This Weekend (20) ...

It's the return of This Weekend!

Thing is, the weekend after This Weekend 19 sucked, and there weren't ten things to say about it that weren't 1) shitty, 2) pissy, 3) wanky, 4) ... You get the drift. Then the weekend after that was a bit crappy too, and then I sort of got out of the This Weekend groove.

But this weekend was fricking ORSUM so I've decided to resurrect the old fave!

And it went like this...

1) Thursday evening. A sneaky drink after work to celebrate a colleague's 25th birthday. 25. TWENTY FIVE! I can remember being 25. Just. If he wasn't such a nice young man, I'd dislike him a little for the sheer cheek of being 25 years old in MY workplace.

2) And on Friday I had the typical list of six hundred things to do, but I started by going to my new favourite shop, Quirky Dovetail, which is what I want my house to be like. I wanted something to put the telly on that isn't the £19, eleven year old Ikea table that it's currently on. There wasn't anything in the shop that was quite right, but the lovely lady nipped into the back and came out with a FAB-U-LOUS table that she's going to paint a FAB-U-LOUS colour, and inset with FAB-U-LOUS fabric and will be more perfect than the thing that I thought I was going to get. So that was nice.

3) Then I went to see the lovely Gillian of Fabric Nation so that we could make some Lucky Love Bags. I'll tell you why later. But WHAT JOY! to sit in Gillian's back bedroom. Her fabric studio. It's heaven! Every time I cast my eye around I saw something else fabulous to lay my eyes on. It was all I could do not to steal little bits of loveliness and take them home.

4) Friday night was Making Night. I must have told you about this before, I'm sure? It's fast becoming a favourite night in my calendar. Every other week a gang of us girls get together at someone's house, take something crafty and something to eat or drink, and we all sit 'round doing our thing and gassing. On Friday we were at Emma's house. Gillian knitted a sock, Emma knitted a scarf, Amelia embroidered some instructions, Kate made a felt carrot, Concetta drew, Silvia cut out paper butterflies and Lynn read a book (I bloody love Lynn's style!) I, in a feat of extreme jewelling, made FOURTEEN pairs of earrings and a bead flower. Oh ... and we set fire to Emma's kitchen a little bit ...

5) Saturday was marvellous. I'm going to divide it into two bits. Firstly we lunched to celebrate the 40th birthday (can you believe?) of the most lovely Concetta. She booked a table at a favourite pub in Tooting for twelve of us to have a nice ladies lunch together. All very chilled out. We talked about loads of stuff, all of which was lovely, and almost none of which I can recall. I suspect that's the sign of a good conversation. What a lovely lot of ladies we met too!

6) Then Gillian and I hoofed along to the sister pub along the road to set up for Part II of the party ... a crafty workshop for everyone. Everyone got a Lucky Love Bag (see point 3 above) which contained their starter kits, and some lovely goodies. And then everyone made a fabric flower brooch with the guidance of Gillian and a charm bracelet under my watchful eye. It was just fab! The pub were fabulous hosts and the table we were given couldn't have been more perfect and our party guests were gorgeously crafty and the results of their hard work were ace! And, on balance, we thought we might do it more often ...

7) But I opted to leave the girls to it pretty early on because I knew I had a big Sunday too. I'll say that again, in case you didn't catch it. I left the pub early. I. Left. The. Pub. (I emphasise it because it's so remarkable).

8) On Sunday morning I was up at sparrow's fart for a trip. I had to go to Harrogate for work, so I went a day early to catch up with some friends. A train journey is a lovely thing, don't you think? I settled myself in at my window seat, with a large latte and a new book. I would love to tell you that it was a bit of classic literature, or some quality contemporary fiction, but I can't. It's the last of the Twilight books. It's SO trashy, it's not true, but I do seem to be lapping it up. I can only apologise to the Furzedown Bookclub. I'll be tendering my resignation henceforth.

9) Lovely Laura met me off the train and took me to Betty's Tea Room for lunch, where we caught up on lots of news. Laura and I are the daughters of parents who holiday in a particular Devon village every year for the same fortnight, so we've sort of grown up together, but only for a long weekend every year. This is the first time that we've seen one another away from Devon. And also the first time, now I come to think of it, that we've seen one another wearing more than a swimsuit and flip-flops. Lots of firsts.

10) And whilst we were channel hopping before bedtime, we found a documentary about hairy women. I don't know what to tell you, apart from the fact that I now feel smooth and beautiful.