Wow

Just wow.

I'm not sure there are any words, but if you watch this video of Pink dancing/acting/singing/being amazing at this year's American Music Awards and find some, then please do send them over.

Two thoughts:

1. When I grow up, I'd like to be as talented as one of Pink's little toes.
2. What kind of idiot guy would take on this girl and expect to win?

pix from here

My (crazy) month: June

Where did it go? How is it almost half way through July? Time flies when you’re having fun I suppose. And time also flies when you are the busiest you’ve ever been. I feel like I should do a quick post to explain why I haven’t had much time for blogging recently (aside from the fact that I haven’t had any wifi for the last two weeks) and provide a little catch up. Also, check out my Instagram feed for all the details in picture form.

 
Work went ker-aaaaay-zeeee with several massive events and projects, there were more birthday celebrations than you can shake a stick at and, what was that other thing? Oh yes…

WE MOVED HOUSE!

Well technically we did the actual moving out in May and the actual moving in on the first day of July (with possibly the most painful hangover known to humankind), but June itself was spent living in my parents’ spare room and doing all the house moving admin. I’m not going to sugar coat it. It was HARD. It was frustrating, it was stressful, it was draining and it got uh-ger-ly. But we all survived and came out the other side unscathed. Well most of us. There was an injury of sorts...

Hmmm

Anyway, enough about the hideous dramas associated with house buying and selling and a bit more about the fun stuff we did in June.

I started the month with two weddings, a thirtieth birthday, an after party and a Diamond Jubilee party. I was pretty chuffed with the outfits I managed to put together, in my homeless state, as well.

Later that same week we celebrated one of my besties, Claire from Wacey Style, getting engaged. Prosecco, canapés and lots of ooooooh-ing and aaaaaah-ing at her beautiful bling. Check out her engagement story here! I was also excited to finally get a partner in the regular "OH! SISTERS!" shot with the Disney Princesses at the Two for Ones as my sister-in-law Kate came along to play.

I treated myself to a well-earned day of rest with a facial and a full body massage and I finally got to sit still for ten minutes with tea, cake, sofa snuggling and made my boy treat me to a thai takeaway. I felt absolutely 0% guilty about my self indulgent laziness! The following week another bestie turned 30 and we had a refined affair with dinner in a local hotspot, The Blue Bridge in Writtle. Sadly, the Beckhams weren’t there that evening. Hmph (and sorry for that link).

I got a little bit excited when the lovely Rebecca posted my review of Dinner by Heston Blumenthal on her blog, Florence Finds. I think three of my friends booked tables after that! I think the restaurant owes Rebecca some commission!

I got my wellies out of storage (what a stroke of luck we could find them!) at the weekend for some field dancing at LOVEBOX in honour of another friend’s 30^th birthday. I had every intention of seeing lots of the acts, but ended up taking pictures of my friend in a giant Hunter welly, sticking a false moustache to my fave and dancing on a stage with a bunch of drag queens in a fake NYC club tent until someone dragged me to see Groove Armada. We also coined our new girls-only-night-out motto of “Drink. Rave. Attack!” I’ll let you work out what that means.

A little tiny bit of downtime followed, only to ramp back up again for a full on weekend to celebrate some more birthdays. Friday afternoon saw copious cocktail consumption at Pearl atthe Chancery Court Hotel on a girly lunch date, Saturday was filled with a big family brunch and a walking tour of the city of Westminster, a spot of lunch and then a Grim Reaper tour in east London, all in honour of my mum’s birthday. Sunday was a day full of cake, bubbles and Barbie cars as we celebrated my beautiful god daughter’s fourth birthday followed by my last family roast dinner before “leaving home” for the second time in my life.

On Thursday 28^th June we finally took ownership of our new home, exactly 6 months to the day after we started our property search and putting our flat on the market. On the Friday Mr G went to collect the keys and went in with a crack team of cleaners (my mum and my mother-in-law) to get it all spick and span for me to swing by after work and check out my new home.

It felt strange, exciting and a bit emotional. I wrote about it.

That night we celebrated with prosecco and macaroons. Of course!

On the last day of June we celebrated yet another 30^th birthday with another bestie, Kim B (we actually are the Essex answer to the Spice Girls you know!) which involved ridiculous amounts of prosecco and bespoke (and at some points, two-for-one) cocktails at The Marylebone. That place is lethal I tell you. After drinking dangerous amounts of cocktails we (apparently, so my camera tells me) made our way to Proud Camden for some dodgy sofa dancing, floor crawling and lots and LOTS of falling over on cobbles, sofas, steps and (mainly me) flat floors.

We shall talk no further on this subject (mainly because I can’t!).

**I know the next two days aren’t technically June but despite my OCD, I’ll tell you about them quickly anyway**

The next day, with THE world’s worst hangover, I held it together just long enough to put on leggings, Uggs (in july!!!), a hoodie and sunnies and project manage both our families moving our entire life back out of storage and various garages and sheds and in to our new home. We said a small thank you and christened Mr G’s spaceship-sized 30th birthday BBQ. Sadly, as we had no bed at this stage, we took ourselves back to our temporary camp site at my parents’ house and collapsed by about 9pm.

Monday saw us move all the final bits and bobs in to the house, build our bed and do a lot of sitting on the floor as various people stopped by to check out the new pad. I left Mr G alone to undertake one last celebratory event with Kim B consisting of Thai green curry and cupcakes before spending our first night alone in our new home.

I want to say “ahhhh bliss”, but really it’s a bit “ahhhhh, mess” right now.

The bliss bit is on its way…

…and i’ll be blogging about every last step!

Ciao ciao June. Hello July!
xoxo

The biggest party on Earth*

Tomorrow, the biggest party on earth, the Rio Carnival kicks off.

This time last year I was sitting in a bar on a street corner (curiously christened Corner Bar, by us, over the course of the week) with my mate Kim sipping probably my 15^th Caipirinha and wondering if the rocket-fuel strength would eventually numb the pain of my ridiculous sunburn. 

So original

I was at Carnival and it was going to ROCK!



Major Brazilian food group

Day one had consisted of arriving late at night, complaining about our room, moving twice, sleeping for about twenty minutes, jumping up, seeing sunshine, grabbing our bikinis and heading straight to Copacabana beach for general guidebook reading, Brazilian flag sarong purchasing, beach seller shooing, copious Caipirinha drinking and then almost psychotic levels of Haviana flip flop purchasing (we realised we had no cash or cards on us to enable to purchase the seven pairs each we attempted to) en route home to get ready for our welcome meeting (“stay off the beach after dark, don’t lose your Sambadrome ticket, it’s like gold dust, speaking of which BUY GLITTER!”) and our “getting to know everyone else on the tour” buffet dinner.   

It rained a lot!

On that day we also got so sunburnt I can even describe the pain or hideousness it caused. So I won’t!

Our third Amigo, Michaela, arrived later that night whilst we were asleep (one of the only times we actually slept whilst the mood was out!) and we found our little group complete.  

amazing what you can find on the streets of Rio

Over the coming days our time was a blur of visiting Sugar Loaf Mountain in the pouring rain and seeing nothing but clouds; dancing amidst complete carnage and madness under the Lapa arches (more rocket fuel caipirinhas helped) in samba clubs, in roadside cafes, in the back of taxis and barefoot in puddles in the street; snatching a three-second glimpse of Christ the Redeemer as the clouds cleared at the top of Corcovado Mountain, and cracking up as we, as the complete originals that we are, yelled “JESUS CHRIST” at the top of our voices (and for the rest of the trip at every opportune moment); taking an opinion-changing trip in to the Favelas to meet a group of young artists and their global phenomenon miniature Favela (we refused to do the “human zoo” style tours); more street dancing as we found the first of many street parties; feeling completely bemused by some rather mediocre football after buying the wrong tickets (a.k.a. duped!),  but loving the local fans’ enthusiasm and chants; getting dressed up in bits and pieces of discarded costumes from the official carnival route so we looked, erm, colourful as we walked the red carpet at the Gay Gala Ball – the biggest and craziest of all the carnival balls and, in fact, probably ever; consuming nothing for days save for Tangfastics and M&Ms from home, chips whilst standing in the street and breakfast at 8am on our way home from some street party or other, oh and the strongest caipirinhas ever tasted; being flabbergasted at the sheer fancy dress brilliance displayed by every person in Rio (even commuters) over the Carnival weekend; watching street dancers perform Capoeira in the streets by Ipanema Beach, seeing our new friends on the TV in our room as they performed in the carnival dressed as peacocks (the single biggest regret of my life is not paying the extra $500 to join in!); looking at the Rio skyline from Guanabara Bay on a big group boat trip; and finally, attending the main night at the Sambadrome.



Ticket to the craziest party you'll ever go to!

The Sambadrome. Blew. My. Mind.

 

Feeling the samba vibe!

I think we got there at 9pm and the party started at about midnight as the Premier League of the country’s samba schools sent their entries down the half-mile strip.

There are a number of schools that compete over the course of the weekend and each school has their own time to parade and their supporters, much like football fans, know what time they’ll come on and arrive in the school’s colours and cheer and dance and sing along to the school’s chosen song for the strict 45 minutes (I think) that they have to make their way along the strip. Fireworks would announce the moment that the first dancer from the school had entered the strip and then the same tune plays until the last dancer leaves. And they sing and play it all live! Wowzers! Each school has to have a number of different components in their parade, there are strict section boundaries, dancing areas and choreographic requirements, there are specified roles for each dancer, singer (even for the tourists who pay to partake – you can’t let the side down!) and float. The dance, song, costume choice and story all have to gel as part of one over arching theme. There’s just so much more to it than dancing down the road and I wish I’d read up on it before I got there… for a person like me, who LOVES tradition and history, it was just mesmerising to watch, and hear, and FEEL!

Life regret: not taking part in Carnival

I can’t even put in to words the energy in that structure. For seven hours straight the three of us stood (and sometimes sat) on the concrete steps at the end of the strip and samba’d our hearts out. We watched the sun set and rise over the surrounding hills, we watched Cristo Redentor appear in the distance as the sun went down and his illuminations switched on, we ate questionable burgers, we pilfered some crazy head gear, we got soaked as it started to rain, but my word did we have the times of our lives.

When I flew home (alone, the other two amigos stayed on for a few extra days) I truly felt like I’d been on a life changing trip. Not least because I felt like I’d never be able to summon those energy levels again, or that I’d ever recover from the extreme exhaustion that I felt (not to mention the three respiratory infections I contracted in the aftermath).



Our Havianas at home on Copocabana

I still look back in sheer disbelief at how lucky I was to experience such a thing. Sometimes I pinch myself as I’m sure that it was all a dream, but I know that it wasn’t.

The feathers and glitter I keep finding in my flat are the first clue that it was most definitely real.

And the shivers that run down my spine when I hear, and feel, that samba beat remind me that even my wildest dreams couldn’t top that reality.

Completely C-Rio-azy!!

Check out my pictures here

* except for my birthday, oh and my wedding, obvs!