An Old friend in London Town

What I’ll remember most about yesterday was the soaring temperature, the dry air and sticky skin, fidgeting and grinning from overwhelming excitement and anticipation and the shear relief of hearing an almost lost voice and having a hug I have missed. The last time I was in London was a little under a year ago and last time I saw Kat was a little over 2 years and 2 weeks ago. I love both immensely, for wildly different reasons but I don’t see either as much as I would like.

Kat was my roommate while I was studying in America, I hadn’t shared a room since I was eight and despised the idea of having no solitary escape. Kat made having a roommate not only bearable but a wonderful part of my experience in America. She made what had been a sparse and gloomy room, home by filling it with trinkets, colour, noise and friendship. When I finally returned to Britain and my own room, I felt like someone had ripped away part of my being, she had been such a big part of my life it was odd to now have a life and a room without her.

I can’t remember ever really doing the tourist thing in London but who could say no to that chance and seeing an old friend?? London has never disappointed me but to look at everything through the eyes of a traveller was incredible. No one cares that it is over crowed, with people rushing or the expense; we were idle and easy going, swapping stories, answering question (seriously who knew I could regurgitate so much crap about the Royals) and filling her in on a whistle stop tour of London and Britain’s culture and quirks.

We started at London Bridge before following the South Bank of the Thames to the Globe. I love it at the Globe there is so much history there and the white round architecture always amuses me. We than went next door to the Tate, which I have to say is an extraordinarily ugly building considering it houses some beautiful art work. Yesterday they also had a BBQ outside, expensive but good. We followed the burger with a walk across the Millennium Bridge (the one that gets destroyed in the Harry Potter films) to S. Pauls on the opposite side of the river. This is a stunning building and the  gardens at the beginning of summer smell fantastic. We strolled up The Mall to Buckingham Palace and down The Mall to Trafalgar Square where we people watched whilst discussing education, politics, art, music and sports just like when we were hiding in our room pretending to work.  We found time to squeeze in a visit to  St. James Park, Piccadilly Circus before it got dark and we arrived in Leicester Square  it got dark and finally we ate at a proper English pub (or at least as proper as it gets in London).

I loved every moment of it even when my camera died, particularly that I was acting like a complete  tourist. When I go to London I go to shop, to the theatre or an exhibition, for work, I don’t see London, it’s just another city. I adored yesterday because I felt like I was seeing bits I had missed and because I was with amazing people. I was with Kat and in a prolonged moment of a day, doing all those things was so much better. So here is the upside to being a bit older, I can afford to go to London and buy my friend dinner. I can spend the day doing nothing and it be a wonderful guilty pleasure because I can drop everything and still go to work the next day. I’m now old enough to have a friend from years ago who lives in a different country and maintain it.   

White dresses and a level up in the game of life.

My friend has moved her wedding forward by a year from September 2013 to September 2012. I’m sorry to say I was first in there with the unoriginal question ‘Are you Pregnant?’ I couldn’t help it. I am vastly ecstatic because they got engaged and then the wedding seemed so far away, now it is the highlight at the end of my summer, let alone theirs. The bride is a wonderful friend from university and her fiancée is fab, I spend a large amount of time in their spare room when I’m visiting friends in trade for a bottle of wine. I have spent many happy hours with them and I can’t wait to see them marry, I plan to cry a sea of tears and drink way too much in their honour. They are a couple that is so established in my world that if they separated I’m sure the universe would rip at the seams.

 

The dresses

I’m not going to be a bridesmaid; however I spent the weekend wedding dress shopping with the bride to be and her mother. Would you believe it, the first dress, in the first shop was just perfect and nothing else after could measure up. This didn’t stop her trying on lots of dresses, I watched her try on white gown after white gown and started to feel, well, a little odd. I have never really wanted to get married, I was always in the train of thought that if you loved someone and wanted to spend your life with them just do it, why do you need a piece of paper to prove that you do or will. It’s not like in today’s society it means a lot, every marriage seems doomed to fail before it has started. Despite my cynicism and my generation’s apparent determination to devalue marriage, I always feel overwhelmingly happy when someone tells me they are going to tie the knot, I think it’s because in that moment that person seems incandescently happy. In the bridal shop, staring at mountains of white, cream, ivory, satin and lace I started to wonder if I wanted a big white dress? I can’t imagine thinking I could spend the rest of my life with anyone, let alone wanting or even choosing someone to do that with. Just because I can’t imagine it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like it, it doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t make me content, it just means I have to do some serious revaluation of what makes me happy.

Everyone around me is in long term relationships, engagements and marriage. Me? Well I joined a Facebook group called ‘My friends are getting married, I’m getting drunk’, yes this is probably childish but it feels like I’m playing a game and I just went up a level in difficultly. It feels like I’m getting old and this doesn’t sit well with me, do I have to start checking for glinting gold bands on the left hand every time someone I am remotely attracted to starts talking to me? I am going to start getting sympathy looks every time I say I’m single, watching a small flash of fear in their eye as they panic I’m might burst into tears over my singleton status or even worse they might catch singletonitis? Or heartbreakingly worse am I going to be deserted, left behind by my friends? Is there room in married life for the single girl chasing a Neverland dream? If I fight to keep my friends will they accept me, chasing happiness that’s not like theirs or will we just drift apart on different tides??

Too hot for sleep.

My wonderful Mother received this text message from me.

“What do you do if a boy is too hot in bed to sleep but otherwise perfectly fine?? Xx”

Yeah, okay, you like my mum can get you minds out the gutter right now!! This text message was about one of the boys I was babysitting last night, not about a man that was simply too exciting for sleep. I eventually did get the 7 year old boy to slip off back to sleep but apparently texting your mum at 11:30 at night, when she can’t remember where you are will lead her to assume all sorts of smutty things. My mum assumed that my enthralling text had been sent to her by mistake and had to spend some time remembering where her first daughter was.  It seems once she remembered I had several little boys in my care the text made so much more sense. I did eventually get a response to my child care issue but by then, the minimal maternal instinct I have, finally kicked in and my issue was resolved.

Since last night my mum has taken to showing my text message to everyone, my siblings, my cousin, our neighbours and her friends and everyone laughs. I missed the joke; at no point could I see the unintentional crude innuendo in my text. I am utterly ashamed, not that I sent a perhaps embarrassing text, I am embarrassed that I missed the humour. I was a student only a year ago how can I have lost that vulgar sense of humour that is integral to all students, I refuse to be that old already. My mum thinks it’s hysterical and she is much older than me; please never inform her I said that ever.

I love the fact my mum thinks I would ask this question and that she is imaginative enough to paint the wrong picture but completely disappointed that she thinks I’d ask anyone other than her. Why would I bother asking anyone else?? As far as I am concerned my mother is the all seeing all knowing oracle of my world. Who laughs at me, because she can ……because she knows I’ll always ask for whatever I need. I love how everyone I know has such a rude mind, it’s nice to know that apparently you never grow up from being 19; where everything can have a smutty but humorous spin on it if you don’t take things too seriously.

Anyway, I figure that not getting a reply from my mum is a good thing, I know I can handle a boy no matter how hot he is in bed….. and you can take that anyway you like

Totally Selfish

I been away a while, sorry, but life, the universe and everything seemed in collusion to make things hectic. Fair warning this post is about me being very very selfish, I am aware of this and sadly like most feelings when you’re aware of them they just become more intense and grotesque.

I never bring my relationships home to meet the parents mainly because I very rarely think these prospective better halves will go anywhere so there would be little point. That or I might have to admit I really like the person and they would have to find out what a loud, interactive and teasing family I have and I could never do that to myself let alone another living thing! I’m related to my family I don’t have a choice but others do! My romantic relationships are one of the few things in my life other than mental health that I’m not very vocal about. It is my business and no one else’s. Both my brother and sister however have partners that have been brought home to meet the parents and the rest of the family. I would call them serious relationships; they have to be if you’re willing to put them through that.

My brother’s partner is a wonderful person I went to uni with and we were part of the same social circle and society there. We are friends in our own right; we have a relationship that is independent of her relationship with my brother. My sister’s partner I just happen to work with and he is a lovely guy but if I didn’t have to work with him I wouldn’t have relationship with him other than being my sister’s boyfriend and I would be quite happy with that. Both partners are fabulous company and it doesn’t seem lots of effort has to be made for them to fit with our clan. They are well come attendants at family meals and parties and get on exceptionally well with everyone. This doesn’t mean my sister should just go and invite her partner to my birthday meal without asking me.

Really she shouldn’t because it was just going to be my parents, me, my cousin (who is basically a sister) and my brother and sister. At no point are my cousin and brother bringing their partners so why has my sister without telling me gone and invited him and rebooked the table? I know this will make me sound like a three year old but IT’S MY BIRTHDAY WHY CAN’T I INVITE WHO I WANT? I’m only having a dinner because I’m not allowed to ignore my birthday completely. If one partner is coming they should all be coming, starting with my brothers girlfriend because I’m actually friends with her, then my cousins boyfriend because he runs in our social circle and then it should be my sister’s boyfriend because I only work with him. Now it looks like I’m being rude by not inviting the other partners and rude at work. I haven’t invited any of the people at work I’m friends with to do anything for my birthday at all.

Now I’m massively irritated because I don’t understand, when does become obligatory to invite partners? Does it matter that it’s my birthday and I want to invite the people I want to invite? Is this completely unreasonable or is it as I get older it’s just something that happens? I mean it’s not like I said no partners allowed I just didn’t invite them, but I’m not even bringing my own! What I really don’t understand is why this bothers me so much.

O well my sister has no idea I actually smiled when she told me and said that would be lovely while my brother pulled a face as I said more the merrier. Bad move it turns out, since he knows I wanted something quiet, he has decided that he will invite my friends out for drinks after, even the ones that don’t get along with my sister’s boyfriend. Instead of making me feel better I just feel like my birthday is going to turn into a lot of posturing and I’m going to go down ill in the next couple of hours so I can give it a miss. Or take a camera. I haven’t decided. I feel this is all so melodramatic of me but I don’t understand, how did trying to ignore my 22nd birthday has turned into a perhaps showdown of friends and family and me acting like I’m 5??

Green eyed monster and other fiends

Jealousy is an ugly thing, it is horrible when it takes hold of you, the “green-ey’d monster that doth mock The meat it feeds on” (Othello, Shakespeare) and what is worse you can’t save someone else from the monster’s grip. You can’t change how people feel. I find that as I get older that the main problem when trying to maintain relationships is that you can’t control how people feel. Then again if you could control how someone felt life would be much simpler. I can’t stop someone having feelings for me or not as the case maybe. I can’t help it is someone is jealous or disappointed and I can’t stop a person being tactless or feeling humiliated. I can’t stand that, that other people maybe hurt and there isn’t very much I can do about it.

I dislike people who lead devoted admirers on because they like the attention but have no romantic interest in them, it setting them up for an agonising fall. No you can’t stop a person liking you but you can control your actions around them and stop leading them on. Two of my friends are currently engaged in this dance and I worry about the fallout and the pain that will be cause and whether either party is really ready for it. You can’t stop a person being jealous but you can try to appease the situation and know when to call it a day if it’s not going to change. My colleague at work is determined to make a relationship work with a man who is cause hurt by her every move it seems. You can’t stop someone being hurt by a joke but you can stop telling it and you can’t stop someone feeling disappointed in you but you can at least try. I’m sorry to say when I was younger, for a short period, I manipulated people’s emotions to get what I wanted and since I couldn’t change how people felt I chose to simply not care. It didn’t last long I find it heartbreaking to see people unhappy and am happy to do everything to make someone smile just a little bit.

You can’t control how other people feel, you can’t control if they fall in love or what they will find ridiculous or how they will react to an event. As I’ve got older I have watched more and more people try to manipulate others emotions or pre-empt how people will react, I have watched these interactions with limited success. Now I’m older I realise you can’t predict how people will feel, you can only control your own actions and the intent of those actions. I find it distressing that I can’t promise that people will always like what I do or that someone won’t end up being hurt, all I can do within my own power is to endeavour to do what I think is right and to the best of my abilities not cause pain to those around me. This doesn’t mean I won’t cause someone pain, I already have and I probably will again, it just means I’ll strive to do minimal damage.

Friends are like your favourite artwork: beautiful.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

~ C. S. Lewis

   I honestly believe that if you’re not happy with how people treat you, change the people you know. Friends are allowed to break your heart but only if they rebuild it bigger and better. It doesn’t matter how close you are what matters is that at the end of the day you’ll be there for them and that they will be there for you. What matter is that they will drive cross countries or change their plans (or at least give it serious thought). When you are with a friends you should be happy and at peace and if you aren’t move on and treasure the memories because friends mean something.    

Friends are the people we share our lives with; the people we choose to share our lives with. They have intimate knowledge of our hearts and a unique understanding of our bizarre minds. Friends mean something because they choose to care; they are acquainted with every frustrating and irritable detail about you and yet still choose to be there for you. Friends are people who know your faults and still have time for you; you tell you when you have something stuck in your teeth because they are interested in the little things you do as well as the big. True friends are the foolish individuals who, even after they have advised and helped, stick around to pick up the pieces when you still mess up. Friends are people who have been there for you and if you are careful they will be there in the future, to watch, to be there on your great occasions, to tell your stories to people who don’t know you.

Friends are the people who don’t share in wonderful times but makes times wonderful by their presence. They make seeing the seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time and sharing the sun setting over it the best day of your life. They make leaving everything you know to study somewhere completely different and new the greatest adventure of your life. They make you school days the defining moment of your life. They make you feel that the world is yours, they fill you up with love of life and you know there is nothing better than when you shine together.

Sunset with friends old and new after an adventure field trip out of the city. East Bay, CA | 2012 by everydaydude

Tumbling Pretties

It’s Snow wonderful.

 

Our secret view

It FINALLY snowed in Britain; and I do mean FINALLY, what is the point in winter if it’s not going to have a generous helping of the freezing sparkly stuff?? The UK had been having a perverted amount of warm weather; it didn’t really get below freezing until a couple of weeks ago. The last couple of days however have been wonderful finally some proper freezing, blustery, biting, winter weather.

I love snow because every time I see it, it’s like the first time; I’m still always full of excitement and anticipation. The first few flakes tumble and weave their way down in a beautiful dance that promises striking views and mountains of fun. Snow elegantly covers the world in a blanket of white glitter that vividly contrasts with the sky and sunsets creating tremendous sights. Houses and gardens engulfed in snow look otherworldly and the countryside whispers it awesome grandeur as the world for a small time is still and stands looking serene. Snow is fabulous to look at and fabulous to play in. Even my sun-worshipping family enjoys the snow, the whole street comes out to play, the old, the young and the in between. The planet beyond our street falls away while there is snow (we get a bit stranded if I’m honest) so we play like we are six and the world is our street and nothing more frightening.

Every time there is enough we walk down the road, over the gate, down the track over

The white sparkly stuff

the fence to our sledging hill, I can do it with my eyes closed because the short walk is eagerly emblazed on my mind. Sledging is like flying; so swift, so scary, so thrilling. There is also breathtaking view from that hill that is our secret. I have memorised how to build a giant snowman that you have climb to decorate and that melts so slowly it is there for days after the weather has warmed. I remember snowball fights that have enveloped our entire street and turned friend against friend, child against parent. I remember the first time it snowed on Christmas day, it was dark and my sister and I were already in our pyjamas after a long wonderful day. My dad in protest that his children were not playing in the snow through a snow ball at the back of my head, inside the house while we was playing board games!! This could not go without consequence, somewhere there is an amazing photo of me, my sister and brother in nothing but nightwear, in the middle of our snow-covered street throwing relentless snowballs at our father. Soon enough another father came to his rescue, so his children came to ours.

I have spent a childhood building snowmen taller than me, sledging so fast that I was determined I would never stop and having snowball fights in school uniform with teachers.  I don’t think I shall ever feel too old for the majesty of snow. I don’t worry I’ll wake up and I’ll see it as an irritation or inconvenience. I’m not silly enough to drive in snow, I’m not going to worry about missing something because I’m at home and I’ll was make sure my neighbours are okay. I will spend the rest of my life the way I have started loving the crisp, silence, splendid snow.    

Romantic New Year.

New Year’s eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.  ~Hamilton Wright Mabie

I should state, before I start, I mean romantic in a fanciful and unrealistic sense rather than romantic mushy lovey dovey way. My new year has been giving me the giggles, it really was completely improbable and extravagant, and all in all if I had read it in a book I would have thought it completely fantastical. Usually, in my life the whole fictional, imaginative and unreal escapes me unless I choose to see it or put it there, which absurdly I have become quite competent at. This New Year’s eve, however, some omnipotent being saw fit to employ themselves in writing a chapter for me.

It started off at lunch with sangria and some old friends; we bar hopped in Birmingham, demanding our chosen beverage in every bar and to our astonishment we were accommodated. We had chosen a ludicrous drink to enjoy, who in their right mine asks for Sangria in winter or for that matter on New Year’s Eve? Apparently my author thought that a summer drink at New Years would be important. Perhaps this year the great love of my life will buy me sangria and the flood of happy memories will mean I hold my tongue long enough for him not to flee with a crushed ego. I had to leave early, to dash home for a change of wardrobe that I didn’t really have time for and pack a bag and do my makeup. Of course, here the writer turned me into a superwoman who could do a thousand things at once; I was barely even late and did it so charmingly I even despised myself as the main character for being so cool and collected about it.

By 8 pm we were in a town in the middle of nowhere, I should say a tiny town of no importance other than a bridge (admittedly over a very large river) my only purpose in being there were my friends. The author, however, saw this town as a menagerie of colourful characters (mostly farmers) and some family member thrown in to add a little drama to my desperate attempt to appear sober. I engaged in conversations in the beer gardens (my author fixed unseasonable mild weather) about books, art and all my favourite things; everyone was so obliging and whimsical I wondered where all these fabulous people had been hiding their wit all year!

At midnight a thousand people spilled out into the main high street to count down to midnight beneath a clock that didn’t work. Why? Why would the council not fix the clock after years and years of this tradition taking place? Here the author was just being clever, knowing that so few of us have a chance to count down the year twice and to get two New Year Kisses! I was just definitely being spoilt. All around our rag tag of 20 or so, people were counting and cheering at different times, it was hysterical, it was wonderful. The highlight of the year thus far? Hugging a policeman on duty and wishing him a good new year. Only a writer could save me from getting arrested, by walking me up to the only good natured copper on the beat.

I tumbled into bed at 4 am; after lolloping home holding tightly on to my brave friends all of us thinking the world would spin so fast we would fall off it. I reassured a friend that even if he believed he had achieved nothing in 6 years, he had actually accomplished much in the way of friendships, with the clarity that only a writer who has spent hours perfecting the prose could. I also think my author is one for an idealistic tableau as I went to sleep with the sound of birds and woke up to the sound of church bells.

Drink responsibly.......

My author, did not see fit to relieve me of feeling rough but was more charitable with my hangover than that of my supporting characters who could barely function. New Year’s day was spent playing board games that had not seen the light of day in 10 years. We gathered around a large table with friends and family, consuming more alcohol than the previous night should have allowed with even better conversation than should have been present.

In my head I keep questioning whether it all really happened and if someone is about to write the next chapter can I fast talk them in to making me lose weight,or that I just don’t mind the way I way I look in photos. Oooooh and I quite like happiness but I suppose I could resolve to do that on my own but I feel if my life has become a novel it would be  much less demanding and I would be guarantee a happy ending, or at least a year that matched my New Year that felt to me like my birthday, Christmas and a summer holiday all in one.

By the way Happy New Year!!

“The Best Antique is an Old Friend.”

Being so close to Christmas I have been spending time with the people I care about most in the world. This doesn’t just include my family but also my friends, I have some truly incredible friends and some not so incredible, this doesn’t mean I value them any less just that I have less epic stories about them. I keep my friends safe and treasured, even the ones that are family, there are few things I have learnt but one of them is that great happiness can be found in the friendships you make and keep. They have been there before and if you are careful will be there in the future. They are a link to the past and a future as they grow beside you.

On Monday night I had dinner and drinks with 20 or so friends from T.C. (My secondary school) My friends from T.C. are my cherished antiques, some I still gladly talk to and see on a regular basis, some more sporadically and some I am distressed to say not for 5 years. Oddly, regardless of time or inconsistent contact we are all still friends, nothing has changed; we still cause mischief, still laugh too loud and talk excessively. We spent hours in comfortable, splendid company as though we were all still in year 11 where our biggest worry was double biology on a Friday, desperately trying to figure out if we could fall asleep in the class this close to exams. I was reminded of why I loved these friends, why I loved being 16 and how it felt to be that free. These people made me feel old.

These friends make me feel really old and not in a good way, not in a ‘I was a child then and now I am a grown up and an adult’ sort of way. No. I feel old in a ‘16 that was 5 years ago, 5 YEARS,’ sort of way! Where has the time gone? What have I done in those 5 years? What have I achieved? Time is marching on and I feel I am being left behind, I’m not ‘young’ anymore and that makes me feel old.

I feel old without feeling like an adult, I feel my age with responsibility and wisdom and experience behind me (however little it may be) but I still feel like a child. I have friends that are engaged with big proper jobs and down payments on a house. There is this great conflict in me that knows that I am old enough to have friends that are married, engaged, with children but at the same time I don’t understand how I am old enough to have friends married, engaged, with children. I haven’t figured out how to make a relationship work, let alone what love is. A house, noooooooo I want a flat, if that, I want to be able to move out at a moment’s notice to go somewhere else or ,or, or travel. They have proper big graduate job thingys, I still haven’t figured out what I want to do!

Yes, I am thinking about my future, no I’m not happy with it that right now, yes I understand my life seems to have no direction, no I’m not happy about it. But honestly I’m young once, just the once and I want to enjoy it, have fun, laugh a bit more before I resign myself to life, to adulthood. I feel like everyone has figured it all out, I haven’t even figured out what I’m meant to figure out. I just don’t want to be conflicted about feeling old and like a child at the same time. Right now all I know is that I want to watch my friends grow and see the wonderful people I know they will become. And….. I want to grow with them, just let me figure it out on my own terms.

The worst thing is the lack of pressure, everyone is letting me get on with it, and they are all so certain that I have got it figured out. Trust me on this, I am completely clueless.

 

Related post:  http://justbeingthoughtful.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/1130/

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Rather appropriately my first week of December was spent doing fabulous Christmas things; I went to my first charity function of the Christmas period on Friday night and quite happily won 2 Christmas presents in the raffle. After which I went to the first Christmas party of the season. It was a Christmas jumper party so as far as the eye could see there were ridiculous jumpers, vulgar colours and patterns and faces of reindeer and Father Christmas assaulted the eyes. It was a night of contradiction, I spent the first half trying desperately to be sophisticated and charming to a lot of middle aged women who kept telling me how lovely I looked and asking questions about what I am doing now that I have left university that made my insides squirm with awkward guilt and discomfort. The second half was filled with frantic attempts to recapture my hedonistic youth and in particular my drunken uni antics, only to discover I’m not as good at it as I used to be.  That I have even less time for juvenile sex pests, uncontrollable drunks, belligerent intellectuals or the emotional messes and once they would have been highly amusing to me now I just want to obliterate them because I’m not one of them and they are assassinating my buzz. I went to bed however with a general feeling of good will and excitement these people where my friends and Christmas for me is all about loved ones.

With a little over 4 hours sleep I found myself riding a short train to Birmingham (desperately trying to figure out if I was still drunk or having an attack of vertigo) to meet up with some very special people. They were my flat mates from my first year of uni, Flat 133. The 7 most wonderful people I knew, we remained friends even when we no longer lived together, survived break ups and some were even engaged to each other. While some never speak to their first year flat mates mine are part of my family, stayed in my house and now we don’t see each other on regular basis are holes in my heart. We had all travelled to Birmingham City for one reason. Birmingham was holding the largest Christmas Market outside of Germany.

Everyone needs to go to a Christmas Market because there are oodles of wonderful things there. Now in its tenth year, the Frankfurt Christmas Market in Birmingham is amazing, it smells like Christmas all hot and overpowering even when it is freezing. All you can see are the most stunning stalls, some that have to most intricate handmade and wooden toys, my favorites being the small carousels and toy nutcrackers. Some stalls with wonderful tree decorations that were red, gold, silver, that are all manner of shapes and sizes that appeal to the child in me trying to find the biggest and best to add to my adult collection that one day I hope to dress my owe tree with. There were red and gold ones that inside the ball had spinning wings that I adored. Of course then there was the food, all hot to keep the cold at bay, Gebrannte Mandeln (toasted almonds candy things), cookies, soft ginger bread, Bratwurst and of course Gluhwine.

My friends on the carousel proving you only as old as you feel.

In the very centre was the bandstand that played Christmas carols, with a huge Christmas tree and an enchanting carousel. Now in Flat 133 we are not known for maturity we were all children at heart, we honestly tried not to go on the carousel but after deciding that we had been mature enough to travel, shop and declare bridesmaids (lilac dresses) we were secure enough in our own grown up status’ that we would venture onto the carousel odd looks and all. It was delightful and childish and just what we needed. The market had been captivating and after we retired back to my house (absent of biological family who had run off for the weekend) we relived our youth at uni.

Lost in the woods

I insisted on a walk on Sunday to cure my indulgence from the previous two days a long Kinver Edge, and it felt much like edge I feel I walking now between youth and adulthood. The bride to be remarked “no matter what I do you guys will always draw me back to believing the world is fresh and I can be a superwoman.”