Hello nature!

Last week we had a few super sunny days, the kind where you can almost pretend it really is summer already, so some friends and I decided to take advantage of this and go on a bush walk (two days later my butt and legs still hurt haha). Only one of my good friends is particularly fit (one of those fitness crazy people who decide to make a job out of working out), so we decided to pick an easy track and do a 3 hour return trip. It turns out even the easy tracks have a gazillion steps, hence the sore muscles...

That super muddy part is actually the walking track which we had to walk around!

Ooer big tree!

Behind me is the Okura River

A perfect shaped resting palm

Argh look at those stairs!

Our turning back point was the Dacre Cottage which is a tiny cottage originally built around 1850 (although it was re-built in the early 1980's). We couldn't actually go inside the cottage, as due to vandalism it is now completely locked up. It's right by the beach and surrounded by farm land and bush, it would be amazing to live here (well, maybe in a slightly larger house haha).

More steps (can you spot my friend who likes fitness? hehe)

Made it out in one piece! Without falling in the mud!

 My dress is a 1970's one I've had for ages but have never worn before, the colour kind of puts me off. And please excuse my very unsightly sneakers! They're very old ones from when I played netball in high school, and I'm so glad I decided to wear them since the track turned out to be so muddy and slippery.

Do you have any nice walkways near where you live?  There are quite a lot around the Auckland region, I really think I should check some of the others out too!

xx
Lucy

The Wintergarden

 Well, I kind of dropped off the face of the blogging world for a month, but now I'm back and feeling a little re-energised, so we will see how things go with this whole posting on a regular basis thing!

Yesterday I visited the Wintergarden in Auckland Domain. Auckland Domain is the oldest park in the city, with the Auckland War Museum situated within the park. The Wintergarden is made up of two huge glasshouses, which were built in 1913, and opened to the public in the early 1920's!

Isn't the lilly pad above strange? I wanted to touch it but it was out of reach!

I took so many photo's it's hard to not post them all! So here a just a few more featuring the band rotunda, and the dress I was wearing under my winter coat.

        Coat: Vintage

Dress: 1970's bought in Melbourne

Bag: Thrifted

In other news, my camera broke at a rather wild (drunken) party several weeks ago, so now I have a new camera which I am still playing around with... It's a better version of my old camera so I'm happy! (although it'd be nice to have a fancy-pants camera one day too)

Hope everyone is well in blog-land, it's good to be back.

xx
Lucy

What do you do for Easter?

According to my boyfriend, Easter is kind of  big deal in my family... I had no idea!  We're not religious, but we do have Easter traditions (which I assume are German based). I always thought everyone here in New Zealand had their own family traditions for Easter, but after asking some friends, it seems I was wrong; they don't even visit family during Easter weekend (although they did get a few chocolates when they were younger). So I am wondering... Do you have any Easter traditions?

For us, we have a breakfast on Easter Sunday at my Mum's, traditional things include hard-boiled eggs, which have been painted with crayons and food colouring (each person selects an egg, and then the tops are hit against each other.. you can only eat your egg if the shell has been broken on both ends).

Hot cross buns (we always buy them, but I did some experimenting with recipes recently, and I think next year I will bake my own), as well as pretzels and regular buns from our local German bakery (and this year some gluten free bagels).

We also of course have some Easter eggs and chocolates! When we were younger, these would be hidden in the living room, along with a gift for each child. I always loved hunting for Easter eggs!

(I just had to show you these flowers, they are so pretty, and have the most amazing smell)

This Easter, I wore what felt like a very autumn appropriate outfit!

To highlight the waist, I turned my cardigan into a wrap-front top, securing it with this great ceramic brooch which my Mum made!

How do you spend your Easter?

xx
Lucy

Bad luck days

You know the ones... where everything that could possibly go wrong does. These days happen to me every so often, and Monday happened to be one of them. Sorry about all the text, if you're not interested in reading about my day, you can skip to the outfit pictures at the end of the post!

It's Monday morning, I have a job interview at 8am, and although I got up at 6am, I am running late. It's not too much of a problem, since I planned to get there early, and now I will just be on time. Plus, I've decided to get the train instead of the bus, since the train can't get caught in traffic.

 The train station is 10mins walk from my house, and as I get close, I see a train waiting. I panic and run the last 50m, only to realise the train is at the other platform. Phew. I sit down, and wait a minute or so. Then I realise I am sitting at the wrong platform, and the train across from me is MY train. This leads to more frantic running. I get to the train, and the doors are closed. At this stage I am thinking I'm not going to make it to the damn interview. But then, magically, the train doors open and they let me on! How lucky, this NEVER happens! But wait, the doors have open again, and people in the other carriages are all getting out.. What is going on?

It turns out the train has broken down, and after doing some eavesdropping, I find out it has been sitting at the this station for the past 30mins.. Shit. It's way too late to get the bus now, and I can't afford to get a taxi. Lucky for me, the next train arrives after only a 5min wait. I'm only going to be 10mins late for my interview, which isn't too bad, considering. I try to call to let the interviewers know I am running late, but the call is diverted to an automatic answering service, which tells me I am calling outside normal working hours, and to call back in half an hour.

I get off the train at my stop, and start running (whilst cursing my decision to wear heels). I have to cross the railway tracks at a pedestrian crossing to get to my interview, and when I get there, the barrier goes down, and a train arrives. And stops. Right on the damn crossing. So I wait. and wait. After 5mins I can't take it any more, and I decide to walk the long way around. Just as I get around, the barrier goes up. My poor feet are not happy.

I manage to be only 15mins late to the interview, which is amazing considering the circumstances, however it's a group interview, and the receptionist isn't sure I will be allowed in now. I am, and I decided my luck is changing. The interview goes well, until the very end. We are reminded to take our name tags off before we leave, and I tuned out for a second while I am putting my coat on, and one of the interviewers makes a joke about how if I leave my name tag on, somebody might come up to me on the street and say "Hi, how are you?!" Hearing my name, I looked up, smile and say a big cheerful "good!" The I realise she isn't actually asking me how I am. Crap. Then to top things off, my name tag falls off and lands under the table, and I have to get down on my hands and knees and almost crawl to reach it, for which I get a very odd look. 

This all happened before 9am..  After the interview, there were a few more unfortunate events involving cash machines and public transport, but I think I've already written far too much!

Then it was off to my sisters to do a photo shoot for her coming-soon online vintage store, which actually went pretty well. Maybe I'd used up all my bad luck in the morning heh!  I will share some of those pictures with you soon (hopefully in the next post).

Below are a few photos of what I wore on my unfortunate interview day (from which I will be very surprised if I get a call back!), the skirt is newly thrifted, I am in love with the colour! The photos were taken by my sister, in my Mother's pottery studio

xx
Lucy

The sound of silence

Yes, things have been rather quiet here. My days have been filled with lots of school work, and large amounts of coffee. Because neither of those is terribly photogenic, I have been lacking blog-post inspiration and the end of daylight savings and the cooler weather isn't helping much either, I miss summer already!!

Anyway, here are a few pictures from the past week of non-school related things which were on my camera, including a great use for 1970's glass light shades I saw in a local cafe!

I absolutely adore the mixture of retro and vintage furniture in this cafe

These 70's light shades have small candles inside them, which I thought was such a great idea! (Unfortunately I've never been here in the evening so haven't seen them lit)

At the front door. I just got home from a long day at school.
(I have classes until 8:30pm some days)

Exhausted from all that study!

The view from my kitchen window

I also haven't been keeping up with my blog roll, so now I have loads of catching up to do, I bet you have all been busy!

What do you do when you've been too busy working to come up with anything blog-worthy? Do you have 'fall-back' topics? Or do you keep photos of things to be used when you're lacking inspiration?I want to know your secrets hehe!

xx
Lucy

A proper outfit post.

To make up for yesterday's picture!

Hat: Vintage (a gift from my sister )
Top: Dotti
Skirt: Pin Up Girl Clothing
Bag: Vintage
Shoes: Plasticland (last year)

xx
Lucy

Lazy Days

Lazy days. The days when you can't be bothered with your appearance, you're tired, and want to hide in bed all day. The days where total ease and comfort rules. I try not to blog about these days (they usually involve my trusty jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers).

Yesterday was one of those days, however I resisted the call of denim, and instead went with an oversized band t-shirt and black skirt, brightened up a little with a colourful belt and a flower in my hair.

What do you do on days like these?

xx
Lucy

What I've been up to lately!

Spent an afternoon on Herald Island

Visited the annual lantern festival in Albert Park

Checked out a friends cute as a button new home (this was taken on her doorstep)

Went to a barbeque at my sisters (this seems to be the only decent picture I took sorry!)

Eating beautiful (and yummy!) mini cakes made by my boyfriend

Hosting afternoon tea at my place

A few pictures to make up for my lack of regular blog posts!

xx
Lucy

The valentines that was..

My man and I aren't normally big on valentines day, so it was a complete surprise when he came home with flowers and chocolates on Sunday night, and then made me a yummy big breakfast on Monday morning!

Here's a not so great picture of us, or actually our reflection, at the bus stop (we went out for coffee and ice cream too, but I didn't take any pictures).

Commercialism aside, I think valentines day is a nice reminder to spend quality time together, especially in this day and age with computers and tv taking up so much of our time!

Here's a better picture of my not-very-vintage valentines day outfit..

The hall table is actually my new sewing machine!

xx
Lucy