On Saturday night a hot topic (I say ‘hot’, it was discussed for over a minute, yet under 5) of conversation was what of my weekend would end up blogged. When questioned, I couldn’t immediately come up with an answer – not that none of it had been blogworthy, just that I’m not a ‘this is what I did with my long weekend’ kind of blogger, so I’d therefore need a kind of hook to get into it.
I’m still not sure what to say (“so why write?” – you may well ask), but there are a few things that need documenting.
Firstly – the Firsts. I’m pretty sure this was my first trip to the town of Hemel Hempstead – exotic place in Hertfordshire that I’m sure to return to as Jenni now has a lovely flat there. It was nearly my first experience of a fish pedicure, but they didn’t have room for us. But it was definitely my first ever meal at a Harvester on Saturday night. [We don’t have them in London.] No, it’s not classy but they do serve unlimited salad and make special Mini-Egg sundaes at Easter, so that alone made it worth it. (Besides, for me, dinner is all about the company.)
It was also the first of our girls’ weekends away to be tweeted – with its very own hashtag: #minigwa (and as one person has her tweets protected that link mostly just looks like me tweeting alone). As only four of us are on Twitter and only three of those own iPhones, this was a tad pointless and probably incredibly annoying for our followers, but who cares! One of my followers was unsure of the hashtag’s meaning and suggested ‘Girls With Attitude’ – though quite how ‘mini’ would work in front of that is an interesting question. Actually, the ‘mini’ is totally misleading – none of us are mini in stature. In fact it was in reference to the fact that this was a smaller group of the usual GWA bunch, owing to our smaller location. Rather than 17 of us in a 20-bed YHA house as we had last year, this 10 were in a one bedroom flat in the former Kodak building.
Yes, 10 giggly girls in a one bedroom flat – and on the hottest weekend of the year so far too. Sleeping arrangements were…interesting. Seven fitted in ok on Thursday, but ten on Friday was a challenge – and this was how we solved it:
What else to say? We met hot firemen – twice – in the lift (the second time was quite embarrassing, I think they thought they’d acquired stalkers – they hadn’t). We went out for dinner twice and on both occasions annoyed the heck out of our waiters. We found a bar with a dance floor and had our handbags meticulously searched by men in stab-proof vests. The others danced while I sat in the corner guarding bags and wishing I’d left my book (or crochet) in mine. [I wasn’t in a mood, tiredness had simply overcome me.] Otherwise we simply spent a lot of time outside and eating.
Oh, and I made people photobooth – with varied results:
As I might not be forgiven by my friends for posting potentially unflattering photos of them, I ought to finish up with one where we’re all scrubbed up and ready to hit Hemel – I don’t think the town was ready for us.
Things people have said: