New people #22 and #23: Friends of friends

The great thing about my friends is they always like getting to know friends from different friendship groups. Take for example my friends Alice and Rachel; whenever I used to have uni catch ups in Hitchin, I invited them along as well, and by the end of the night you wouldn’t have known that they didn’t know any of my uni friends. And as you read in my blog a few weeks ago, at the Sevens and the City festival, Rachel and Ro both came along and get on like a house on fire.

So I’m always up for meeting friends of friends, and the first time of this in the challenge happened a few weeks ago when I went to the cinema with my friend Coops and his girlfriend Fran, and their friend Alex. We went to see Spy which was really funny and Alex was a nice guy, very similar to Coops so we got on well.

And going back to Rachel, it was her birthday a few weekends ago and we had a night out in Milton Keynes which was great. I’ve known Rachel since school, but hadn’t met her friend Claire who came along. She was a really nice, very friendly and had the best laugh which is great for a night out. 

New Book #20 The Unknown

My mum and I have been fans of Cecelia Ahern books since her first book P.S. I Love You came out. Ahern's second book Where Rainbows End is one of my favourite books, but then her future books got a stopped being real and started being very imagination and away with the fairies based. But because we liked the first two books, we carried on reading the others in the hope that they would be as good as her first two.

Her latest book is The Year I Met You and is about Jasmine and Matt who live on the same street. Jasmine co-founded a company that worked with start-ups, but her contract was terminated and she was put on gardening leave for a year. Matt was a very outspoken DJ who in turn also had his contract terminated and was put on gardening leave also. He said something on air years ago which offended Jasmine, so she has taken a strong dislike to him ever since. The story is how they get to know each other over the year while they deal with their loss of jobs.

The book wasn't one of Ahern's away with the fairy ones and I enjoyed it. It was quite close to home at times as although I wasn't on gardening leave, I didn't pass my probation at my last events job last year. So I experienced the same uncertainty as to what to do next, the big void of the unknown. The characters were well developed, however I think it would've been better if there was a bit more emotion behind them when she described how they immediately felt when starting their gardening leave. Ahern's writing style felt like you were living in the same street as Matt and Jasmine, and that’s quite a hard thing to achieve.

Reconnecting #23: Shorthand, cake and style

Yesterday I met up with my university shorthand teacher Jo Goodall. I went to Staffordshire University from 2005-08 and the last time I saw Jo was at graduation. Ever since I’ve emailed Jo a couple of times a year, keeping her up to date with my life and others who were on the course that I’ve kept in touch with.

                                                      Us in 2008 at my graduation.

I thought it would be fitting to meet up this year as it marks 10 years since I started uni, which makes me feel very old!

We went to Hotel Le Tour in Birmingham for an afternoon tea as I thought that would be a great way to catch up. Firstly the afternoon tea was like a 3 course meal in itself, and secondly Jo and I arrived at 2 and left at 5! My friend Humaira who I mentioned earlier in the year on the blog joined us for the first hour, so it was great for Jo to catch up with another student as well. There was lots of laughing, cakes and chatting which is a great combination, and it felt like it was like no time had passed at all.

After the afternoon tea we did a bit of shopping. Anyone in my shorthand class would remember Jo for her stylish fashion sense, and she didn’t disappoint when we looked in a few clothes shops.

It was a great afternoon and I’m proud that me and Jo have maintained contact over the past 7 years. It’s a unique friendship and long may it continue. We’ve both said we won’t leave it another 7 years for our next meet up!

                                   Us today, we've barely changed, lol.

New People #21: Time Saving

Yesterday it was Charlotte’s birthday and we went to see Bradley Cooper in the Elephant Man. It was a great play and was very well acted.

I was hoping that the next person I met on the challenge was the man himself, but after the show he signed autographs by stage door, but we just weren’t close enough to get a picture or autograph.

In the interval however we did end up chatting to a woman called Christina in the queue for the toilets. As with any theatre there is always a very long queue for the ladies, and Christina was in front of us; she turned around and said she knew of a hotel next door and was going to use their toilets if we wanted to do the same. So we thought why not and went with her. She glided through the restaurant part of the hotel with us in tow, straight to the toilets and then told us a bit about the hotel when leaving.

So a great life lesson was learnt, when going to the theatre, to save queuing for the loo, go to a nearby hotel!

New Albums #20 and 21: Chilled out Friday

It was Charlotte’s birthday celebrations last weekend and I’m not the most tidiest person. So on Friday I tidied some of the flat and while I did that I thought I’d listen to a couple of albums for the challenge.

They were both recommended by friends, and the first was Beach House, Bloom; which was recommended by my friend Coops. It was a chilled out album and had an eighties feel to it as well.

The second album was recommended by my friend Tom and it was Jamie Woon, Mirror Writing. Like Beach House it was a chilled out album and I did recognise a couple of the songs. But with both albums being so relaxing (I almost fell asleep), I felt the songs on each album merged into one. So if you asked me to tell you which was my favourite song, I’m afraid I couldn’t. 

New People #19 and #20: Finally get to see Freddie

Last night I went to see the cricketer Freddie Flintoff in his show 2^nd Innings with my friend Ando. The show was about his career from the 2005 Ashes where he became a national hero to present day where he most recently was on the Australian version of I’m a Celeb.

From start to finish I was laughing non-stop, lots of cricket jokes, lots of funny anecdotes and great cricket clips. His friend Clyde Holcroft guided the whole thing and did a great job, he really let the whole thing be about Freddie. One of the best stories was how Freddie is bad with names and after a taping of A League of Their Own they went to a bar and he got talking to Theo Walcott. He tried his best with conversation, talking about England Arsenal and upon leaving Freddie said to James Corden how nice Theo was. James then replied it wasn’t Theo Walcott, it was Marvin from JLS.

After the show Ando and I hung around in the foyer to see if we could meet Jack Whitehall as he was in the audience, but we didn’t get a glimpse. Instead we saw Merv Hughes (an Aussie Cricketer) and Frank Skinner. We then went round to the stage door to see if we could meet Freddie and to our surprise there were only half a dozen people waiting. One of them was a guy called Jordan and he was a very big cricket fan. He’d brought lots of cricket programmes that he wanted signing.

We didn’t realise but while we were waiting, Freddie was doing an organised meet and greet for a around a hundred people, so when he came out he was very tired. But he still took the time to have pictures taken and sign all those programmes for Jordan (which took forever, you could tell he was getting annoyed.) It was great to meet him as a few weeks ago me and my flatmate Charlotte were 6 people from the front of the queue to be in the audience for A League of Their Own.

And we saw a bonus celebrity in Richard Curtis. He came out of stage door while we were waiting. I told Jordan who it was and he ran after him and got a picture with him.  

So 3 hours of entertainment and meeting another cricketer, all for £15! Not a bad Monday night.

New Experience #24: Cheesy Socialising

A couple of weeks ago it was my friend Kayleigh’s birthday and she wanted to have a cheese fondue and raclette evening. We held it in my flat as the kitchen is quite big and good to spread out. I’d seen how to do fondue before, but was had no idea about Raclette.

Raclette is a type of cheese and is cooked with a little table top grill. You put a small pan which is full of the cheese under the grill and wait for it to start bubbling. Raclette is served with potato, so once it’s bubbling you have a scraper to take the Raclette out of the little pan.

So basically it’s melting cheese! But there was so much set up it felt more technical than that.  

New Recipe #16: The landslide returns!

Continuing with my pudding clubs on Fridays, last week’s edition was pear upside down cake. I made it for my friend Rachel and her sister Kate. When it came out of the oven and tipped it upside down it looked and smelt amazing! However on closer inspection it turned out not all the batter had cooked.

I served the cooked bits to Rachel and Kate and it tasted really good. With me still being a big kid when it comes to cooking and licking the spoon, the batter tasted really good. So I did have some of it raw. I tried putting in the microwave to cook the batter for a few minutes, but that didn’t work. Putting it in the oven for 15 minutes more seemed to do the trick.

I didn’t want to poison the members of the doggy bag club, so I ate the leftovers myself.

New Experience #23: Festival fun

Last weekend I went to the Sevens and the City festival at Saracens rugby ground. I heard about the festival on Wowcher and at £15 for a weekend pass I thought why not. The festival was music and rugby 7s matches being played all weekend. I went with my flatmate Charlotte, her friend Hayley and my friends Rachel and Ro. I bought Ro her ticket as a belated birthday present as she likes rugby....well rugby players.

Even before the festival had taken place I was really impressed with the organising, if we had any questions the organisers would reply to our emails right away. The campsite was right next to the ground and there were food stalls all around. It was a relaxed during the day; lots of rugby to watch and you could even stand right next to the pitch, well behind barriers. There was also a netball tournament and a cross fitness competition, and BMX displays as well.

On the Saturday night there was an American themed party as it was Independence Day. Luckily I bought a basketball top, courtesy of Dave on the market for £3, so I fit in. Some people really went to town on their costumes; a stag do went as ten pin bowling- the stag being the bowling ball, there were a group of Hulk Hogan’s and a group of Statue of Liberty's as well.

Ro and I ended up talking to a guy who went as Starsky out of Starsky and Hutch and thought his hair was a wig….it turns out it wasn’t. Back at the campsite it felt like the end of a uni night out as lots of groups of guys tried to sing Don’t Look Back in Anger by Oasis, which was always the last song played on a uni night out.

The Sunday was more relaxed and Ro and I went to watch some rugby in the morning and we ended up watching the England 7s team playing a match. Not a bad way to start a Sunday morning.

It was a great weekend, lots of fun, lots of laughs and lots of rugby watched. I’d love to go again next year!

Meet new people #16-18: Confidence is Key

Last night I went to see Davina McCall give a talk and Q&A at Bafta 195 Piccadilly in London. The talk was organised by Cosmo magazine and it was all about confidence and empowerment. I originally asked a few friends if they wanted to go, none did, so rather than miss out I decided to go on my own.

There was a drinks reception when you arrived and I did a bit of people watching to begin with. I then got talking to Punita who also came on her own, and then we got talking to Louise who was also flying solo. So we hung out together for the rest of the night. They were great company; we all had the same sort of attitude of not missing out on things. And I found out Louise likes Aussie Masterchef, fans of this show are far and few between.

Davina was great, funny, motivating, real and just like us. When she came on stage I thought it wasn’t her as she looked so normal. She was a real chatterbox and wanted to chat all night, so just over an hour didn’t seem long enough. She even spoke to me and Louise. During the drinks reception I was saying I need to lay off the carbs as I had eaten loads over the weekend. Davina mentioned she wanted to do a recipe book about smart carbs and Louise started pointing at me when she mentioned carbs. And Davina said to me, you must eat your carbs! I think Davina is a real good endorsement of the see food diet.

When it came to the Q&A one of the first questions was by someone who had a tough first day in a new job, and she said how the talk had cheered her up. Davina got down from the stage, gave the lady a hug and then asked her questions about her job and gave her a pep talk so she could conquer the next day. Davina then stayed in the audience area and tried to get close to whoever was asking a question. She had great words of wisdom, the best line was; ‘To try and fail is temporary, but to not try at all is failure.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to meet Davina afterwards, but we decided to have a group photo anyway. We also ended up seeing another celebrity in the street. We were walking back to the tube and who walks past but Bill Nighy! I smiled and he smiled back and then I only realised who it was when he walked away. Luckily Punita and Louise were my witness and can confirm it was him.

The fun didn’t end there as on the tube the most embarrassing/funniest thing happened. A guy comes onto the tube I'm on and loudly says he saw me from the carriage next door and asks if the guy standing next to me is my boyfriend. I had never met the guy next to me and we both looked very embarrassed and said no. This random guy then asks again very loudly if I’m single. Now to be honest I didn’t fancy the guy and so rather than embarrass him, I said that I was going through a break up (which is sort of true) and that I wasn’t looking.

He accepted the answer and we continued to chat as he seemed a nice enough guy. I learnt that his name was Darren, from Newcastle and lost his job the previous week and had just been on a personal development course called 72 hours. So a completely random encounter, but I did say to Darren that it takes serious balls to go up to do what he did. I guess the night really was all about confidence.

Reconnecting #22: Let’s hug it out

Entourage is one of my favourite shows, even though its target audience is men, I love the banter and the fast pace of it. Ari Gold and Johnny Drama are my favourite characters and when the they announced a film was going to be made I was very excited. Originally I was going to see it with my friend Carmella from uni as it was released near her birthday, but she went to Italy….I know Italy vs Entourage it’s a tough choice, lol.

Rich another friend from uni is also a big fan and as he lives near London we decided to go one Saturday night. It couldn’t have come at a better time as Rich was a bit down in the dumps and Entourage is complete escapism.

                          Back at graduation in 2008, I don't think we've changed much.

The last time we saw each other was for a film quiz over a year ago, which was just round the corner from where we went to the cinema this time. It was great catching up and Ari Gold and co added to the fun night.

Reconnecting #21: When neighbours become good friends

As I said in my previous post on Sunday I held my friend Laura a Neighbours day. We watched the documentary about Neighbours being 30, played the Neighbours board game where you make up plots and watched 8 classic Neighbours episodes. These included of course Scott and Charlene’s wedding, Jim Robinson’s death and Libby and Drew’s wedding.

I decided to make the day extra special and wrote to the Neighbours cast, pretty much asking for autographs. I first wrote to someone for an autograph when I was a teenager and the first one I got was Jack Ryder’s from Eastenders (whatever happened to him?)

The last time I wrote to someone asking for an autograph was in 2009. My friend and Humaira and I were both job hunting and she was feeling quite low about it. So I wrote to an actor she liked in a show called Material Girl. I asked for a signed picture for Humaira to cheer her up. He replied a few weeks later with a signed picture, and he wrote a good luck note on the back of the picture. I sent it to her as a surprise and she loved it.

Back to the Neighbours cast, around 6 weeks after I sent the letter I got a reply. The minimum I asked for was signed pictures for Laura, but what would be even better was if they signed a wedding card I enclosed, complete with tips for a happy marriage…..and the cast did just that!

 I was so shocked and overwhelmed, and when I gave Laura the card she felt exactly the same. It’s amazing how the little things a stranger can do can make the biggest impact. Signing the card probably took a minute tops each for the cast to do, but for Laura as a big Neighbours fan it meant the world and is priceless.