Henny penny

Hola amigos, long time no blog. The wedding is soon approaching, and I plan to blog the honeymoon (a month in Italy, I so can't wait), so I thought I'd better fire up the typing fingers again and check if anyone's still out there (echo... echo... echo...)

Last weekend, I had a whirlwind overnight trip to London for a low-key Hen's Do (that's a bachelorette party to my American friends). This was mostly the initiative of my friend Liz, who has recently finished breastfeeding and therefore returned to the Land of the Drinking. I was completely in the dark about what was planned for me, just hoping that it wasn't going to involve public humiliation or strippers.

I arrived in London on Saturday morning to gorgeous sunny weather and soon found my friend Caroline for a cheeky 11 am drink, and then it was off to pick up the keys to our Airbnb. London is notoriously expensive, but I had found a reasonably-priced place right off Brick Lane, a trendy and gentrifying part of East London. However, we were literally standing outside the address I had been given when I checked my messages and found that we actually had to head to a different address, about a 10 minute walk away. I'm not sure whether the bait and switch was to do with the actual building being rather less salubrious, or whether it was perhaps an illegal subletting of government housing (why not both?), but the actual location was less than prepossessing.

Our home for the night

And on the way into the building, this sign gave us great confidence:

I feel slightly better now I've noticed it was more than a year old, but it wasn't really what you want to see 

Well, safety in numbers and it wasn't actually too terrible inside, so we quickly dumped our luggage and hurried off to lunch on a lovely rooftop terrace, where we were joined by Liz, Amber and a pitcher of raspberry Tom Collins (omg, I never knew such a thing existed, be still my beating heart!)

After lunch, we had to rush back to the apartment for a mystery appointment. Laid out on the table were fishnets, a fascinator and long black gloves, so I guessed pretty quickly that we would be having a private burlesque dancing class. Now, the incorrect address had been communicated to the teacher, via her agency, in advance, necessitating some last minute calls to give the actual address. This meant, kind of understandably, the poor woman was absolutely terrified when she turned up. I think she thought we were deliberately luring her into a seedy estate where no-one knew where she was.

She came in, dressed much as you would expect in a sort of Amy Winehouse style - tattoos, short leopard-print dress, rollers in her hair - and plopped down on the very low sofa (affording us a good view of her knickers) and begged for a few minutes to compose herself. Again, I can understand her feelings - she was all alone, the address changed, the building was pretty sketchy and in a bad neighbourhood... but she proceeded to use the next 10 minutes to complain about how uncomfortable she felt and how relieved she was to see us, coupled with vaguely racist stories about another occasion where she had to give a class to a room full of "overweight black women". She repeated several times how they were black and overweight, just in case we missed how terrible this experience must have been, and then threw in some bonus remarks about being catcalled by Asian men.

Finally, she declared herself suitably recovered and stood up and started pulling off her clothes. Thankfully, she stopped at a pair of spangly hot pants and a tasselled bra. Just as the class was about to begin, she shouted "there's a siamese cat!" staring behind us at the window, 7 storeys up. We stared bewildered for a moment until it became clear that the cat was some sort of an apparition. "Did we know any of the history of the building?" Unsurprisingly, we did not. "There must have been a lot of cats in here, I can feel them." Poor Amber had just taken a mouthful of champagne and it was a good minute before she was able to stop laughing long enough to swallow it.

After these colourful beginnings, the class itself was actually not too bad. Even though it's not exactly intense dancing, it's harder than it looks to be graceful (let alone sexy, thankfully none of us were taking that part too seriously). As Caroline said, it's hard to know how to review it, since we had a lot of fun despite her being an absolute copper-bottomed loon.

Excited to be all dressed up

Sexy ladies

Fun times!

We swept up as best we could before leaving, but I suspect they'll be finding random feathers and wondering what the hell we were up to for some time to come

The rest of the do was positively sedate by comparison. After showering and changing, we headed to a local comedy club, which was amusing enough, then grabbed a bottle of wine and a classic drunk kebab to enjoy on the walk home. The bottle of wine proved too ambitious, since once we got back to the apartment we were all ready for bed at the grand old time of 11 pm (in fairness, it had been a long day, and it was midnight Belgian time).

The next day consisted of brunch, a wander through Spitalfields market and a quick drink at King's Cross before hopping on the Eurostar and back home to watch the F1 and be terrified by a GIANT spider that had taken up residence in the kitchen sink in our absence (Julien had also gone away for the weekend). Definitely a weekend to remember - and no strippers (unless we count crazy burlesque lady)!

A few loose ends

My first day off work! Next year, I go straight into my new job for six weeks or so, and then a long break in New Zealand - seems just about perfect! First, a few words on stuff I haven't blogged about/follow-ups. Yesterday I actually looked at the stats page of my blog and the post with the most hits over the last week was the last day of my trip to Ukraine in 2011. I ended up looking back through my whole trip and really enjoyed the walk down memory lane. So it's a reminder to keep blogging even if it feels like I'm the only one reading it...

• Edinburgh: One thing I forgot to say last time was how marked the differences were in security between Edinburgh and Brussels. How quickly one gets used to seeing armed police and soldiers everywhere you go! It seemed really strange to me to see the Christmas market, for example, without armed (wo)men standing guard outside. I don't know how I feel about that. As we saw in Paris, it doesn't have to be a big, well-publicised event for it to be targeted. The Sydney siege was in a Lindt chocolate shop of all places. But I suppose it's more about reassuring people they can still go places like the Christmas market and the Grand Place than anything else.

I got a few more photos from other people's cameras - my birthday brownie

I had to take a photo of a photo since I don't have a scanner, so this is not the best quality. I feel I was tricked here because Caro said "let's really go for it with the photo, none of this namby-pamby stuff" and then those two do incredibly photogenic cute little scared faces, and I'm the marauding hell demon next to them

That wasn't my only cake of the weekend. I'm so excited!

Pre-dinner silliness

C&C and our indian feast

• In "look how fancy I am" news, the other week I was invited to a party at an Ambassador's residence! I didn't exactly cover myself in glory while I was there. It was pretty crowded, so while trying to skirt around some people I managed to walk into a massive lampshade and then while trying to fix the shade I had knocked askew, I tipped my (first and undrunk) drink on the floor. That wasn't too bad, I think only the girl right behind me saw. But then the Ambassador came up to us, introduced himself by his first name and asked when the choir was going to perform. I totally didn't recognise him and (politely) said I didn't know, maybe he should ask that guy over there. Then he (nicely) said he was the Ambassador and wandered off. Oops. So this is more "why I shouldn't be invited fancy places". It was fun seeing everyone's party frocks though, and I talked to the Ambassador's wife later, who was very nice.

In Grand Place after the Ambassador's party

A fondue sandwich. What an age we live in!

Jules at the Christmas market

Light show in the Grand Place

Panorama at the Grand Place

• See how I'm not wearing a coat there? I do tend to run hot, but it's definitely unseasonably warm here. The coat has only come out on a couple of occasions, with most days getting into the low teens or at least double digits. It's like winter in Auckland! Way back in October, we even had a day in the beach at Ambleteuse in France. It was sunny and about 16 degrees, we couldn't believe it. I don't know if it's going to suddenly get cold next year, but so far it has been incredibly mild. I still can't believe the photos below are from October in northern France though!

The beach at Ambleteuse

People on the rocks looking for mussels

A feast of wine and local cheese

Catching shrimp and playing with the timelapse function on the iphone

That's about it, just counting down to a few days in Luxembourg for Christmas and then a quiet new year to recharge the batteries. Merry Christmas all!

Halloween with the girls

My lovely friends from Tours came to visit me for the Halloween long weekend (well, I had a long weekend, I don't think they did in France because the 1st was a Saturday). I threw a small party in my apartment, we ate raclette, drank a lot of wine and some Jagermeister and Red Bull and the neighbours didn't complain. Success!

This was the first year I really made an effort with a costume, and even so, it wasn't super elaborate. Jules went all out, however! We actually got the idea for his costume back when I first moved to Brussels and purchased a red rubber oven mitt from IKEA that kind of looks like a claw. He thought it looked like the claw of a certain someone and I set myself the challenge of working out a costume that sort of matched. Can you guess who we were???

Excited to see my friends coming up the stairs

Elaborate cobweb decorations in the background

Is that a fish in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

The rest of the weekend was fairly quiet. On Saturday, we just mosied about the city centre seeing what there is to see (Mannekin Pis, the Grand Place etc.) and had dinner at a pretty average place in Sainte-Catherine. Jules, Mel and I headed back to bed like good boys and girls, but Caro and Liz stayed out partying to the wee hours (oh, how I have changed that I wasn't with them - although I probably would have stayed up longer the night before if people had let me) and were subsequently "indisposed" the next day.

The girls in Grande Place

Cheers! (It looks like I'm drinking milk but it was one of those fancy hot chocolates where you stir it in. It wasn't great)

Having a post-dinner rum in Place Sainte-Catherine

Although, again, we were lucky with the weather, it was a bit cold on the Sunday and I confess I was a bit jealous when we headed out leaving the girls to order pizza and watch a movie snuggled up on the coach. Mel, Jules and I had a lovely morning though, with champagne and fishy delights at Nordzee followed by a hot chocolate AND dessert at Frederic Blondeel. Spoiled!

Mel and I tuck into champagne and fish soup at Nordzee

Brussels traffic (there's always traffic, even on a Sunday) almost made the girls miss their train, but they got out of the car and ran for it and made it home after way too short a trip. We've got to start planning the next one!

Holiday hijinks in Bath and London

Hello neglecterinos, yes I've been slack again lately and fallen a bit behind with blogging. So, quick wrap-up of what I got up to over the festive period.

First off, it was a three-train trip across to South-West England: train to Paris, Eurostar (for the first time in many years - very pleasant and it was surprisingly half-empty on Christmas Eve), then train to Bath. I had planned a lot of time between trains, mostly expecting chaos on the Eurostar, since it seems every Christmas brings its share of pictures of unhappy crowds at Gare du Nord or St Pancras, unable to get home for Christmas due to 'fluffy snow' or something. This part, however, went off without a hitch. It was only at Liverpool Street where it was confirmed that things were going quite wrong due to the floods that had hit England. I was *so* early (about three hours) for my train that it wasn't even showing up yet, but the raft of cancellations were not a good sign. Basically, there were trains every half an hour, and all the trains on the hour (of which mine was one) were cancelled. So when, two hours before, my train popped up as cancelled as well, it was no big surprise. I was at that time enjoying my first pint of cider on English soil (drinking vast quantities of cider being one of my very favourite activities on the other side of the Channel) but I decided to take a snap decision, abandon three-quarters of my poor pint and rush down to take the next train going, figuring that a train on the tracks were worth two hypothetical trains in the sidings.

With the trains either side cancelled, everyone toting suitcases and backpacks, and possibly other chancers like me hopping on far in advance, the train was predictably rammed. I spent the first hour standing in the corridor by the toilets, very uncomfortably jammed in alongside dozens of other passengers. Despite this, everyone seemed in pretty good spirits. The only slight sign of bad-temperedness I saw was one woman trying to board the already-packed train at Liverpool Street, pleading "please let me on, I'm desperate to get home for Christmas", which earned the obvious riposte of "what do you think everyone else is doing?" Other than that, not too bad and I even got to Bath early!

Christmas was quiet, just me, Liz and her parents. We started out with church at a lovely old Anglican village church. It's been a long time since I've been to church and I'd forgotten quite how much standing up is required, so I spent most of the service regretting wearing heels and wondering when we would get to sit down again. It was conducted by a Lady Priest, which was a bit of a novelty for this former Catholic girl (she was quite good, as priests go), and of course I was pleased to get some carol singing in!

Liz and me at church on Christmas Day

By about 3 pm, after lunch, the champagne and red wine were taking their effect and I was pretty sleepy! Safe to say there were no ragers for the whole trip: I basically stayed on France time, and since I go to bed every night at 10, thus 9 pm in the UK, most evenings were spent with Liz and I fighting to stay awake to a decent hour.

This was all for the good though, as it meant the next day we were up bright and early for the Boxing Day sales. Ahhhhh, England, how I love your sales! We spent about 3 hours just in Debenhams, and I think by the end of the trip I'd spent up to the tune of around 500€, oh dear. Good things were bought though! Along with my usual pretty dress fetish, I managed to pick up sensible flat boots (the first I've had in my life, but I must say I'm now a convert! Comfortable Boots Are Comfortable: hold the front page), a new trench coat, a black triangle skirt (so versatile), and the one I'm proudest of: a suit for £30! Bargain!

The suit in question

If I'm honest, the following days were also largely spent shopping & having pints of cider in pubs, but we did manage a little bit of sight-seeing too. I dragged Liz into Bath Abbey for the first time ever, if you can believe it. Her parents have lived nearby since she was a teenager, but she's not really big on that sort of thing and spent quite a bit of time sitting quietly waiting for me to finish looking around. It's gorgeous though! (I've been to Bath before but I don't think I went in the Abbey - it was just a daytrip and we saw the Roman Baths and Jane Austen's house.)

The outside of Bath Abbey

Inside Bath Abbey

The gorgeous fan-vaulted ceiling

A pretty chapel inside the Abbey

Best name ever! The Abbey was full of memorial plaques, with a high number of military men and people with connections to the West Indies (slave trade I suppose)

I found this interesting: the English calendar was reformed in 1750, changing to the Gregorian calendar and changing the beginning of the year from 25 March to January. Hence this lady's birth year needed adjustment!

An unspectacular picture of the Royal Crescent

The Bath weir

We also made a trip to the village of Bradford-on-Avon, not to be confused with Bradford not on Avon. The pub behind Liz in the photo below may be old and pretty but featured such incompetent service that we ended up leaving. I think we waited about half an hour and enquired three times, no pints were served. By the way, the South-West is cider country, and I found my new favourite, Thatchers Dry cider! Unfortunately, the supermarket we visited had none in stock, so I came back to France hauling the medium-dry variety with me, which is not the same at all :( 

It wouldn't be England without a little bit of rain

We also visited Bristol, to have dinner with Liz's brother, but not much to report from there. We saw a pretty church but we had to leave to buy Liz some phone credit after she received a text from her Dad reading "At hospital. Your mum had an accident. Getting plastered". Turned out she just broke her arm (well, that's bad enough) but the plastering involved was of the arts-and-craft variety, not the "something awful has happened, I'm getting blind drunk to cope" kind, which is a bit better! And then we went to a pub and had some more cider and checked out a lovely indoor market, where as luck would have it, there was an entire stall selling about 50 different masks, perfect for our New Years masked ball!

So that was the South-West, next stop was London for a few days. I stayed with my uni friend Amber, caught up with Rick and Kiwi Liz, visited Borough and Camden markets, popped into Tate Modern (so nice that it's free), got my hair cut and paid my respects to my main man John Gower in Southwark Cathedral. I like to think he was pleased to have a visitor who's read (some of) his stuff.

Scary church in East London. Have these people not heard of Heaven's Gate?

Gower's fancypants tomb

And then it was time to get our glad rags on for NYE. We were going, as mentioned, to a Masked Ball at the Paradise, somewhere around Kensal Green I think. I don't have particularly high hopes for NYE, but I must say it was a fun night. Not amazing or particularly different from any other night out, but fun for my first London NYE. I've got to say the highlight of the evening was probably the greasy, greasy delicious fried chicken we got on the way back (only something ridiculous like £3 or something like that). Amber and Jen were busy getting chatted up by some drunken lads and I was there just like "omnomnom CHICKEN you guys!" It made me realise that I don't think there are any fried chicken joints in France (probably Paris) other than the odd KFC. Oh my god, you are missing a trick, it was the best thing ever!

Anyway, here are a few snaps from the evening to close out the holiday report. I struggled back to France on the 2nd with an insanely heavy suitcase AND a giant sports bag I had to borrow from Liz's parents because of all the shopping! Worth it though!

Me, Amber and Jen before heading out for the evening (I don't have my shoes on yet if you're wondering)

And a little NYE selfie

Drinking cider on the tube on the way out. Pure class

Group shot at the Paradise, once the other girls finally arrived (and Charlie on the left made it over from France too!)

I have my eyes closed, but it's not quiiiiite so bad with a mask on. My mask spent most of the night on top of my head, but Amber loved hers! I think she'd wear it full-time if she could

Me, Liz and Charlie. Horrible photo, but the only one I got!

Liz loves the old "finger in the mouth" pose when she's had a few