london: the harry potter studios tour and seeing kate bush live

hi guys! sorry for being so m.i.a. recently, a few weeks ago i moved into my student flat and i started university this week! so i've been crazy busy, getting used to things, meeting new people, exploring the city, so i haven't had much time to write (or read, really). i'm trying to get back into blogging now so there's gonna be a little backlog of posts before things get back to normal.

so at the end of august i went down to london for the weekend with my family. i had tickets to see kate bush and was planning on going alone just for the day but we decided to visit the warner brothers studio tour as well and make a little holiday of it. i won't say much about the harry potter tour as i believe the pictures speak for themselves, but it was wonderful. it was like being in a very warm, cosy environment and it reminded me a lot of my childhood. it was also incredible to see all the costumes and sets and things, it totally got me excited to start my costume course!

the main event of the weekend for me was, of course, seeing the beautiful kate bush in concert. i adore kate bush, so when i saw that she was going to perform again i knew it was something i couldn't miss. the show itself was magical; kate's voice blew me away and she seemed so comfortable and at home on stage. the love for her in that room was insane; we gave her a standing ovation after almost every song and everyone around me had tears in their eyes at some point or another during the show. my favourite moments were hearing 'top of the city' (which i had never really liked, but performed live it became this huge rock anthem and kate destroyed it), seeing her perform with her son, the story of the drowning girl (i had never heard any of 'the ninth wave' before the show but i sobbed so much, especially during 'and dream of sheep', it was so beautiful), and her 'cloudbusting' encore when the whole audience was on it's feet singing and smiling and just enjoying themselves so much. it was truly one of the best nights of my whole life. i came out of that show knowing i would never be the same and i was in a 'kate bush coma' for about 2 weeks after. plus, an extra bonus for me was meeting jarvis cocker of 'pulp' whilst i was in the merch queue haha!

so that is all i'm going to say on my weekend in london! i probably could ramble on for a lot longer but i should probably go get some work done! thanks for reading, and hopefully i'll be posting a lot more regularly now. :-) xx

things that are awesome

bowie's eyes: david bowie has anisocoria, which is basically a medical term for uneven pupils. when he was 14, he was punched in the eye during an argument over a girl called carol goldsmith, and the guys fingernail caught david's eye and dislodged something. he had two eye operations but the sphincter muscles in his left eye were permanently torn, making the left pupil remain permanently open. i don't know why i love this so much. eyes are really special and magical to me and this lovely little imperfection is so beautiful. i fall more and more in love with bowie every time i find something new about him. he's just so GREAT. can we be together now?

amateur gymnastics: i mentioned this here right at the start of 2012 so i don't know if you'll remember but i've been trying to teach myself to do the splits. it's not majorly difficult to do but it requires you to stretch every day and i've never been good at remembering to do something every day. i've tried and failed to learn the splits at least 4 times this year but i always give up. (i will get there one day!) something that really inspires me is peoples personal updates on their stretching journey, like on instagram or tumblr. the first picture is of this girl called charla and i LOVE her, so when she put this picture on instagram it inspired me to start split-training again recently. you can see charla's blog here, which you should, because it's pretty awesome.

kate frickin' bush: i don't even know where i can start with this but i think kate bush is pretty much the love of my life. she's so perfect and her voice and her music and her style and everything, i can't even write in real sentences any more. i just wish i was her. she's kind of everything that i love about the music industry and the fashion industry wrapped up into one perfect human being.

the line, the cross, & the curve

when i was around 6 years old, i had a babysitter who owned a copy of this film on video. i loved it and used to watch it every time i was at her house. i've spent the last year or so frantically googling to try and find out what it was. all i could remember was that it featured red pointe ballet shoes, mirrors, dancing in fruit, and that the cover of the video said 'kate bush' on it. whatever i searched, though, google only ever seemed to conclude that i was looking for 'black swan', but last weekend, i finally found it!

it turned out to be a short film directed by and starring kate bush, called 'the line, the cross, & the curve'. it is basically a re-telling of the classic fairytale 'the red shoes' (more info on that here), which inspired kate's album, also titled 'the red shoes'. the film is around 45 minutes long and is essentially several music video's for kate's songs strung together but I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

it feels so great finally being able to relive this part of my childhood that i thought i'd lost! i've been watching it every day since i found it, i'm just so happy to be able to watch it again. it was unfortunately only available on video (it was released for a short time on DVD in america but those copies are very rare and cost over £100 on amazon) but the whole film is available to watch on youtube (above), which is where i've been watching it.

one of my favourite parts of the film are the songs, because they sound so much like my childhood. i'm a big fan of kate's most famous song, 'wuthering heights', which i've posted about previously, but i had never really gotten around to looking into her other work. it feels so weird to think that i've loved kate bush since i was 6 years old, when i only really started getting into vintage music around a year ago. 

my favourite songs from the album are: 'and so is love', 'eat the music', 'moments of pleasure', 'lily', and the title track, 'the red shoes', and all of those appear in the film. it's a very strange album and i feel that a lot of people may dislike it (partly because it sounds so different to 'wuthering heights' and that's the sound that people generally expect from kate bush) but it's such a big part of my childhood, how could i not love it?!

ah, i'm just in such a good mood from finding this film! i plan on ordering the cd soon (i found it for only £2.93 on ebay!) and listening to it all the time, pretending i'm 6 years old again. xx