Much Love Monday: Paris

This week is going to be dedicated to Thomas's photos in Paris here on For the easily distracted... I've said it before but he does take amazing photos and he managed to take over 1000 in Paris (which is about 300 more than me I might add...)

I love our little photography dates - Thomas with his digital camera and me with (one of my) film cameras and Paris was like a giant week long photography date. It was so much fun!

I actually got a bit carried away watching Thomas take photos this time - he sees the world differently to how I do (for one he's a lot taller than me) and a lot of the time he captured things that I didn't even see or things that I didn't want to photograph but kind of wish I had after seeing his photos... a lot of the things he noticed that I didn't was the amazing and varied grafitti around the city.

We could both see how so many amazing artists have been inspired by Paris in the past, there was creativity and art everywhere (and hearts!) and it was so easy to take photos all day long...

So today I love Thomas, I love his photos, I love Paris, I love how different cameras suit different people, I love seeing things from different points of view and I love art and inspiration being everywhere around us.

Photographer: Thomas
Camera: Sony H7
Location: Paris, France

p.s. this post is for Anna's Much Love Monday series, read more about it here to take part.

A birthday weekend...

I've been a bit anxious about my birthday this year, it's been hard celebrating my life for the last ten years on a date when so many people lost theirs and I knew this year would be particularly poignant and upsetting. Luckily my parents and Thomas were amazing, they took me away for the weekend to the beach and I got lots of hugs and licks from Harry* (in fact he came and sat next to me that birthday morning just to lick my face, I couldn't believe it) so here are a few of my phone photos from the weekend.

I took a few fuji's on the beach too but it was kind of nice to be camera free for the weekend after carrying around 6 in Paris.

Every year on my birthday for the past ten years, I've taken a moment to remember the terrible events that happened in 2001 and then another moment to appreciate everything and everyone in my life, I am truly glad to be alive and to have such amazing people in my life (friends included, how wonderful was yesterday's post?) and all I really wanted this year was to be with the people that I love and to go on the beach... and that's what I got.

*Harry is the dog btw, its totally acceptable for him to lick my face, haha, I thought I better clarify that...

Bonjour!

Bonjour mon amis!
I'm back in England and I have a serious case of Paris blues.

I can't wait to share everything about our week away but right now I have no idea where to start - I am picking my film photos up later today though... I'm so excited/nervous!!

First I think, a little list of things I want to remember about Paris...

1. The underground Metro jingle is really happy.
2. The eclairs are filled with chocolate instead of cream!!
3. I didn't eat one macaron or crepe, the other pastries were too good to ignore.
4. I am not above stealing a roll of toilet paper at a music festival.
5. I love Art Museums - seriously, all the best artists are French right?
6. I will never get bored of Picasso. Ever.
7. French people do dress amazingly well.
8. The top of the Eiffel Tower opened just for us
(well it opened just as we got to the window to buy tickets
but the man said it was just for me and I believe him :D )
9. Our apartment was in the best area.
10. Eating dinner outside is so much better than inside.
11. Finding a Post Office was harder than we thought.
12. Visiting La Grande Arche de la Défense feels a bit like travelling to the future after exploring the historal city.
13. The Kronenberg tasted much better there...
14. I still think the fountains outside the Pompidou Center are ugly
(those and the Musee D'orsay were the only things
I really remembered from a school trip when I was 13...)
15. There are so many cute dogs in Paris, I was smiling the whole time.

Paris was beautiful and enchanting. It was everything that I expected it to be and more and I'm so glad that we spent a week there as it truly felt like we got a glimpse of Parisian life and I definitely think we'll be going back at some point in the future... just for one more pastry!

p.s. I've said it before but Thomas really does take the best photos of me.

p.p.s. Also, the pleated skirt in the first photo - another amazing charity shop bargain, I love it!

I'm so excited!!!!

Can you believe it's the 24th of August already?! I've had all month to put together a 'Packing for Paris' post and I completely failed to do it, haha, oh well. Honestly, I was enjoying the August Break too much... have you enjoyed it? I did snap this one picture of my hand luggage, there are 7 cameras and one massive pouch of film in there... (you can just you see them all and the fuji instax film, eep) Also that bag on top? My bargain find of the month, £2.50 in a charity shop, its beautiful.

Anyway, today is Wednesday!! Which means tomorrow is Thursday and we're going to Paris!!! I'm so excited, I can't stop using exclamation points or babbling and I can't really type or concentrate properly... I'm also a little nervous, but thats to be expected really.

We've a few things planned but not a lot and I think we're going to try and take it as easy as possible but honestly I can't wait to be taking photos all day :) happy happy.

I've got some posts scheduled from some amazing guest posters who have been to Paris, so I hope you enjoy those and I'll see you all in September!!

p.s. I'll miss you, we'll have the internet, so I'll try and tweet updates but I doubt I'll catch up on many blogs, you'll let me know if something exciting happens right...