When I first heard about the #FloorSelfie challenge, I found myself getting a little excited. Not only do I love a good photo challenge, but I also love shoes, and taking photos of my feet for a week sounded like great fun. No need for any special equipment to get involved with this challenge; I simply charged up my phone and snapped a photo whenever the thought entered my mind. By the end of the week I’m pretty sure that I’d started to search out more interesting floors with fun colours or patterns, or maybe it was simply the fact that I was noticing the floor more often . How often do we look down, really? We’re missing interesting designs and even art by keeping our heads up. Anyway, enough rambling – here are my favourite shoe photos from the week and little bit about the location to go with them:
Excuse the pun but I ‘kick started’ my week of #FloorSelfies with a day out at the seaside. And we enjoyed ourselves so much that we actually went back to the coast the day after too. I snapped some photos on the beach and almost soaked my toes by trying to get the Tuesday Shoesday snap above when the tide came in. The traditional walk along the promenade followed, with me dribbling over beach huts that I could never afford, followed by a big hot chocolate to warm up. The second day we went to Southwold Pier and had fun playing air hockey and winning 2ps in the arcade. Something I hadn’t noticed before was that the pier has footprints painted on the deck all along the length of the pier. Don’t follow them though – some of the footprints head right off the side of the pier! I found a set of flipper footprints and snapped this fun #FloorSelfie.
One of the most exciting thing to happen to me this week was something that I couldn’t really photograph. My husband had been picked in a ballot to go to a recording of a TV special in Elstree Studios. With the performance being ‘top secret’ and absolutely no cameras allowed, it was hard for me to get a photo but I wanted to record the day out nonetheless. Here’s the fabulous wooden floor in the entrance to Elstree Studios and it’s the very same spot where I later met Tim Peake and Professor Brian Cox. Yes, I got a selfie with an astronaut! Best. Moment. Ever. And I managed to give Brian Cox a pair of ChattyFeet’s Prof. Brian Sox socks, which he found hilarious. Oh, you’ll notice a different pair of shoes in this shot – they are my favourite Hush Puppy flats the rub a little on the heel so aren’t great for wearing all day long. The following day we took a walk in the countryside and noticed just how autumnal everything is – leaves are turning brown and conkers are falling. Must remember to go blackberry picking this week before it’s too late.
We’ve been viewing houses this week. As you might already know, we’ve been saving up to buy our own home and I’m hoping that we’ll find the right place soon. So going around a few unknown houses provided some interesting décor choices for me to photograph. Here’s a great choice for bathroom flooring (below), probably from the 90s. Or maybe someone was just a fan of Robot Wars and wanted to recreate that industrial look at home? I can’t wait to get my hands on any of the houses we saw and put my own stamp on the interiors. Pinterest here I come! Our house-hunting day was interspersed with lots of coffees and using the free coffee-shop wifi to research locations.
Another type of house viewing we did this week was at Audley End House and Gardens. We were on our way to Cambridge and decided to stop off en route to check out this stately home. Luckily enough, there was a special event on at the house this weekend so we got to enjoy the Apple Festival too. Who knew that there were so many types of apple? Or cider, for that matter..! With music playing and plenty of activities it was a fun ‘bonus’ for us to visit on this harvest weekend. Since becoming members of English Heritage this month we’ve probably already made back the cost of the membership just by saving the standard admission costs in the castles and houses we’ve visited.
We also took a look inside the house, after all that’s why we’d gone there. There are plenty of impressive stone floors and luxurious rugs in the house, as you’d expect from a stately home. But what I didn’t expect was that the carpets inside the house are crazy. Even though they date back to the 1800s, these carpets are some of the most jazzy, colourful and garish that I’ve ever seen. The green and pink diamond carpet below is in the nursery. Just imagine growing up there; it would have felt like you were living in a circus!
We explored Cambridge the following day. This involve lots of wandering around looking at the ancient colleges and admiring how easily people were punting on the Cam. I just know I’d fall into the river as soon as I got that pole in my hand. There’s a trail of inlaid metal artworks on the stone pavements as you wander past the colleges and, with the falling leaves, it felt decidedly autumnal this weekend. We did a spot of shopping and I snapped a few floors in the shopping centre.
The union jack parquet floor was upstairs in Jack Wills – I don’t know if I would paint a lovely wooden floor like that… After stopping for my first Krispy Kreme of the year, and enjoying a sit down with a cup of tea, we pressed on. The black and white floor and the staircase with brass tread below are both in Hollister. I have to admit that I’ve never bought anything from Hollister but I always go into the shop to admire the interior design and I knew I’d find a good floor in there. See – this #floorselfie challenge is starting to take over my life already!
Time break out my special vintage shoes for a night out. Following dinner and drinks on Saturday night we headed to Cambridge Junction to see James Acaster perform. I’d deliberately not watched any of his routines on YouTube (there’s nothing worse than seeing a comedy show that you already know the punchlines to) so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Such a funny man, a really friendly approach to the audience and some completely bonkers jokes that had me crying with laugher. I seriously had to distract myself in order to stop laughing because I couldn’t breathe. We also had tickets for Dave Gorman the following day but sadly the show was cancelled due to illness. Get well soon Dave!
I’ve actually learnt something about myself this week; it turns out that I tend to wear the same two pairs of shoes most of the time, with a couple of more dressy pairs thrown in for special events. In fact, I never realised just how much I wear my grey pumps and tan brogue boots until I looked through my photos this morning. I’ve got maybe 30 pairs of shoes, but only really wear two of them – and that doesn’t sound particularly thrifty to me! I’ve worked out that each of the times I’ve been wearing these shoes, it’s been on a day out. Which tends to mean lots of walking and, therefore, the need to be comfortable all day long.
And I’ve also learnt that I really am missing out on a lot of interesting designs simply by looking up all the time. Fair enough, I don’t want to walk around looking at the floor and perhaps missing some amazing architecture in the process, but it’s another aspect to consider. Seeing as I’m going to be choosing flooring and tiles for my own home soon, I guess it’s a good idea to start studying floors a little more. So now I’d love to see YOU take up the #FloorSelfie challenge with LuxuryFlooring.co.uk. I’ll be checking your Instagram tags and liking your photos so please do get involved in this fun project. You might learn something new about your town – or yourself – in the process.
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