Category Archives: Girl About Town

Living just enough, just enough for the city

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(If you don’t like your life, then change it)

In the last three weeks, things in my life seem to have gone into hyperdrive.

Every single week, sometimes every day, things have been changing. New, exciting things have come flooding in, mainly thanks to a few truly spectacular individuals.

I keep wanting to pinch myself, because I’m certain that one morning I’ll wake up, it’ll be raining outside, and I’m actually still at university. Or, I’ve got to shovel myself into an office and sit there, in a business suit (not that I’ve EVER owned one of those, even at the height of my corporate sell-out era) pretending that I’m happy with life.

At the beginning of the year, I felt like I had nothing tangible. I had the vital things, my family, friends, my health, but I’ve always been too ambitious to just be fine with not doing what I really want to do in life. The main issue seemed to be not actually knowing what that was – I was still reeling from the realisation that I didn’t want to be an actor, and had only the broadest idea of what I could see myself doing. Readers, I’m ashamed to say that this only extended as far as doing a ‘cool’ job. I’d spent much too long reading Bret Easton Ellis.

Then along came a ‘cool’ job, and actually, it didn’t make everything better. It certainly wasn’t worse, but it wasn’t quite right. The ‘lostness’ was compounded, but with the benefit of having not only some really solid experience, but making some of the most incredible friends. For this alone, I’m grateful. But I was luckier than that – this job showed me, definitively, that I can’t sit in an office for hour upon hour, desperately trying to organise myself. Cliched but true – all I wanted was a job that ‘meant something’, and dear Lord, surely that’s only a few crocheted, animal crusader steps away from ‘wanting to make a difference’…

Anyway, a good solid holiday in the form of Latitude Festival, and a few lucky breaks later, I find myself here. Where’s here? Well, I’m worried about jinxing it. But in the last month or so, I’ve done things I never thought I’d do. I’ve walked in a fashion show, I’ve modelled a ballgown while perched on a Lloyd Loom chair in the middle of Tunbridge Wells, I found the confidence to share my attempts at music with the general public,  I’m about to become an ambassador for an incredible charity, and tomorrow I begin covering London Fashion Week.

There’s honour in sticking with things, but don’t be a martyr.

I didn’t like my life, so I changed it.

 

Dancing on the Southbank

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So, we’re rolling into September, and the weather is all over the place. As I type, I’m looking out into a glorious blue sky, that just half an hour ago looked absolutely Wintry. I always love September. I suppose years of being in the education system have made me consider it to be the real start of the New Year, a second opportunity to right wrongs, to change the way you live, to make new promises. I like to think it’s never too late in the year to make resolutions.

It was in this spirit that I considered my life at the moment. After a very strange period in the middle of the Summer when everything seemed to be going drastically wrong (and therefore I felt like a total fraudster writing a blog on happiness), things have almost completely changed. Touch wood, cross fingers, kiss elbows etc, but I’ll just say that recently, things have been looking up. Extremely up. When I get in this frame of mind, everything is exciting, I throw myself into everything I do, and I skip around feeling totally energised. I become untouchable, and nothing can begin to bring me down.

One of my most defining characteristics is my ability to only experience extremes of emotion. Either things are heartbreakingly awful and I’m wailing mascara-ed tears, or things are bloody brilliant, and I’m wearing a perma-smile. As I’ve got older, I’ve levelled out a bit. Sadness visits much more rarely, and when bad things happen I’ll cry, hit rock bottom, and then I’ll start sorting things out again. Happiness is my more frequent companion, and I’ve learnt to work at it so that I now know how to fix things in my life, how to take charge of myself and not just be at the whim of those ghastly things known as teenage hormones.

Anyway. I was, as I say, contemplating the recent upturn in events in my life, and I started thinking about university. I have to admit, I’ve struggled to come to terms with not being there anymore, and with not being a student. Royal Holloway bred a real community, a fierce loyalty, and a desire never to leave. For months after graduating, I didn’t really think about it. I was both enraptured and terrified by the idea of the ‘real world’. I ploughed on and on, enjoying my first proper paycheck, not having to read stacks of books every week (not that I necessarily always did that….) And before I knew it, a year had passed. It’s been the year AFTER the year after graduating that I’ve struggled with. Suddenly it all seemed so far away – the all night parties in the wonderful Founders building, walking home at 8am listening to bird song. Climbing onto the roof of said Founders building and doing everything that was wrong, but right too. The sound of the College chapel bells ringing out, through the window of my tiny student room. The amazing girls I lived with in third year, and the way we weathered any of the many storms that came our way.

I also missed…well, thinking, I suppose. Being self-consciously artsy. Revelling in the way that anecdotes about my ‘crazy drama stuff’ sounded when told to my friends doing more buttoned up degrees. When I visited the Southbank yesterday properly, it really hit home about how much I’d lost, or rather – given up on. In my first term, I’d often visit the BFI on my own, overjoyed that I had the freedom to do so. I saw a season of Isabelle Huppert films, wandering in my long black coat and piled up bun, feeling so….so like a student. So exactly how I thought I should feel, and look, and act. I took opportunities. I went to unusual places, took up strange invitations, talked to people I never thought I’d get on with,  just experienced every new thing I could, and I learnt.

When, and why, did I stop? It must have been the second I took off that graduation gown. I really believed I had to become an ‘Adult’, and all that entailed. Which was what? Working? Going out every other weekend? I shut down the creative part of my brain, and I lost that willingness to experiment. I suppose I was always preoccupied. First by getting a job – then a better job. Then any job. Then a better job, again and again. Then friendships, relationships, clothes, parents. I plunged deep into an entirely predictable identity crisis, and didn’t even start to think I might already know who I was. I knew it when I perched, feet over the edge of the huge, chateau-styled building at uni. I knew when I could be on my own, watching French films. I knew when I stayed up all night at the Summer ball. I’d just lost it.

Yesterday I began to find it again, and it took a trip to the Southbank itself to smash me back there again. My friend India and I just gave in to the atmosphere. Spying a crowd under Waterloo Bridge, we inveigled ourselves in. We could smell frying onions, hot dogs, a sweet but deep flavour that will naturally invoke fairgrounds and the seaside. We heard live music. ‘This is lovely’, we said, but made to move on. And then we stopped ourselves. We’ve made a collective vow to start experiencing life, to take those opportunities that constantly present themselves if you only look for them. So we stayed. We bought large cocktails in plastic cups that froze our hands, from a man in too-cool sunglasses. We stayed and watched a live band, seeing the sunlight bouncing off the architecture of the bridge and the blonde halo of the lead singer. We watched too, as a homeless man in camo gear danced, played his harmonica and stuck his middle fingers up in the air in a grotesque pose whenever a camera was produced.

Men started dancing too, elbows sticking out, first avoiding looking at the crowd and then gradually gesturing for people to join in. A dapper elderly man in flat cap and snakeskin shoes asked me to dance. I have to say, I turned him down, only because the homeless man was hugging everyone dancing. I regretted it instantly – he stepped into the centre, and proceeded to do a soft shoe shuffle with the mother of a young girl in tiara and pink dress. The girl began to dance too – the homeless man handed her his harmonica, her mother wincing slightly before the girl handed it back. We stayed, we absorbed, and we sang very loudly to ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’, belted out by a beautiful redhead in leopard print scarf. After the music was done, we moved on to our destination, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, to see Adam Buxton presenting ‘BUG’, a showcase of funny and bizarre videos. We finished the evening with hot chocolate and lemon tart from Le Pain Quotidien on Waterloo Bridge, and slunk off into the night to plan more adventures.

My point is this – life is happening all around us. I feel like I’ve just woken up. Engage with everything. Look, really look. Say ‘yes’ to everything. And when you’re ready to wake up, give me a call.

I’m in Essex girl…Part Two

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One thing that I left out of the account of day one was the somewhat unusual conversation that took place between the hours of midnight and six am. Now, despite having a somewhat overactive brain, I’m not actually given to debate, and especially not on the matter of religion. It’s not that I don’t think about these things, just that I tend not to discourse on them. I find that with only the slightest stimulation, my brain goes into hyperdrive and simply won’t shut up and go to bed for hours like an errant child.
Which is why, when talk turned first to the supernatural, and swiftly after that to religion, I tried first of all to steer the conversation away, and when that failed, resorted to a clever little tactic I learnt in debate club. For anyone not skilled in the art of debate, I’ll fill you in. What you do is, take your fingers, put them in your ears, while simultaneously going ‘la la la la’.
I tried this for a while, and soon realised that the discussion was continuing apace. I had no choice but to get involved. In those hours before dawn, we discussed religion, the place of God in society today, what would happen if God as a concept were to be ‘phased out’, and if so what would replace religion, Dawkins, before finally rounding up with a discussion on relationships and gender roles. It felt like I hadn’t used my brain since university, and it took me a while to be able to talk eloquently or with any sort of structure. I didn’t entirely manage it, not while the sky was getting lighter and the gin and tonics were still in my system.
It did make me think, though. We get so out of the habit of debating (‘philosophising’ as Chekhov always called it, to my delight) once we leave our years of study, and the power to reason slips floppily away. Blancmange brain, I call it. I think it’s incredibly important to keep this at bay, and I’m keen to start reading more, and…well, thinking.
At around 8am, I woke. Shards of sunlight broke their way into the room, and despite having to keys, and both Sean and Nanna being asleep, I knew I had to explore. Harwich is so full of history, and not just in that ‘ooh, every house has a plaque’ way. It’s more a physical thing. You can feel it seeping into the walls, the buildings, the atmosphere. It sounds like utter rubbish, but there’s something there. (Not just my hangover)
Morning turned to afternoon, my two companions woke up, and it was time to face the world. We drove through spectacular countryside, pitched up in a delightful town (Maningtree, I believe) and perused the local market. I was already delighted enough, and yet still we drove on. Eventually we rounded a few narrow lanes, and there we were. The most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.
We’d eventually found our way to Constable’s old stamping ground (for want of a better phrase), Flatford Mill. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt quite as calm and at peace as on that day, with the sun beating down the back of my neck, bare legs in the river, with swans and boats drifting aimlessly along around me. We spotted where Constable had painted from, examining his perspectives. We sat in Flatford field for ages, eating elderflower sorbet, letting every worry unfold and escape.
 After experiencing the wonder of this stunning little place, we rolled on to Dedham. Sean showed us ‘Camp Musical Theatre Jesus’, hanging on the wall of Dedham church. With apologies to our Lord Jesus Christ – this was a Constable interpretation, and….wow. If you listen very, very carefully, you can actually hear the great JC singing ‘I am what I am…and what I am needs no excuses…’ I was utterly captivated by the old school at Dedham. Rusty bricks were carved with the names of schoolboys, on the day they left to go into the big wide world (probably still Dedham, for most of them…) We saw dates from the 1700s, and there was something so strange and humbling about touching a name like that.
Far too soon, we were back in Harwich and packing our stuff. Cider in a pub courtyard, a lot of thank you’s later, a long drive and infinitely more car dancing later, and we were home. Perfect weekend. 

I’m in Essex girl….Part One

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….well, Harwich, actually. Which is on the Essex/Suffolk border. But that’s not quite as catchy, is it?

Anyway, after my delightful friend Sean trecked all the way down from said sea port town for my birthay party back in January, he issued us with an invitation to come up and see him (he probably added ‘make me smiiiiile’, being the musical theatre performer that he is.) It took us a shoddy amount of time organising – over four months to be precise – but new jobs and MBAs and adulthood got in the way. Anyway, the bout of long weekends we were blessed with in May seemed like the perfect solution.

And so it was that on a sunny afternoon, I piled into my friend Nanna’s little car with inordinate amounts of shopping bags and two VERY glittery Lola’s Cupcakes for sustenance. We slipped on a little bit of ‘Slammin’ & Jammin’ (Nanna is nothing if not a BRILLIANT CD namer) and off we steamed.

Now, before I tell you what happened next, I must explain a little something. Before ‘Made in Chelsea’ came into my life, I was something of an avid ‘The Only Way is Essex’ viewer. I know, they were unenlightened times – but I had yet to be introduced to MiC, where the pale skins, white Blackberries, copious amounts of fur and friends with silly names made me feel infinitely more at home…Anyway, Nanna and I were delighted to find out that with a little tweaking, our journey to take us right through the Towie Motherland – Brentwood.

Feeling a bit like bold explorers crossing into a brave new world, we ventured into the town. Practically quivering with excitement, and with Kelis’ ‘Bossy’ blaring out of the speakers (our travel anthem of choice), we peered out of the car, looking for any perma-tanned pneumatic women, and their Ken doll counterparts. An old woman eating a sandwich on a bench, a bunch of 10 year olds, and some perfectly respectable people was what our eyes did in fact alight on…

Still, we were bubbling over with excitement, and doing our very own brand of ‘car dancing’ (pointy arm, pointy arm, wiggle, double dream hands), we shrieked with excitement as we pulled up round the back of Sugar Hut (as I’m sure all the worthiest Brentwoodians have), and proceeded to take photos in the middle of the road, nearly killing ourselves in the process. I bought some fake eyelashes, we cranked up ‘Bossy’ again, and then it was time to get back on the road and head to our real destination.

As the countryside leveled out, you couldn’t have had a greater contrast. Broad skies and yellow fields suddenly surrounded us, and soon we were winding our way into Harwich itself. After a slight technical hitch, whereby we drove past the same group of teens misspending their youths at least FOUR TIMES, much to their amusement, we finally reached the most divine little cobbled street, all tucked away.
We eventually located what we assume was the right house (I knocked on the door and then ran back into the car, we were welcomed into Sean’s house, the most incredible converted Tudor pub. The place had a wonderful atmosphere, and after a brief pause spent gawping at the bottle of champers Sean had been given by Cameron Mackintosh, admiring his well stocked kitchen (this blog is a euphemism free zone, please remember), and reapplying our lipstick we headed out for a drink. Sean seemingly knew everyone – and no one seemed especially surprised to see him ushering two young blonde girls around. We sampled some sort of Polish martini; sadly eschewing the Cosmopolitan, the description of which bore the legend ‘Sex in the City (sic) comes to Harwich!’.
After a delicious supper cooked for us by Sean, and copious amounts of champagne, we embarked on what passed for the local disco. ‘The Stingray’ is the local to end all locals. Teenagers breathed the same stale air as Harwich’s elders; framed pictures of ships hung on the walls, and you could get a glass of wine with an awful lot of change from a fiver. Unfortunately, much of the evening is a blur to me, but I do remember dancing with my shoes off, executing a wobbly cartwheel in the middle of the dancefloor, watching Sean pirouette gracefully, and finally gawping openly as a dead ringer for ‘Nessa’ from ‘Gavin & Stacey’ copped off with not one, but TWO not-ostensibly-disgusting young men.
I woke up early the next morning, breakfasted on a  leftover Lola’s Cupcake, and marched off for a two hour seaside walk. By this point, I was firmly in love with Harwich. But the best was yet to come. Part two on the way…

With warmth from the sun, and visions of what they want…

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I’m sitting here, facing a blank page, as Saturday morning dribbles away into Saturday afternoon, just me and my blog. Part of the reason I’ve made endless excuses and avoided the world of hyperspace is that I felt the pressure of writing something GOOD. I’ve had so many lovely and encouraging comments about my writing, and this blog, that I didn’t want to jot down anything half-hearted. But, being afraid of not being good doth not a writer make (as any Guardian journalist will tell you….oh yes I did.) Often, writing is about is just about consistency, of just sitting down and blocking something out.

So, in an attempt to get up to date, I’m going to have to do a bit of Doctor Who worthy time travelling. Let’s start with April, shall we?

Someday my prince will come…

Since my birthday in January, I’ve developed a taste for hostessing. As a result of this, I promised (threatened) to hold a Royal Wedding party. And just as well – I got a bit fed up of all the wedding-bashing that led up to the event itself. While I may find sarcasm funny, cynicism isn’t really a word in my vocabulary. Thus it was that, on the morning of the 29th April, a gaggle of friends descended on my house – some so early that they caught me with my rollers in…oops!

We were terrifically lucky with the weather. After a rainy week, we were able to take the party outside. I’ve never done anything like that before, and it was pretty marv – we provided our own commentaries for the ceremony, my friend Colin played The Sex Pistols over the Beeb’s coverage; my friend Laura followed the entire thing on Twitter and stood up for Jerusalem, and we almost all got terrifically drunk on my Earl Grey infused vodka.

Foodwise I had a lot of help from friends with this one, but for my part, I made Nigella’s chocolate and lime cake with margarita cream, my usual raspberry meringues (ooh err), various puff pastry bits, a strawberries and cream cake, and finally a lustre dusted mini-wedding cake. I find cake decorating an exhilarating activity, because I never plan. I just start icing and frosting and glittering and cutting and carving and pasting….and at least five times, I say to myself ‘it looks bloody atrocious’. Most of my cakes, in fact, end up looking the way they do because I’ve had to endlessly correct what I’ve just messed up.
This one was scary territory. There’s little room for failure when you’re working with ultra thin white Royal Icing, and I did a fair amount of Frankensteining on it. Inside was lemon curd and fresh strawberries, and outside I added gold lustre dust, butterflies, little gold hearts….I don’t think it turned out too hideously.
The biggest cause for concern was not just the lack of bunting – I never believed I’d see the day when every shop I went to in Tunbridge Wells sorrowfully informed me ‘I’m afraid we’re all out of the stuff’ – but what I was going to wear. After my birthday party dress, which belonged more on a cake stand than on me if we judge it on the meringue-o-meter, I had a reputation to live up to. A reputation for ridiculousness, that is. I scoured the length and breadth of the country (well, Oxford Street), and came up with nothing. I’ll touch on this more later, but the high street is rapidly becoming a no-go area for me. I’m thoroughly sick of cheap fabrics, shoddy workmanship, and garments that have the longevity of a doily in a snowstorm. I’ll be blogging about this particular issue soon enough, but let’s just leave it there for now, because I start getting angry. Before I get my stiletto heels out…
So there I was, tainted with the garb of Topshop, the reek of Urban Outfitters, the grasp of French Connection; smack bang in the middle of a sartorial/existential crisis, and then I found it. Like an oasis in a desert, like Root Boost to a flat haired girl, like…well, Wills to Kate…Love Is Boutique. This little haven of vintage/hardly worn had been tucked away on Church Road in Tunbridge Wells for a fair amount of time, and yet I’d neglected it, like a….ok, enough of dodgy analogies, I promise. Again, this will be fodder for a more ephemeral blog in the near future, but for now let me just say – I spotted it, in the window. It was just below calf length, a vision in lace, nipped in by a silky sash…and the minute our eyes met (eyes and hooks, in the case of the dress), it was true love.
Reader, in all the years of going to Topshop, I had NEVER felt like this about a dress.
So, togged up and with tea infused vodka in one hand, the party got underway. The ceremony was lovely, Kate’s dress was beautiful – but gosh, didn’t Pippa look ever so slightly better – Jerusalem was rousing (wasn’t it, Laura), and bunting or not bunting, I had a bloody marvellous time.
xoxo