Fire walk with me

Hello all - I hope you all had a fabulous weekend, Rich and I did something a little bit different this Saturday - this picture may give you a clue what that was.

If you guess we did some kind of charity walk - then you're kind of correct. I'll give you all another picture clue.

Did you work it out yet? Well the title of the post most likely gave it away anyway - but we did a fire walk (walking on hot coals) organised by the Eastbourne Scout troop.

The event was an attempt to break the current record for the most people continuously fire walking and the record was broken - so now we will be in the Guinness Book of Records. Well, maybe not our names as such - but we were part of the big group of people who helped to break the record. The preliminary result is that 615 people took part in the fire walk, the old record was for 350 people.

In case you're wondering, yes, the coals were hot! But its all over with in three or four steps so it wasn't so bad. Well it wasn't so bad for me at least. Rich got a nasty blister on the arch of his foot and the first aid people said it was the biggest blister of the day - not really the kind of record you want to have.

The world record attempt was to raise money for two Wellington based charities -  So They Can, which is a trust which does all kinds of good work with children in Kenya and the Children of Nepal Trust - when you see what these kids have to live with every day, taking a few steps in hot coals doesn't really seem so bad after all.

Animal Print Dress - Rawr

I made this dress a while ago and to be perfectly honest, I'm not crazy about it. It's the same pattern as my strawberry dress, but I made it from some satin animal print fabric.

I've had lots of great feedback about this dress - which I finished sewing it up, Rich seemed quite impressed with my sewing skills and other friends have commented on how great it looks, but I'm just not sure.

I guess maybe I feel a bit like the fabric is something a nightie should be made of - or that the way the cut looks isn't quite right. I've worn it as more of a skirt, with a cardi buttoned up over the top and liked it more then. But I'm just still not convinced!

I guess if I don't learn to love this dress it will be destined for the clothes swap pile, where it may find someone who will appreciate it more than I do.

I hope you're all having a super weekend so far xoxox

Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge: Coloured Tights! The Sir Truby King Memorial Gardens Edition!

Yesterday was a public holiday and it was also a stunner of a day so Rich and I finally took the chance to visit the Sir Truby King Memorial Gardens in Melrose.

If you're not from New Zealand, then you may not have the slightest idea who Sir Truby King was, he's pretty well known in this part of the world as a social reformer of mental health and infant care. He's best know for founding the Plunket Society  which does all kinds of things for mum's and babies in New Zealand even today. Apparently he was very controversial in his day though, some of his ideas were a little bit strange at the time and he was a strong believer is Eugenics.

Also, despite being bankrupt when he died he still had this big fancy house and garden and the plaque at the gardens told me he was the first private New Zealand citizen to be given a state funeral - his mausoleum is also in the gardens - its pretty low key. But then the last mausoleum I visited was Ho Chi Min's so perhaps I've set my expectations for mausoleums a little high. 

As you can see it was a stunning autumn day in Wellington - clear skies and hardly any winds - these days don't happen that often.

Rich is the king of the world! Such great view of Kilbirnie (my favourite op shopping haunt) and Lyall Bay from up here.

Now it's time for the outfit post! The theme this week was "coloured tights" my tights weren't brightly coloured but they did have a fancy pattern on them so that counts right?

Feather tights! Exciting! I bought these from Equipt - they have loads of tights in for winter and you can get 2 pairs for $20 - score!

Boots - Bought in Korea, Tights & Scarf - Equipt, Dress - Kitty Bridges, Cardi - Hell Bunny

When we had finished up in the gardens we walked through the town belt to Newtown - the trees all looked a bit naked here and the pine needles were thick on the ground.

I love the way these trees frame the city below and look how blue that sky is! 

Finally - I have always loved this gate in Newtown, but whenever I've seen it I've been on the bus so I haven't been able to take a photo. It's pretty rad don't you think?

Like a said at the start of the post, yesterday was a public holiday here - but not any old public holiday. It was anzac day - for those of you who don't know its when we remember those who we have lost in battle.

Because of this, I thought I'd share the film which is to me the most important film I've ever seen about war and conflict. It's a documentary made way back in 1995 and I saw it with my 5th form history class - the film is called War Stories our Mothers Never Told Us and the stories of the women in this film stay with me even until this day. If you have a chance to see this movie, please do!

Singapore - the final days

This will be my SECOND to last post about my Malaysia/Thailand/Singapore trip and its mighty heavy on photos folks! So during my last couple of days in Singapore I was lucky enough to spend most of my time with Chloe from Wasted Fashion. Chloe was so lovely and generous and I learnt so much about Singapore from her. I really hope she decides to visit New Zealand one day so I can pay her back!

Let's start at the beginning - on Friday Chloe took the day of work to hang out with me (like I said - very generous!) and she took me to an older part of the city which I would have never found by myself. I loved all of the older buildings. Very cute.

She took me to this old style "confectionery" store - I would have called it more of a bakery than a confectionery store. Anyway the store didn't look like it had changed much since the 1960's and Chloe took me here to sample a classic Singaporean Breakfast - Kaya Toast and Half Boiled Eggs. I really liked it - but I do love eggs!

In this area there were lots of Peranakan homes that you could go and look at - some were really beautiful and one had bead work classes I really wanted to take - if only I lived in Singapore!

Chloe also took me out for this seafood laska which was awesome and it came with the best fish cakes I ever ate!

We also had some of the most delicious chocolate desserts - EVER!

We also had some mani-pedi's done after all that food - here's mine. I love getting nail art but its just so expensive in New Zealand!

In the afternoon we went to Sentosa Island and travelled there in style - via the cable car.

When you're in the cable car you can look down on a whole lot of cruise ships - this was my favourite, it has a HUGE hydro-slide! I want to go on that hydro-slide!

As it was near Valentines Day, there were some cheesy valentines displays up at Sentosa Island.

We took the free shuttle out to the beach - it actually wasn't too busy at the beach we went too, which was surprising, I was expecting there to be people everywhere!

Turns out this is the Southern Most Point of continental Asia - so that's one thing I can tick off my bucket list right?

There was a whole lot of different things to do on the island, one of the things we chose to do was the butterfly park.

To be honest, I thought it would have been a lot more interesting, but I did get to sit on a giant papaya - rad.

Another Merlion was on the island, but this one was friggin HUGE! Although this photo really gives no perspective as to its actual size.

More random island exhibits - this time its fairy folk.

This was a really cool exhibit - it was huge and made up of mosaic! It also had fountains all through it, perhaps it was by a famous Singaporean artist? I really don't know, but I do know it was totally rad.

On my very FINAL day in Singapore I spent the morning sleeping (tiredness kicking in!) and shopping, I bought a couple of craft books and generally just relaxed.

In the afternoon Chloe took me to Arab town where we did some fabric shopping (I couldn't buy too much though as my wee bag was already quite heavy), checked out some markets, ate and generally had a blast! I didn't take too many photos as my camera seemed to be playing up (I think maybe it was the humidity?). But Chloe took some photos on her phone and I will hopefully post these soon as well.

Phew! I feel exhausted just blogging about this! How did I manage to do it in real life! I hope you've all had a fabulous Wednesday xoxox