Back from the Basque Region

Please excuse my severe lack of blogs of late… You see, two days before our trip to San Sebastian, Spain – the story of which I will recount in the following – I lost my job.

Yep, that darn credit crunch came up and bit the College Hill Company on the bum and forced my services straight past “at risk” and into “redundant”. There were tears (mine) and many an apology on their behalf. They told me I was “fabulous” – I knew that already – and that they were “ever so sorry” to have to let me go, but that my £25K price tag proved too much for their withering budget. So at 17:55 hours last Wednesday, 17 September 2008, I forwarded a few contacts from my work Inbox, recycled a bunch of notes and personal files and powered down my College Hill computer for the last time. That night I emailed two of my old recruiters and by Friday I was interviewing… On Saturday we boarded a plan for Biarritz.

Boyfriend and I have wanted to travel in Spain for a while. On this trip I had wanted to head to Malaga in the South, desperate for some sunshine despite the high ratio of Chavs that frequent Spain’s Mediterranean coastline. Given London’s non-existent summer my ex pat skin was craving warmth and Vitamin D. Boyfriend on the other hand wanted us to make our way northwards to San Sebastian in the Basque region, a city highly acclaimed for its amazing cuisine, notably a huge range of bars serving pinchos and even a healthy array of Michelin starred restaurants.

After asking advice of travellers who had been-there-done-that we decided San Seb was the way to go. So we booked a super cheap flight with Ryan Air into Biarritz (in the south of France) and planned to bus or train our way into Spain.

Our arrival in France was reasonably uneventful, except that the little French I thought I retained in my frontal lobe had seemingly escaped me and I was left to battle on with a few pleasantries and numbers when buying our forwarding tickets.

Apparently it's quite common for travellers to head in to San Seb via Biarritz… although you wouldn’t know it from the information available both online and at either location. Airy-fairy details about interlinking trains and a bus service that runs twice a day was all that was on offer, but we finally arrived at our destination that evening, a mere 11 hours after we’d left our home in London!

We’d booked a self-contained apartment only 200 metres from the Old Town and the city’s surf beach, La Zurriola. It was gorgeous and spacious, the perfect location and Boyfriend set about making us a ¡bienvenido a casa! snack of manchego cheese and chorizo on baguette with sangria – our ingredients purchased from the supermercado downstairs.

San Sebastian was definitely the place to be last weekend, with the 56th San Sebastian International Film Festival being held literally up the road from our unit. The weather was warm – 22 degrees at sunset – and thousands of people were walking the streets lapping up gelato and drinking outside bars and cafes. And we thought we’d missed the busy season!

Come Sunday though the crowds had dies down and while the sun was out it wasn’t scorching. We spent the day strolling the Old Town, had lunch at a gorgeous little seaside café where Boyfriend and I feasted on paella and yet more baguette (note: EVERYTHING is served on bread, with bread or in bread in San Seb!). The water’s edge of the Old Town reminded me of scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean and our Islander-looking waitress had me creating stories of her great, great grandmother’s capture by some Captain Jack-or-Other… the food was fabulous – if not a little salty – and her service fantastic. We moved on to spend an hour or so lazing on La Concha beach and then went home for a bit of a siesta.

Each night we made our way back into the Old Town for pinchos and sangria, and while tasty I have to say I was disappointed in their limited offerings. Every bar – and there were hundreds of them – seemed to be serving the same mix of shredded seafood mixed with mayonnaise on baguette, sausage wrapped in ham on baguette or goats cheese with quince jelly on baguette. I’d envisaged heated terracotta bowls full of salt and pepper calamari and servings of grilled haloumi, fried chorizo and seared artichokes but the reality was more like the cheap canapés you get at large number functions. And lots of bread, to fill you up!

On day two we walked to the other side of the harbour to ride the funicular to the top of Monte Igueldo. At the top is a demi-theme park with a haunted house, dodgem cars and water ride with amazing views of the city, but given our autumn arrival Said-theme Park was closed. So we headed back down that mountain and made our way to San Seb’s other high point Monte Urgull where a statue of Jesus takes pride of place.

Climbing to Jesus really took it out of us, so of course another siesta was required before our evening trip into the Old Town for yet more food and festivities. Our funniest moment occurred in one of the buzzing pinchos bars where when Boyfriend asked the customer in front of him the name of the dish he’d just purchased, the man turned to us and demanded we both take a bite out of his as yet untouched sandwich – and he wouldn’t take no for an answer!

Nothing really caught my eye on the shopping front. Even a last ditch attempt at Zara couldn’t satisfy my retail senses so we ventured back to London with suitcases full of only what we’d set out with – Boyfriend was thrilled.

All in all the holiday was a success. Boyfriend and I got the chance to revitalise our relationship – he taught me to play Gin Rummy and I even beat him a few times – and we came back rested. But both of us agree that San Seb, while lovely, isn’t a place we’ll be rushing back to. Had the weather been warmer and we’d been able to spend more time on the beach or kayaking around the coastline maybe we’d have had more fun, but as it was, the best part was just being away together… Ahhhh, yes, I’m such a romantic!

London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2009... With a splash!

Stuck in the office this week – my heart pines for the catwalks – I thought I’d ask a few journo friends who are taking on Fashion Week, just who is HOT in London!

By general consensus, the week’s Top 5:

Giles Deacon (Tues 19:30 WC1)

Christopher Kane (Tues 15:15 TS/NW1)

Luella (Mon 10:30 W2)

Temperley (Mon 13:00 SW1)

Louise Goldin (Tues 18:30 TS/NW1)

Models at Luella Bartley's show

With Vivienne Westwood showing her Red label (Thurs 19:30 SW5) for the second consecutive season since moving the collection from Paris.

Best show so far: Temperley – Where Mischa Barton, Alice Dellal, Rosamund Pike and Jacquetta Wheeler took front row seats

The Temperley show - from left, Emilia Fox, Laura Bailey, Rosamund Pike, Jacquetta Wheeler, Mischa Barton and Nick Rhodes

Luck be your Turtle... a few days in Marrakech!

I love that when you’re squirted with an animal’s urine you’re mollycoddled into thinking you’ve been sprayed by a lucky star. The reality is you’ve been peed on and you should make your way directly to your nearest washroom. On our final night in Marrakech, my lucky star came in the form of a turtle…

Escaping London’s rainy weekend, Girlfriend and I boarded EasyJet’s 7.40am Sunday flight out of Gatwick, direct to Marrakech. Three hours later we found ourselves in glorious 30-degree heat, attempting to withdraw local currency from the airport ATM.

Totally ill-prepared, we had no guide books and no idea of the currency conversion rate. We took a guess at 1000 dirham being sufficient for a day’s rations and off we set. Hassan, our trusty cabbie bundled us in his dusty Merc (c.1980) and off we spluttered into the pink dessert. Past over-burdened, greying donkeys, dodging whole families piled atop converted dirt bikes and through the gateway of the old fortified city of Le Medina.

I’d found us the gorgeous little Riad Amira for our three night stay, just south of the Saadian Tombs and a fifteen minute walk north to all the shopping in the Souks. And shop we did, on the first day. I snagged three utterly adorable baby kaftan pyjamas for my nieces and nephew (en route now to Aus!), six handblown mint tea glasses and even an authentic tajine for the Boyfriend – although I’ve begged him to hold off on his culinary experimentations for just a little bit as three days straight of slow cooked meats and spices have left me seriously tajined out!

On day two we booked one of Hassan’s ‘best men’ to drive us up to the Atlas Mountains and the apple trees of Imlil. Half way there we were lured by the grandeur of Richard Branson’s Kasbah Tamadot. A location handpicked by Richy’s own mother, its 18 individually designed rooms and 6 Berber Tented suites steal breathtaking views of rich red mountain tops and manicured gardens with a spa and hamman and both indoor and outdoor pools… Once checked-in a guest has absolutely no reason to leave.

Unfortunately, we merely procured an hour or so of their terrace barman’s time, indulging in a few glasses of Verve. Two of the hotel’s head managers personally introduced themselves while we were spoiled with bowls of olives, salted almonds and handcut crisps. When we finally tore ourselves away from the magnificence of it all the prospect of hiking a mountain range seemed very unappealing indeed. Instead we climbed an apple tree, pinched a ripe one and made our way to lunch on yet another tajine.

Not wanting to return to London in anyway vexed, we booked ourselves in for a full body jasmine oil massage at our riad’s sister villa in the city’s new quarter - Villa Amira. Acquiring a few bruises – she really went at it with the kneading – I followed my massage with a good dose of sunlight beside their mosaic tiled pool.

On the evening of our last night, Girlfriend and I braved once again the hectic and smelly alleyways to the main square and dined with a few hundred other tourists on lamb and chicken skewers. Besides a little scare over whether our skewer was in fact chicken or cat (the city is full of stray kittens with very few big cats to be found) I’m proud to say that we successfully chowed our way through all the local cuisine on offer… tentative tourists we were not!

So it was natural that I’d take up a stall owner’s offer to nurse a baby turtle. I just didn’t pick that he’d throw the mumma into the bargain!

Inamo, Soho

Wednesday was a school night, yes, but with the evening temperature a mild 15 degrees Boyfriend and I decided to risk an impromptu outing and headed to Soho for the launch party of Inamo, a high-tec Pan-Asian Restaurant and Bar – the brainchild of Oxford grads, Danny Potter and Noel Hunwick.

Frustrated with waiting for waiters, Potter and Hunwick (physics graduates) teamed up to develop an electro-ordering system using Bluetooth and projection technologies. The result: A 60 cover, interactive dining experience where a table based touch pad allows you choose your own digital table cloth, order from a visual menu projecting actual size images and even print your own cheque! And just to make sure you’re not left in the lurch when it comes time to leave, you can browse the tube map and local taxi booking services while you eat.

Head chef, Anthony Sousa Tam – of Nobu and Hakkasan fame – has created an Asian fusion menu exploding with unique flavours like a ginger and pomegranate reduction, hijiki seaweed, yuzu soy, truffle and spicy chocolate sauce. With over 30 dishes, available in small and large portions, diners are spoiled for choice.

But we were there for the free drinks. Their basement bar – albeit a little cramped – offers an extensive cocktail list, thus inspiring my new signature drink, a Green Tea Bellini (deliciously ripe pear puree topped with chilled green tea and prosecco and served in a champagne flute) while its striking red-light walls and leather poofs create an intimate atmosphere, perfect for a first date or after work drinks with your besties.

Boyfriend and I happily got tippled-pink and are already contemplating our next visit. I’m hungering for Wild Boar rolls with asparagus, enoki mushrooms and moromi miso vinaigrette.

The Hope, Wandsworth

If there has ever been a reason to head southwards of the river, The Hope with its Wandsworth Common locale, funky décor and extensive range of beers on tap (Fruli, Peroni, Staropramen and Deuchars to name a very select few) just might be it. Especially when the sun is shining!

Last Saturday I arranged birthday drinks at this, my local, never once tempting fate by praying for good weather. It’s London after all. Nine out of ten times the heavens are bound to open – gushing rain. It wasn’t until midday I realised - blow me down – that the sun was streaming through a cloudless, bright blue sky.

I pulled out a long-forgotten summer outfit, black vest top and Urban Outfitters Luxe-range tulip skirt (thankfully I’d treated myself to a birthday wax and pedi) and headed for their refurbished beer garden overlooking the Common. Groups of people were picnicking, playing drunken games of ‘backyard cricket’ (thanks to the take-away drinks – in plastic cups – and prepared picnic baskets of food, wine and utensils on offer from the bar) and generally relishing the surprising sunshine.

Back at the pub we feasted on the delights of their gastropub (for half the price!) menu. Their Casterbridge beef burger with bacon and Monteray Jack cheese (£7.90) soaked up the copious amounts of Leffe most of the boys were drinking, while their extensive range of salads tantalised the taste buds of the ‘vodka soda with fresh lime’-drinking girls.

Friendly wait staff exude laid-back cool while still managing efficient service… to be honest, I felt like I was back in a pub in Sydney. I thank my lucky stars that The Hope is only a hop, skip and a jump away from our place… all the better crawl home afterwards.

The Hope
1 Bellevue Road, London SW17 7EG
tel: 020 8672 8717
closest station: Wandsworth Common

Birthday Bulges

1 x large Double Chocolate Fudge cake, Sainsbury's £5.49 (purchased for Boyfriend and I to celebrate my special day; ate one slice and licked the plate of the remnants of icing)
4 x Green & Blacks’ Organic Dark Chocolate Flapjack biscuits, gift (devoured throughout the course of today)
1 x Raspberry Bake, Costa Café, gift (still wrapped up… the mere scent of sticky-sweet cake is giving me a headache)
1 x Chocolate Cupcake, Waitrose Patisserie, gift (all boxed-up… if I ignore it, maybe it will disappear!)

I feel bloated and sluggish and another year older – when exactly did birthdays lose their zing?

Waking to the sound of my two-year-old niece singing down the phone line, her own rendition of “Happy Birthday” complete with a “Pip, pip, hooray!” definitely put a smile on my face. And the steady stream of phone calls, Facebook messages from friends and birthday salutations from colleagues have each added to today’s general feeling of ‘specialness’… but really, is that it?

I remember when birthdays were the be-all-and-end-all. Parties would be planned, invites sent out, special outfits bought and innumerable lists written and rewritten to ensure parents and friends would buy exactly the right thing. But for me parties stopped at age twelve (when I developed an irrational fear that none of my invitees would show up!) and my teenage years saw ‘special outfits’ being purchased every other week for general nights out. Birthdays slowly became redundant.

The one thing I can rely on my birthday for is glutinous excess. Friends ‘treating' me to cakes and chocolates, drinks and dinners so The Day itself is spread over the course of a week. My jeans get noticeably tighter, my wallet lighter (I can’t let friends pay for everything, after all) and ultimately I start to feel every bit a year older.

Next week I’m going to detox. Not diet, just cleanse. Lots of green tea and vegetables and definitely no sweets!

Happy Birthday to Me...

Living A Lie

I am living a lie. Far from Living Out London the past few months have seen me living out work, the gym and… my couch. Following a week day of rush, rush, rushing, I collapse on my couch and open my laptop. Not to write (the shame!) or do anything constructive, but to ‘Facebook’ friends (they’ve taken Scrabulous away… I’m gutted) and scan eBay for the latest deals on Louboutins… I’m officially wasting away My London Life and it’s time to admit it.

The first six months of living in the UK saw me out and about most nights of the week, with at least two social gatherings each day at the weekend. Now I’m lucky to catch up with even one friend late on a Sunday afternoon and then rush home to watch Midsomer Murders at 8pm. I’m a sad and lonely specimen of an Aussie expat, and I’m sorry.

Sorry for my lack of London-antics to entertain committed readers and sorry for neglecting friends I once made such an effort to see. But I vow to make a change.

This Thursday will see me turn twenty-five. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m experiencing a quarter-life crisis, I am definitely struggling with motivation. I find myself in a job that simply pays the bills - a glorified secretary begrudging my colleagues when they ask me to book a cab, courier this, scan that – holding on to slim pickings of freelance work and everyday wishing I was back working on a magazine.

And then I tell myself that this is just for a year, to make some cash, and that when I return to Sydney I’ll be straight back into the Land of Gloss. I tell myself that all writing is about experience and living and working overseas is a feat in itself. I tell myself this as I sit on the couch dipping gingernut cookies into my mug of PG Tips.

The bank holiday weekend just past hosted both the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Clapham Common’s SW4 and Get Loaded in the Park – I attended 0 out of 3. Okay, so I started going out very young – at fifteen using my sister’s ID – but seriously, has my time for partying really come to an end? My girlfriend of twenty-eight went to SW4, with her thirty-year-old sister in tow, and yet I was quite happy passing up on last minute tickets in favour of my beloved sofa.

No more.

Thursday I’m off to engagement drinks, Friday it’s dinner with the Boyfriend, drinks with friends Saturday afternoon and a girly sleepover come Sunday. Who knows, I might even stay up past midnight…

Ready, steady go!

Designer Vagina

I’m not the type of girl to shy away from talking about my punani. I’ve always been comfortable baring all, be it for a wax or smear test, because the way I see it I’ve nothing to hide. Little did I know that not all girls feel this way… and little did I know how different we all look down there.

On Sunday night my girlfriend begged and pleaded for me to watch Channel 4’s advertised TV-special The Perfect Vagina, a documentary presented by Welsh elfin-minx Lisa Rogers that focussed on Britain and America’s growing trend for ‘designer vaginas’. NHS stats show that vaginal cosmetic surgery or labiplasty, has doubled in the UK over the past five years with the private sector seeing a 300 per cent increase in these elective surgeries. The fashion (or madness) is being driven by commercial and media pressure that has broadened women’s insecurities from our boobs, bums, tums and faces and turned us against our insides as well.

Rogers follows the stories of five women ranging from nineteen to thirty-eight years, who have all considered some form of labiplasty and even one young Muslim girl desperate to undergo surgery to restore her hymen for fear of disgracing her family on her impending wedding night. To a modern, Western world her distress seems unwarranted and her suggestion that her parents would kill her and then themselves should they find out she is no longer a virgin seem archaic. But Rogers questions the benefit of our so-called ‘liberation’ if at the other extreme Western women are chopping off their flaps for fear they’re too big!

Not for the faint-hearted, graphic images of surgery on Rosie – a stunning twenty-one-year-old whose years of being bullied by her girlfriends and even her sister had kept her from having relationships with boys – showed her labia being snipped, sewn and later gushing blood (apparently this is normal as the body heals). Suddenly my biggest dilemma, “Hollywood or Brazilian?” seemed totally superficial… These girls are trimming their skin and all so their vaginas look like the ones in men’s mags and porn films, which resemble prepubescent girls and have likely been digitally retouched.

I remember when I was eighteen I went to see The Vagina Monologues an off-Broadway, Obie Award-winning play written by Eve Ensler and performed by a varied threesome of celebrity monologists. Based on true stories chronicled by Ensler as she travelled the world in search of ‘The Vagina’ each monologue expresses different experiences of a woman’s Mary. Be it through sex, love, rape, menstruation, mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm or simply as a physical aspect of the female body. Ensler empowers the vagina as the ultimate embodiment of individuality. And halfway through the play as we in the audience were calling out the variety of names for our punanis I truly did feel empowered. Me and my vagina could take on anything!

So maybe that’s why I’ve not squirmed or run away when faced with being naked in gym changerooms or going all-the-way with a boy – because I believe in the beauty of my own froufrou. Or maybe it’s because I think mine not too dissimilar to the ones I’ve glimpsed in the pages of Playboy.

To be honest, some of the coochies filmed certainly looked very different to those I’ve seen among family and friends. But is a bit of extra skin really as disconcerting to the average male as these girls seem to think? For some men, sadly yes. But mostly Rogers found that guys were shocked to think women worried about it that much. While the amount of hair down there was a point of concern, most men answered that they were happy when they were granted access at all!

The thought that there are girls as young at fourteen seeking surgery disturbs me. This Channel 4 documentary, that began as, “a wander through the wacky world of genital plastic surgery,” became a personal and passionate quest for Rogers to encourage women to love the skin they’re in…

So ladies… do you love your lips?

Babies on the brain

I have a confession to make. I can't keep mum when it comes to babies. Be it the excitement or simply my desire to feel 'part' of the occasion, I don't know... but I've been the outer of a fair few pregnancies in my time and I'm keen to reform. First step: Admission.

The first and second times I truly didn't mean to. What I thought was common knowledge, just happened not to be. The third time, I lay the blame with Boyfriend. In his typical fashion of zoning out to 65 per cent of our conversation he missed the part about my sister's first pregnancy being hush, hush... at only eight weeks she was playing it safe. Within a week, every man, woman and (even in utero) baby knew she was up the duff.

Fast-forward two years - two nieces and a nephew - later, and it appears I've done it again.

About a month ago two things happened: my eldest sister found out she was pregnant with baby number three (in as many years!) and my cousin got engaged. Said-cousin's brother Facebook-ed me exclaiming about "all the exciting things happening back in Sydney" by which I immediately assumed he was referring to the Ring... and the Baby. Before I could compute the information properly and realise that Big Sis was unlikely to be at the announcement stage - again, at only eight weeks - I'd acknowledged my excitement for both Cousin and Sister, hit 'send' and thereby outed yet another baby.

As it turns out both my sisters are pregnant, due only a day apart. Middle Sis quite rightly kept this information from me until she was ready for her first scan and will likely keep her baby's sex tightly under wraps, if indeed she finds out. Not because she doesn't love me... they both do, I'm sure... but because they know my weakness. When it comes to babies, my brain goes to mush.

Flowers and Friendship

On Wednesday I met a friend at The Commercial Tavern in Shoreditch – a funky little establishment just up from Spitalfield’s Markets with baby blue and fairy painted shutters, papier-mâchéd walls (celebrating old covers of Interview magazine) and an eclectic mix of floral-printed, wooden chairs and tables and a chaise lounge for good measure! My cider was flat, and warm, but the company was great. Mag-friend bought me roses.

Just because, she wanted to.

I think, with the exception of flower days back in high school, I could count the number of times I have received flowers on one hand. This is by no means a woe-is-me statement, I hold myself largely responsible. For some reason – unbeknownst even to myself – I feel the need to tell my boyfriends that I don’t like flowers… But, the truth is, I’m sure I really do.

When I left Bazaar my editor handed over a bunch of flowers (that she’d been given by some-designer-or-another) as a ‘thank you’ for my nine months of hard labour… also because she was to be away that weekend and didn’t fancy arriving home to rotting vegetation. They were lovely, and likely expensive, but I couldn’t get out of my head that I wasn’t their intended.

Fast-forward, a week after starting my new job, the recruitment company sent to my office a gorgeous bunch of chrysanthemums and lilies to congratulate me on my first week. And to be brutally honest, it felt great to be singled out. To be seen to be special. Unfortunately, that day coincided with the weekend I was moving apartment, so said-flowers were accidentally left at Boyfriend’s old flat. They didn’t even get the chance to wilt.

But Wednesday’s roses were all mine and there’d be no leaving them at the bar, passing on to a friend or letting Boyfriend ‘accidentally’ throw them out with the garbage. I cradled them all the way home, carefully trimmed their drying ends, pruned their leaves and placed them in the nicest vase we had – a mucky glass one with a chipped lip! Then I set them upon our window sill, with ample sunlight and the view of our garden behind. Picture perfect.

Mag-friend’s Marks & Spencer baby pink roses, bought on a whim and sprinkled with kindness made not only my day, but my week.

I’ll have to let Boyfriend know about my change of heart!