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VEGAN CAMP OUT 2018

Published on August 26, 2018September 2, 2024 by simplycarinaxo9 Comments

Good morning beautiful souls,

Last weekend I went on my first proper solo trip! I went camping, to a festival all by myself and I’m glad I did! I get huge travel anxiety so this was a big deal for me, but I coped! Woohoo! I didn’t have a panic attack and best of all I had great time and met some lovely people! The festival I was attending was the Vegan Camp Out Festival at Newark Showground. With this being a very new festival (only it’s 3rd year running) I’d say it’s still a learning curve for the organisers too, but considering the number of attendees more than doubled from last year, it went down super well, there were no major hiccups and everyone had a blast.

I departed lunchtime on Friday with far too much stuff (but hey I was only used to going camping with the car where you can chuck as much as you like on the back seat aha, so considering this I think I managed to reduce my camping kit considerably!). Jessica kindly helped me carry all my things to the train station and from there on I just about coped; luckily I had a direct train and once I arrived in Newark it was a just a taxi ride from the station to the showground and a little walk to the campsite.

It was soo windy when I arrived that being by myself and with a brand new tent (which I hadn’t practised putting up beforehand) I really struggled to set up camp. Luckily some kind stranger next to me asked if I needed any help and together with the tips of two passing guys who had a similar tent we eventually, after what felt like hours, managed to erect it although I was a bit dubious as to whether it would stay up with the way the wind was knocking it around. Once I had my sleeping mat rolled out and the fairy lights put up though I was very happy with my spacious but cosy home for the next 2 nights (I had a 4 person tent all to myself which was rather lovely I’m not going to lie).

Before going to the Vegan Camp Out I’d joined a Facebook group created for all the lone travellers, so that we could interact and arrange somewhere to all camp together. However I also knew that my experience would be ruined if I were to be kept awake all night by loud neighbours haha so I decided to camp in the designated Quiet area. I had been nervous about plonking my tent amidst strangers but before going I by chance ended up making friends with a lovely girl named Molly via Instagram. She was coming to the festival with her boyfriend and they decided to camp with me for which I was very grateful. About three hours after I got there Molly and her boyfriend Will finally arrived and set up camp next to me.

After settling in, we decided to check out some of the talks and went to listen to guitarist Jona Weinhofen’s personal vegan story, before ALF (Animal Liberation Front) founder Ronnie Lee took to stage and gave a very motivating speech about why we should not just be passive vegans but take to the streets and become activists. Having spent a good 9 year in prison himself for being an animal rights activist this guy’s passion for animals and their welfare is seriously inspiring!

Later in the evening I met up with Sam (a guy who’d messaged me from the Facebook lonelies group a day or two before the festival). We went to listen to the reggae legend that is Macka B and then sat down to chat the night away. Okay, okay you got me, we didn’t actually chat the night away. I mean I would have loved to, it was so lovely just chilling and chatting and Sam was super nice but I was literally yawing like every 2 mins come 12pm haha, so we called it a night.

The next day Molly, Will & I went to some more talks and workshops, including one by founder of the Carnisim Debunked website, which were all very informative and thought provoking. One of the talks held by Earthling Ed had such a huge crowd I only just managed to squeeze in at the back, but I’m glad I did – it was amazing hearing him talk in person, what a guy!!!

We treated ourselves for lunch and had some vegan pie & mash (I went for the mushroom one) which was so yummy and went off to listen to more talks such as by Peter Hammarstedt a Sea Shepherd Captain.

In the afternoon we decided we wanted to go to the screening of Dominion. Watching Dominion was so difficult, not everyone made it through the whole film. It was very harrowing to watch – it’s a stark & emotional reminder of why we as vegans do not eat animal produce! Hearing the cries of anguish from mothers and calves being separated, bearing witness to the thousands of animals repeatedly abused, watching as foxes are skinned alive for their fur, seeing baby chicks get conveyorbelted into a shredder just because they are male, having hidden cameras reveal the disgusting dirty & cramped conditions farmed animals live in….. the list of unnecessary, inhumane cruelty we inflict is truly endless, terrible and heart-breaking!

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PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE, START DOING SOME RESEARCH TO INFORM YOURSELVES MORE ON THE IMPACT ANIMAL AGRICULTURE HAS ON ANIMAL WELFARE, OUR EVNIRONMENT & OUR HEALTH! IT’S SUCH AND IMPORTANT TOPIC!

Here’s some sites to get you started:

Carnism Debunked – Plant Proof – Must Watch Informative Vegan Documentaries

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Well after a difficult afternoon, we went back to our tents to rest a little more before having dinner. I’d brought most of my food for the weekend with me (far too much in the end aha) and so I made an avocado salad sandwich but joined Molly and Will by the food stalls to treat myself to some vegan Churros for dessert. Annoyingly they ran out of chocolate sauce, 2 people in front of me?! Say what?! But they were just as tasty with just sugary cinnamon!

In the evening we went to see the last bit of Simon Amstell’s show on the main stage and have a good laugh. Molly and Will went back to their tent after this and I headed off to find Sam and hang out with him and some other lonelies grooving away to JME! After JME it was time for the afterparty, but I was pretty tired by then and knew I had an early enough start the next morning so I made my way back to my tent. Sam came back with me to my tent (I was forcing my leftover booze on him as I did so not want to have to carry it all the way home again aha) but instead of going back to the party straight away he stayed a while and we talked a bit more which was really nice as I felt like we’d just clicked really well. Eventually I did go to bed though and Sam went off to continue the party, well into the early hours of the morning apparently (I’m so glad I’d listened to myself and did not sleep in the lonelies area of the camp as this had apparently been the afterparty of the afterparty area where I would have got 0 sleep).

Anyway I woke the next day to a grey sky and chilli morning which made getting out of my toasty sleeping bag rather difficult. I had hoped both mornings to be up and awake to join in on the morning yoga sessions, but totally failed both mornings, preferring my cosy lie ins aha! But this morning I couldn’t lie in too long as our taxi was booked back to the station for 11.30am (following the horrendous queues for taxis to the festival we made sure to book on Saturday for Sunday, and I’m glad we did otherwise who knows how long we’d have had to wait!). I’d packed my things together quite quickly and was having my breakfast by the time Molly & Will woke up and in the end our tents were all dissembled quicker than I thought, which was good though because it meant we could still go to one of the morning talks before leaving. I was also a good call getting up earlier as it started to rain and so we just about had everything packed away before it got too wet!

Once we made it to the train station the last leg of my trip began as I had almost 4 hours to wait for my train home. It wasn’t too bad though, I read my book (The Handmaid’s Tale), drank coffee and before I knew it 4 hours had flown by and I was on my way home.

I apologise for this essay of a blog post, but I guess I’m not good at being short and precise aha, so you get the long winded ramblings of my weekend adventure! I hope you enjoyed learning a little more about what I got up to and might even be inspired to check out some of the links 🙂

CHRISTMAS !!!

Published on December 27, 2017December 27, 2017 by simplycarinaxo7 Comments

Good evening beautiful souls,

I’ve had a lovely couple of days off celebrating Christmas with friends and family. Being both German and Irish my Christmas traditions are a mixed bag and I love it. Here’s what I got up to.

I have always celebrated Christmas on Christmas eve – that’s the German tradition and I love it! This is the first year I have my own place and am not just home from uni for the holidays, so it was the first year I didn’t have a family breakfast on Christmas eve with my parents and sister. Instead I made a yummy brunch for Jessica and myself and we had a relaxing morning watching Santa Claus, drinking coffee and enjoying a cheeky sausage on avocado & egg toast.

After a lazy morning I packed all my things up to take to my parents later that day and got ready. I enjoyed the routine of glaming up and putting a full face of makeup on whilst listening to Christmas songs and feeling more festive with every song I sang along to. I decided to pair my LBD with a wine coloured polo neck as my parents house tends to be on the cold side compared to mine and then went for dangly earrings as a statement piece and dark lips to match the polo.

Just after 2pm my mum and sister picked me up and we went into Durham to go to the 3pm 9 lessons and carols service at the Cathedral. We didn’t stay for the full thing however as sadly being right at the back we could hardly hear and had to stand; however we did enjoy belting out some descants to our favourite carols before we left. As we’d left a bit earlier we decided to grab a coffee before heading home to give my dad a bit more time to rest because he wasn’t feeling great. We popped into Flat White in Durham and treated ourselves to some nice peanut butter bar thing too.

Finally it was time to head home and for me to see our Christmas tree for the first time!! I love our Christmas tree; we always get a real one and the pine just smells wonderful. After adding my presents to the pile under the tree I finished painting my nails (as I’d totally mis-planned my time getting ready earlier) and then we all sat down together for our Christmas Eve dinner. It was time for another first this year as we changed up our family traditional meal for some salmon with rice and salad. It was very tasty but I have to say I missed our usual Christmas eve meal.

After dinner we read the Christmas Story and sang some carols together in both English and German before sitting around the tree to open all our presents. We always take it in turns to open gifts so everyone sees what the other received and also so the process of opening gifts lasts as long as possible. About half way through we usually pause to make some tea and enjoy some Lebkuchen and Stollen some of our favourite German Christmas goodies. I’ll do a what I got for Christmas post soon, but for now I’ll just share my best present with you. I got a cello on loan!!! I haven’t played the cello in about 6 years as I’ve never owned my own instrument so when I stopped lessons after 9 years I had to return the cello to the music school. I’ve been itching to have another go at the cello for years now and so to finally be able to do this was the best present I could ask for – and it was a complete surprise! What made me even happier was that I remembered a lot more than I thought I had!

Eventually we were all tire and crept to bed, but not before filling each others stockings. You see with also being British we still get stockings and Santa on Christmas Day, even though Christmas eve is our main celebration. The last few years we started a new tradition where everyone in the family was responsible for one persons stocking, this year I had my mum. So the next morning I got everyone out of bed at around 9am – no more 6am wakeup calls like when I was younger, although I ma still always the first one up who gathers everyone together so that we can open our stockings together. Once opened we made breakfast and enjoyed a lazy morning. In the afternoon we went to pick up Jessica who was joining us for Christmas dinner and some games. It was a lovely afternoon which we ended with snuggling up to watch the Call The Midwives Christmas special before my sister drove Jessica and myself home.

On Boxing Day it was our turn to host and we invited my family over and my good friend Anna from work for a yummy spread, cocktails and games evening. We got stuck into Cluedo and Settlers which were both great fun!

So all in all it’s been a lovely couple of days relaxing and enjoying each others company with good food, drinks and lot’s of laughter. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too!

Love Carina xo

CHRISTMAS WISHLIST!

Published on December 1, 2017December 1, 2017 by simplycarinaxo4 Comments

Hey there beautiful souls,

Now that autumn is slowly transcending into winter and Halloween and bonfire night are well and truly over I can slowly start to get excited for Christmas! I love Christmas, I mean who doesn’t bar the Grinch!?! The last few years I haven’t really had a Christmas wishlist but this year there are actually a few things I really want and I can’t wait to share them with you and look forward to reading your wishlist posts too!

Dinosaur £25 Wilkos – I know I am 24 years old, supposed to be adulting, but I’m sorry this Dino is just way to cute!!! And my childhood dream of having a large cuddly toy has yet to be fullfilled!

Epilator £44.99 Amazon – Anyone else hate shaving? It’s so tedious so I love using my electric shaver to just quickly go over my legs. Admittedly it’s not as clean a shave as using a razor, but does the job if you’re in a hurry. So as my old Philips epilator/shaver decided to give up I would really like a new one for Christmas and this Braun epilator seems a great deal. I’ve shopped around and amaxon definitely has the cheapest deal.

Milk and Honey £6.99 Amazon – This book has been on my wishlist for ages. I keep seeing her words float around instagram and have thus wanted to read her work for a while now.

Turtles all the way Down £7 Amazon – I really enjoyed all of John Green’s other books so I’d love to read his new one. Although I do already have a huge to.read list! Let’s be honest you can never have too many books!

Catan Extension pack £22.73 – this is one of my favourite games, but when my flatmates and I get together there’s often more than four of us so I would love this extension pack so that more of us can play together, because it’s not really a game you can play in teams.

Vikings Seasons 1-4 £34.99 Amazon – I absolutely love this series nand really want to rewatch it. However now that I do not have Amazon prime anymore I thought the best option was to add this series to my collection.

Bamboo Bathtub Caddy £17.99 Amazon – I love a good bath, who doesn’t!!! I go all out and make it a real pamper experience. I get out the wine, the candles a healthy snack and watch an episode of something. However there’s never enough space for everything, so I’ve had my eye on a bath caddy for ages! Hopefully this will be under the Christmas tree!

So here are just a few of the things that are on my wishlist this year. What about you? What’s on your wish lists this year??

Love Carina xo

AUGUST FAVOURITES

Published on August 30, 2017August 30, 2017 by simplycarinaxo1 Comment

Hey friends,

I love reading monthly favourites posts but have only ever written one so far, so I thought it was high time for another. August has been crazy busy for me, so here’s what I’ve enjoyed this month in between all the craziness!

Tea!

I have been loving the Pukka Cleanse tea this August. It is light in flavour and comforting. Nettle, fennel and peppermint are all great herbs to help settle the stomach, so this tea is great for your stomach when stressed. It is very calming in general, I like to drink it in the evenings when I settle down to read before bed.

My Glasses

Yes, ok, I’ll put it out there straight away – I don’t need glasses, these are fake – please don’t judge me haha! I just like the look of these pale pink geeky glasses. They are a fashion accessory to me and I kinda love them. I had wanted a pair for a while but couldn’t find ones that suited me. I kept browsing Primark’s collection whenever I was there and eventually I found these. They were about £2.50 so a bargain really, I don’t ever spend much on glasses for fear of breaking or loosing them haha.

Music

These four albums have been my most listened to this month.

Step Up is the perfect soundtrack for a productive morning as it makes you want to dance about the house.

Tropical Gypsy by Molotov Jukebox is a good choice for happy vibes. Upbeat somewhat crazy songs that will put a smile on your face and brighten your day. I saw them live at the Lindesfarne festival last year and they were great!

A Creature I Don’t Know by Laura Marling is a more peaceful CD and makes for perfect reading or game playing background music. I also love to listen to Laura Marling when having a relaxed breakfast.

Southpaw – another great soundtrack; this one is great for the gym or exercising because it has dome great paced beats.

My Best Friend’s Wedding

This is more of an event rather than a thing of course, but I couldn’t not mention it, because it has been a favourite this month. It was a beautiful day seeing my best friend get married and I was honoured to be a bridesmaid on her special day!

Game Time

Towards the end of August I had my friend Nadia and her fiance Roland visit me and it was lovely as I hadn’t seen her in four years!!! We spent so much of our time together playing games and it was great fun! I love board games! They are such a great way to spend time together with friends having fun. We played many rounds of Yatzi but I also rediscovered a favourite game of mine which is called Die Siedler Von Catan. If you like games and haven’t heard of this one I recommend you go buy it right now haha (you can buy it in English too, don’t worry). It’s about acquiring building materials and then gaining points by building streets and cities… I love it!

My New Piercing

I used to have the side of my lip pierced but took it out about a year ago because I wanted a change. Looking back on pictures I always missed it though so I decided to get my lip re-pierced, but this time in the middle where I had originally wanted it pierced. At first I wasn’t too keen as it pierced a little too close to my lip for my liking, however I have gotten used to it now and I love it! So glad I got it re-pierced!

Sainsbury Mugs

I bought these mugs in Sainsburys about 2 years ago and they are currently my absolute faves again! I originally resisted buying them but I couldn’t stop thinking about them so I just had to go back and buy them haha! I’m so glad I did! They are a good size easy to hold and nice to drink out of, wether coffee or tea, I have been using them every day this past month!

Vegan Pesto Pitta Pizzas

So quick and easy to make; using a pitta bread as the pizzas base, spread a little vegan pesto on and top with whatever you choose! My favourite toppings with pesto are definitely just some fresh tomatoes and vegan feta style cheese with a bit of seasoning – yummy! Pop in the oven for 10 minutes and you’re good to go – enjoy!

Watermelon

I have been absolutely obsessed with watermelon this month! When you get a good one they are so refreshing and tasty! Definitely my healthy go to snack this August!

I hope you have enjoyed my August favourites post. I think I will try and make monthly favourites a regular post on my blog because I have loved writing this post and sharing my favourites with you!

Love Carina xo