Comp ON

So the one that I usually claim to be my nearest and dearest has decided that it will be a charming idea to launch a retaliation to my blog in the form of her own site www.bertie-retaliation.blogspot.com.

What a charmer.

She has come to the conclusion that she gets too much grief on my blog and so now needs to start her own in order to reply to my accusations.

So, her first rant is largely down to the disagreement in our house over Christmas that I wrote about the other day.

I think that there is only one fair way that we can judge this, so I'm going to put it up for a poll.

Vote for the co-ordinated christmas of every Miracle on 34th Street lovers dream... picture the shop window of Harrods all nicely themed to the smallest detail of Christmas elegance... or my house. Even Hannah has admitted that this may be a flaw in her arguement as mummy crouch delivers a mean Christmas with coloured themed trees in every room.

or vote Christmas vomit.

It's your choice... I look to you to make the right decision. (Poll on the right)

While your there I've also popped up a little vote on our much loved X Factor judging panel. This is another strong bone of contention amongst our house.

As my previous blog informs you all we have X Factor wars running in the Tardis at the moment. Montana is backing Louis, Charles is behind Kelly and I'm in Gary's camp. Come final day we will be donning our X Factor masks and hoping for the best. Obv due to Louis ridiculous comments Hannah's already out of the competition, but I'm sure Louis will still strive to compare the contestants to "a young Lenny Henry" or whoever he decides to pick on next, and failing that claim that the definitely have the "likeability factor" (even if it is Misha B) and endeavour to get all of Ireland/Manchester/Liverpool behind them.

Anyway, something else for you to all cast your vote on... enjoy.

Escape to the Country

On my arrival back in Farnham (otherwise known as The Farm or Farmham… so wittily named by the one and only Hollie Poole) for one night only, and for an extremely mundane trip to the Doctors tomorrow, there are some key points to notice:

1)      It’s wetter

2)       It’s darker

3)       It’s colder

No wonder farmers have a reputation for being moaners!

I can’t believe that it’s less than an hour on the train away from my house in Clapham and yet it seems to have dropped about 10 degrees.

Whilst packing for my little stop over at home I did think back to my last frostbitten trip and try to remember to pack warmer pyjamas and an extra couple of layers, but apparently that’s not enough. Last time I was also confronted by a mummy crouch that was still refusing to put the heating on. According to her this is something that she has finally relented on but I can’t say that I believe a word of it. I’m tucked up in bed wearing a hoodie & fleecy PJ’s with not only my duvet, also snuggled beneath 2 more blankets & I can safely say that the only thing keeping me remotely warm now is the heat coming off my laptop.  It’s chilly. How it takes me back to the uni days of paper thin walls and constant shivering *sigh*. If only I had my wooly hat, gloves & hot water bottle to hand.

I am quite pleased that this fact of freezingness is also scientifically proven, as according to the padre “they had a frost this morning”, so clearly it’s definitely winter now. I’m pleased we haven’t had one of those yet. My poor tulips that I planted the other day probably wouldn’t stand a chance (now who’s the country bumpkin hey!?).

Hopefully soon it will start looking more like this...

The pretty way to do freezing.

I’ve speant the last couple of months saying ‘well it’s definitely not cold enough for the time of year yet’. I guess I forget that that the last couple of winters were in Brummy land & that I only really did a half winter last year as come January I was off sunning myself in the lovely Mexico. Only downside to that was that I had the Bertram with me. That’s enough to taint any sunny day. Hmmmm come to think of it, maybe I should be relishing my evening  in the cold. A welcome break from Montana… And if anyone has seen her latest blog idea you will know why that is a relief. She got mean. www.bertie-retaliation.blogspot.com will make a delightful read for any of you that would like to hear Han’s responses to my blog.

Co-ordinated Christmas?

Finally I feel like I'm allowed to say that it's time to get Christmassy. Working in retail generally means that I've been in a Christmas mindset since July, it's actually technically Valentines day for me now. But, with X Factor nearly finishing, the Christmas music being in the shops, the decorations being up in Covent Garden, the coca cola ad being on the TV and the extreme crowds gathering in Oxford Street, it's here. Only 3 more days until the first advent calendar can be opened and we can light our all important advent calendar that has been waiting for its moment of fame since September.

We are trying our hardest in the house to hold out and wait until December before we can put the Christmas decorations up. I'm going home tomorrow and no doubt mummy Crouch will probably have the halls well and truely decked already.

How exactly we decorate the house is something that is still up for contention. Whilst I, like Mummy Crouch, like to go for a co-ordinated plan to Christmas decorations with themed rooms; gold for the living room; red for the kitchen etc. But, in contrast Han & Charlie seem to be in the "we've just thrown up Christmas" camp. We'll see what prevails. I have a horrible feeling I may be losing on this one as I am outnumbered. Maybe, I'll just let them decorate and then when I beat them home have a quick rearrange!

The other week we had a lovely little reunion with our German friend Toby. We met him in Vietnam and have had our random little meet ups in Cambodia and now London. Another one of our travelly crew that's decided to come over to England for uni & another one of the peeps that we now get to show the sights that London has to offer. We went on a trip to Covent Garden. My fave place at Christmas. Largely because of the beautifully well co-ordinated decorations that they put up at this time of year.

Not only is there a giant Christmas tree, there is also a giant reindeer, giant baubles AND giant candy canes and they're all in red. Perfect.

 Anyway, we had a lovely morning of street performances, violinists & roast Chestnuts... could we get any more British I wonder?

So we've gone from rendevouz in blazing hot sunshine with Toby, to wintery afternoons a la Londres. Hopefully it won't be too long until we can have sunshine meet ups again!

The Viking's have invaded

One great thing about going travelling is that you quickly make friends all over the world.
We met two particularly special (and crazy) Norwegian ladies in Buenos Aires that we then went on to rave it up with in Brazil & Laos. It's pretty fitting that the three countries that we managed to see them in were the messiest of all of the places that we visited. And so I introduce to you... Ingrid & Cecilie

The crazy Norwegians, how we love them.

I can safely say that we have been through thick and thin with these girls; near death experiences as we launched ourselves off zip lines and giant slides, severe alcoholism and I've even seen Ingrid squat (classy I know - she won't let me put up a picture).

And so now, due to the obvious good impression that us English girlie's have made on them Ingrid has decided to make the trip over and come to Leeds university this year :)

Which also means that we get the pleasure of her company in London every so often.

After the arrival of her friend & her other viking friend Helene chaos quickly ensued as the standard drinking games quickly began. If anyone has read my other travel blog you will remember that drinking/drinking games played a rather large part while Han & I were away. And of course this always continues when we have our travelly friends to stay.

We learnt a new one this time though... I didn't know that there were any left that we didn't know! Anyway, this one appears to be quite fatal... it's called the Bus Driver... and is probably responsible for the severe memory loss that has taken place. Basically, it involves cards and drinking... A LOT.

This also resulted in us mixing wine and vodka. Never a good idea.

Anyway, not only did we learn a new drinking games, we also had many lessons in Norwegian. I think we're pretty much fluent now. We have learnt the Norwegian drinking song, Skal! And other essentials such as, can I have a cup of tea please. Can't remember too much of that now, but oh well, I'm sure it will all come flooding back when we set foot on Norwegian soil or snow in January. We've also been teaching Ingrid to speak 'proper' English. No more American for her! She will learn to say pavement instead of sidewalk and autumn instead of fall. bookyaka.

And so after a messy night, the Vikings, their headaches and their enormous bags full of swords, shields & helmets were back on their way again.

Can't wait for the Oslo reunion!

Good Ol' Pudsey

What a way to spend an evening. Stir fry, wine, Terry Wogan & Pudsey.

 

Gotta love Children in Need. The best way to spend an evening tucked up in Tardis.

 

So far we've had highlights from every direction.

One Direction

Olly Murs

Subo

Hollyoak

A perfect evening for Laura of course. It's as if they knew I was coming. It has to be said that these highlights are needed to stop the tears a flowing as the emotive VT's roll. Any one that doesn't shed a small tear is definitely classified as a real man, or a robot, your choice. The only thing that could make this better for me right now would be Harry Potter.

The biggest highlight of all is probably seeing Montana & Charles rocking the Pudsey ears...

We always love a bit of fancy dress of an evening. We may also have a couple of bottles of wine on the go which may have something to do with the constantly welling up eyes.

So bleary eyed we continue on. Careering towards 20 million. And we're in it for the long haul. WE WILL MAKE IT TILL 2.

Fab.

 

A Little bit of Sparkle

Now its finally got freezing I've decided that it's finally time that I'm allowed to get Christmassy. Working in retail means that for me its actually been Christmas since July so I've been itching to final be allowed to get some glitter out.

At work the other day we finally got the Christmas spiced flap jacks & those funny spiced white biscuity things, I can't remember the name, but you know the ones I mean. Anway, 3 months after the Christmas Gift Guide was finished we are finally allowed to admit defeat and embrace Christmas.

That followed up with our first Christmas party invite last night (of which I am still recovering) means that it's time for a little bit of sparkle to make an appearance.

I just bought one of these new glittery nail varnishes from GOSH. I actually love it. Obviously I had to go for a christmassy green just to really finish off the theme & as its generally my fave colour. But I'm pretty impressed with it.

Thought it might be a bit complicated getting the glitter on/ without getting glitter absolutley everywhere, but it wasn't as bad as I thought, and worth it for the finished effect I think!

A Little bit obsessed with Tea Pots

So another day, means another tea pot.

Thank you Mr & Mrs Bate for our loving housewarming pressie, we love it!

I think we should start a collection... I've seen a Christmas pudding one that I have my eye on... Is it to early to go for it yet?

Can't wait to use mine

Spotted this ad in The Stylist this morning (well one similar anyway, this is the online version)...

A clever way to give dedicated Stylist fans affordable access to Topshop :) Just pull off the lucky card and receive a discount on any items ranging from anywhere between 20% & 50%. Lovely.

I have to say I'm very excited about spending mine this weekend.

In a clever marketing ploy, it's interesting to see how Topshop are trying to drive traffic into their city centre stores in the run up to Christmas & mark the occassion of their new store opening at the new Stratford Westfields... a couple of months after the centre opened might I add...

Anyway, upon seeing this on my train journey to work, in my usual morning study of whatever freebie publication I can get from the man outside Clapham Junction tube station, I also noticed that a lot of other fashion retailers seem to be following suit and dramatically slashing prices pre christmas. Tesco's price drop seems to have started quite a trend amongst all our well loved brands. Theres 30% off at Dotty P's & a massive sale on Asos just to name a few... oh how I wish that they had waited until pay weekend!

Great news for us ladies though. I have to say I'm more excited about price drops at Topshop than I am about Tesco... now lets just hope I get lucky and come in with a whopping 50% discount rather than the slightly less exciting (but still better than being a student) discount of 20%. I have a certain awards evening to attend next week... who's guessing I'm wearing some kind of Topshop creation?

One Direction, the new face of H&M?

Having just watched the video for the latest (and somewhat disappointing) follow up single to One Directions' 'What Makes you Beautiful', I have come to the conclusion that they are attempting to position themselves as the new faces of H&M....

Just look at the blend of autumnal colours, knitwear & chinos.

No more need be said...

How big a fan are you?

A hysterical sister on the phone can only mean one of two things, she's met One Direction or she's got a picture of Justin Bieber.

The Beebs has become a lot more interesting to follow recently, now he may actually be Daddy Beebs. But yet, Katie remains unphased in the adoration of this boy. His PR team have done well. She is still convinced, like many millions of other girls, that he is innocent of this and that actually his mother does not let him out of her sight, I wonder how much of this is spin. I have to say I'm looking forward to the DNA results.

Like every other teenage girl in the world she's fallen hook line and sinker for the charmer. This obsession reached new heights the other day when she received a phone call from ITV saying that she has won tickets to go and watch them film 'This is Justin Bieber'. I don't know that I have ever heard her more hysterically excited as she was when she rang me to tell me about her previous conversation.

After promptly informing me that I was too old to be allowed to go (a small detail that she revels in telling me every time I see her... 'Laura your soooo old, when I tell my friends how old you are, they all say "oh my gosh she's really old.''') I'm 22. Since when is that old?... personally I think that being this age should be enough to rate me as 'cool' in her friends books, but aparently I have supassed the cool age now, and as far as they're concerned I may as well be middle aged!

Anyway, in this case I feel my age may have saved me. Can you imagine the droves of screaming girls that will be outside of the ITV studio's when its filming time?

Not only are these girls going to be Bielebers, a breed of fan unlike any other - anyone that's seen Never Say Never will know this.

It's the most adoring 500 Bielebers in the country. Yes, thats right, these audience members can be rated as one of the top 500 most enthusiastic Bieber fans in England. I almost fear for my sisters safety amongst this crowd!

To get these sought after tickets it wasn't just a case of a quick prize draw, no no, you had to write a 500 word essay on why you love Justin Bieber. So my sister is now in the same rankings as this girl...

She has actually had the lyrics to 'Baby' tattooed on her leg alongside his signature.

WOW that's keen.

So when I received this text from Katie today containing her picture of ticket and the statement 'I can't actually breathe' and my fears were realised.

She is officially a Bieleber.

Whilst I'm partial to a casual bop to 'Baby' and found myself embarassingly intrigued by Never Say Never it still amazes me how keen the fans are! I am intrigued to hear about the crowd control, after the extreme sites at Westfield this week, I wonder how ITV will cope with 500 of these girlies!

Being the cool kid that I am, I'm no stranger to the ITV studio's. I may have got my hands on a pair of tickets to go and watch them film 'A Night with Susan Boyle' a couple of years ago. How we all love SUBO. So me and my mum trundled up to London ready for what we hoped would be a fun day out. Dressed up in our glad rags and ready for a giggle we waited for hours under our brollys, ready for the moment when ITV opened its doors and we could enjoy the show. The only thing is, that when they invite you to these things & participation is free, they like to take the piss a bit. We only got to watch a couple of songs before our audiences time was up, we were shipped out and the next set were in. Just to keep 'em fresh I guess. It was a very strange set up and one that did a pretty good job at winding a lot of people up. And me too. At least we got to see her perform 'I've dreamed a dream' which is more than I can say for the other rounds of audience members. Boooooooo.

Luckily katies flirtation with fame seems to be a bit more genuine. At least she has a proper ticket rather than a printed out piece of paper, she's even received a phone call from the studio itself, so clearly it's better to be a Bieleber than a SUBO geek.

Just chillin in the Penthouse

When asked the other day if Han and I would like a little reunion with one of our friends that we met in Laos tubing we were unsure (sorry Alice, love you really) until she mentioned a certain penthouse apartment that we may be able to go and visit her at. After this, obviously we thought we should oblige. It was ridiculous to see what a very London life actually looks like. Quite a far cry from our little house in Clapham, despite the fact that from our kitchen window we have pretty much the same view, just zoomed out a little bit! We can still see the millennium wheel, gherkin and all those other classic London sights just from the distance of quite a few miles.

However, it has to be said that it is a weeny bit different seeing it up close like that. I'm always a sucker for the city at night. Many a midnight bus ride around NY, London and many other cities on our travels confirms it... cities always look their best when they're twinkling.

This particular spot, next door but one to Mr Lee Evans (or one of his apartments anyway) with a stunning view over Waterloo and the rest of the city from one side & a glance down the Thames from the other was incredible.

That and a couple of glasses (several) of our fave el vino, good company and we were set for a pretty good night. Dreaming of what might be ... one day...maybe... if we get really lucky.

We can hope I guess.

The X Factor Wars

GAZZA vs KELLY vs LOUIS

X Factor Wars have come to the Tardis. The battle is on for X Factor champ.

I'm backing Gazza, and obviously with some quality acts like Marcus and Craig on his side (I'm going to ignore Frankie - he's got to be out soon) he's a dead cert.

Montana has decided to be in Louis camp. She's in search for 'the likeability factor' when some of us want someone thats actually good. The problem that Louis got now however, is that Kitty doesn't have the 'likeability factor' so he's probs going to have to find a new catch phrase. Maybe 'your like a young Lenny Henry' will come back to haunt him. Bless him he's cute and all that, but he hasn't got a clue!

Charlie has gone for a fairly sensible decision and is in the girls camp. Misha B has been bringing it from the start so providing her inner diva doesn't get the better of her she could be a problemo for Gazza.

Looks like no one is willing to get behind Tulisa, poor chick. Maybe she'll prove us all wrong. At least that will mean everyones kept happy in the Tardis. I fear the competition may heat up.

So let the wars commence. Cos we're mega cool our bedroom doors are asigned to our team and we'll see who comes out on top.

Who wins, You decide.



Halloween... An excuse for a photo shoot of course

Halloween generally means nothing less that an excuse for hundreds of photo's to be taken of people trying to look 'dead'. I wish I could say that Han, Charlie and I were too cool for this, but, as you would probably guess we were loving the excuse for a bit of Halloween photo action.

Poor old Charles had to go to work when we went the whole hog and dress up like versions of something dead... I was a bride, Hannah was a zombie come school girl kind of thing. Whatever the look was that we were going for, we tore up our clothes and wore A LOT of black/grey makeup and blood in order to achieve our 'dead' look.

This is us pulling our best dead face. Something to be proud of I know. Anyway, we went to a wicked halloween party. The whole house had been done out in bin bags and halloween decorations. Even a Bieber dart board, the perfect way to spend an evening.

Whilst all this decorating was pretty amazing. As with most halloween parties we speant most of the night being ridiculously antisocial and having a little photoshoot in the bathroom. I think about 2/3 of the photo's that we took that evening were in that room. Typical myspace styleee.

God aren't we cool.

Aside from this party, Halloween reached new heights for our house on Sunday. We had The Tardis Halloween.

Hours of preparation led to sausage rolls shaped like mummies, a graveyard made of guacamole and crackers, ghostly cakes, eggy eyeballs and a brain sculpted from watermelon.



I bet our Junior school teachers would be well proud of this achievement and even more proud to hear that we played apple bobbing, the weird flour game where you try and get sweets from the flour with a soaking wet face post apple bobbing & the zombie game (where you see who can wrap up someone else in toilet roll like a zombie the fastest - I'm the reigning champ!). All of this with just the three of us in the house. Shockingly it wasn't even obscenely alcohol fuelled. Just a couple of glasses of red vino (aka blood) and thats the lot. Is it obvious that my mum's an Akela?

All that, a whole house decorated, and no bloody trick or treaters! What's the deal with that!? All we got was a couple of girls from the red cross. I was so disappointed when I opened the door that I had to give them some sweets out of my skeleton bag anyway.  We thought we were going to get hundreds, we had haribo coming out of our ears in prepartion, but no, we've still got haribo coming out of our ears. What a disappointment.

Domestic Bliss: Shall we do a spot of Gardening?

 One very exciting thing about our new pad is our garden. Obviously when your ridiculously hungover after a horrible night out with Miss Hadley, the most intelligent thing to try and do is mow the lawn, there's nothing better than that droning noise for a pounding head. Only after you've had a KFC and several pints of water of course. 

It's pretty full of weeds, brambles and stinging nettles at the moment, but han and I have taken them on, and come the spring there should be (if everything goes to plan) some lovely bulbs coming out from the horrible mess that's out there at the moment.

We were lacking in gardening tools which meant that we just had to kind of dig around the nettles and pull out the few weeds that we could. Most of them have clearly been there for a while and were a bit much for our hands!

 I had a fair few stings and cuts by the end of it, namely due to the fact that still don't have any proper gardeney type tools. So, obviously in a moment of epiphany we came up with the ingenious solution that spoons would be a much better method than the traditional trowel.

It was a great idea to start with but by the end of the flowerbed challenge I was suffering from blisters & cramp. It better be worth it come March, I'm expecting something to rival the Chelsea Flower Show. Whether we've actually managed to plant any of the bulbs in deep enough to actually grow is debatable. That snow better stay away for a while yet.

We'll be doing crazy things like ironing next.... watch this space.

Our First Night

After realising that all we had in the house was a few plates and not much else to cook with it was time for the celebratory fish n chips to welcome us in our new home in true British style.

Our first dinner all sat round the table with fish and chips and pint glasses of champagne. Classy birds from the beginning of course.


Obviously, following a couple of bottles of fizz things may have got a little bit out of hand, and, of course at 11:45pm we decided that it would be a great idea to venture out into Clapham. So a speedy drag and a quick change and we were on our way. This of course means Hannah has finally lost her Inferno's virginity, not that she really remembers it.

Welcome to the Tardis

So finally a new job means a new house... Hannah, Charlie and I have touched down in Clapham in our new house, or 'The Tardis' as it has been aptly named by mummy crouch as she ran around the house, opening every cupboard shrieking "there are just so many cupboards, it's like the Tardis". So looks like the name has stuck.

There's lots to update on, I've been pretty slack on the blogging recently, but finally I have a Sunday evening with the house free, a cuppa and the time to spend catching up on X Factor (Marcus to win... I am most definitely in Team Gazza) and starting up the blog again.

So... introducing you all to life at the Tardis.

It's taken a while but we're pretty settled in now, we feel we have successfully managed to achieve the 'retro, homey' vibe (rip off Cath Kidston) in a way that is of course appropriate for a house of three 22 year old girls. Everything is print, flowers and cupcakes. We even have a cup cake shaped tea pot. Standard.

What more could you possibly need?

This is probably up there as my favourite household item so far. We also have some pretty amazing cushions but the tea pot wins top prize.

It's amazing how having a new house opens up a whole new world of purchasing possibilities. The wardrobe is definitely suffering as at the moment frying pans and dish clothes have become a bit more exciting.... sad isn't it?