Baubles, Bangles And Beads

What a truly satisfying weekend. Well, I'm actually only talking about Saturday, but Saturday was my weekend, as it was so good the rest pales in comparison.

On Saturday The ArtyOne and I went to Clothes Show Live 2007 in Birmingham. To the uneducated (as I was until not too long ago), Clothes Show Live is the "largest fashion and beauty event in the world" according to NEC, the exhibition site that plays host to the extravaganza. 6 days, 7 fashion zones, 20 halls, 40 models and dancers, 450 fashion, hair and beauty companies and a sprinkling of celebrities all under one roof.... if women had wet dreams, this would be their inspiration.

The ArtyOne and I had free tickets, as third musketeer BlueEyes works on the show. Or maybe "works on the show" is a bit of an understatement - she is one of the elite handful who basically own the show. She is the show. Or at least, she was until Jesse Metcalfe from Desperate Housewives showed up.... then she was calling for a show(ing) along with the rest of the crowd.

Being a Very Important Person herself, she got us VIP tickets which had us sitting 5th row from the front for the 12:30pm catwalk show. Hunky Jesse introduced the event, and the rather young and almost entirely female crowd went apeshit (the weekend is pretty teenybopper, since they're at school on the other days). The ArtyOne and I were not that impressed.... I mean, yes, he's cute, but in a Hollywood, perfectly proportioned kind of way, and we both prefer out men a little messy and, well.... manly. Jesse is the fairytale Prince Charming - I prefer the Camel Guy. The Sugababes were next up, performing their latest single About You Now. I like some of the Sugababes music, but it's not going to get me jumping out of my chair or anything. Then the fashion show started, and gorgeous models interspersed with the best looking dancers on the face of the planet shimmied and boogied their way up and down the catwalk to everything from Britney Spears to Linkin Park. It was when the male dancers came out wearing jeans, leather jackets and nothing else that even I finally lost my cool. And then to make our already salivating lips smack even harder, they took off the jackets, did a spot of breakdancing and threw themselves into suggestive poses right on the front of the stage, just a few metres from where we were sitting. Two steps forward and I would have been tracing those those rock hard obliques with my fingertip. Mmmm. Very fine specimens.

After the excitement of the show, 3,000 very flushed women and girls made their way out of the theatre and hit the shopping halls to do some serious damage to their credit cards. In sticking with the imagery, the wealth of the shopping population started out at the level of the USA, and in less than half a day spiralled down to that of Ethiopia. 5 and a half hours straight, no eating, no drinking and no toilet breaks - we were on a mission. We descended on the hundreds of stalls touting clothing, make-up, accessories, make-overs and style sessions, spray-tans, workshops and wellbeing treatments of every conceivable sort. We bought goodie bags of make-up and beauty products for £10, when the contents were worth £40. We paid £2 for a beauty magazine complete with a skincare kit in miniatures. Gorgeous winter coats were flying off hangers at £15 a pop, and fashion items in styles to suit everyone on the planet were practically being given away for £5 or £10 a piece. Our arms were loaded down with bags to rival those under Amy Winehouse's eyes, but we felt no pain and no fatigue - we were invincible. We were like the Spartans in 300 - just a few souls with so very much to conquer, but our hearts were strong and our wallets generous; and when they stopped spewing out our life savings in cash, our plastic virtually melted in the team effort card swipes to keep the shopping spirit alive.

£90 later (and this was after having a budget of £20), I walked out of there with over £250 worth of clothing and beauty products. There are no words than can quite describe the satisfaction. Even better, when I told Shoes about my fantastic day, even he agreed it was an opportunity too good to pass up. Of course, he thinks I only spent £50..... lying by omission is sometimes the glue that keeps a relationship strong. ;-)

Gimme More

I am currently in an absolute frenzy of imaginary shopping. Rather than being 'wishful thinking' shopping, this is shopping which I am going to do in the near future, but which requires careful and meticulous planning. I have not done a stitch of work all day. Instead, I have been sitting here making lists and e-mailing frantically back and forth with the female members of my family to determine what presents I will be buying everybody when we go back home for a two and a half week holiday end of January.

Shopping is my first and foremost love. It's better than exercise (not that that's actually any good in the first place), better than getting a promotion, better than eating that ginormous chocolate eclair when you're pmsing hard enough to commit mass extermination, almost but not quite better than sex - basically, it's the most fun a woman can have on her own or in a group of other woman (unless you're a lesbian, I assume, but as I'm not I can't comment on that). There's nothing better than the smell of a sale (it has a musty, metallic smell, like money raining down in buckets), the feeling of euphoria as you grab the last dress in your size, the taste of victory on your tongue as the cashier rings up your purchases.

The third best shopping experience, following closely behind 1) being out in the field, dressed in full battle gear (slip-on stilettos, skirt and a top with no ties or buttons, for adept stripping and reclothing) and 2) the stomach knotting tension of bidding on ebay, is the shopping projection. Here you plot future shopping trips with military precision. While this has none of the immediate tangible rewards, it leaves you quivering in anticipation of the big day ahead. It contains its own form of adrenaline rush, which is mainly linked to the gene that senses you are going to be spending a lot of money soon, and releases endorphins into your bloodstream in sheer anticipation.

From my extremely productive projections today, I have the following list:

Flea (Shoes' 9 year old niece): MotoX gear, including but not restricted to boots, breastplate, knee/elbow guards and pants (she recently received an off road motorbike for her birthday)

K (Shoes' 14 year old sister): Ipod

BlackVelvet (Shoes' sister) and OtherHalf (we have not yet met OtherHalf, so he will receive a proper name once I can channel his personality into one that fits him): A big bag of sweets and chocs from London, plus ???

Mama Shoes: ???

Daddy Lopz: Diabetic chocs for Daddy Lopz (SA does not cater for diabetics in terms of chocolate, perhaps because they're not supposed to eat it? Just a thought), plus ???

Mama Lopz: ???

G (Mini-Me's boyfriend): Sports autobiographies, cookbooks (totally gay, but Mini-Me is making me do it)

Mini-Me: an entirely new wardrobe of clothes, a couple of bottles of perfume, a few books from the bestseller list, disney soft toys, cold hard cash (give an inch and she takes a mile)

I still have a lot of work to do.

Baby Love

I have won two tickets to London Fashion Weekend! How about that? I snagged them by entering a staff competition to name our new staff magazine. All entrants with names that will be considered were put into a hat for a lucky draw, and I won! They haven't decided on a name yet, so I don't know if any of mine will be used, but I will certainly be using those tickets. Scarf and I are going on Saturday afternoon. I know the biggest part of Fashion Week is the shopping, and we are both as poor as churchmice so that's kind of an issue, but at least we'll get to soak up the shopping glow with elite fashionistas and catch a catwalk show or two.

In other, rather more frightening news, I was out seeing one of my covens at lunch today and I just saw babies everywhere. Babies babies babies, like they were falling from the sky or something. And, even worse, I wanted them. I didn't think: that's the cost of 10 pairs of really expensive shoes this month, I thought, aaaahh, wouldn't it be nice to have one those (babies, not expensive shoes). It's finally happened. The day I thought would never come, the day where my age catches up with me, where my biological clock is not just ticking but spinning around and making coffee in an effort to be noticed, the day I am ready to give up SHOES! I want a baby. I can't help it. I don't WANT to want a baby, I just want one. It's like when you want to watch that gory, violent, psycho-thriller movie on late night TV, or perhaps a spot of porn, depending on your preference... you don't want to be the person that wants to watch these things, but you are and there's not much you can do about it.

I still maintain I am too young for kids, and I don't intend to go slicing my arm with a razor blade to rip out the one thing that is preventing me from having them just yet. I also won't be buying baby books, offering to babysit all and sundry's children or quizzing Shoes about baby names and whether or not smacking is acceptable in today's society (for the record: if it's a girl, Ayla, or a boy, Lincoln; and I'm totally into smacking, it's the greatest discovery by parents since the beginning of time). But I can't stop myself from cooing over every baby I see in the streets, something most women do but which for me has increased from Would Like To to Must Have, Gimme The Baby Now, and wanting to hold every tiny person I can get my hands on. Shoes has told me several times in the last month to tone it down lest people start thinking I have an unhealthy interest in children. Parents can't be too careful these days.

So what now? I want a baby, but am savvy enough to realise it would be kind of disasterous right now, considering a) our massive debt b) our lack of owned property c) the small problem of being a few hundred thousand miles away from the place we want to raise our kids and d) our massive debt. Oh yes, and the fact that Shoes would probably rather die than be a father right now. Just a wee bump in the road.

Does this condemn me to the status of irritating woman in a group of young and care-free 20-somethings who is constantly nauseating her peers with her baby obssession? Not me. I'll not do it. Emergency shoe shopping this Saturday. Stat. Maybe I'll spend at a bit at Fashion Weekend after all.

Pure Shores

Last night Scarf and I went to O2 Arena in Greenwich to see Steel Magnolias. In an effort to market the arena as the new place to be in SE London, they are having all sorts of events, both free and not so much. By day they have kids activities (the little brats are all on holiday here at the mo) and by night they have live music, cocktail evenings and classic films. Wednesday and Sunday nights are free movie nights. It was actually really awesome - not just the movie, but where you watch it.

They've created a beach in the centre of the building by bringing in truck loads of sand to spread over the floor, building fake palm trees complete with decorative lights and setting up deck chairs, so you can enjoy a bit of the seaside in grimy, rainy old LDN. They've hung a big screen on the wall, and voila! you have your very own "Movies at the Beach!" It reminded me a little of a drive-in. The only real similarity is that there is a big screen and it's sort of outdoors (not really, but it feels like it because it's at the beach!), but still, it took me back to a time where you listened to the fliek through tinny speakers mounted on your side mirrors and vendors came up to your windows hawking popcorn and coke. Ag please Daddy, won't you take us the drrrrrive-in.........

You can actually bring your own food and booze as well, so we're going to go again and take the guys with us next time, and have a little picnic on the beach. Check out the before and after pics.

I have finally got a new phone. Just got it now on my lunch break. My gorgeous and sleek pink Samsung U600. I just can't get any trendier. And you know, I went into Carphone Warehouse with the intention of merely checking out my options (was planning on buying the phone only after consulting the Phone God, ie Shoes), and came out with the phone and all mod cons, having paid NOTHING up front - take that, stupid online mobile contract people!!!! Ok, so I didn't get a free gift either, but I didn't have to deal with a Stupid People Situation and I didn't have to lie on my application form - the consultant did it for me! Tres stoked! I was a rather typical chick though, I have to admit..... I only went down to the Strand to pick up the photos I'd had printed for my scrapbook. Along the way, I realised I was going to be passing SheActive, and that it was high time I get a decent sports bra - the twins are slowly but surely succumbing to gravity and need a little extra help. Ok, so maybe I lied when I said I was passing SheActive - I had to make a detour of about 7 streets. I went in and bought a brand new extra super ultimate boobs-in-concrete Shock Absorber bra - because only the balls should bounce! Thanks Anna Kournikova. And then I just popped in to Carphone Warehouse to see what my options were..... and the rest is shopping history. That is how the most satisfying and successful shopping trips are done, after all. Ladies, take note. You're reading the blog of a professional here. The fact that I meant to pick up photos which were already paid for and came away having spent a total of £480, if you include all my future contract payments, is irrelevant, really. I mean, it's not like it was an impulse buy or anything. Both items are necessities! You can't class necessities as impulse buys. Therefore boyfriends are not allowed to shout about shopping trips which result in necessities. I'll let you know later if this theory actually works.

I'm feeling a little sick today. I had chinese rice stir fry for lunch - beans, bambooey type stuff, carrots and prawns, with a bit of last night's fish thrown in for good measure - could that be why, I wonder. Reading it back actually makes my stomach turn. Maybe I shouldn't be so inventive when throwing random foods together.

Looking forward to a weekend of doing nothing, except watching Grey's and playing with my new phone. Just gotta get through Neutrino and OJ's Farewell To Our House party tomorrow night - they're being evicted. This is the house where twice they have been threatened with knives to their throats by their more than slightly pyschotic neighbours, who have major objections to trance music. Ok then, loud trance music. Sometimes in the early hours of morning. And yes, more frequently than is polite. Basically, they deserved a stern telling off, or even a warning from the cops, but the neighbours' vigilante justice is taking it a mite too far. Speaking of which, we nearly had a riot on our hands last night when our African friends living on the opposite side of our block turned their music up to full volume at 11:15pm. The usually unsociable residents of Building 50 gathered as one under said offenders' balcony and took turns cussing them out as loud as they could. Our friend emerged on his balcony and stared blankly down at them. Is it un-pc to say he looked like a monkey in a zoo? It's great, in that particular flat we have a bunch of Nigerians with no social skills, and next door to them we have a family of chavs who may or may not have social skills, but who openly spurn them anyway. Between them they have fewer manners than women at the Christmas Sales. The result is a competition with various events, including: Who has the loudest music, Whose parties go on the longest, Who can get into the most violent and offensive screaming match on their balcony and Who's screaming match has the worst language, and finally Who is most likely to cause Building mutiny, resulting in our vigilante justice. Jury's still out on that one.