new job

I have a new job. On Mondays at my new job, a box of fruit is delivered. Monday is a fun day.

On Fridays at my new job, a giant bucket of chocolate bars and candy is delivered. Friday is a great day.

Today, at my new job (fruit Monday, but still chocolate Friday remnants remain...) I wore a skirt I bought at the markets yesterday for £10.  It looks like something my mother would have worn in 1993. It’s rad. Three separate people at my new job told me they liked my skirt, then I ate a Daim bar and a pear.

Today was a good day.

Happy Monday!

ballin' in cambridge

On Tuesday night I went to a ball. A ball in Cambridge. A ball called the St John’s College 2012 May Ball, which Time magazine ranked #7 in the list of ‘best parties of all time’. Woah.
Yes, it was on a Tuesday.

The ball was more like a fairground/wonderland/insight into how the other half live. It was amazing, a veritable maze of wonder and indulgence… at one point I took a wrong turn and found myself in a courtyard with tables and tables full of port where a full orchestra was accompanying an opera singer wearing leggings. Another few steps and I was in a section which had boats full of beers, a pimms fountain and a Glee club type group singing show tunes. It was a pretty standard Tuesday night for us.

There were bumper cars, the best fireworks I’ve ever see (and I’ve seen some fireworks!) a tent which was only for jager bombs (separate to the tent which was solely focused on red bull vodkas),a drag queen show and waaay too much dub step. Duncan discovered a section with fancy toasted sandwiches (sorry cambridge, croque monsieurs), alex and ella wound up in a photo booth which had breeze coming out of the floor for your own ‘marilyn over the vent’ moment and Jules found a tent which was making skittles-flavoured milkshakes. Indeed.

My friend Jules is a legitimate Cambridge lady (cause yes, I know people who do PhDs. Yep.) she’s very fancy and I assume (based on my first view at her life at St.John’s) lives every day in a haze of champagne, tuxedo-clad men and dub-step. In her entourage, she even had some swedish men who had little medals underneath their bow ties...how fancy.

hairspray is the answer for a 10hour party.

The fruit section was, surprisingly, not a hit.

yep, thats a giant slide. and it's vertical. 

The biggest take-out for me (besides the knowledge that there is such a thing as too many cupcakes…) was how civilised and non-rowdy the crowd got. At 3am people were all still wearing shoes, no one had fallen off the bridges and there was not any smashed glass anywhere (despite the CRAZY fact that they served drinks in glass. In glass! Imagine!) and the many little tables set up in various nooks n crannies still had table cloths and vases full of flowers on them. Woah. There were even glass vases in the bathrooms (perhaps it’s more a reflection on me than Cambridge that I expect people to glass one another if there are bottles and vases around. Hmmm)

Around 4am alex was bullied by a horrible woman in the drag queen audience. She was mean and, fuelled by fancy champagne and a huge number of cupcakes, we told her as much. In a very English way, we said ‘you are not very nice’ to her and didn’t glass her.

Was prob a wise move.

At about 6am I discovered liss and jules in a tent full of beanbags and some men singing cute little ditties to them while Pablo napped in his chair. At that point, we went in search of the bumper cars to take a spin only to find it was being packed away and replaced by a giant waffle section near the men making bacon and egg rolls. We were easily distracted by this, and then the fact that 25 men stood on a stage singing harmonised Madonna songs.

fairy floss and the world's greatest beehive.

When the sun came up it became apparent that my dress trails along the floor (prob more than usual given the fact I had swapped to flats at about 11pm…), so the 9hours I had spent dancing and walking through dirt and mud had not done it any favours… but then Liss suggested that we dance in the boats full of ice and we forgot about the mud. Weeeeeeeeeee.

Even though Julia promised me endless pick-n-mix lollies at this ball yet there was no pick-n-mix to be found (and believe you me, I looked.) it was still a damn fine way to spend a Tuesday night. thanks jules xx

At about 7am we met Magnetic Man.. i think at this point we were discussing our opinion of dub step. Magnetic Man says yes.

sunrise pimms.

sunrise, and not a soul in the river... we're not in kansas anymore it seems.

Spain and The Hunger Games

At the end of May I went to Spain and I discovered The Hunger Games.

My memories of the full week we spent on the Spanish coast are so entwined with the obsession I had for The Hunger Games that it’s difficult for me to be 100% confident whether we spent each day lazing at the beach drinking gin or whether, actually, at various points we were embroiled in a giant war where my expert archery skills allowed me to shoot deer to feed my cake-baking lover Peeta. It’s all a bit hazy.


We spent the week between Valencia, Alicante and a sweet little town named Denia, which is the port to go to-and-from Ibiza. It was a town of absolute contrast: boarded up hostels on the beach front as well as fancy Michelin starred restaurants. Things were amazingly cheap, the people were super friendly and the beaches were clean and wonderful (and you could order diet cokes from your deck chairs, which meant The Hunger Games was never far away) Win.

keeping watch for The Hunger Game-style attacks. Can't trust those careers.

Oh hai sun-worshipping Valencians, i hope my spray tan has fooled you into thinking i am one of you.

Katniss in Alicante. 

a sandcastle worthy of Katniss.

Katniss on the grass.

Katniss by the pool.

It was so so lovely to be in salt water again, eat cured meat and cheese every afternoon and drink lots of gin in the sun. The fact that I survived TWO hunger games and a civil war with my archery skills was also pretty sweet.