Blog sale

I'm trying to have a clear out before moving home later in the year. I have loads of products which either haven't been used, or have only been used once or twice, so thought this might be a good way of hopefully finding a few of them new homes.

• UK postage costs will usually be £2.50, plus 50p for each additional item. If any items are large / heavy, I'll advise you if they'll cost more.
• Please let me know if you'd like anything posted internationally and I'll let you know the cost.
• If you are interested in anything, or have any questions, please leave me a comment below. I'll reserve them for you for 48 hours, but if they're then not paid for, I'll make them reavailable. 
• Payment to be made via Paypal.
• Proof of postage will be obtained for all items. 
• All items sold as seen. 

Happy shopping!

this works clean skin 5-in-1 water - used once (purchased in error) - £10.00 (RRP £21.00)
Soap & Glory Heel Genius - new (duplicate item) - £3.00 (RRP £5.50)
Soap & Glory The Righteous Butter - new (duplicate item) - £6.00 (RRP £10.50)
Soap & Glory Hand Food - new (duplicate item) - £3.00 (RRP £5.00)

Bio-Oil - used twice - £10.00 (RRP £19.99)
Kerastase Elixir Ultime - used three or four times - £13.00 (RRP £26.50)
Tend Skin - used three or four times - £9.00 (RRP £19.99)
No Bump - used three or four times - £5.00 (RRP £11.20)

Benefit Dr Feelgood - new - £12.50 (RRP £23.50) SOLD!
Clarins Beauty Flash Balm - used two or three times - £14.00 (RRP £29.00)
Dermalogica overnight skin rescue kit - new - £20.00
Clinique Super City Block - new - £10.00 (RRP £17.00)

Benefit High Beam - used twice - £9.00 (RRP £19.50)

Soap & Glory Sexy Mother Pucker - new - £6.00 (RRP £10.00)

The Balm FratBoy blusher - usage shown - £5.00 (RRP £14.50) 

Maybelline Dream Sunglow - new - £2.00

Urban Decay Heavy Metal glitter eyeliner - used twice - £6.00 (RRP £13.00)

Max Factor False Lash Effect waterproof mascara - new - £6.50 (RRP £10.99)

MAC Pearlglide eye liner in Undercurrent - usage shown - £7.50 (RRP £15.00) 

Urban Decay lip pencil in Naked - new - £6.00

Eyeko skinny liquid eyeliner in black - used once - £5.00 (RRP £12.00)

Soap & Glory Thick & Fast mascara - new - £6.00 (RRP £10.00)

Seventeen clear definition mascara - used once - £2.00 (RRP £4.50)

Daniel Sandler Eye Delight loose powder - new - £4.50 (RRP £8.00)

Spring has sprung

Although the weather's still a little unpredictable, it's nice to know that Spring is here. The sunshine makes everywhere look more welcoming and the garden looks much better now that it's sprouting. The light evenings make such a difference, especially to my afternoon commute, even if the light mornings mean I'm awake before my alarm goes off!

We've planted up hanging baskets and troughs and they all seem to be doing well, despite being hit by a frost on their first morning. Hopefully by putting them out early their roots will have spread before our first long, dry spell.

I've nipped into the garden a few times over the past month or so, whenever we have some nice weather, to make the most of it. I've included some of my favourite photos below of the garden bursting into life.

Braces - are we nearly there yet??

Somehow another three months has passed since my last brace update. My last appointment was six weeks ago, which means I'm back again this week.

My last appointment was relative easy, my wires put up a bit of a fight, but I've come to expect that. They were replaced with similar wires, again my top wire was virtually a straight line to encourage my molars to move out and my bottom wire had a step in it to try and bring in my bottom molars. I literally have one biting point that isn't quite right, as my bottom molar is sitting outside of my top molar. Hopefully this should fix it. My orthodontist is a perfectionist, if you can't tell! I've still got powerchain on my lower arch to stop the gaps from opening up again on the bottom left hand side.

This was the photograph taken immediately after my last appointment.

Whilst I'm optimistic that I'm almost done as my bite now seems to be correct all round, I'm aware that I've got a visible gap between my upper and lower arches on the left hand side, but not on the right. That may be due to my right centre top tooth resting on the bracket on my tooth below throwing off my bite, but I can't be sure. Hopefully I'll find out this week. Fingers crossed!

Read about my previous adjustment appointment

Spotting the International Space Station - Part 2

Despite assuring my husband that I'd taken enough photographs of the ISS and we could put the tripod away, I couldn't resist going back out yesterday for the last extremely bright passing of the ISS until June.

Last night's first pass was relatively early and so the first few photos are quite light. I could tell it was still twilight as I had a couple of bats keeping me company. I ended up being outside for almost an hour as once the ISS had passed, I then started spotting constellations. I just could have done with a slightly wider angle lens, maybe in June!

Again, I started with firing off a few test shots, to check what ISO worked and to check the sky was in focus. This time the ISS passed much higher in the sky, but it gave me plenty of time to grab a few shots.

In the last photo, if you look really closely you can see a second, much fainter, light trail behind the ISS, about a couple of inches from the top in the middle of the tree. This is the Dragon cargo ship, due to connect with the ISS today.

I then started gazing at the stars, wondering what I was looking at and downloaded the Star Chart app. I do love Wifi, being able to download apps from my back garden is amazing! This gave me a much better idea of what I was looking at.

I was determined to photograph The Plough, but my lens wasn't quite wide enough, try as I might I could only capture six of the seven stars. A plane did fly past as I was capturing it though, which added a bit of interest and made me feel a bit better about not getting the whole constellation. Something to aim for in June!

Spotting the International Space Station

I'm aware that this makes me sound like an utter geek, but please bear with me.

Over the past few months I've heard more and more people talking about seeing the International Space Station (the 'ISS') in the night's sky. Parents were particularly excited around Christmas as they could pass its appearance off to their children as Santa on his sledge. I have to admit with no children to impress and freezing nights, I wasn't inclined to go out and stare up at the sky, without a clue what I was looking for. That changed this week when more and more people were mentioning it on Twitter and there was a flurry of photographs. Being keen on finding any excuse to take some photographs, suddenly I was drawn in.

Although the ISS is constantly orbiting the Earth, it can't always be seen. There will be periods of time when it will be visible almost every night, which has been the position we've been in for the last week or two. There are several sites which will tell you when you can see it from your location, my favourite is www.meteorwatch.org but NASA has a larger database. The ISS always moves from west to east, but on a different trajectory and at a different altitude each time. It's easy enough to spot though if you know vaguely what direction to look in, particularly if you pick a night when it's extremely bright, as it looks like a fast moving star.

I headed out a couple of nights this week to try and take some photographs. It proved much more difficult than I was expecting. Although I had a tripod and camera, standing in the back garden in the dark, suddenly everything was trickier than I expected. Changing my camera to remote control mode by torch mode whist it was on top of a tripod at eye level was virtually impossible, and even focusing was pure guesswork. I tried a few test shots before the ISS was due to arrive, just to decide what ISO and shutter speed I should be using. I needed the sky dark enough so that the ISS would stand out, but a long enough shutter speed so that rather than just photographing a dot in the sky, I'd get a light trail of its movement over several seconds.

 
This was my first shot, which came out surprisingly well. We've been lucky this week with clear weather on many nights when the ISS has passed over so I'm glad I made the most of it.

My husband wanted to take the opportunity to try some long exposure torch photographs, this was his contribution to the evening. Maybe not of such interest to NASA, but I quite liked it!

I may have a final attempt tonight at a few more photographs, I'm just hoping the cloud clears before 9pm. If you take any photographs of the ISS yourself, please let me know. I'd love to see them.