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Nostalgic weekend in Loughborough

Just a really quick post this evening, I’ve spent the bank holiday weekend in Loughborough (where I went to uni between 2004 and 2008) with the girls I lived with there – we haven’t all been together for a ridiculously long time and yet we pinged magically back into our old ways and ease with each other… a mark of true friendship, I believe 🙂 We are muchly lucky to have each other!

Here is, L-R, Val, me and Mo…

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And back in the doorway of the halls we met in, L-R Annie, me, Hols, Mo and Han.

467616_822102750088_274700197_9514338_1027252615_o  I was nervous about going back to campus (although not of seeing the girls, obviously) and while it was lovely to see all our old haunts, I don’t feel any mad desire to go back. That was then, and this is now, and the future looks even more exciting 😀 However, we definitely need to all meet up more than once every few years, so we’ve now decided the May bank holiday will be our weekend to see each other every year, even if we don’t manage it in between times. Happy Carla.

Hope all your bank holidays were as successful and nostalgic and lovely!

xxx

An extraordinary ordinary day

Today was just another day at work… only it wasn’t at all, it turned out to be a glorious extravaganza of a day. The morning was quite average, apart from a delivery of a box of feather boas for burlesque class, which massively entertained my colleagues. My desk now looks like a very pink chicken has had a fight near it.

Then lunchtime approached and my two lovely friends Naomi and Wendy, who had been up to Liberty to meet the incomparable Dita Von Teese, came to have cake with me. I met them at St Pauls station and we popped across to Bea’s of Bloomsbury

Wendy and I had red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and homemade lemonade:

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Naomi had the most beautiful (and scrumptious) triple chocolate cake, with tea (of course!):

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Having cooed over their Dita perfume and signed photographs and pictures with her, and had a thoroughly good gossip, we stopped to take a photo of these wonderful cake plates on the way:

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and then they went off to the station and I went back to work. And shortly after that, I headed off to Bonhams to set up a work event. I was taking marketing materials with me so had a taxi drive me there, and spotted this little tailor’s shop, which I really think is straight out of Harry Potter and hopefully not visible to Muggles, halfway there…

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Then on the way home from setting up I got this rather moody but lovely glimpse of the back of Harrods (which is in an area of London I usually avoid because it’s so busy!)

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Finished off the day with a lovely long chat with Lou – and my first slice of bread for almost six weeks! (It was amazing – but I gave the rest of the loaf to my neighbour to avoid temptation, hehe!)

This weekend I mostly…

Watched: Neverwhere the play and Otto the puppy

Read: craft books

Listened to: my friends laughing

Ate: an absolutely stupid amount of chocolate, curry and twiglets

Drank: wine (but not from Atlantis, sadly)

It was completely gorgeous but almost completely photo-free… The only thing I do have is this rather lovely set of Otto.

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Long dog is long...

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srsly?! I was snoozing!

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centre of attention during Articulate

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with Auntie Sar (he belongs to her twin sister and her husband)

But lack of photos aside, it was wonderful to be back in Berkshire for a bit and to see everyone. Neverwhere was amazing and I’m muchly proud of Lou for putting so much love, talent and effort into the costumes. Kelly was fab as Lamia and I even found a previously unknown coincidence with a friend on Twitter with whom I share a hometown (and we’re both ex-librarians).

Back to the real world today… I was as unimpressed as Richard Mayhew.