Tanya Ling’s illustrations are so beautiful and understated – I want to live in a world where people look like this!
Penarth Pier
Penarth Pier, you are one of my favourite places.
It’s only 5 miles out of Cardiff city centre, but it feels like a million miles away. This is me, @abbyosullivan and @allyhumphreys on the beach demonstrating how not to grow up in your 20s.
We filmed on the pier recently and everyone seems to agree it’s got a strange charm and calmness, particularly for a place with not a lot going on. That’s soon to change though, as the Pavilion Project are restoring the pier and pavilion and converting it into a cafe/bar/cinema/event space for the local community.
Laura’s Cat
I used to think that to enjoy something you had to be good at it, so my Crayolas have been in early retirement since school.
Actually, I had a drawing on a post-it note (randomly I’ve just realised, of the shoes in this post) on my desk at work for months because I was amazed I’d drawn something that looked like it was supposed to!
I don’t think I would have ever drawn anything again, until I wrote a poem two years ago that needed an illustration (about my friend Laura being reincarnated as a cat – morbid, I know, but she’d make a great cat). I started doodling and suddenly – hello world of drawing. I love her pretty green eyes and little red lipstick mouth.
Whether or not it’s a work of art (it’s not), it’s the best Christmas present I’ve ever given, and when you haven’t created anything for your own pleasure in years, it’s an amazing thrill to pick up a pen again (even if it does look a bit like a six year old’s drawing). Laura calls her “her cat alter-ego”. Not bad for a non-drawer.
My true love shoes
YSL Rive Gauche, Fall 2003
Back when Tom Ford was still at Yves Saint Laurent, there were these shoes.
I love these shoes. I saw them on the cover of a Vogue style supplement in 2003, not long after I’d started uni and nine years later I still think they’ve got it. Which must make it true shoe love.
Apart from the fact they’re YSL and probably a million pounds by now, I’ve vowed not to try and hunt them down because I feel we’re somehow fated to cross paths one day. Only then will they be mine (cue evil laugh). I like to think a pair of 6.5′s are laying in a shoebox somewhere, biding their time…
