bogna or london?

After a nice little suprise lunch for my madre at the Oxo tower (a must for anyone that hasn't been there) we took a little stroll along southbank. Now I know they do this kind of thing at popular seaside resorts; Bogna, Portsmouth etc, but we now have our very own taste of the seaside by the Thames.

I remeber many a Blue Peter episode where they us eto go down to the coast & help people doing these things... I'm sure me and my bro & sis have made a boat to rival Barts in our time.

 Next time I think I might give it a go and see whether how my Blue Peter aquired skills fair now, I may even make a bit of a profit, but for now, some pictures...

One Wet Jubilee Weekend

With the Jubilee festivities well and truely over and the sun shining back over London; flags, umbrellas and shoes thoroughly dried out, The Duke of Edinburgh out of hospital and the Queen tucked up in Buck Pal I'll fill you in with what I got up to over the famous weekend...

If you remember, the weekend before was probably the hottest that we've had this year, blazing sunshine, ice cream & socks with sandels parading thoroughout London, all excitedly looking forward to what was going to be a momentous weekend ahead.

We packed up our desks on Friday evening, and trundled off for what was going to be a splendid 4 day break of Britishness.

First job for a rather bleak looking Saturday... rendevouz with the Northern bestie... Sophie. She came down all the way from up north... to sample to the Jubilee in true London style. Obviously it was necessary to start the weekend with a bit of a bang, so to Infernos we go (of course).

Luckily Chaz & Hazza turned out with their best pal Biebs to kick off the weekend in style.

This little excursion probably made our disappointment a little bit worse when we woke on Sunday morning, heads hurting, to see the pouring down rain. To be fair we wanted a British weekend, and what weather would be more appropriate?

So layered up, we, and the rest of the country headed towards Embankment to brave the weather and the crowds to get that sort after glimpse of Queenie.

We had originally planned to meet up with another one of the uni crowd, Kate, at Embankment station... obviously the most sensible plan (not). As a bit of advanced warning for the Olympics... NEVER agree to meet at a tube station... especially if Westminster Town Council are going to decide to turn the whole of London into some weird pedestrian one way system. Granted it all seemed very 'safe' but my god was it annoying. We never found Kate, so the poor girl had to wait and then watch the boats all on her lonesome. We wont be doing that again!

Soph and I couldnt get down to near the river, so we took a new vantage point... Waterloo bridge. Luckily we'd had this idea just in time to get to the front of the crowds (why no one had already gone there I will never know), but it allowed us to secure an optimum viewing spot whilst battling it out with some crazy French woman determined to maintain a foot of space all around her... I know we're British but we don't do personal space or queuing when the Queens about!

Anyway, spot sorted and the wait begins... for an hour and a half... in the cold... luckily we had our flag to keep us warm

After watching the clock for blimmin ages, (I reckon they positioned Big Ben there just to rub it in your face when you're stuck waiting on Waterloo bridge, the time moves S L O W) the boats finally started to rock up, at which point the people in the posh seats decided to stand up... helpful.

Obviously the rest of the crowd were not going to stand for that, they'd come from all over to see this, so promptly started jeering for the 'people in the posh seats to let the poor people see'. Initially I thought we may have another riot on our hands, but no no, the Jubilee draws a much nicer crowd & it just turned out to be a little bit funny.

Despite our best attempts only a couple of people sat down, so these are my best efforts at catching a glipse of the boats...

And then off we trundled to take on the masses awaiting public transport... Well us lot do love a good queue in the pissing rain

Luckily, being residents, we were going the opposite way to most people, so time to sack off the street parties that were being cancelled left right and centre and head to Kates for a decent cuppa and to decide on the festivities for the evening... yup you guessed it, Infernos.

Luckily the rest of Clapham had the same idea, so we dreamt of warmer pastures at an ironic 'Hawaiian night'

Watch Sophie go...

Monday was finally street party day! We headed to Shoreditch to join the cool kids at the Water Poet pub for a Royal Variety Show and a couple of ciders. Finally I got my photo that I had been after all weekend...

Bunting *check*

Union Jacks *check*

Red Double Decker Bus *check*

Balloons *check*

And of course the fun didn't stop there, we were off to St James park to watch the concert, why would you not want to go half way across London to watch Chezza strangle the cat? Tbf most of it was pretty good, but Chezza, as much as I love you, never sing with Gazza, he's only going to show you up (you still looked bufftang though).

We made it in, got our spot and Hans tum started a rumbling. The lovely girlie that she is sent her on a mission out in search of food... and then the stupid police men wouldn't let her in. Another lesson learned, NEVER separate on a Jubilee weekend. We lost her, and she missed the concert :( Luckily we were reunited in time to head shoreditch bound again, but gutted that we were a man down, espesh when she's rocking such a wonderful head dress.

So that was our Jubilee weekend... and it was definitely a good one, despite the rain, we're British so soildered on and did Queenie proud. Thank God we only had a 3 day week to get through after all that!

London looking pretty in the sunshine

If only it had been looking a bit more like this weekend!

A Day at the Races

So a couple of weeks ago, Gill, one of my nearest and dearest, had a bit of a brainwave idea for her birthday... a day at the races.

Most of the week before was spent with me excited but quietly dreading the event as the weather could be described as nothing but typically British. I had visions of being freezing cold, standing under and umbrella as the rain ruined my frock and hair while my heels sank unsophisticatedly into the grass.

Luckily, I woke up on Saturday morning to blazing sunshine.

Several outfit of amends later - obviously I had planned a wet weather outfit - and I was out of the door and off to Ascot.

The journey was a slightly traumatic one. This can probably be summed up in one word.... Twickenham.

Yes we decided to go to Ascot on the one weekend of the year when the trains are beyond packed with thousands of drunk Rugby fans (or people that want an excuse to dress up in 70's outfits and hit the booze at 10am). I got to the platform in time for the first train to Ascot to be rammed full of Rugby fans, with no more space for us Ascot goers dolled up in hats and heels. But, after a half and hour wait, I finally made it onto the train.

I thought my drama had stopped there.

Turned out it was the wrong train. So I ended up having a nice alternative route to some town I don't remember the name of and then finally jumping into a taxi with some other peeps (again how very 'British' that some gentlemen offered me a ride in their cab to the races). I may have been about an hour late, but finally I had made it.

Before I went to Ascot, I had decided that I would put a limit on how much I spent with a pocket for the winnings and a pocket for the losses. Within about 1 minute of me being there I think this theory went out of the window as I realised it's actually really not that easy to win anything at the races!

I thought that I would pretty much definitely come away with something, but how wrong I was.

I'm proud to say that I won a whole £2.53 across the whole day thanks to this little beaut (carefully selected due to my extreme knowledge of horse racing, and definitely nothing to do with the four leaf clover they had clipped into his hair). In comparison to the rest of the group actually wasn't all that bad, some lucky members managed to walk away with a grand total of zero.

Luckily, despite all the loosing, peeps were still smiling and we had a pretty good day out... Happy Birthday Gilly x

As if my hair needs anymore ooomph...

I haven't done a product recommendation in quite a while - I thought I hadn't discovered anything particularly new or exciting recently.... until I remembered a little gem that I found the other day.

VO5 Give Me Texture Oomph Powder.

I would be lying if I said I didn't have a ridiculous amount of hair, and not much need for giving it a bit of 'ooomph' but even I have been sucked into an odd bit of backcombing prior to a night out, followed up with a lot more of it in the toilets at the club... totally unable to understand how it can have gone so 'flat'.

Well, I have a solution ladies. Try VO5's oomph powder. It works a treat. Just shake the powder near the root of your hair, give it a bit of a scratch with your finger tips & the powder will take on a kind of glueish texture giving you an instant result similar to a good 10 mins of back combing.

The best thing is that unlike backcombing this stuff doesn't fall out... just 'shish' throughout the night and the powder will spring back into life, meaning that you never have that flat feeling again.

I've heard about products like these before, but usually they're v expensivo. Luckily this ones under a fiver and lasts forever, definitely cheaper than buying a million bottles of hairspray in an attempt to give your hair a bit of vavavoom and ending up with a straw mess.

Perfect.

The Tardis does Easter

Another seasonal occassion, makes for another big event in the Tardis.

Of course there was no way that easter was going to happen quietly, particularly as there was a Bertram involved.

I thought that Tardis Easter would just be roast dinner, east egg hunt and an all important egg toss... but no. It turned into an art and craft eggstravaganza (YES got the token pun in). You can always rely on Mont to pop into the 99p store and come back with some delight (Valentines day bought us slap and tickle sets and fluffy handcuffs) and Easter bought Easter bonnet making sets and terracotta pot decorating kits. WE ARE TOO COOL.

Charlie really got involved as you can tell...

That's the bonnets... we also have pots for our herbs...



Charlies ocean marine theme

Laura goes seasonal



Hannah makes Charlie look like John Macenroe

Following our eggcellent (yes I did it again) creativity the evening divulged into us lot in the garden chucking eggs at each other and turning the whole house upside down on our egg hunt. The Easter bunny takes no prisoners when you're older & decide to make the egg hunt into a proper comp. I reckon it took us about an hour to find all of the prizes in the end... and we had to give clues...something tells me that we may be a little bit competitive in our house.

Run London, Run!

Having now moved up to London, I'm trying to cross off as many 'London' events from my list of 'things to do one day' as I can.

So today it was the London Marathon. I'm afraid running the London Marathon does not feature highly on this list, but going to watch one has.

Luckily I woke up (all be it slightly hung over) to a lovely sunny morning, perfect weather for some marathon watching. Sun glasses in tow, I was off down to embankment ready for some whole hearted British clapping and whooping.

We found a nice little spot about a mile away from the end just by Big Ben and Westminster.

I was sooo impressed with everyone that went past us. I only saw one chunder and a couple of limps, (oh and a mankini) but for 25 miles in I thought that was pretty impressive. Walking 26 miles seems daunting enough to me, so running is probably just a bit mental. But, good on the peeps that did it.

I was impressed with the peeps that were running it, but I was even more impressed with the crazy fools that decide to take on the fancy dress costume.

I saw people carrying cave man clubs, golf clubs, flags and god knows what other props STILL at 25 miles. I would've gotten rid of that idea about 0.5 miles in.

 And then there were those others that went for the full on outfit...

The costumes did not disappoint.

Only disappointing thing was that I failed on my mission to spot a famous person, damn. Next year... I'll find one

4:48 Psychosis

The other day I went to watch the lovely Bateman and the rest of her Fourth Monkey crew in 4:48 Psycosis, a play written by Sarah Kane. Before going to watch I have admit that I was bracing myself for a bit of emotional turmoil throughout.  The lines that Charles commonly quotes around the house such as 'at 4:48 it will end', 'you don't need a friend, you need a doctor' and 'fuck the lot of you' and some of the psychology books that she's been reading meant that I wasn't expecting it to be particularly uplifting and was scared that I may leave theatre with a scarred soul.

However, Fourth Monkey theatre company, who Charlie has been spending every waking hour with recently, did a phenomenally thought provoking interpretation of a script that seemed near impossible to work with at the beginning of the process.

Under what sounds like some directional genius from Steve and Dave, the spectacle produced was incredible. I've always been a fan of Miss Bate (and who wouldn't be) but she has flourished in this company, producing some of the best work I've seen her do, and I'd like to think I've seen her do quite a lot having studied drama at uni with her. The whole cast worked beautifully together to produce some stunning ensemble work (my fave was flash flicker guys, it was worth the pain) that really bought such a complex psychological exploration to life and to a point where the audience is able to understand and engage with it.

This teamed up with costumes and make up that all worked seamlessly with the interpretation, enhancing the sterile and clinical nature of the piece whilst still incorporating the fantasy world of Kane's Psychosis met for an all round brilliant piece of work.

I can safely say that every member of the cast is one to watch for the future, and having partied till the early hours of the morning with them last night, it couldn't be a bunch of nicer people.

Watch out for the monkeys... They'll be in Edinburgh this summer... I'm booking my ticket now.

Shit People Say in Clapham

To quote Hannah "I think I have said, or heard someone say every single line in this video"

It's so shameful, but so true... we heart Clapham

Confession time...

1) I have been to The Grand
2) I have been to Infernos on a few (several) occasions
3) I have bought a gym pass on Groupon
4) I have rejoiced about the Salisbury's being open
5) I have been told to go to Hot Power Yoga
6) I have been told about Boot Camp on The Common
7) I have thought about Clapham High Street not being a station
8) I have been shocked to see what Infernos looks like in the daytime
9) I have a friend that had to go back and collect a coat from Infernos
10) I have a friend that has dated post Infernos


There's only one thing left to do

Go and witness the fitness on the common

Lady of Leisure

The madre came to stay and we ended up lapping up some serious luxury...

I am VERY excited to say that a couple of weeks ago I got to stay at this beast over the weekend (good work daddy crouch with the free points... obviously I could not afford such an extravagant gift for my mums Christmas pressie!) BUT one spa day ticket for the madre later, and we've ended up with a lovely night away on the Thames.

Anyway, we had a nice day trip out on Sunday, shopping and generally mooching around Covent Garden, watching some poor street entertainer attempt to bring out a crowd in the freezing cold and then back to the hotel for a bit more spoiling.

The view from our room was amaze, we managed to wangle an upgrade, the beauty of being female....

And check out the view on that beast.

The next day it was time to treat ourselves at the spa.

I have to say I'm mega jel of the mother though... I booked her a 30 minute massage, and, when phoning to book I was asked whether a male massuse would be ok, to which I promptly replied YES... and then I found out his name is Danielle... Immediately I knew this would be a wise decision, conjouring up images of a beautiful tanned French/Itallian male, however the madre informs me that he was not a French God as we had originally hoped. Disappointing, but he did a mean massage so we'll forgive him of his British origins. I speant the morning taking advantage of all the other facillities, sauna, steam room and jacuzzi and so feeling thoroughly pampered it was time to leave.

I don't think I could do it full time, but being a part time lady of leisure would be a little bit lovely.

Strewth Mate... Aussies are back

I have noticed a running theme that seems to have returned into my life for February...

the Aussie charm.

Now most of my friends will know that I am no stranger to the odd Aussie accent and regularly dapple in Aussie slang, but this was a fair old while ago, largely inspired by those lovely peeps down at The Bat and Ball. We revelled in serving customers with Aussie accents and of course always got extra little bit of excitement when we actually got to serve real life Australians whilst rocking a bonza accent.

So when Grace introduced me to the world of Bogan Bingo of course, like any self respecting Bat and Baller I was loving it...

Aussie, 80's themed retro bingo

What a fantastic idea.

The two presenters were amazeballs... largely because they were dressed up like this...

But also because their hillarious mockery of all things Aus (they were actually Australian which makes this ok) was incredible.

Having to pic your winning prize from a board of images such as that dog out of Neighbours (no I cant remember the name), Jesus (because he has a mullet and therefore must be Australian) and Skippy pretty much sums up the tone of the evening, as does the air guitar competition that is taken VERY seriously at half time followed up with a slow mo victory walk for the winners.

Obviously after a couple of bottles of wine this makes for an amazing night out & gives you enough quotes to annoy everyone at work for days after.

Comedy Gold.

If anyone comes to Clapham, make sure its on a Thursday & I'll see you at the Underdog.

The reigniting of the Australian flame in my life has also been followed up with the decision to create our very own Harry Potter from down under. I'm sure you will be as disappointed as I was to know that the fact that you can watch Harry Potter in Australian on the DVD does not mean that it is subtitled with "G'day mate" and all the other aussieisms that we know and love. As a result of this cruel realisation we thought it would be a good idea to do Disney a favour and create our own version.... we have a wonderful character list including faves Ringo, Dingo and Shane (Ron, Hermione and HP), Steve Irwin (Dumbledoor) and Karl & Susan Kennedy (the Weasleys). And highlights to include the first BBQ at Hogwarts (The opera house), pints of fosters down in Ramsay Street (butter beer in Hogsmede) and the rise of Hugh Jackman (Lupin, the werewoolf).

Filming is to commence in the coming weeks... watch this space.

New fave advert

And unsuprisingly it's from T Mobile once again... these guys can't put a foot wrong in my books... I swear the only ads that I ever share are from them!!

Sooooo now here's the question...

What else does Britain love?

Oh what a wonderful facebook campaign I see ahead, can't wait to see what they come out with pre olympics, and fingers crossed they'll be another spoof for the Jubilee... we can hope it will be Kate & Wills eat your heart out

How to do a Soup diet

What could be better that coming home from the freeeezing cold to find a nice steamy bowl of home made soup, Hannah's very own homemade savoury muffins AND some creme fresh... what a delight.

Whilst most of the time that girl is nothing but horrible... now she has excelled herself. Charlie you picked a baaaad day to be in Bristol my friend, this soup is delish.

This is how to do a soup diet... if I had Hannah to follow me around making exciting soups all day I think I could join all those new year crazies on the famous soup diet that is sweeping our offices at the moment.

Out of pretty much the whole team that started it... one remains. And she has a holiday booked to Florida as motivation for that bikini bod.

That's an idea... maybe I should just get a holiday booked ... that would save Hannah the chef duty.

A Beautiful Ending

So I have found my latest product love.... introducing Herbal Essences Beautiful Ends range.

I am not normally one for believing in the usual rubbish about one type of shampoo being far superior to the rest. As far as I'm concerned, they all do the same job & are basically the same stuff in different packaging. My hair is always a nightmare & I thought that I just needed to accept the curse of the gene pool and move on.

Well... my opinion has changed now that I have discovered one of Herbal Essences latest triumphs.

My hair is well known for being frizzy, wild and generally unmanageable (I was nicknamed bog brush at school). And with such frizz, this comes with its fair share of split ends. Since coming back from travelling this has been a particular problem. Months of sun, sea and sand *sigh* definitely took its toll on my mane & I've not been able to do too much about it since returning to the UK. Han & I resorted to coating our hair in some Thai seaweed potion every night prior to our arrival back in the UK, but it would appear that wandering around looking like Elphaba did little to resolve the issue.

But no more!

I've started using the whole range of this product that focuses on repairing your split ends. It's amazing to find a simple shampoo and conditioner that pretty much does the trick. Whack on an intensive conditioner and leave in conditioner every now and then and Kate Middleton tresses here I come!

And its not even just the split ends that it sorts out... my hairs soft, its shiny, its smooth... Herbal where have you been all my life!?

So a beautiful ending to my years of shampoo & conditioner woes, finally the quest for the perfect product has finished and I will not be turning back!

All the Way from Norway

Last weekend as a celebration of our travelling anniversary, Han & I hopped on a plane to Norway to visit our friend Cecilie that we met with her other Norwegian cronie in Brazil & then proceeded to rendezvous at various other locations across the globe.

More info on this can we found at my other blog that I wrote while we were away...

http://www.laurasayshelloworld.blogspot.com/2012/01/travelly-anniversary.html

So I won't bother boring with repeats of these details.

I will, however share with you an extremely exciting new addition that we have to our house all the way from the land of the vikings.

How my mother is going to kill me when she sees these! Mwah ha ha ha ha