Happy New Year Everybody

(Belatedly)

So, 2012. Here you are, wholeheartedly so. Aware that we are well into the New Year, that once again the photos are stacking up on my hard drive, the words tumbling over each in my head. But posting about things chronologically maintains some sort of order, so here you go.

New Year's Eve. What was meant to be a quiet dinner for stragglers turned into a party of sorts as numbers snowballed. There are always more stragglers than you anticipate at New Year. Always. We drank bubbly with rose petals, punch from the latest Bompas and Parr. Ate the food I had spent most of the day cooking, homemade hummus, baba ganoush, beetroot and walnut dip. Spanakopita. Ottolenghi's winter vegetable cous cous. Nigella's gleaming maple cheesecake.

At half past eleven, bundled on coats and scarves, sensible shoes, headed up to Primrose Hill for the stroke of midnight and the fireworks. Always my favourite moment. Not for me the the overcrowded London club on New Year's Eve, but rather this open space high above it all, city below, sky vast, horizon erratically lit up by fireworks, not just those on the river, but elsewhere too, people all over the city celebrating. Champagne from plastic cups, sparklers distributed to gloved hands, mud underfoot and grass slick with earlier rain.

In the morning, New Year's Day, just M and I, blueberry muffins, bagels. A long, long walk up to Hampstead Heath, spying a woodpecker in the trees and later, some of London's parakeets. Back down past Parliament Hill, Kentish Town, Camden, discarded Christmas trees looking sorrowful. Getting caught in the rain, running for the bus, holing up in the flat with soup and toast and television.

Happy 2012.

Valentines and Vulvas

A weekend of pink and scarlet, roses and red velvet, foil wrapped heart shaped chocolates, palest pink lychee punch. We have a cocktail party Saturday night, my flatmates and I, Valentine's themed in an attempt to get it all out the way in one big saccharine extravaganza, before the day in question itself.

The three of us spend Friday night in, baking red velvet cupcakes, heart shaped mini Victoria sponges, chocolate-peanut butter slices punched into tiny heart shapes, heart shaped sand cookies, marshmallow studded Rocky Road. Clouds of icing sugar that make me sneeze, bottle after bottle of red food colouring that stains my hands, splatters the work surface. I lick about ten kitchen implements clean, feel mildly nauseous.

Saturday I rise early, ice the cupcakes, then head to The Women's Library where my Women's Institute Group, The Shoreditch Sisters, have a stall at the WI Craft Day that is being held there. We showcase our current campaign, 'Embroideries: A Creative Campaign to End FGM', in which we are creating crafted interpretations of the vulva to raise awareness about the issue of Female Genital Mutilation, as well as collecting submissions from other craft groups or individuals, some from other Londoners, some from Scotland, even one sent from France. We sit with our embroidery hoops, our needles, scissors, home made pin cushions (the cake one below is J's), velvet ribbon, silk threads. We stitch and appliqué, meet members from other WI groups, answer questions, field a few raised eyebrows, but are mostly met with lots of support (link above if you would like to get involved).

Afterwards I head home to string up paper hearts, marinate olives, pop popcorn, smother it in salt and melted butter, light candles, mix up punch, fill jam jars with sweetheart roses. The doorbell rings, guests arrive with bottles, jam-filled heart shaped biscuits from H, and an inexplicable set of measuring spoons of mystery origin. The flat fills. There are bottlenecks in doorways, a jam-packed kitchen, living-room, corridor, liaisons in bedrooms. An impromptu raffle at midnight, pizza at 2am, music still pumping at 4 (very understanding neighbours evidently), in bed before 5, just. Brunch on Sunday with all those who stayed over, then a long afternoon of clear up, but we stick some music on and pause for tea and leftover red velvet halfway through so it is not so bad.

Monday itself is fine, a little lonely I suppose, but really it is just another day, and one that M and I don't make a huge deal over even when he is in the country. He does send flowers to work though, so I am able at least to partake in the excessive bouquet one-upmanship that seems to be rife on the tube journey home. And now I am absolutely drowning in the most beautiful roses - scented bunches reduced on their sell buy date to £1.49, above, leftovers from the party, below, and M's pink roses, very bottom, filling the flat, covering surfaces, heavenly.

A Party Just Because

Somewhere between the frantic last minute preparations, shoving flowers into vases and tea lights into jam jars, making popcorn still in my pyjama bottoms ten minutes before people are due to arrive, slicing a layer of skin off my ankle in the shower, blood flowing down the drain like a scene from Psycho, pulling on a black dress found in the bottom of my wardrobe, eventually emerging ready from my room half an hour after the first guests had arrived, somewhere between all that and finally making it to my bed, sleepily, dreamily, in the early hours of Sunday morning, I manage to have a wonderful time. We pull it out the bag, C, C and I, and, even without M there to mix the cocktails and do the post-party washing up, we manage to throw a damn good party. We drink mulled cider, gingerbread Bellinis, and a pear punch which halfway through the night morphs into a rum punch due to lack of vodka. Our lovingly hand made Hokey Pokey collapses in the heat of the packed rooms, we find it, stickily melted, in all sorts of strange places the next day. Pizza is brought triumphantly from the oven at 1am, to great delight. My camera is appropriated at some point during the evening, in the morning there are photos on it I didn't take, I know I didn't take this one. Non of the neighbours complain, no glass is broken.

The clean up takes the best part of Sunday but afterwards the three of us collapse contentedly onto the sofa to watch the first part of William Boyd's Any Human Heart.

Monday morning I wake in the half light, realise the weekend is over, Saturday night just memories, and feel deflated, entirely unenthusiastic about the week ahead.

Red Velvet and a few Wallies

Still no proper internet at the new flat but I miss writing here so much that I put some pictures onto a memory stick and brought it in to work so I could write a little in my lunch break.

A Where's Wally?* themed birthday party on Saturday night at M's brother's house. I made Red Velvet cupcakes (from my trusty Hummingbird Bakery cookbook) to take, as I thought the red and white colouring would be appropriate. They turned out rather well actually, much better than the first time I tried and made the mistake of using natural food colouring instead of artificial, resulting in a pale imitation rather than the deep, deep red the sponge is supposed to be.

Two buses to Dalston, with four of us dressed in red and white stripes. Glasses made of pipe cleaners and the awkward feeling of walking into a room and finding that someone is wearing the same outfit, but magnified because everyone was. Flowing mojitos. Dancing and dancing in the ground floor living room. Fingers stained until the following evening by melting Space-Invader shaped ice cubes that had been dyed with food colouring (oh the randomness of the memories that come back to you the following day). Trying to be cool, because we were the younger sibling's friends at the older one's party, failing so so miserably. One pair of red Hobbs heels splatted with cocktail, one pair of treasured vintage earrings lost in the midst of discarded plastic cups and empty bottles. Waking up and berating myself for being so careless. Two taxis home as we had to leave the first down the side of St Pancras Station whilst two of the passengers got out for air. Finally crawling into bed at 6am (cursing the British Summer Time clocks going forward), and not emerging until 1pm Sunday afternoon, which I hate, because then half the day is gone.

But all absolutely worth it, because it was a fantastic party.

* I believe our Wally may be a Waldo to all you American readers

A premature birthday and a send off (featuring lots of cocktails, cupcakes and cheap olives made fancy)

Busy week, but I wanted to share last Friday with you. It was a premature birthday celebration - I turn 24 next week, as well as the final party that my much-loved flat is going to see as I am moving in just over two weeks time (more on that later...).

M made various batches of very potent cocktails, there were French martini raspberry jellies served from teacups, plenty of pink-iced cupcakes, strings of glowing fairy lights, home-made bunting, Buddy Holly on the sound system, jam jars full of pink and white flowers, and a wonderful birthday cake that C had made (Three layers! Creamy white frosting! A trio of deep blue anemone flowers resting on top! Silver candles! It was perfect).

And of course there were the guests - I had a house full of friends who had travelled from as far as Edinburgh, Worcester, Cambridge, Colchester, or simply hopped on the tube from the wilds of South and East London, but I truly appreciated every single person's presence. It was so wonderful to see people I hadn't seen in an age, and just as lovely to raise a glass with those I see all the time.

It was a fitting send off for a home that has seen many a party in its time, and though Saturday morning featured a sore head and lots of tidying up, it was certainly worth it (it also featured Buck's Fizz, a batch of blueberry muffins and plenty of eggs and sausages for those who had stayed over so not all bad)!

Becky's Cheap Olives made fancy

I had over forty guests on Friday night, and though everyone loves a few olives to nibble on with their cocktails my budget didn't quite stretch to big tubs of them from the deli cabinet so I decided to make my own. I bought a huge jar of green olives from the supermarket, and a huge can of black and then, loosely following a recipe from 'Fast, Fresh and Fabulous' by Rose Elliot, I marinated my own. I drained and rinsed the olives from the brine they were stored in, before tipping into a large bowl. I then added a few glugs of olive oil, a couple of tablespoons of orange juice, the juice of a lemon and the zest (removed with a vegetable peeler to give largish strips), a couple of teaspoons of chilli flakes and four or five fat gloves of garlic (peeled and cut into thick slices). I mixed this all round and left for a few hours, before decanting into pretty glass bowls and dotting around the room along with many jars of cheese straws. Very easy, and so much cheaper than shop bought. Pretty yummy too!

Friday

Best. Night. Ever.

One hell of a lot of clearing up to do Saturday morning though.

Eight

I love throwing parties, but sometimes I think that perhaps I get a bit too carried away with a theme. Take Friday night's London themed party for example...

As Anna and I sat at the kitchen table on Thursday night, her cutting pigeon silhouettes out of grey card, me making Union Jack bunting out of string, paperclips and 12 for a £1 postcards, it occurred to me that most people are content with dim lighting, plastic cups of wine and a bowl of crisps and that this maybe was all a bit too extra. The thought crossed my mind again on Friday morning as I cut cupcakes in half to turn into mini Victoria sponges, and later as M mixed red, white and blue cocktails (Pomegranate Martinis, Lychee Punch and Blue Lagoons). I'm not sure either that many people would turn a Union Jack tea towel into a cushion cover by hand stitching it to a blue pillow case, purely so it could take pride of place on the sofa. Still, I enjoy doing it, and my friends all enjoying coming (though possibly more on account of M's rather potent cocktail mixes than the well thought out decor!), so I think that probably makes it okay...

(I didn't actually take that many photos on Friday, I was a bit too busy before it started trying to perfect 1960s style eye make-up, and a bit too busy during it catching up with friends and keeping drinks topped up!)

Ten things

M is now a Londoner, he moved into his new place on Sunday, and so I am throwing him a 'Welcome to London, Baby' party on Friday. The theme is 1960s London, Mad Men meets Carnaby Street style, though in practice I think it will just be lots of Union Jack decorations, Victoria Sponge cupcakes and red, white and blue cocktails. Having been away for the past fortnight I have lots to do still, food and drink shopping, flat cleaning / decorating etc. which means I will be busy this week, so I am going to keep my posts simple and respond to the tag from the lovely Rebecca at Daydreams in Lace to write 10 random things about me, which I'm going to spread out over the remainder of the week. Back at the weekend with party photos...!

In defence of summer

I know that we British love to have a good moan, but I do get despondent sometimes when people say that we haven't had a summer at all this year. Yes, the hailstones in July were bizarre, and the unpredictable rain and thunderstorms meant I was caught out without an umbrella on more than one occasion, but we have definitely had many, many hot sunny days in the last few months. There have been barbecues, picnics, outdoor music concerts, garden parties, swims in the open air and numerous meals on the balcony. I have walked to and from work almost every day this summer, and the Wimbledon roof only had to be used once. My shoulders are brown and my sister's nose has its annual smattering of freckles.

This weekend has not been a solid three days of blazing sunshine I had hoped (though today has been beautiful), but I feel it was a fitting fanfare to the final days of summer.

Friday night M and I went to the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park to see 'Hello Dolly'. The performance was delayed due to rain, but we sat in the bar area and sipped our wine, and eventually the skies cleared and we returned to our seats for a fantastic all-singing, all-dancing performance which we watched snuggled up under blankets as the sky got darker and lights came on in the trees.

The Saturday night Hen party / dinner was brilliant; delicious food, free flowing wine and excellent company all made even better by the fact that most of us were staying over and so didn't have to worry about getting home. It was slightly unconventional as there was a mix of boys and girls, but it was so much fun and everyone got on so well that the big mix of people only added to the atmosphere of the evening. The celebrations went on into the early hours of the morning unfortunately ending with one of the party falling off the garden trampoline and breaking his upper arm. Ouch. (Note to self: in future, 3am trampolining after copious amounts of wine is not a good idea, and should not be encouraged.)

Sunday was sleepy, dreamy, with the morning spent drinking many cups of tea and absentmindedly stroking our hosts' cats (too cold for the swimming pool) before getting on a train back to London where we spent the grey afternoon at the flat drinking more tea, eating fruit loaf and napping to try and counteract the effects of the just-three-hours sleep we'd had the night before.

I am afraid to say that we were so exhausted from the previous night's activities that there was far less dancing at Sunday night's party than I had anticipated, but it was still a lovely laid back affair. The garden looked beautiful, lit with burning torches, fairylights and the glowing coals from the barbecue, and it was nice to just sit on the rugs, swaddled in my two cardigans (there was a distinct chill to the air) and chat to friends and nibble on corn cobs. I did do a bit of dancing, because however tired there are some songs you just can't sit down to, but eventually the lure of bed became too overwhelming and we braved the night bus home.

I didn't get my swim this weekend, but I did get an outdoor party and some glorious sunshine this afternoon. Tomorrow is the 1st of September and, my two week holiday in the South of France aside, I do feel ready to embrace autumn*.

*(Although, Met Office, if you're reading, if we could have some nice weather on the 12th that would be just wonderful as it is A & T's wedding and I know they would really appreciate some sunshine. Many thanks.)

Hanging on

Autumn is my favourite season, but I am loathe to say goodbye to summer just yet.

It may be grey outside today, and the rainclouds yesterday evening may have made the sky prematurely dark, so that walking home along rain-slick pavements I felt like it was October, but we haven't even had the August Bank Holiday weekend yet.

I am determined to wear something light and summery to my friend's Hen Party dinner down in Kent on Saturday night, and will be painting my toenails bright pink and packing my polka bikini in preparation for a Sunday spent by her pool.

I am hoping it stays dry on Sunday, so we can stand in the garden at C's Carnival party, as the light slips away behind the trees, and escape to it later on, when the heat from dancing to A's DJ set gets too much. I am not sure if I will make it to the Notting Hill Carnival itself, but if I do, I want to be able to stand in the street and eat corn cobs cooked over hot coals, sun beating down on my back, music throbbing across melting tarmac.

This is all rather optimistic. BBC weather predicts mixed sun and cloud, with highs of just 22 degrees (Celsius). But at least if it doesn't rain that's something.

Meanwhile, more gifts from the Norfolk garden were delivered last night, glowing yellow cherry tomatoes, furry peaches to be ripened on a sunny windowsill and the first of the apples, a marker if ever there was one of the turning seasons.

I can't fight it, and indeed have no real desire to. Autumn is on the horizon, whispering to me.