...stripping the colour out of my hair

...getting so bored with my hair being so dark. So I'm sat here with Scott Cornwall colour B4 on my head, stinking like egg.
Only another 45 mins until I find out how ginger all these hair dyes have turned my hair...

...rescuing Badger the Cockapoo from Throop weir

...I had to climb over the fence and step into the slippery  weir to hook the pup out.
Badger then took on a swan. Badger is now banned from Throop. Enough said.



...filling up on pizza at The Larder House in Southbourne with my Juliette. Company was fantastic & so was the food. The perfect, relaxing evening to end a busy few weeks.

...watching Harmony Korine

His new trailer for 'Rebel' doesn't give much away...filmed on a mobile is a clever touch.



This short film evokes the usual uncomfortable feeling in me that is the harmony trademark. What can I say, I love it. Enjoy, or not...

...absolutely exhausted but happy

Wow, what a weekend! I feel so privileged to have worked amongst such wonderful people at the Feast of Dorset. The foodie community in Dorset is full of real diamonds.

Highlights for me were meeting Lesley Waters; helping her find some elderflower berries & blackberries for her demo & then helping her find her bag when she left it in the orchard. She was so delighted she gave me a copy of her fab new book 'a year at abbots hill' and signed it for me with the message 'dear Lisa you are a star'.

Even though it was Tamasin Day-Lewis's birthday, she came along for our Q&A session & was such a good laugh. She highly recommended the Mill tea & dining rooms which is where she was going for her birthday dinner, I'll definitely be checking them out.

Another highlight was meeting Emma from thestylebox and her husband Nick from lostinthelarder, who are both so lovely. We had a cracking chinwag about, well lots of things, food, Twitter, blogs, slacklining...fantastic.

Finally, Anna Del Conte was a real delight as always. So Italian like my aunts and so down-to-earth.

After working two weekends in a row I'm knackered but very happy to be able to work at these lovely events.

...getting ready for the Feast of Dorset food festival

I popped down to set up the press office this afternoon for the Feast of Dorset food festival in Wimborne.

Everything looked so beautiful, it really feels like it will be a magical event. I'm especially looking forward to the ferret racing!

...discovering the book hook

How cool is this bookhook? I discovered it on a cup of Jo
Not only does it look good, it really is the answer to Sam breaking the spines of books.

That or giving in & reading books on an iPad...which I said on my best friend's blog I'd never do, no matter how much Sam tells me I'm old...

...recovering from the Maverick UK Slacklining Championships at Windfest

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to be looking after the PR for my boss's event, Windfest.



My boyfriend, Sam's company Maverick Slacklines chose Windfest to host the very first UK Slacklining Championships. So in between greeting press and photographers, I watched the semi-finals and finals. Now, I had seen the guys slacking at events over the past year but I didn't realise how much they had stepped up and the tricks and combos they were landing just completely blew me away.

Maverick team rider Jake White

Mr Maverick, Ian Jennings

Maverick's UK Slacklining Champion 2011 - Mr Jacob Hirsch-Holland

I'm so darn proud of the lot of them for pulling this off and for showing how talented the UK slackers are.

The very flexible Chloe Loader

Thanks to Ian Loveland for the photos and Danny Bulmer for the video x

...frustrated by my lack of End of the Road photos

Well, i guess it serves me right for being so lazy and not bringing my camera. I would so love to pepper my post with pics from End of the Road festival but alas, my friends haven't posted any yet and I don't have any. I promise to update this post as soon as I can lay my hands on some.

The highlight for me was definitely Sam Amidon on the Friday in the teepee tent. After a bit of banter with my Sam about who was more pleased to have him there, he delighted us with his beautiful voice and banjo strumming. For the finale, his rendition of R Kelly's Relief was punctuated by my friends singing back at him at the top of their lungs, only a few were in tune but that's all part of the fun... unless you were the guy giving us evils... Sam seemed to enjoy it, and with a mischievious glint in his eye, coaxed them on to louder volumes.

As all my friends arrived, finding us with ease to the left of the sound desk as usual, Beirut played a blinder of a set and wouldn't stop, with encore after encore. Dancing with your darling friends in a field to incredible music - really can't get better than this.

Saturday was more about the frolics in the firefly forest than the music for me. Just amazing fun.

Firefly forest photo borrowed from Huck magazine

Joanna Newson headlined the Sunday night and even though it was so cold her fingers turned to blue plucking her harp, she completely enchanted me. I was so happy that we had the new album so I recognised the new songs which she sang so beautifully, remembering all the words to such epic lyrics.

This year's End of the Road was the biggest yet - going hand-in-hand with the incredible line-up. I do think it has a real charm as a smaller festival with more almost unknown bands for us to discover, so fingers crossed it remains relatively small and that the rocky road around the site is rectified before next year, ouch.

The only sad bit is that I have to wait another year to do it all again.
x

...looking at artwork by Russian painter Mikhail Dorokhov

Our gite in France was owned by a very talented Russian artist Mikhail Dorokhov.

During our stay we were lucky enough to get to know him and hear about his life, family and friends. Turns out his daughter is a famous model who appeared in the Levis 'spaceman' advert (the one with the Babylon Zoo song)!

Kristina Semenovskaya

Over a beer one rainy afternoon, Mikhail showed us his art collection. Here is a selection of my favourites;

Trinity by Mikhail Dorokhov

...journeying to the Dordogne...& back

...trying to get back into writing blog posts after returning from our holiday in a beautiful little gite in St Michel de Double in the Dordogne, France.

Our French gite

This was our first holiday abroad with Badger, since he got his puppy passport. So we took the fast ferry to Cherbourg and drove down to the Loire Valley. First time I touched foot on French soil was to have a pee in a farmers field just off the motorway as we couldn't understand the road signs for services, classy hey!

After a four hour drive south, we arrived at the Loire Valley and stepped out of the air conditioned car into 30 degrees heat, perfect. We found a hotel overlooking the Loire river and I can't believe we didn't need to pre-book, we just walked in off the street with a doggy.

The view from our room

The town is built around this chateau

After wandering around the food market, we got back in the air conditioned car and drove another four hours (which was so easy accompanied by Joanna Newsom's new album 'have one on me', Bon Iver and PJ Harvey's old album) to our gite in Dordogne. Where we stepped out into 40 degree heat. Woah, it blew us away.

Our back garden

Our bedroom

So we settled in by the pool and relaxed, for the next week...

Apart from trips to the lake where Sam swam with badger