Duck Egg Designs

African Elephant Fabric Print

In most of my spare moments lately, I seem to find myself longing for a home of my own, or at least dreaming of putting my own stamp on a place next year; I complete my post-graduate degree in 7 days, and have a job to go to in London for September! Thus, I’m in a constant state of extreme excitement and nervousness. I'm excited because I suddenly feel as though everything really has been worth it, and the potential for me to live my dream lies ahead of me. I'm nervous to start a new job, move to a new city, and begin a new phase of my life – I just have to make sure it all runs smoothly now! Having always been extremely interested in interior designs since the days of Changing Rooms and Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, dreams of how my own home may take shape have certainly changed over the years; but are always in the back of my mind nevertheless. Of course I won’t be buying a home of my own for next year, but this time, I’ll be renting indefinitely as opposed to for a fixed term as I have been while I’ve studying at the UEA. In Norfolk I seem to be in interior heaven, and as the summer approaches I envisage I shall be making frequent visits to the many antiques barns, independent designers around the coast, and the open studios filled to the brim with stunning art work. I’m spoilt for choice (if money were no object at least)!

Most recently I have come across Norfolk-based (although not entirely Norfolk-based as they also have ‘nests’ in Chelsea, Kent and Gloucestershire) Duck Egg Designs and can’t stop browsing the beautiful products on their website;

http://www.duckeggdesigns.com/

Child's Wicker Chair

The staple colours in their designs are light and fresh and would make the inside of any home feel like it was on the coast, or at least in the countryside. What with currently being in the process of looking for residence next year, I am extremely aware of how much I will miss the coast when I move to London (as if my love for the coast wasn’t blindingly obvious enough)! For that very reason, I can imagine my home next year is going to be scattered with nostalgic items and decorated in ‘beachy’ colours and memorabilia to make me feel at ease. Although I obviously moved out of home to come to university, the move over this summer feels a little more real as it will be on a more indefinite basis. Suddenly I feel a little more grown up, which at the moment seems to be drawing my inner child back out of me. For the past few weeks, I have been listening to all the music I listened to when I was a young teenager, and as I browse the Duck Egg Designs website, the beautiful items for children leap out at me! When I was growing up, we used to move around quite a lot as a family, so memories of moving into our current family home are very striking. My favourite thing about our move to our current family home was the trip to a huge antiques barn where I got to choose some furniture to go in my bedroom. The most memorable piece was a cream wicker chair that sat in the corner of my room. It was my first chair and I used to sit and read in it for hours! This lovely little sky blue wicker chair is even child-sized (and admittedly slightly more expensive than mine was, but certainly in much better condition, particularly by the time mine had been abused by our builders on their smoking breaks)!

Norfolk Crab Fabric Print

I first came across Duck Egg Designs on an episode of Kirstie’s Vintage Home where a couple created their own print fabric to make into a blind. All of the fabric prints are so pretty, but I particularly love the Norfolk crab print (can’t wait to go crabbing this summer!) as it’s so characteristic of my Norfolk, but my personal favourite are the African elephants as I have a penchant for anything elephant (as can be seen from my ring collection)! The Norfolk-themed items really strike a note with me; as well as the Norfolk crab print, the Blakeney, Burnham and Wells stripe fabrics reflect beautiful, seaside colours.

Something I’ve been looking for for a while now is an antique mirror and the oval mirrors by Duck Egg Designs are simply beautiful. I’m a firm believer in mirrors everywhere and anywhere (not just because I take so much pleasure in my own face, but also I’m a lover of light, and mirrors are great for bouncing what little light there may be in a room to every nook and cranny!), and I could see any of these mirrors sitting on the wall in various rooms around the house!

Painted Vintage Oval Mirror, White Oval Mirror, Vintage Oval Mirror

In all honesty, I’ll probably end up living in a cardboard box next year. But it’s always nice to dream. 

Field Day

Ben Pearce, Stealing Sheep, Jacques Greene, Dark Dark Dark, Solange, Bat For Lashes, Four Tet.

Having had such an amazing time last year, decided to grace Field Day with our presences again last weekend, and so glad we did! Ultimately, I’m still not that accustomed to festivals as although I have now attended a few quite a few times, I tend to return to the same festivals so have hardly had a broad experience. I only mention this factor, as things that I now go on to say that ‘I love about Field Day’, may indeed be things that I’d love about other festivals too if I gave them the chance!

Ecstatic over SO MUCH NACHO

Obviously the notable thing for me about Field Day is the way that the line-up suits my musical taste and attitude to a T (tee? tea? One of life’s little mysteries)! Whilst last year it was Andrew Bird who caught my attention, this year I was lured by Four Tet and Jacques Greene. Although I go in with a very definite plan of what I will be seeing, at the same time, each year I have been introduced to new likes as I find myself sitting by a random stage while I graze the various food stalls (another great thing about Field Day, the INCREDIBLE food selection)! As I write this post, I am listening to Stealing Sheep who were the accompaniment to my enormous portion of nachos with piled up toppings this year.

Not only does the festival have a great line-up and amazing food on offer, but it’s all for an extremely reasonable price too (which is probably the main selling point while I’m still a student if I’m honest)! This year there are even super early bird tickets on sale for £35 which I've leapt at!! It may sound like a potentially risky move to buy this early, but having perused ‘Field Day Past’ (and had my mind blown by the price for consistently incredible line ups of the past) on Facebook, I’d say it's a risk worth taking;

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151689481950820.1073741826.312769280819&type=3

I didn’t actually see that many artists due to a lot of unfortunate clashes, but I love how Field Day is a festival where the sun decides to shine so that lounging around and just taking it all in is made entirely possible, acceptable and highly enjoyable. This year ‘i’ from The Independent was available at the gates with the complete set-list and timings - yet another money saver, also providing somewhere dry to sit on ground that

Technicolour dreamcoat

Beautiful balloons

had unfortunately been rained on for a few days prior to the festival, as well as reading material for in between sets. My highlights were definitely Bat For Lashes and Four Tet, made even better by the fact that they followed on from one another! Both were highly aesthetically pleasing, with Natasha Khan in her shiny, rainbow cape and two-piece, and Kieran Hebden’s release of giant, colourful balloons which floated around above our heads for his entire set. I've been waiting 7 years to see Bat For Lashes as I’ve never actually made it to one of her gigs, so was very excited to see her at Field Day! She played a good mix of her old and new, her energy was boundless and she seemed so happy to be playing in her ‘back garden’ as she referred to Victoria Park; obviously her performance of Laura went down very well with me too, beautiful! I’d also never seen Four Tet live, and despite the silly males nearby who were only there to be in a good position for Animal Collective (although they did prove to be of excellent comic value), I was totally in my element! Thanks to a dastardly cold (IN MAY??) I hadn’t got the most energy on Saturday, but could not stop dancing the whole time – music and balloons is absolutely the best combination!

I don’t want this to turn into a review (if it hasn’t headed in that direction already), so won’t go through every act one by one, but had a truly beautiful day and can’t wait to be back again next year!