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