intoruth | a UK lifestyle blog: portsmouth

Showing posts with label portsmouth. Show all posts

Saturday, 2 March 2013

Photo An Hour 2/12: February

I'll stop yammering on about how I need to catch up right now, but here is my Photo An Hour from February, one of my March resolutions is to seriously take more photos generally as hopefully spring is on it's way and I'll feel like getting out there and snapping.

24th February 2013

9am – Getting Little Doll's breakfast ready, I'm finding that weekends are when she wants so snuggle with us but also when she tends to whine a little more about being fed, such a madame!

10am – On the road to Portsmouth.

11am – Arriving at Moon's brother's house.

12pm – Lunch at The Ship Inn in Hayling Island.

1pm – I must admit the service was a little slow but their Seafood 'Bucket' was certainly worth the wait, so tasty!

2pm – The beginnings of a walk along Southsea seafront starting at the rather bleak Southsea Rose Gardens.

3pm – It sure was chilly but it's been a while since I've been by the sea.

4pm – Heading home, I got my first drive outside of Newbury from the seafront to Morrisons, not quite ready for a long drive still though...

5pm – Home and it's time for hot chocolate and a little rest.

6pm – Finally getting around to editing some photos that have been stuck on my camera for weeks!

7pm – Preparing a dinner of stuffed mushrooms - not as nice as I'd hoped sadly or as nice as they seem to look in my picture.

8pm – Catching up on My Strangest Addiction, such trash TV.

9pm – Watching Lincoln with wine to psyche myself up for the Oscars, I must admit that I wasn't a fan.

I am so glad I set myself this little challenge, it really forced to take photos, something which, as I said before, I've weirdly been avoiding a little recently.

Saturday, 24 November 2012

Come out of your cave walking on your hands.

Doing anything on a weeknight is borderline exhausting nowadays thanks to a combination of a long day at work and sheer laziness. Saying that, seeing Mumford & Sons in as small a venue as Portsmouth Guildhall on Thursday night was more than worth it.

I've seen them at their tiniest, supporting The Maccabees at Southampton University Union, and one of their highest heights so far as second headliners of Glastonbury's Other Stage, I have a lot of love for them and every time I think I'm over them, they draw me back in. I wasn't even that excited to see them at the beginning of the week, I take that all back though and will pretend I never even mentioned it.

They were as beautiful as always, absolutely perfect without a hair out of place and their support was great - something that's always good when seeing live music. It's easy to forget that they only have two albums because they had such a long break between 'Sigh No More' and 'Babel', but this smaller back-catalogue meant they played basically everything from old favourites to soon to be new favourites. I often feel like listening to new songs after loving an album for such a long time can be like making new friends, after seeing them live properly after so long, I think I'm finally ready to let songs from 'Babel' into the fold.

Dawes.

As I mentioned, I thought the support acts were great - well chosen generally but well-suited too. I thought that Dawes were so good in fact, that I went into HMV and bought myself their actual CD today - I feel that I must add that the lead singer, Taylor Goldsmith's voice is about a million times better in real life than on recordings, I was actually quite moved (#gigwuss).

Piff the Magic Dragon and his glamourous assistant, Mr Piffles.

They were also supported by Piff the Magic Dragon of 'Penn & Teller Fool Us' fame, who was not only funny but accompanied by the most adorable assistant, speaking as a non-Chihuahua fan.

Always have a lot of time for Marcus Mumford's weird face.

Something Mumford & Sons should make their trademark - they brought Dawes and Piff on stage!

My favourite Dawes song of the night was 'When My Time Comes', and my favourite Mumford & Sons songs were 'Winter Winds' because the lights all came up and it was beautiful and 'The Cave' because the crowd were almost as loud as they were. Saying that, 'Sigh No More' will always have a place for me because it's the song that made me remember them when I saw them the first time.

All in all it was just such a fun evening, and it was nice to see them again in such an intimate space. I'm a little saddened as part of me knows there's such a small chance of something similar happening again especially as we had such a great spot, then again, you never know.

Monday, 13 August 2012

Banana Split.

I guess I've been subconsciously easing myself into the novelty of having weekends off, although admittedly this did take slightly more planning than the luck of previous weekends. I spent a fair amount of this weekend relaxing. It was Moon's little brother's 21st birthday on Saturday so we went down to Portsmouth with Long to celebrate with him.

I do love a good change of scenery with my best buds, and it was nice to be back in Portsmouth for a little bit, especially as we went to one of my favourite places to eat, The Tenth Hole. I'm glad I've moved on from there and can separate it as where I spent my time at University but some parts of it are really nice and we did have a fantastic night out to round off our stay.

It's just the cutest, worst-kept secret in Portsmouth; there's a reason why it's always so busy.

I finished off my roll of film using Edward's girlfriend's La Sardina, I've just sent them off and I'm pretty excited to see the results.

This is the 'Lardon' salad, I would have taken a photo of mine, but it was taken away so more bacon could be added to it, and I was too hungry by the time it came back.

Dog-friendly places are always a plus.

Appreciation for the slanket I got for him.

Showing my new love for all things Passoa ♥

Getting a free lame hat with my weak-ass drink.

This was pretty gnarly.

I was actually pretty surprised that it only took us 45 minutes to get back to Newbury, but it was quite good because we really seized the day and had a barbecue in the garden, so tasty. It was actually pretty perfect, we just sat there, enjoying food, listening to The Beatles and chatting. I can honestly say it's the most relaxed I've felt in forever and I hope it's a sign of things to come.

Naturally, we ended the weekend with the Olympic Closing Ceremony, I must admit to showing very little interest in the Olympics due to working and generally not enjoying sport anyway but for parts of it, I was kind of into it.