You Only Live Once

I spent my afternoon hanging out with my mum, drinking tea, talking about past friends, past loves (Mama Boo dated the guy who sang Hot Hot Hot!), and looking at houses for next year at Uni.

After finding some sketchy numbers and some fantastic deals, £11 a week anyone?! I got to thinking about when I have a place of my own. In the current financial climate, it may not ever happen, but a girl can dream can't she?
I was emailed by a partner of my Uni about the new development by Portsmouth Football Ground, Vista. Outside looks like a block of Halls, turquoise and pretty horrible looking. Inside, it's just standard white walls and neutral carpet. The email was a suggestion that your parents buy a flat as an investment, for the son/daughter to use in term time, and theirs for a holiday apartment. It said it was a 'sea-view holiday home', but what they really meant was rail tracks, ASDA Fratton, and the UKs biggest B&Q. If they were being realistic, nobody can afford to buy a flat with CASH, cash?! Who has a spare hundred grand stashed under the bed?!

Country Living

It may just be because I'm a poor student who has no savings, but the idea of having my own little place sounds like a modern fairy tale. I couldn't care less if it was next to a crack den, and my garden had the scent of fried chicken. I would fill the garden with roses and daisies, have lanterns and mason jars on the tables.

Jane Goble has been my inspiration for quite a few years. We may be entirely different but her little house in Devon looks like heaven to me. From the age of eight, I have spent time with friends getting huge pieces of paper and drawing a dissection of my perfect house. Though theirs were often huge mansions with home cinemas and luxurious bedrooms, mine were always pokey three story terraces, with climbing roses out front, and claw foot tubs.

Both from Posy

Jane is a teacher, like I someday hope to be, and her home is full to the brim with the sweetest trinkets and beautiful throughout. She has mastered the sander, and paints everything from floors to bedside tables. It looks so cosy and homey, everything I want in my eventual little nest.

If you are feeling inspired to poke through other bloggers homes, here are a few of my favourites:
Elsie's Home Decor @ A Beautiful Mess
Gala's Interiors Pinterest
Kaelah's Home Tour (1 of 3)
*If anyone has any suggestions, I will be adding to this constantly! And adding my home room and uni room in the morning*

I feel like 20 is too young to have such a dream, but doesn't anyone else feel like once you have your own place, decorated to your taste, everything else could fall into place? You could throw outlandish parties one day and have a night in with your bestest and a bottle of summinsummin.
Infact, even if my life was a shambles and all I had were my family and my little house, I think I could at least survive. Everybody needs a space to call their own. I am quite content to lounge by myself for days, as I said before. Other people cannot survive without constant social interaction, and don't get me wrong, I am not some kind of social leper! I enjoy my own company, and I am the absolute worst at texting people back. That has lost me one friend in particular, but I don't want to change my character to keep anyone else happy, if I had to sacrifice who I am.

I have been lucky enough to grow up in a quiet village, in an old farmhouse. My parents bought it 27 years ago, and I could never imagine it being anybody elses home. Yeah, the walls are wonky and the doors fill the back hall with the most ridiculous draught, but every crack in the floor tiles makes it ours. It even has a secret door! Bricked up, but secret nonetheless!

What would make your dream home? And where would it be; country, city, where you grew up or the other side of the world? Did you stay in the same house for your childhood, or have you lived all over the country, even in different countries? Let me know!

two thousand and heaven

In the style of my favourite full-time blogger, Gala Darling, I'm planning on making this the year of over the top, outlandish decadent style. But it isn't all about looking like a glamourous grandma, this year is also about fufilling my potential by making a few small, key changes.
So here it is, my plan for 2011:

Go to America with my boyfriend! I've been excited about this since July, when we decided on a whim, that we would go to San Diego Comic Con together. Hearing about all of the big film releases, and opportunities to meet one of my favourite British directors at a preview made me want to commit heinous crimes to get over there. I'm incredibly happy to settle for New York instead, in fact, anywhere would be lovely, and I should certainly start saving towards flights.

Speaking of saving, I'm planning on buying myself an iPhone outright within the month. After a complete disaster with O2/DHL over the last month and a half, I am giving up on technology! My iPod touch gave up the ghost today, after not touching it for 5 hours (?!) so sooner the better really!

Make an effort with friends, new and old. I am incredibly apt to just not talk, I have an interesting mix of crippling shyness and social confidence! I can get talking to strangers if I want to, but if I'm not in the mood, I won't talk to anyone I know for weeks. I made hardly any friends independently last year at Uni, but now I'm going to pull my finger out and force myself upon people, for the good of my relationship! I know that sounds ridiculous, but one day I shall explain.

I want to be organised! I'm a Virgo, so by horological nature I should be the most frustratingly organised person in the world, but really? I have bursts of hyper-tidying, and then long, languishing periods where I could wallow in a bed-sit of filth for weeks. I want to have an Ikea wardrobe where every little thing has it's exact place, and everything is neat and packed away and nobody is allowed to touch a thing!

I want to take my driving test, and get a Fiat 500. The car is optional, of course. I have been in a state where I could have taken my test and passed for the last 2 years, but just haven't organised it/had my paper counterpart. I need to pass it! I don't care that the only car I can drive is my mums VW estate, where is you open the petrol cap, the windscreen wipers go off and continue to go off for the rest of the day (this is not an exaggeration, I will video it)

I want clear skin! I have been on acne medication for 4 years, and I am so tired of not having that perfect month, without a single flare up. I'm 20, and I feel like this shouldn't be on my wish list, but I want clear skin so badly! It's improved infinitely since my teenage years, but the second I find something that works, I am going to buy shares and give it to every human with a dermatology appointment! I have spent HOURS looking up treatments, slathering on prescription gels, having my skin peel off, taking tablets, pills, and blood tests.
If anything comes out of this blog, I want someone out there, who is just like me, to feel like they aren't alone!

As for my style, check out Gossip Girl on Acid and Psychedelic Ladies Who Lunch, even though they are a year out, I still find them an inspiration! False eyelashes everyday, coloured extensions, teacups with pearls spilling out, stockings and Doc Martens.