Botanic Gardens Revisted: Lolita Meet

The Highland Lolita community have become regular visitors at the Botanic Gardens in Inverness. I've written about meets held there, starting with our ::first ever community meet:: when there were only 3 of us and I didn't have a proper Lolita outfit yet, and then a ::summer meet:: in 2015, and the ::Tea Party Club photoshoot::, also in 2015. We went there last year, too, but I didn't get time to write about it. This post is about when went there back in April, but I didn't have time to write about it at the time because of college work.

This was a meet that I organised, but I still ended up hideously late because first one of my shoes broke, and then the bus I was on to Inverness arrived just as the bus to the Botanic Gardens was leaving, so I missed my connection. I ended up meeting a slightly lost lady on the bus, with her young daughter (who had fabulous floral face-paint) trying to get to the nearby Aquadome (municipal swimming pools and gym) for a birthday party, so I showed her how to walk around to where she was heading because currently there is a lot of road-building going on, and the usual entrance to the road down which both the Aquadome and the Botanic Gardens are situated is a construction zone. By the time I got to the Botanic gardens, my friends had already eaten and drunk most of their afternoon tea, so we then went out to the gardens. 

Plants & Flowers at the Botanic Gardens. Photos by me.

As often happens we got photographed a bit by other people visiting the gardens, but nobody was too invasive or rude. People often think we're dressing up for a special occasion, but while we're not necessarily daily Lolitas, many of us wear elaborate alternative fashion on a daily basis - whether it's my Romantic and anachronistic Gothic fashion, or fairy-kei and other Japanese street-styles on others, and I do sometimes wear Lolita just because I can - the question "do you dress like this every day?" can be a tricky one. It's a bit easier when I'm on my own and get asked that question - I can answer "this particular outfit and style is for <insert event here> but I do wear elaborate Gothic outfits every day, yes" - a lot of people can't tell Gothic Lolita apart from regular Romantic Goth, to many it's just the same thing but with knee-length skirts. Other Lolita styles, however, are clearly different from any other fashion or subcultural style. 

Koi and other fish - picture by Kawaii Keke-Chan

My favourite part of the Botanic Gardens is the cactus house, but we didn't get that far in this visit. My second favourite is the tropical greenhouse. It has a fish-pond with waterfall, but due to an issue with the pump, it no longer goes into the stream under the path, which is sad. I love watching the koi fish and other carp (goldfish?) in the pool. They're very beautiful. 

Keke-Chan and H, photo by Koneko

There are steps in the tropical greenhouse leading up to a mezzanine all dripping with climbing plants and beautiful flowers, with fancy railings and even fancier metal furniture.

Koneko, picture is, I think, by me.

As it is in a greenhouse, with a glass roof, it is quite ,bright there! We all sat down and chatted for a while, admiring the full view of the tropical house, and walking up past the waterfall. It's all very beautiful and elegant - and quite warm inside, regardless of the rain outside. One day I will have to take a packed lunch with me (from the café by the entrance), and sit up there to eat it with the sounds of the fountain and the waterfall. The grotto I was photographed in for the ::Tea Party Club photo-shoot:: is beneath the mezzanine. 

Koneko infront of the wishing fountain, picture by herself.

Photo of me by Koneko

We then went to the rear of the tropical green-house, which has a wishing-fountain (you throw coins in to make a wish), and the rear of the grotto, which is all neo-classical and completely different from its rocky exterior on the fish-pond. There's even a colourful stained-glass window commemorating something to do with a bank.

One interesting thing is that there is an artificial tree that has been built to grow the sort of rainforest plants that grow secondary on trees. The artificial tree is made from sustainably harvested cork, and rather twisty and fun. It has colourful flowers growing on it, and long strains of silvery, lace-like plants dripping from it. I don't know what the lacy plant is, but I would love to grow some myself as it looks quite magical. 

One of the things I like about my local Lolita community is that we're not affraid to be silly now and then, and have a bit of fun. We're quite laid-back, and make sure we don't take ourselves too seriously... like in this photo where Koneko snuck up and photo-bombed me!

Koneko photo-bombing me. I forgot who took this pic!

A few of the younger girls were at the meet, too, but to protect their privacy as they're legally minors in the UK, I haven't featured photographs of them here. Koneko has a facebook page/blog ::here:: andKawaii Keke-Chan's got an account on ::Tumblr::

Outfit Rundown

Photo by Kawaii Keke-Chan

✯ Head-dress: Hand-made by myself

✯ Wig: An online Cosplay shop, but I can't remember which.

✯ Blouse: Spin-Doctor

✯ Dress: second-hand Bodlyine dress

✯ Necklace: Claire's Accessories

✯ Belt: charity shop find

✯ Floral tights: I can't remember, but probably Tesco

✯ Shoes: Demonia shoes bought secondhand on eBay

This outfit was meant to be a simple all-black outfit. I was initially going to wear a black wig, too, but decided to go with this dark green one. The wig has a LOT of volume, so I wore an extra-puffy set of petticoats to balance it. There's no real theme to it, and the design of the dress is just Lolita - not particularly Gothic elements, just lots of ruffles.

In future I want to put together more outfits that aren't just all black and anachronistic, but more Gothic - more elements that tie to the usual motifs - skulls, bats, Gothic architecture, vampires, graveyards, ghosts, etc. as well as cuts that are more Gothic - things with lacing details, big bell sleeves, velvet, using spikes and studs as an accenting detail, etc. I think I need to slowly bing in more of my 'Goth' to my Lolita, making it really Gothic Lolita, not just a 'Goth in Lolita'!

Highland Lolitas Botanic Garden Meet-Up

I organised my first meet for the Highland Lolitas community for the 7th of July. We are a very new and small community. We had our first proper meet up as high tea at the Royal Highland Hotel back in March, but this was just before my hiatus and I did not get to blog about it. If people request a retrospective blog post about the first ever Highland Lolta community meet up, then I can probably do a blog post about it. I have organised a mini-meet at the Botanic Gardens before, and I blogged about that ::here:: but that is when there were only the three of us and we had not formed a community because our numbers were too small. There are now about 8 active memembers in our community, and our meets are usually between 3 and 6 people in attendance, so it is still a very small community. 

Photograph by Danielle

There was actually a meet up in Culloden for International Lolita Day, but I chose to go the big Scottish Lolitas community meet in Edinburgh instead (I felt a bit like I'd accidentally ended up as the 'Highland representative' as I got a few questions about our small community) and while I don't regret going to Edinburgh, I wish I could bilocate and have gone to both! A few of the girls met up on the same day as ZombieNess, which again put me in the position of having to choose, and as this was the first ZombieNess and the council were trying to guage interest to see if it would be run again, attending that with my friends seemed like a priority as we wanted to show our support on hopes of it happening again in future years. I was left feeling like I was abandoning our nascent Lolita community, and thus decided to organise a meet-up myself. 

Better size view. Photograph by Danielle

I chose the Inverness Botanic Gardens (Floral Hall) because it is a very beautiful location, has an on-site cafe that serves teas and cakes (with delightful antique-style crockery), it has both indoor and outdoor sections so we could have an enjoyable visit regardless of the weather, and because when we had our mini-meet before, they were very welcoming of us despite us all looking so very unusual, and seemed intrigued in a positive way rather than thinking we might be a detriment to their custom. It was also an all-ages venue, and as the youngest in our community is 14, I did not want anyone to feel left out. 

Sitting on a bench with my umbrella as a parasol. Changeable weather!
Photo by Danielle.

Organising the meet-up is actually quite a bit of work; I was helping girls with their travel arrangements (like which busses to take), ran a poll to find out the most convenient date and had to work out where we would meet, whether there were going to enough of us to ring ahead and book tables, etc. I think organising a meet-up that involves a booking, much larger numbers and perhaps group travel would be a really large amount of work, so I am very grateful to all those at the Scottish Lolita community who organise things like the tea-parties at the Willow Tea Rooms and the recent International Lolita Day meet (which I blogged about ::here::). 

Danielle, in a lovely Sweet Lolit outfit. Photograph by me.

We met up at the Eastgate Centre in Inverness (the shopping mall), as it is a central public space, and open enough for us to all immediately recognise each other by our outfits (quite distinct from the regular fashion in Inverness!). The initial plan was to meet up in the food-court, but all of us seemed to have the idea to go into Claire's and look for floral head-decorations, beforehand so we ended up meeting up there instead! Before I got into the mall, the weather was a bit dreich, but it had been sunny earlier, and I thought perhaps it might only shower lightly. When we got out of the mall it was more than mere drizzle, and it rapidly became downpour. We rapidly got totally soaked - or "drookit" as it is in Scots. We had our umbrellas with us, but they were useless against wind-driven rain that just blew under our umbrellas and drenched us. We did not get as far as bus to the outskirts of town in one go - we gave up, and decided to hide in the So CoCo cafe until the rain passed, or at least stopped raining quite as hard. It transpired that nobody else at the meet had tried macarons, so I bought a box of macarons to share. Once the rain died down, we walked the rest of the way to the bus, and then took the bus to the botanic gardens. The rain had flooded many of the paths, so we had to walk around the long way. Once we got to the gardens the weather started to improve. 

I'm growing! I'm growing! Photo by Danielle

I am considerably taller than all the others in the group; I am  5'9½" without heels on, and I was wearing 4½ inch heels above that, making me approximately 6'2" with heels on! Even without heels I am quite a bit taller than the other group members with their heels on, so I towered like an giantess over them. Within the hot-house, there is a room that is part of the staff area and is underneath the waterfall section and mezanine terrace; I would presume it is the pump-house for the waterfall and pools. The entrance is a door that is under the average door height, and I had fun standing in the doorway and pretending that I was suddenly growing like Alice from Alice in Wonderland, when she eats the 'Eat Me' cake!

We had a wander around the hot-houses of the Botanic Gardens, took lots of photographs, admired the flowers and the fish (there is an indoor koi pool in the hot house, and several ponds in the outdoor gardens), and then we visited the cactus house, which is my favourite part of the botanic gardens. After we had visited all the indoor parts, we visited the outdoor gardens, which are quite extensive. Several visitors took photosgraphs of us; all our outfits were on themes that fitted in with the aesthetics of the gardens, so we must have looked just right for photographs! One chap with a rather fancy camera took photographs for us, which was very nice, and then we had them e-mailed to us, which is very nice! I have been photographed hundreds of times while out and about elaborately dressed, but I have only seen about 5 of those photographs taken by strangers. In this age of smart-phones, wi-fi hotspots and social media, it is really not difficult to send me at least a link!

We then had cake and snacks in the cafe, before finally heading back into town on a double-decker bus, being quite silly and sitting at the front of the top deck and pretending we were super-heroes flying through the city! When we got back to the town centre, I found out that Danielle and one of the other girls are street performers in Inverness too - I busk playing the recorder, and they do dances and singing. I watched them perform, and then went off (and actually did some performing of my own as I often carry my recorder with me in case the opportunity comes up!).

I apologise for the lack of group photographs, but most of them include group members who are quite young, and I did not feel it was appropriate to post them on my public blog. 

PicMonkey collage of Danielle's photos. PicMonkey's clip-art.

I went for a Classic Lolita in old-school black-and white instead of outright Gothic as I was aiming for something more summery. The weather started off sunny, then went through torrential rain (hence the umbrella) complete with sideways rain (the umbrella was useless), then to rather sunny, and then back to rain again! It was really hard to try and dress for the weather because it was so changeable. The only thing that was constant about it all was the warmth and the humidity. Oh the Scottish summer!

Outfit rundown: ❀ Wig: Coscraft ❀ Old-school headdress: handmade by me ❀ White hair roses (not part of the bush!): Claire's ❀ Choker: cheap lace choker from eBay which I modified by adding a cameo from Rock and Roar and removing some of the tacky beads from ❀ Blouse: Metamorphose ❀ Black fabric ❀ Rose pin: thrifted ❀ JSK: Baby, The Stars Shine Bright ❀ Tights (rose-pattern): I've forgotten, but it was some bridal supplier ❀ Shoes: Fiore ❀ Gloves: Claire's ❀ Umbrella: Primark 

I would love constructive criticism! I would really like for suggestions on how to improve this outfit. Please remember I was dressing for summer, hence why this is not a very elaborate outfit, and why I am only wearing one petticoat with my dress. I am 5'9½" before heels, so the dress is a bit short on me, but the weather was so clammy, and all my underskirts are quite thick so I decided to just bend the rules a bit instead.

Ice-Skating, Botanic Gardens and River Ness

On Saturday, my friend Mavis invited me out to go ice-skating because Inverness Ice Centre apparently has cheap public skating on a Saturday afternoon. It was £5 for over an hour of skating, with an extra £1 for skate hire. Other people certainly bought their own skates, so that is an option. Both Mavis and I have been ice-skating before - but both somewhere between 12 and 15 years ago! Neither of us could remember how to ice-skate. By about my fourth or fifth circumnavigation of the ice-rink, I finally remembered how to skate well enough to stop hanging onto the wall and skate relatively freely with a little confidence. I even remembered how to turn on the spot and approximately how to stop without falling over. We both thought we'd escaped from falling onto the ice, right until 8 minutes before our session was over, when Mavis fell onto the ice. I came close several times, but thankfully the edge wall was there to save me, although I did do some rather ungainly slips! Mavis was a bit bashed but mostly OK. 

Photo by Mavis. Editing by me.

After we went skating, we thought about visiting Inverness Botanic Gardens (Floral Hall) which is pretty much nextdoor to the ice-rink, but they were just closing up. Instead, we posed for photos by the exterior of the perimeter wall, which had some rather pretty climbing plants growing on it. I get a little creeped out by certain bugs, which Mavis kept insisting on talking about, and I started getting worried that there'd be some in the bush I was posing by, hence why some of the poses get further and further away from the bush! I'm not entirely sure what the flowers were, but they were quite pretty. I am also not entirely sure how old the stone wall is; it looks quite old, but I'm not really sure how to tell beyond the profusion of lichens and the rather established climbing plants. 

Photo by Mavis, editing by HouseCat.

My thanks go to Mavis for taking these photos. She took them on my rather dire phone camera, so I am impressed that they came out this well because it is very rare for any photograph taken on my phone to come out well. It works better outdoors, certainly, but these are far nicer than my outdoor shots with the same phone camera. I did the editing afterwards because they were on my phone, but all I did was crop them down to squares, tweak the contrast slightly and apply the 'dusk' filter from ::PicMonkey:: because the grey weather made everything look dull, so all the actual photographic stuff was done by her.  

Photograph by Mavis, editing by HouseCat

My outfit might look like it's a bit much for the day before the midsummer Solstice, but the weather was grey and prone to rain showers, plus it was obviously going to be cold in the ice-rink, so I was wearing my thick and warm winter tights, a skirt with petticoats, bloomers, and a slip under my corset, blouse and dress... with a shrug! While I was skating I did think that it might have been sensible for me to have been wearing lace gloves. I almost always wear lace gloves, every single day, and the one day I don't (because I do have to wash them all occassionally) is the one day I regret not wearing them... typical! 

Photo by Mavis, Editing by HouseCat

My hair is currently pastel turquoise because that is what colour the green fades to when it has not been dyed in a while. My hair has become very fine and brittle after being repeatedly bleached, and my roots are growing out. My work have not made any complaints about my pastel-coloured hair, so I have not dyed it back to dark green. I do not mind covering up the bleached hair with dye, but I do not want to have to bleach my roots, as I do not want my hair to get any more damaged. My hair is snapping, both at points where it has been bleached and at points in the new growth, and it is also simply falling out. I naturally have rather thick, straightish hair that grows into a wave as it gets longer, but it is noticeably thinning around my hair-line, and also instead of growing into a neat wave, the ends curve and kink in all sorts of frizzy directions. I am laying off the hair-dye and bleaching for a good while! I have actually got nearly 2 inches of regrowth, but I am posing to try and avoid showing this. I do not plan on dyeing or bleachung my hair again until September, and I will need to get the fried-looking ends trimmed out of my hair, as the constant snags probably are not helping the snapping problem.

Photograph by Mavis, editing by HouseCat

The outfit I am wearing is: a ruffled blouse from eBay from one of many Chinese importers, a secondhand Bodyline dress that is from their 'separates' range and a bit short for Lolita so I wear it as a Goth dress, my favourite crochet lace shrug that was originally from Tesco but also bought secondhand, thick winter tights from Tesco, and a pair of very comfortable brogues with a slight heel from Gabor that I bought secondhand. I was wearing some extra layers under all that, including an underbust corset. I love thrift shopping, eBay shopping and scouring alternative-specific secondhand sales pages for bargains; it is the cheapest way to get nice Goth clothes.  

Photo by Mavis, edit by me

After we stopped for photos outside the Botanic Gardens, we wandered down towards Ness Islands. It turns out that it was the same day as the grand opening of the new skate-park on the ice-rink/Aquadome/Botanic Gardens side of the river, so we paused for a minute to watch people doing stunts on all the new ramps and things. There were people on rollerblades, stunt bikes, skateboards, etc. I used to do rollerderby on quad skates, and when I was younger I used to do a few stunts on inline skates (but nothing spectacular) and watching the kids (most of the people there were younger teens) on their skates made me a little bit jealous, but considering my unbalanced performance  on the ice skates, and considering that I have a co-ordination, balance and spatial awareness disorder, I probably won't try and join them any time soon. I no longer bounce like I did was younger,  and these days I risk actually injuring myself. 

Photograph by Mavis. Editing by HouseCat

Inverness has a series of pedestrian suspension bridges across the River Ness - two at Ness Islands,  and two between more central points within the city, so four in total, and the two bigger ones downstream are both of a rather pretty design. The two at Ness Islands are smaller and narrower, and replacements built in 1987/1988 for much nicer and sturdier-looking Victorian era suspension bridges (which were a replacement for earlier suspension bridges that got washed away in a flood...). The general idea was maintained in the new design, but it just isn't quite the same, and whenever anybody jogs or walks quickly across either of the bridges, they bounce like a trampoline which is really quite unnerving! The Happy Pontist blogged about them ::here::. 

Photograph by Mavis, editing by HouseCat

I also took some photographs of Mavis on the bridge, and she took some of me. My phone camera struggles with varied lighting, and the bright grey-white sky and reflections off the river really threw it, leaving the edges of the photos faded and my pastel hair looking almost as if it were glowing. In my edits for these photos I decided to enhance this effect and further fade out the edges. I darkened myself and the background slightly, too, in order to boost the contrast a little. The final effect makes me think of how I sometimes remember dreams; there are items, events and people who seem as clear as in reality, but then the setting seems to fade away into obscurity around them. My hair blew in the wind and went up above my head, all floofy, and my phone camera captured this really badly, so I just coloured in the blurry mix of white, brown, and turquoise with a turquoise to match my hy hair and make it look less like some weird monster had landed on my head. 

Photo by Mavis, editing by HouseCat

Mavis had never been for a proper walk around Ness Islands before, so we walked down to the bench and stoney prominance built into the flow of the river at the most upstream point of the islands, and then across all the various foot-bridges down to the most downstream end of the islands and then walked back into the town down the South bank of the river, passing lots of lovely houses and gardens, and then going up to ::La Tortilla Asesena:: for tapas. I had never had tapas food before, so that was certainly a novel experience for me,  and it was all rather delicious, especially the churros I had for desert. 

Inverness Botanic Gardens & Floral Hall

❀❁✽❀Floral Fun & Afternoon Tea❀✽❁❀

Raven, K., M., and I all met up at Inverness Botanic Gardens (which you can find out more about on their website ::here::). K. and M. are primarily into Lolita fashion, whereas I am a Goth that dabbles in Lolita. I felt like wearing a Goth outfit with Lolita influences rather than a proper Gothic Lolita outfit as it was not a proper Lolita meet-up, just a gathering of frilly friends. 

Raven and I had been to the Botanic Gardens the previous week, and Raven wanted to go back to take photographs of the flowers. Raven took most of the images here, which is why he is not in many of them. Others were taken by M. All photographs are credited in their captions.

K. took this photograph...
 of Raven taking the next photograph of K taking this photograph..

As you can see in this image, I am wearing the silver wig again! This is the wig that was cut by a stranger the last time I wore it out, and since then it was retired awaiting repairs. I sewed some wefts of replacement hair in, but the texture of the new wefts was much shinier and more synthetic, so I stopped at the bare minimum to avoid the wig cap showing. I am going to buy some better quality synthetic hair to continue the replacements. In order to hide parts where the wig cap is showing - partly because the wig has thinned with time as hairs have shed, and partly because a thick lock of hair was cut off - there are quite a few hair flowers attached to the back of the wig. I felt that the flowers went with the botanic theme quite well, so were a good way of disguising that. 

K. and M. and I kept swapping M's smartphone between us.
Photograph by Raven.  

I have a special fondness for cacti and succulents - I grow LOTS of snake plants (sansevieria trifasciata) which are currently residing with my father as there's just not space for them in my apartment, money trees (crassula ovata, also known as jade trees) and for a while grew a little cactus, the exact kind of which I don't know. I really love the bold, architectural and geometric shapes you get with many cacti and succulents. They're always very interesting to look at. Not all cacti are very spiny or spiky looking - the ones I am posing with in the picture below are actually furry, but if you look carefully, there's spines within the fur, too!

On the path down into the cactus grotto.
Photograph by Raven.

The cactus house at Inverness Botanic Gardens is on two levels, with a sunken area involving a large mirror that gives a "cave" effect, which M. and K. were sitting in front of. Raven did well to keep himself out of the mirror photograph, but did not spot me rather theatrically "sneaking" up on M. and K.! 

M. and K. giggling,  me sneaking up on them.
Photograph by Raven.

Above the cactus grotto is a path that goes to the tropical green house and past the carnivorous plant display - I quite like those, too!Of course, we did not stay indoors, and so we had a wonder around in the outdoor gardens, too. I wish we had spent more time in the tropical green-house, and that I could find the charger for my camera, because I would have loved to have taken pictures of all the beautiful flowers (and fish) in there. 

Black and white and floral.
Photograph by M. Editing by HouseCat.

The botanic gardens stretch quite a way outside - further than I had realised on our first visit. I saw this dark green shrub with huge clusters of lovely white flowers and just knew I had to stand in front of it for a portrait! This photograph was taken by M. but I did the effects and filters on it afterwards. I think the black fabric flowers make an interesting contrast with the real white flowers. 

M. and K. arrive in the magic garden..
Photograph by Raven.

There is a "Jungle Path" intended for children through some Buddleia shrubs that M. and K. decided to go through - as considerably taller than them, and wearing precarious shoes, I decided to stay outside. Raven managed to get a rather good photograph of them that makes it look like they just emerged into a magical world, and M. has such an expression of wonderment on her face in this! I like how K. is standing near pink flowers that match her dress, and M. is standing near Buddleia flowers that closer match her dress! 

Channeling my inner Khaleesi
Photograph by Raven. 

We walked up a rather narrow and rocky path (hard in high-heeled platform Lolita shoes!) to a lovely viewing point, and I tried to pose on one of the rocks. Raven managed to catch this photo of me looking imperious before the illusion of majesty was ruined by my wobbling, flailing, and needing Raven's assistance to get down off the rock. 

K. under an umbrella, looking out over the meadows.
Photograph and editing by HouseCat, using M.s smartphone.

Unfortunately it rained quite early on in our walk around the gardens, so we sheltered under a tree where there was a bench, on the little mound overlooking the wildlife meadow and apple trees. K. and M. had an umbrella to share between them, so went to explore the meadow - as yet I haven't been that far, so I certainly need to go back!

At around 16:15, we went for afternoon tea - K. and I shared a halved slice of chocolate cake because there was only the one slice left, but it was HUGE, so I just cut it in half. The Floral Hall tea room has beautiful vintage tea-cups and saucers, and mis-matched plates for cake slices, and a selection of teas. There's also old decorative tea-tins on display, and lovely tea-themed decorations on the walls. The cake was rather tasty, too! Afterwards we went for a quiet walk around Tomnahurich Cemetery, which is near by, but we did not take photographs there, as we were being far more reflective. 

All in all, it was a lovely afternoon out with friends, and I thoroughly recommend the Botanic Gardens as an attraction to visit, especially as entry to the gardens is free!