To Muskoka and Beyond….

 

It’s been awhile, I know, slap on the wrist!

I’m back after a beautiful, but quick weekend away in Muskoka. For those of you who don’t know, Muskoka is a district about 2 hours north of Toronto full of lovely small towns and it’s considered mainly cottage country to us city folk. Life up north is different, and a much quieter pace, so it’s the perfect place to get away from the city for a weekend, and best of all, for me, it means spending time with close friends who spend their Summers there.

Steven and I hit the road early Saturday morning, beating the sure to be terrible traffic, by an hour or two, and arriving in Huntsville by around 10am. It was the perfect day, full of bright sunshine, somewhat overwhelming heat but also a big street fair running right down the main street. They had rolled out grass to cover the pavement and kids played with giant Jenga, bouncy balls and hula hoops up and down in their bare feet. There was music and the entire town was alive, just how I remembered it from being there last time, at least 9 or so years ago.

 

 

I took Steven up and down the high street, and we poked our heads in to all the shops that sell a million versions of Muskoka branded clothing and strange little antiques. We picked up a couple of neat vintage things that we don’t have space for at home but wanted to have anyways.

At the bottom of the main street is a pub with tables on the main docks, so we had a drink and some lunch there before deciding to move on to another little town called Bracebridge.

Bracebridge is smaller than Hunstville but also a bit cuter, with a little waterfall and a historic walk that takes you around the falls and into a bit of forest.

 

 

Despite the afternoon heat becoming a bit much, we did the little walk and followed it up with Nanaimo bar ice cream cones. I was feeling increasingly more Canadian as the day went on, as Muskoka really brings out my Canadian pride – it just feels like home no matter what town we stop in.

 

 

To add to the already friendly home town charm, we heard The Tragically Hip playing in so many shops and people everywhere asked if we were planning on watching the final show on Saturday night. It really made me happy to see the support and love that they are getting everywhere.

We were going to be visiting friends at a cottage, but had received a night at the Pine Lodge Inn in Port Sydney, not far from where our friends were staying, so we stopped by our lovely room to have a rest before heading over to dinner.

Pine Lodge is just a quick walk from the main swimming dock on Mary Lake and about 15 minutes walk from the general store, Uncle Larry’s, in Port Sydney. It’s an older lodge with modern rooms so ended being a great place to stay and we felt totally spoiled.

Our evening was filled with sharing a barbequed meal, with wine and cake to celebrate a friend’s birthday, her daughter’s imminent departure to university and Steve and I’s upcoming wedding. Best of all, we laughed and had a wonderful evening in the best company.

 

 

To top it all off, we watched the Hip’s last show and it was emotional like I expected but even more touching was hearing it around the lake when you stepped outside. I think most people in neighbouring cottages were tuned in as well, to spend one last night with Gord Downie. I think I will write a separate post about The Tragically Hip because I know that so many of you are reading this and have no connection to them since they aren’t known all around the world – they are a genuine Canadian treasure.

 

 

In true Muskoka fashion, it thunder stormed all through the night on Saturday and we woke up to no power on Sunday morning. We set out to still have a big hot breakfast, making eggs, bacon and toasted bagels on the barbeque, although I have to confess that we cheated slightly when we took the glass coffee pot down to the general store to fill it with hot coffee. To be fair, one can only do so much with a barbeque before they have had coffee.

We spent the remainder of Sunday sitting on the porch in the random moments of sun and shade, and we bravely went for a swim in the lake, despite it being windy and a bit chilly. Being in the lake is so therapeutic mainly because you can float along without worrying about salt water getting in your eyes, which in my opinion makes it more fun than being in the ocean-  but maybe I’m biased, having not grown up close to the ocean.

 

 

 

As per tradition, at least in my family, we made a pit stop at Webers burgers in Gravenhurst before sitting in traffic with the million other people who decided that driving home Sunday night was a good idea too – but hey! What can ya do?! EH?!

 

 

I have to say that after being away from cottage country for so long, I didn’t realize just how much I missed it and how much it’s a part of who I am. I’m so excited that we are spending more time up there after the wedding in September – I can hardly wait.

Powerful in Powder Blue

Good morning lovelies,

Today I bring you an Easter coloured outfit with this gorgeous powder blue coat and marble print top. I decided that the shape of this coat makes me feel like a 1980s power bitch so thought it only fit to wear it with red lippy and massive mascara shaped earrings.

I love the simplicity of the marble print top with the soft powder blue coat – and I know I can wear it casually like this or with a skirt to take it up a notch.

I’m wearing one of my many favourite red lipsticks, Barry M Lip Paint 121.

This outfit felt perfect for this weekend, what with the sometimes cold and sometimes warm weather. I also spent a lot of the weekend visiting friends and doing Easter things, so having a nice but casual outfit was great.

I love this coat, although I do wish that it had some kind of clasp to hold it shut, but that may take away from the duster shape. 

What I am wearing:

Earrings – Domino Dollhouse (no longer available)

Coat – South via Littlewoods*

Marble Top – Simply Be (no longer available)

Jeans – Junarose

Booties – Primark

I hope you all had a chance to enjoy the long weekend in some way!

OOTD at the Sky Garden

Good morning lovelies and happy Sunday!

Yesterday I spent the morning with Steven and our good friends, Jen and Matt, at the new Sky Garden in London on Fenchurch Street. It’s a pretty spectacular place to walk around, although there isn’t as much ‘garden’ as you would expect.

The views are amazing and you can walk around and see almost all of London in one go. The deck was closed yesterday so I had to take my photos through the windows but I think you can still get the idea. It was amazing and the weather couldn’t have been better.

Since it was so nice yesterday, I decided to go without a coat and take one of my new George at Asda tops out – this one is officially a favourite as it’s so cute and comfortable.

I completely blanked and didn’t take a photo of the back, which has a lovely crochet detail, but click on the link below to see the shirt in full.

What I wore:

Crochet back blouse – George at Asda **

Jeans – Junarose

Flats – Primark

We spent about an hour wandering around and enjoying the garden and all the views – it was busy but not crowded so it’s a nice way to spend a morning.

If you get a chance to go I would definitely recommend it – it’s free to book. 

xxToodalooKatie

The Candy Coated Countdown… Day 5

It’s day 5 (I know I’m running a bit behind, but a weekend in Paris will do that to you!). Today’s treat was a little pot of It’s Potent eye cream. I’m pleased to say that I took this little guy on my trip with my and my skin around my eyes and forehead felt really nice after a couple of days use. 

I like the texture, it’s a gel, so easy to spread and get in all the cracks without dragging your skin about but also doesn’t get in the way of makeup. I promise to tell you all about my Paris trip shortly, but first, let’s see what’s behind door 6!

xxToodalooKatie

#Beautytips #beauty #bblogger #cosmetics #itspotent #benefitadvent #blogmas

Plus North – A Weekend in Leeds

 Hello lovelies!

Today I want to tell you about my weekend away at the plus size fashion weekend in Leeds called Plus North. I love attending these events, whether they be for bloggers or the public or both, because it’s great to see so many lovely ladies who I only ever get a chance to chat to through Facebook or email and because it’s a really nice atmosphere.

I was lucky enough to get to model for Yours Clothing on the Saturday for the catwalk event. Although the outfit was a little different to what I usually wear, I had tons of fun and shared the catwalk with so many other amazing girls. It was also a great opportunity to show off my new buzzed hair/mohawk thing which my lovely fiance, Steven, did for me the night before.

I have to say a big thank you to Abi  and Charlie for taking these photos otherwise I would have had none of myself modeling. 

It was great to catch up with friends who I don’t get to see often enough because we don’t live close to each other and also wonderful to finally meet people that I communicate with regularly from brands. It’s nice to finally put a face to a name – and when it comes to bloggers it’s also nice to finally meet some of them in person because a blog can say a lot about a person but it’s not the same as chatting with them.

I had a great time modeling and far too much fun giggling with friends. I’m pretty sure our entire train car was less than impressed with our snorts of laughter both on the way to and back home from Leeds – but we were having too much fun to mind.

Did you go to Plus North? Did we meet? Tell me what you enjoyed most!

xxToodalooKatie

Welcome to Margate: Land of Dreams…

 

Sometimes the best things in life show up when you least expect them to, and I have been witness to this in the last couple of months. Although London feels like home now and I have found a kind of comfortable routine, everyday still feels in someway like an adventure. London has afforded me some amazing opportunities and now more than ever, I feel like I have complete control over what I can do with my life. I can choose everyday whether I get out of bed or not – and yes it is ok to stay in once in a while, to appreciate what it is to do nothing.

For some of you who don’t know, I recently left the job I started when I first arrived in London. I have kept my small part time job which I work online each week and was fully expecting time off to explore and hopefully be creative. My plans were thrown into the air when I was lucky enough to snag a small contract at the High Commission of Canada doing similar work to my previous contract in Paris. I have put my creative plans on hold to work at the HCC for a few months and come summer I will see what happens next.

 

In the midst of all these ever changing plans in my life, there is someone who has shown me a million and one beautiful things in the last couple of months who I want to tell you all about. Meet my boyfriend Steven. He drives a bad-ass car, is smart as a whip, has impeccable taste in music and movies and knows how to make me smile. For the last couple of months we have been swapping time in London and Margate adventuring, laughing and learning to roller blade(for him) and skate (for me).

We are both becoming pro skaters, as you can clearly see by the photos above, and Steve is hoping his newly formed soon to be ice hockey team will be up and running full steam soon . Here they are, the Margate Skulls, having a late night practice: (Go Habs Go!)

Margate is an adorable sea side town which I think should be turned into the new Brighton – to be fair, I’ve never been to Brighton but I know enough about to it to make this call.  With an old downtown full of funky retro vintage shops and handmade markets, a cup cake shop, England’s best fish and chip shop and plenty of little galleries and studios all next to a long beautiful beach, it has all it needs to thrive – now if only people would come.

Even after several weekends of walking through Margate, I’m not tired of it, and perhaps it’s because of who I am walking through it with but I still think there is something about this little place that deserves more. The tired main strip of old shut arcades makes me think that everything is just waiting to be awoken from its slumber. How could you resist this?:

I love hanging out by the water, and the first day that I spent in Margate, we walked along the beach collecting shells and Steven knew the names of absolutely everything. What I know as a shell, there being many versions, is known to him as the proper name. I’ve decided knowing things like this is important, and is what makes a person worldly and fascinating, so I think I will start reading more. I want to know things.

It was only a short while ago that weekends came and went, cold and rainy in London and now they feel like a vacation. The countdown is no longer for the weekend but rather for the dream to resume again.

I have lots of photos from Canada to show you all so I’ll be back tracking soon with those.

xx Spec

When Mum came to visit…

Despite talking to my mum very regularly on the phone, it’s just not the same as having her with me. A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to have her come and visit me in Paris. Now I think when she arrived, she may have thought my apartment was small based on webcam shots, but didn’t REALLY know how small it was. I like to call it quaint. We only had a week together, and thankfully, having been to Paris before, my mumsy wasn’t too upset about not seeing all the touristy sites. I just wanted to spend time with her, and it didn’t really matter what we did.

On the first evening, we made a dinner of fresh cheeses, warm baguette and sat and talked. We had spent the afternoon walking down in the St Michel neighbourhood and the Marais, but alas with jet lag, and me having worked part of the day, we settled in to bed early. Now, if you know my mum and I, you know that it is difficult for us to sleep in the same room as one another as we giggle and chat too much into the wee hours of the morning. This is precisely what happened.

Let me share with you the topic of the evening. How the Chunnel built? Brought on, no doubt by the fact that we were set to go through it in a couple of days, to London. Popular questions included: Does it really go through the water? How did they get the tubes in the water? me – Can you see the fish as you go through? etc etc. This took a serious Wikipedia session to solve before we could rest in peace.

The following day, I had to go to work, so mum went on a bike tour of Paris, which I hadn’t heard of anyone doing until she told me about it. Mum’s internet travel research for the win! From the  sounds of it, you really get to see all the good parts of Paris, with little tidbits of the obvious tourist stuff.

That evening we had a lovely little dinner at a French bistro called Chez Janou, in the Bastille area. I love Bastille because it is so vibrant and fun and the food was delicious. We also had wine which felt very French… throw in the cigarette smoke and warm baguette from the tables next to us and it’s about as French as it gets! hon hi hon hi hon! (French laugh)

It was so nice to come home after work and have my dearest Mumsy waiting for me. We did quite a bit of walking around downtown but had to prepare for our trip to London for the weekend!

The following day, Mum came to visit the embassy to see where I work just before we were leaving for the Eurostar to London. I felt very important as I am currently using an enormous office of a lady who just recently retired. ( They are fixing up my actual office where I will share a space with another person) For now however, I am livin’ it large in an office 3-4 times bigger than my apartment.

We headed back to the apartment to gather out things to go to London. Now the last time I went to London I was mugged on my way home in the train so this time I was being super vigilante and to my surprise actually saw pickpockets lurking around the metro at the train station this time. It pays to be alert here, that’s all I can say. Anyways, I am happy to inform you all that neither Mum nor I got mugged or had a bad experience, unless you count the metro workers strike which caused a rather gross, hot and packed metro ride to the train station… but that’s just Paris.

The train was great as per usual and I think Mum finally got had a good nap,while I studied for my UK citizenship test. We whizzed through the Chunnel and all of our newfound knowledge of it disappeared as neither of us was paying attention while we went through. We emerged into London and hopped on the tube, shockingly, it was raining. We arrived at Paddington station and walked to our hotel. Our hotel looked like a row of houses on a quiet street and was quiet nice. The staff didn’t know what tissues were and brought us napkins, as well as when told that the room was extremely cold, put the heating on to 35 degrees, and provided beds that compete with rocks in a comfort competition, but we weren’t there for hotel, we were there for the city!  On our first day, I made mum have a real English breakfast because I like that sort of thing. We then made our way down to Oxford street so I could see a new clothing line that I had been dying to see.

We spent the day roaming around the shops and enjoying our little vacation. Thanks to mum’s savvy research we found a couple amazing restaurants where we sat, chatted and enjoyed some good English food. We also went to Portobello market, one of my most favourite places in London, saw my beloved bed-knobs and broomsticks characters, and I introduced Mum to whoopie pies, which I hear are catching on back home in Canada. Clearly I have contributed to this newfound discovery in some way!

 

On Sunday, we went to the Orangery, which is a tea house inside the Kensington Gardens and next to the Palace. It was so charming as they brought little tea sandwiches on white napkins and deliciously orange smelling tea. It was exactly how I would imagine an English tea house, that perhaps the Queen would have her tea in. Here is a photo of me by the strange silo shaped bushes.

 

This man was feeding the squirrels, and they would come right up to him, sit on his hand and eat the nuts they were given, it was really neat.

After our little tea break, we went to see this really fun exhibit at the Kensington Palace. They had turned the palace into a sort of fairy tale where each room represents a different fairy tale or story, and the princesses from each story are real princesses from the English monarchy. It was very regally decorated and the lights were low with all sorts of mysterious montages and exhibits. There was even a game that required us to find all the names of the princesses as we went through the exhibit.  I really loved the exhibit and thought the Kensington Palace was quite lovely. I was expecting it to be a lot less beautiful inside, and was pleasantly surprised.

The weekend was really fun and went by way too fast. I still am completely in love with London, and wish I could go every weekend. Because of tube work, a lot of lines on the tube were not running from many stations while we were there, so we took the regular double-decker city buses everywhere and it was nice to just put around the city and see it from above ground, it really gives you an idea of how the city is connected.

Sadly, on Sunday evening, we headed back through the Chunnel to Paris. We were greeted by the usual sketchy crowd at Gare du Nord, and hopped as fast as we could into a taxi home. Home sweet apartment!

On Monday, I had taken the day off and was determined to show mum a couple of places that I love in Paris. The first, was Sacre Coeur. I love the view and the amazing old architecture. It really is amazing to see. It also gives you a real feel for what Paris is like, and how old and beautiful it is.

We spent our last day together again walking the streets, we went back to the Marais, visited Le Bon Marche, saw the Moulin Rouge and then had a little farewell drink with my friend Thibaut at The Great Canadian Bar, which I will point out, had an Australian server.

I was so sad to see my dear mumsy go on Tuesday morning. The shuttle picked her up so early and I wanted her to stay forever! But alas, all good things must come to and end. Now we are back to our regular Skype chats where we discuss the inner working of train tunnels, whether Paul McCartney and Angela Lansbury are the same person or any other ridiculous random subject that may come up.

Why not?!

So I received a very prompt response from Asos after my little letter. From day 1 I have been really impressed with them, because I know my letter probably didn’t make an enormous impact, but they didn’t ignore it and they responded politely and in a friendly manner. I think from any large company that I have ever communicated with, this experience has been the nicest. Here is the response in case you are interested. More than anything, I think it was really great of someone to respond personally, that too me is worth a lot when it comes to the integrity of a company.

Hello Katie,

Thank you for your email and feedback.

All comments, good or bad is always greatly received.

I can confirm the model used for ASOS curve does fall into the size bracket of ASOS curve range (20-26) but have passed your comments onto the relevant department for you.

Thanks again and please advise if you require any further assistance

Kind Regards,

Emma S

On that note, this weekend I will be taking pictures of my Asos purchases as I now have a bit of time. I also have a couple of accessories and things to share with you as well, so come on back!

Katie

P.S.  if you are interested in the wicked statue next to me in the photo check out visual textile artist Allyson Mitchell.

To the ‘burbs we go!

So I am spending this weekend out in Monastery, which is a serious suburb of Antigonish.( I am about 2 and half hours outside of Halifax. ) I’m at home with my dear friend Tyler and his brother and sister Jordan and Bethany. So far we have been sleeping in, sitting in the sun and catching up on TV episodes that we have let slide. It is so beautiful outside and there is nothing we have to do. This is so the kind of weekend I was hoping for. I am still in my PJs and I am blogging up a storm as well as incorporating time for my ugly french courses that are taking over my life. I wish I could email you the weather as it is so nice.
Have a delightful weekend in the city y’all!

Spec