Northing too fast, and I set off with the 5:30 pacer and stuck with them for a large part of the first 10k, then I sulked a little and dropped back to the 5:45 pacer…. then at about mile 16 I lost the will to run uphill any more and walked… FOR AN HOUR.

The Liverpool people were great, I had plenty of locals shouting “GO ‘ED GURL” and such, which did make me smile, and a few snarky comments about my “Training for the Zombie apocalypse” t shirt (“You’re going to get eaten then eh?”)

The race was a little bit disappointing. It was billed to be a Rock N Roll marathon with bands and music at every mile, but there really weren’t that many bands playing for the slow coaches at the back of the pack. Even when I was still with the official pacers I only saw one band, a group of drummers just after Everton Football grounds. They were pretty spectacular,, definitely motivating to get up the hill they were on. Not so much Rock N Roll, as here’s a Mix Tape N Some Speakers for you to run past.

That said, I could still be sulking at my in ability to continue running up hill & even after I started to run again, it was more of a run/walk/moan effort, but I completed the course.

complete

Owch, I know. A full hour and fifteen after I hoped to end. Miserable. The upside of this is that my walking meant I wasn’t too sore the next day, and I didn’t fall asleep on the way home either. I did eat the world.

 Would I do it again?

No, I think I’m over marathons now thanks.

What’s the next running thing then?

Well, as a leaving present, aside from some cake, the Lush Preston team got me a ticket to 2.8 Hours later a Zombie Running thing on 24th July in Manchester. So I at least should get my trainers back on once this month.

 

I did knitting! Hooray!

by

I realise that I have it written over there in the little discription of my blog, yet I’ve never really mentioned things I’ve knitted.

So here are the last thing I knitted…

Socks for Hevs

Hevs, aka Heather Smith, is an amazing illustrator who I have the pleasure being friends with & spent many Monday mornings opening up Lush Preston with.

Back in December Heather posted this beautiful drawing to her Tumblr.

hevsbirthday

And I thought “SOCKS! I can do that, no problem, 2 weeks is an easy deadline!” I bought a bamboo / cotton blend yarn & cast on.

I finished & gave the socks to Heather at the end of June. Yeah.

Visit Heather’s beautiful Tumblr over at http://lightfeets.tumblr.com/

or her instagram page over at http://instagram.com/_hevs (where I’ve stolen copied the photo of the socks on feet from as I failed to do that before I gave them over and made my son sing a pathetic Happy Birthday to her)

I possibly made some notes of how I knit them, leave me a comment if you’re curious about how they were made & I may attempt to write up an actual pattern.

There, knitting, now for the coffee.

Lush Liverpool & The Sound Bath Treatment

by

Up until a little while ago I worked for Lush. It was great, I love Lush & working for the company was great fun, but, like Star Trek: TNG said, “All good Things…” and all that jazz.

The only reason I mention this is because I felt really weird working for Lush and then coming home & blogging about it too, I know some staff do, and that’s fine, but it was weird to me so I didn’t. But now I don’t, so I can go on & on & on & on about Lush all the time! Mwhahahaha!

Anyway, lets get to the point.

Last Friday I went down to Liverpool Lush, why did I shlep 44km, when there’s one in the town I live in? Well, because up above the Liverpool store is a Lush Spa.

20140429-164929.jpg

 

When you get to Liverpool you’d never notice anything different, it’s just a really busy, big Lush store (the biggest in the world, or it was when I left the company, it could have changed by now.)  Now I’d booked my treatment over the phone earlier in the week, and bought a voucher at Preston Lush, so all I had to do was rock up at the right time and give the gent at the till the magic ticket & wait for the Lush Therapist to come say “hello” and lead you upstairs to the Spa.

Lush doesn’t do things like other companies, and the same applies to their Spas. It’s almost an Un Spa, upstairs at Liverpool (and AFAIK all the Spas) is like visiting your Great Aunts house. That eccentric aunt  who has a tonne of weird books,  furniture older than you, and also 16 types of tea for every possible mood or occasion, and would be mortified if you asked for milk in any of them, but would happily add a little gin if it was after 11am. Flying ducks on the wall, flowers in jugs, that style of thing. The 8th incarnation of The Doctor would have loved it, if he’d gotten more screen time, and Lush did product placement.

 

20140429-164915.jpg

I’d booked in for a treatment called The Sound Bath.

A powerful, 60-minute meditative treatment that helps you listen deep within. Primarily focused on the head, this treatment takes you on a journey into sound – and yourself.

I’ll confess when I first  picked this, I just wanted an hour to (almost) myself and pampering without having to take any clothes off. I’m not a touchy feely kinda gal, there’s another Lush Spa treatment called The Spell that’s mostly a foot treatment, but has a great head rub in the middle, I fancied 60 minutes of that.

The Sound Bath is a little more than a head rub. It’s like a lot of Lush products, aiming to be something quite normal, but ending up almost as if it’s been designed by an Jim Henson Alien who’s only had John Crichton explain the concept to them.

The aim of The Sound Bath is to relax you to a point where your head, and all the chitter chatter in it, is just quiet, and, if you want, you can listen to the voice within. So what you get is a hot stone facial, a fabulous head rub,  mixed with Tibetan singing bowls and Ohm Tuning Forks, with a couple of Ear Candles thrown in too, and cold stone facial at the end to bring you back to the real world.

It doesn’t sound like it should work. The more I write it down the worse it seems. Did I mention that it has bird song mixed into the sound track? See, bonkers. But, like Fish Fingers & Custard, there’s some kind of mad genius at work here, and everything just works.

After the hot stone facial has gotten you really settled and you’ve started to relax, the therapist uses the tuning forks on points of your forehead, the sound literally washes through you and you’re falling deeper down the rabbit hole, by the time the therapist asks you to turn onto one side and starts the ear candle part of the treatment you’re practically on autopilot.

At the end of it all, I left feeling completely zen, but strangely also quite supercharged like “no power in the ‘verse” could stop me.”

Eventually I had to return to the real world, but on the way out I had a quick nip around the shop for some treats.

20140429-164937.jpg

Firstly, the Inhale Exhale ballistic, this is a limited edition ballistic, and I want to go back and buy about 10!

It’s scented with two different fragrances, Inhale & Exhale, coincidentally the same two scents in the incense used to scent the room for The Sound Bath. One side fizzes quicker than the other, so when it’s popped into the bath you get wafts of one scent, to start, and then part two changes the scent, and eventually the blend together to make The Breath of God scent.

The other treat was a generous sample of Ocean Salt Face & Body Cleanser. I’ve tried Ocean Salt before, but the peeps in the Lush Labs have worked up a self preserving formula, doing away with the need to add in an artificial preservative. It smells much fruitier than the preserved version, and when I was chatting with Emma, the Liverpool Lush’s Trainee Manager, she explained one of the tweaks in the new formula is the addition of Mango Butter.

This is also a good point to mention that the Ocean Salt sample is the only part of my trip I got for free, and also that this is the only photo I’ve taken myself! Thanks to Melissa on the Lush Liverpool’s facebook for letting me use the other 3 pictures.

So anyone else tried The Sound Bath? Or any of the other treatments?

Anyone interested in hearing about the self preserving versions of some of Lush’s classic products?

 

#SignOfLove – Sochi 2014 – #LoveAlwaysWins

by

This, and a post still hidden away in my drafts file, have been the hardest I’ve had to write. This one, a little like the other, has rapidly descended into a ranting, rage filled post very quickly, and while I’m not above a bit of ranting on my blog, this post quickly ends in an incoherent jumble.

I’ve thrown this together, because I’m running out of time , the #SignofLove campaign is reaching the end, and I’m just going to write the post & go back and delete some of the swears, and hope what’s left makes sense.

While I’m doing that, here’s a podcast of an interview I did Heather & Fiona from Lush Preston on the #SignofLove Campaign to get you started.

 

 

 

[spreaker type=standard width=100% autoplay=false episode_id=4041610]

 

 

 

 

So what’s gotten me all riled up about it? Honestly, I think the video below spells it out better than me.

(I have tried to write it. Too many swears)

Aside from the obvious statement that Putin & his “Gay Propaganda” Laws are a crock of shit. And that sport shouldn’t be used as a platform for politics, I have a few other things to add.

The Olympics shouldn’t have been held in Sochi, the IOC should have moved the Winter Games, or at least made a vitriolic condemnation of the Russian Laws.

Instead we have the Italian IOC member Mario Pescante mouthing off at America for sending openly gay athletes as the US delegates.

“It’s absurd that a country like that sends four lesbians to Russia just to demonstrate that in their country gay rights have [been established]. The games should not be an occasion and a stage to promote rights that sports support daily.”

Erm excuse me? How can these rights be supported at Sochi? When you’re not allowed to say openly you’re gay?

And Russia has used deliberately vague terms in it’s legislation, which has meant that Russians who agree with the absurd laws feel like they can take the law into their own hands, subjecting violence & crime upon LGBTQ communities.

I’m also appalled that (as far as I’ve found) there’s been no statement from any of the major Olympic Sponsors. What a pile of shite they are.

I’m going to stop ranting. Share my #SignofLove photo and ask that you do the same. Upload it with to Instagram. If you fancy, make it a #Section6Salute too, and remind the IOC their own charter should not be thrown away for money.

signoflove

Section 6 of the Olympic Charter states,

Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.”

If you want to hear my ranting reasons and rage, give me a tweet @runforthequiet, and I’ll have to tame it down to under 140 characters. (Or drop a comment below) Please note if you troll, I will slay.

If you want to know more about the #SignofLove campaign visit

https://www.lush.co.uk/sign-of-love

I also suggest heading over to Instagram and checking out all the photos tagged #SignOfLove.

Marathon number 3, training begins.

by

Yada yada “the long road to 26.2” blah blah blah, I did some running.

It did take me quite a long while to complete my 1st real run of 2014, I haven’t really done anything for a while. #Janathon doesn’t count, it was mostly a effort to see how I could make something I was already doing sound like I was actually trying to get fit.

This time I am actually trying to get fit, although I’m mainly looking forwards to the large amount of delicious carbs I can eat & claim “I’ve got a long run.”

This weekends “Long Run” is just over 10km. Based on todays running effort, I expect it to take about a week to complete.

Best bit of todays 6.4km treadmill trundle? The Sudoku game on the fancy new treadmills. Although it is quite hard to pick the right box on a small grid, on a touch screen, when you’re running . It took me 13:12 min to do the Sudoku, I felt very clever.

I also wore my new trainers, and they were good, different but good.

Next run Thursday, another 6.4km. Perhaps I’ll venture outside?

#Juneathon Day 30: VICTORY! (And onwards!)

by

It seemed almost the second I got my running kit on, it started to rain.
Nothing new for Juneathon then eh?

A cold, wet & windy 30 min later, Juneathon 100% complete!

I’m proud. It’s only taken 3 attempts to achieve it, and I did it mostly in secret!

20130701-214458.jpg

Juneathon was one of the three June goals. The other 2, well, that’s 50/50.

Drop 2% body fat
I weighed myself this morning & took all my measurements. No change. None.
I have actually have only lost 1lb in weight since the 1st January.
I’m slightly mixed in my emotions about this. I know I’ve eaten an awful lot of crummy food this month, a few cheeky beers and a good amount of sweets.

The annoying thing is that I didn’t take any measurements at the start of the year, so while I know I’ve lost a few inches, I’ve no idea how many, and I want the numbers to prove it dammit!

No Starbucks
I spent £1.65 in Starbucks this month, on fruit bread one Sunday morning, because nothing else is open in Preston.
My coffee shop cold turkey wasn’t 100% true, I had a few Neros & a fair amount off breakfasts from a local indie shop (they curdle soy milk, so no coffee from them) but nothing near the shocking amount I previously spent.

So onwards!

20130701-220443.jpg

Home Cooked Meals
I did well cutting out the massively mediocre coffee and I’m going to attempt to change my terrible habit of buying breakfast or lunch, and start planning ahead & making my meals.
Also, I’ve recently fallen into the habit of buying junk oven meals, or pizza. I need to stop being lazy & start making Food.

30 Day Shred
One day off after Juneathon & I’m going to do 30 Day Shred. I’ve taken measurements, if I manage it, it should shift a few.

#Juneathon Day 29: urgh, is it wet everywhere else too?

by

Today, it seemed to rain as soon as I left the door.
I feel like this has been the most miserable & wet & cold Juneathon ever. I though this was supposed to be a warmer, drier version of Janathon.
(And I seem to be repeating myself, sorry readers, I know I’ve made this whine and moan before)

Today was a slow jog / walk, with less sulking than yesterday, but also much slower. I’m very much looking forwards to the last day tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll get up quite early and get it over & done with!