New House!! New House! :D Saturday, Feb 23 2008

I haven’t blogged for AGES it seems and a lot has happened since the last update. The most exciting thing, for me at least, is that we’ve finally found and now bought our new house.

When we first decided to move back to Denmark, one of the reasons was the hope of finding a really nice house with some land and stables. Property prices in the UK were awful and buying what we wanted seemed impossible; at least for many years. Like many horse owners, I’ve always wanted my horses at home and mounting livery bills were making it more of an interest to my fiance.

In January, we spotted a beautiful house advertised quite close to where we currently are with a small yard attached to it. We called to try and get a viewing but the advert did say the place was under offer and sadly, the new owners had signed a day before we called. While looking at the place on the internet, my other half spotted another house. It was further away (although closer to where he works), with six stables and a few acres. We hadn’t really planned to start looking for anywhere, but we made an appointment (always a bad thing ;p).

The place was ideal for us without a doubt and we decided to put in an offer. A few days and some negotiations later and the offer was accepted. We’re a few weeks on now and the deposit has been paid securing us the house and a moving date of April the first (a BAD day to move imo!).

So piccies anyone?

The above is the picture of the actual house. It’s a three bedroomed farm house with a beautiful thatched roof (a complete weakness of mine!)

Opposite the house are two outbuildings that make an L shape looking onto the courtyard. These were originally used as cow sheds but are currently empty. The stables are currently positioned behind these buildings. Our plan is to take up the floor in these sheds and move the stables to these buildings. This will have the horses looking out onto the courtyard (and put the stables in view from the house!)

The above shows the stables themselves. There are 6 loose boxes of about 12 ft by 12 ft. The tack room can just be seen to the left of this picture. Behind where the photographer is stood is a closed haybarn with a huge amount of storage for forage and bedding. The stables need some work but are useable. Eventually, we will probably pull this building down completly after moving the stables to the barns. If you go out of the door at the end of the view on this picture, it leads to the riding “area” and a path to the grazing; which is split between two fields. The riding area is very basic… theres no surface down – its clearly just an area they’ve used to ride on. Our intention is to expand on the area used to about 20 x 40 / 60 metres and to place a proper riding surface down. The stables all have automatic drinkers in them

The previously mentioned hay barn!

The above shows the master bedroom. The bedrooms are quite dark as they are set up, into the roof, putting the windows quite low down. This picture doesn’t really do the size much justice either! There is a dressing room off to the left of this picture (thank god!)

The second bedroom; currently used as a nursery but soon to be a computer room. This is a lovely room but was claimed very fast by my other half

Bedroom 3 – soon to be the guest room. It’s quite small but its lighter and airier than the master bedroom!

The upstairs hall way. The master bedroom is just behind where the photographer is stood, with the other two bedrooms being ahead of him. The full size windows and doors to the right lead out onto the balcony.

The balcony can be seen here, along with part of the garden. The garden is rather large which isnt really shown here. Its got a pond and a hedge row enclosing the whole area in. It needs some fencing work however due to our resident husky

Onto the kitchen and a major selling point for my fiance. The kitchen is almost brand new and its really large. The room to the right is one of two dining rooms. Off to the left is a utility room.

The kitchen taken from the entry to the first dining room. Its lovely and airy! Im planning on stripping the paint work off the ceiling beams to varnish them instead. Did /i mention they are leaving behind the beautiful new SMEG fridge?

One of the two dining rooms!

This is the lounge; taken from the point where the television currently is. The lounge spans the full width of the house and is huuuuuge! To the right, the windows look out over the courtyard (and eventually the stables). To the left, over the garden. Theres also a full length glass door out onto the patio area. Again, I want to strip the beams on the ceiling.

The lounge again, taken from just behind one of the sofas and showing the wood burning fire.

So there we have it! The only thing remaining to be mentioned are our newly acquired four legged friends. When looking around the house, the first stop was with the stables (my main interest anyway). There were two small residents in one of the loose boxes; two donkeys! I spent quite a bit of time talking to them as Ive always liked donkeys. Imagine our surprise then when we received a phone call a few days after the offer was accepted, asking if we would like to offer a home to the two resident donkeys. It works well for us since they will be company for Jack anyway. As such, the donkeys will be staying to live with us

I can’t wait to move, March is going to be the longest month ever. Ive been very lucky with the farrier and despite the fact that our new house is somewhat out of his way, he has agreed to keeping shoeing Jack. This is a huge relief since Jack now has natural balance shoes and these have made a massive difference to his low heels. The lovely lady who brought him over from the UK for me has also agreed to transport him for me. I hate travelling him as he did have a bad experience in 2006 when he fell down in the back of a box and had his legs trapped under a metal partition!

Arg! I want to move!

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Hair Extensions! Saturday, Feb 23 2008

Ive had quite a lot of interest in my hair extensions on a forum that I use. As such, I figured it might be of use to people to post some pictures and some things Ive learned about them so far.

Firstly – why I had them. My hair is very, very dark – it’s almost black. I’ve never liked it. In my teens I had blonde highlights put through the tops but even then that wasn’t really enough for me. Last year, I finally decided to take the plunge and go blonde. Ive only ever messed with home hair colouring once and it wasnt an experience I wanted to repeat, so I trotted off to see the salon in town. The guy I spoke to was very honest, that due to my own colour, I’d be struggling to ever reach and maintain the real crystal blonde I wanted. We spent close to a year reaching my current colour and I do struggle to keep it bright. Usually a couple of weeks after being coloured, the blonde on the top sinks to more of a mid-golden colour rather than the platinum Ive always wanted. The ends hold their colour well though. In addition to the blonde, I wanted a hot pink adding to the under sections. Bright colours are hard to keep in hair – they fade very fast. As such, I wanted the pink putting underneath the hair so that the fading was less noticeable. The pink generally lasts about 4 weeks in my own hair before it fades to a baby pink. The next thing I should mention, is that I wanted it long. Ive always had long hair, but due to mine being quite thin, I find it breaks easily with all the styling it goes through. A year on with the hair dresser and I wasnt gaining the length I wanted. This, in addition to the colour problems were really frustrating me.

The pictures above give some idea of what I was working with. The light sadly doesnt show the pink off correctly. Its a hot pink used through both sides of the underneath sections. Incidently, my hair is naturally very curly and I don’t have any chemical straightning done on it. My hair is already coloured a LOT and straightened with irons. I didn’t want to put it through any further treatments.

It was just before Christmas that my stylist mentioned extensions for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because they would give me the length that I’ve always wanted and clearly can’t get with my own hair (incidently, I’ve no doubt it would grow if I left it the hell alone and didn’t straighten it all the time, but that wouldnt make me happy either). Secondly, because using bright extensions would add a lighter colour to my own hair and, add unfade-able sections of pink to combat the colour fade in my own pink areas.

Last month, I went and had them done. I’ll apologise straight up for the pictures; the quality is poor because I was juggling my phone camera and using a mirror to take them :p They don’t really do justice to the work the hair dressers have done.

Ok. I’ve tried to lift the hair to show the pink sections and you can see the depth of colour on those. The length itself isn’t shown too well. My extensions are 44 cms in length putting them at about midway down my back. They’re the brightest blonde we could go, so they’ve lifted the colour throughout. The texture of the hair and the thickness is incredible. I’ve had a full head of extensions done and it’s quite a shock when you first realise how much hair there suddenly is.

The company who make my extensions are http://www.haircontrast.com

They’re taped extensions which are quite a new thing in the world of hair as they cause absolutely minimum damage to your own hair. Basically, when you first buy them, you are buying the actual hair. You need to be careful when buying hair extensions as European, human hair is pricey. You can get hold of other types, but the quality decreases and the texture of Asian hair (for example) doesn’t match well to European hair. You can also buy synthetic hair which is quite common when people are putting bright colours in their hair. However this stuff feels horrendous and (obviously), you can’t use straightning irons with it as it will melt! :p

My extensions come in pre-bonded wefts of varying widths depending where on the head they are to fit. The thickest of mine are just over an inch. These have a tape on the very roots of the hair. Your own hair is divided into sections where the extensions are to be attached. The hair is pulled down over the top of one section of tape. Another is then placed on the top creating a sandwich bond.

I came out of the hair dressers with shampoo, conditioner and a moisturising serum for mine and at this point, I’ll move onto a few things to note. Firstly, you can’t use any shampoo on the hair. This rules out 99% of the high street brands so if you don’t like spending much on shampoo, I’d generally avoid extensions. I have two kinds I use on mine. The first is one that came with the extensions. The second is an Alterna moisturising shampoo to use as a treatment to stop them drying out. Secondly, you can only use conditioner through the lengths and on the ends of the hair. You can’t put conditioner anywhere near the bonds as it will degrade them. This is connected to my next point… hair extensions don’t take to being washed daily; it strips the hair quite badly. Its usually recommended to try and wash them just a couple of times a week. However, as you cant use conditioner on your scalp and round the roots, you’ll be surprised as to how long your hair will comfortably go between washes. Mine was previously washed every other day (I cant do it daily, its too much work to dry and straighten), any longer than that and it was grim!

You need to be careful with the brush you use on the hair as snagging can occur round the bonds and pull the extensions out. The softer the bristles you can get, the better. When washing the hair you need to avoid scrubbing the scalp (which you shouldn’t do anyway!). You should literally stroke the shampoo over the scalp and down the lengths and leave it to sink in for a few minutes before rinsing with cool water. This helps to avoid any unnecessary tangling of the extensions. When combing, you need to start at the ends and work up, holding the hair each time to avoid pulling at the bonds. Combing round the actual bonds is the most difficult and I will admit I’ve had problems with this and pulled mine out a couple of times. Thankfully, with the extensions I have, its no issue. I can put them back in myself.

These last about 3 months before they need removing and reattaching. This works fine for me since my own hair still has to be coloured that often anyway. The extension process takes about one hour, which surprised me rather a lot.

Still keeping up? There are more do’s and dont’s yet.

1) Dont sleep with the hair wet. You shouldn’t do this anyway but particularly not with extensions. They will tangle beyond all recognition and untangling them without breaking the hair or wripping out the extensions is near impossible. Remember, this hair doesn’t grow back! If its pulled out or broken, thats it.

2) Braid the hair before sleep. I run the moisturising serum through mine before doing this. I put rather a lot in to avoid drying (extensions dry a lot!). In the morning, the greasyness of the serum has gone and the extensions are left shiney and soft. They’re also left wavey and if you can’t deal with this, you need to be prepared to run irons through to straighten them again.

3) No tying hair back tightly. No high pony tails or tight, fancy updos. Infact, no anything that puts undue pressure on the bonds as they will slip, come loose or fall out.

4) No hair styling products with ANY form of alcohol; they will dissolve the bonds. This rules out rather a lot of products. I use a heat protection spray from KMS through the lengths as it has to be straightened a lot, but nothing can go near the roots.

So; my conclusion? I LOVE them. I have the long, thick hair that I’ve always wanted but could never manage myself. I also have blonde hair with the pink stripes and the colour doesn’t fade. They do take a lot of upkeep in my opinion. They’re not for the people who like to wash with whichever shampoo is close to hand, leave to dry on their own and slap them back into pony tails… you’ll have no hair left within a couple of days I have always been a hair pamperer and I still manage to pull mine out. I generally reattach them myself until I can get to the salon to have them positioned correctly and reattached. The good side of this type of extension is that once you have bough the hair, it can be reused until you wreck it. Mine are put back in every 12 weeks (give or take) and the only charge is literally for the new tape.

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A New Collection Saturday, Jan 5 2008

Quite typically of most girls, I have a weakness for all things sparkly, much to the upset of my fiance. I was actually introduced to this jewelry by my mum who has been collecting it for a while now. When I was home for a week in Novemeber, I was flicking through a magazine and spotted a charm bracelet I raher liked and pointed it out to her. She disappeared off upstairs and came down with a bracelet to show me (this is never a good thing!)

There was my first introduction to Pandora jewelry and I spent the period of time between returning to Denmark and Christmas *begging* my fiance to get me one.

The concept is pretty simple… you choose a bracelet and add beads over time to signify particularly times or significant things in your life. The beads come in either silver, gold or a mix of and recently they’ve also added a collection of coloured glass beads to add interest. The result is a seriously chunky and eye catching piece of jewelry and Im now completly hooked on collecting them!

You can read about them here:-

http://www.pandorauk.com/

They release special edition beads that they only produce a limited number of and once they’re sold thats it. They also withdraw the beads after so long to ensure they remain collectable.

I got mine for Christmas and friends and family were kind enough to buy me numerous beads to attach to it. So far, my collection stands at:-

All quite significant to me now. My fiance got me the heart (aaw), the Christmas tree (special edition), the teapot (I may drink a fair bit of tea…), the bunny (good luck charm for my darling bunny who was diagnosed with myxamatosis just before Christmas but is still battling on strong) and the bee (friends call me hive queen!!). My fiance’s parents got me the horse (obvious), the dragon (i play fantasy pc games) and the glass bead (i adore pink!). Boyfriends brother got me the four leaf clover and the ghost (long story involving a horror night) and finally, my dad bought me the Christmas present (another limited edition one)

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The Rest of the Asylum Saturday, Jan 5 2008

Dedicating a little corner of this to the other animals in my life. First up, my beautiful husky, Dina.

My lovely rottweiler lady who we sadly lost last summer, not long after having arrived in Denmark. I miss her so much.

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