#17 - Hang off the side of a house (as you do!)

I saw the house featured on the BBC news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23041236 and straight away fancied giving it a look.  So I talked Corinna into coming with me Sunday afternoon.  Unfortunately it was clear that many others had now heard about it and had the same idea so the queue was really long.  But the sun was shining and somehow my winning smile convinced Corinna to stick it out with me.  After all it isn’t everyday that you get to scale the side of a house, or casually hang off a window ledge!

Once we finally got to the front of the queue I had several photo pose ideas already formulated in my head, and only 4 minutes on the installation to read, hang, climb and generally cover all the angles.  Only 4 minutes, and an hours wait building up to it – but a lot of fun and I enjoyed both the action and the creative side of it.  Loved checking out the photos at the end of it too!

Thank you to Corinna for being willing to stay in the queue so long, for joining me in my silliness and for taking the photos.  Hope you enjoyed your reward of a Mcflurry!

#16 - Annuals

After my trip to Borough Market and looking through the old comics for sale on our walk along the Thames I thought more and more about trying to get hold of some comics from November 1972.  So I thought I’d give Amazon marketplace and e-bay a try.  Apparently Roy of the Rovers is the most popular comic to sell from back then but even then not for my specific month.  And it wasn’t even a comic I had any memory of.  And then the idea came to me… Amazon showed up the Beano annual from 1972 in my search!  I remember getting annuals in my Christmas stocking each year and loving them.  So I tried to think back to those I enjoyed and quickly realised that buying just 1 was NOT going to be enough! 

First up I found the classic cartoon of Tom and Jerry.  To be honest I don’t remember reading Tom and Jerry as a child but I do remember loving watching them.  But still, I felt sure that this annual was a must.  Next I found the classic Beano which I definitely remember reading as a child – classics like Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx and The Bash Street Kids.  And from the Beano, the Dandy was the next natural addition.  Both we always read – in fact my sister and I had rabbits named Beano (an albino!) and Dandy – and they were quickly added to my basket.  Already excited at the 3 annuals I had found I was about to leave it there when I noticed there was also a Rupert the Bear annual.  I pondered for all of a minute or two before adding it.

Once I had bought them I was so excited waiting for them to arrive and willing 4 emails to pop up into my inbox saying that each of them had been dispatched.  By the time they arrived at the office I was on a work trip out of the country – so I had one of my friends collect them and drop them off at my flat as I was so excited to get reading them as quickly as possible.  Opening those 4 packages it was like Christmas day all over again.  Hours of reading fun ahead of me!  So excited!

#15 - Manicure

When I lived in Brasil I remember being constantly amused that even the men generally had better manicured nails than I did!  My nails were never really something I was too fussed about.  Of course I like it when they look good but I can never quite be bothered with the effort to get them looking that way on even a semi regular basis.  So I was pleased when my friend Sharon suggested we all go for manicures and / or pedicures on the day before her wedding which we were over in the US for.  I went for just a manicure (not keen on people messing with my feet!).

We started the occasion with mugs of sparkly stuff to celebrate.  Then a few at a time split off to be pampered.  I went for a gentle naturalish colour in the hope that I would be able to keep them looking lovely for a while without any clashing colour issues to think about.  It was so nice just to be able to sit there and have someone else do all the work to make my nails look pretty, and being in a salon meant that I wasn’t even tempted to try and do other stuff after just a few minutes and mess the nails up.

Not only did my nails looked good at the end but it was a funny morning with some lovely ladies!

#14 - Day at disney World

I was always undecided about the Disney World experience – I knew everyone raved about it, but wasn’t sure if it was really for me.  My brother and his girlfriend started to go there each year and looking at their photos I began to think it might be fun.  Last year a work training took me to Orlando for the week and I looked into using some of my spare time to go.  But they didn’t seem to do a reduced price for only going in the evening and since I was in trainings all day I settled for enjoying Downtown Disney and riding the free Monorail around to view the different parks from above.  The Monorail turned out to be not quite as exciting as it sounded but I did enjoy some lego models, a boat ride and a few other attractions down at Downtown.

So this year when it was announced that work was sending us to Orlando again – for a major celebration conference – Disney World was added to my list.  In fact it was even part of the programme for us to take all our international volunteer teams for an afternoon at Magic Kingdom.  And so after a packed week of meetings at Sunday lunchtime we began the epic task of gathering together hundreds of volunteers into their allotted groups and heading off for an afternoon of fun.

It was with excitement that with my group we made our way through the turnstiles after we had actually arrived too early and had to wait outside for 30mins (definite anticipation builder!).  We already had our priority sorted and so we walked to one of the far ends of the park (though stopping for a few photo ops on the way) until we reached Space Mountain.  We had decided to start with this one to avoid disappointment.  While we were in the queue there was a problem with the systems which took them about 10mins to repair.  I think this definitely added to the fear experience!  I ended up in the front of my car and to the great delight of the rest of the team the photo snapped at a particularly enthusiastic scream!  I didn’t know my mouth even opened that wide!  Haha!  I enjoyed the ride but not sure I would have queued to do it again anytime soon!

Throughout the afternoon we managed to fit in a whole array of rides from Space Mountain to the incredibly tame It’s a Small World and many in between.  I think my favourite area was Frontierland with Splash Mountain just winning favourite ride over Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  Both were lots of fun, and having got the hang of the Fastpass system we didn’t even have to queue long for either.

 
By the end of all that it seemed quite a challenge to then find something to eat ahead of finding a spot for the procession and fireworks.  Hunger always makes cranky (hangry as my friend Jessica has named it!), add to that big crowds and general lack of sleep for a week and I had truly had enough by this point.  Every part of me ached from being on my feet for too long and I just wanted my bed.  As a result I couldn’t muster a whole lot of oohing and ahhing at either the procession or the fireworks.  Once we had delivered our team to their bus and found our own I was desperate to find our new hotel and curl up!

It was a fun afternoon, but I think perhaps I’d like to give it another try sometime when I am not so sleep deprived at the end of a full on work conference!  But it was great to be able to have fun and celebrate with our wonderful international volunteer partners so, tiredness aside, that was a bonus to the event.