Rain on my parade

Went to the heavily anticipated TASTE festival last evening. I had practically starved myself so that I could binge eat on the lovely delicacies on offer. I had been looking forward for months!
And what happened?
It rained and rained and rained for the 4 hours were there.
Oh and did I mention it was an outdoor event? In a park?
It was wet, soggy, squelchy, muddy..ugh! Not at all conducive to dining on fine cuisine. Unless you're a frog or a duck or some such water obsessed creature, in which case it's all fun and games!

True it had been a grey kind of day with a few scattered showers - the kind of thing that passes for summer here in London. THAT I was prepared for and could manage. But for it to literally turn into waterfest for the few hours we were there was just bad timing or bad luck!
And I took it all very personally. After all, it hadn't rained like that in ages. And it didn't rain the whole day before the festival and the sky cleared up magically on our way back and it's been a lovely dry day today so far. So yes, it felt very personal.

I stomped around with a sour face under my umbrella, agonising over the frizzy afro style mess my hair was turning into, glaring at everyone who dared accidentally poke me with their umbrella and feeling like I could scream except I was afraid I would drown under the amount of water I might swallow.
Clearly everyone else there felt the same, they were all trudging around in their macs and umbrellas with grumpy faces and resigned body language. Trying resolutely to HAVE FUN because they had paid for it!
Anyway, despite the neck deep mud and amazon rain forest conditions - we still managed to EAT something! Yay! I was half expecting the food to taste of mud and squelch as well, but it didn't. It was awesome!
And after a few lovely warm tasters and experimental desserts.. I felt the anger and upset subside a little (even my afro deflated a bit).
Buoyed by the moment, I turned to the BF to complain anew about the weather.
'It's such a shame about the weather!'
'I know'
'I wish it would just stop. It's sooo annoying!'
'I know'
'I'm really pissed off. What a waste of a lovely opportunity..'
'But you know what the amazing thing is?'
'What?' Fairly shocked he could still find something to be amazed by, unless it was the size of my afro (it was growing again)
'That we can still manage to have fun and enjoy ourselves no matter what', he smiled.

And that, ladies and gents, was that.
The sun came bursting through(metaphorically of course), the afro deflated (still metaphorically) and my smile widened (literally this time).

Life was good again :)

My very own Carrie moment!

So for a long long time, my dad,one of my closest friends and my boyfriend were after my life to start writing again because for some weird reason they thought I was an OK writer with 'some potential'. Potential to do what I don't know, and upon more prodding, they didn't either but anyway, they insisted I write!
Now, I love writing but I was caught up in doing so many other things that I just didn't feel inspired enough to write! So I really dragged my feet on the whole issue and procastinated like anything.
Anyway, when i finally did get around to it, one of the efforts to start writing again involved resurrecting my blog and the other involved writing articles and sending them in to magazines etc.
And who knew, minor miracles happen! London magazine Stylist picked up on my article and published it online.

Here's the link.

http://www.stylist.co.uk/stylist-network/readers-column/readers-column-a-modern-arrangement

Thanks to the lovely ladies at Stylist :) It's a small dream come true to have my article published - very 'Sex and the City'!! I'll cherish this for a long long time :)

Tastefully done!

So I was thinking about food.
And how much I love it.
I go to sleep at night reliving my dinner and anticipating my breakfast, after breakfast I think of lunch and after lunch I think of dinner and after dinner.. ah..you get the picture.
I think I have a very needy relationship with food. If food was a man, he would be the adulterous, not caring a crap about my feelings, macho stud kind of man. And I would be the starved for affection, needy, weepy, bottomed out on self esteem kind of woman. I would follow him around and accuse him of not spending enough time with me. He would not pick up my calls and I would leave 27 voicemails.Seriously unhealthy.
I used to be fat (or chubby or 'healthy'- whatever you prefer) till I was about 21 - at which point I woke up one day and realised that if I continued my needy desperate kind of relationship with food, it would soon be pretty much the only relationship I would ever have. So I strengthened my resolve, chucked my box of krispy kreme doughnuts out the window and embarked on 6 months of healthy living and exercise.
and ta-daah! emerged svelte(ish) and sexy(ish) on the other side.
So now I think I have a normal(ish) kind of relationship with food. True, I still spend exorbintante amounts of time fantasising about it but other than that, I think it's all pretty much in check.
Except when I'm all booked to go to the TASTE festival this weekend - which is only the most fabulous festival for foodies! TASTE is this super-duper concept wherein all the greatest and bestest restaturants get together and pitch tents at Regent's Park and offer their fabulously delicious and ridiculously expensive food in tapas sized portions and at (relatively)reasonable prices. It's a poor foodie's paradise! What a great concept..I wish I'd come up with it!
I live in London, which has some of the most feted and fabulous restaurants in the world and it's always been a source of deep sadness to me that I'm too poor to go to most of them. Seriously, it's either pay the rent or eat a 3-course meal - they're that expensive.
But thankfully, some bright soul came up with this idea and made people like me very happy.
So yeah, that's on Friday. I've given myself leave to have a guilt-free time food fantasising this week. I've printed out my TASTE menu and have spent hours poring over it highlighting the dishes I want to have in order of priority.
Ah..life is good!

In consistency

wow - talk about consistency! After swearing myself purple in the face that I WILL BLOG, of course i promptly DID NOT BLOG. And the person who feels the most let down about this is me. This was supposed to be my release, my little space where I can just let out the words that usually swirl around in my head.

Last two months have been weird and a bit tough.
Weird in a good way. Have been busy at work, exciting things are happening. Have been home to visit my mum and just reeelllaaax. And been to bangalore, to attend a friend's wedding - a christian wedding! where I was bridesmaid. Oh it was fun! other than the fact that I was promised hot men in uniform at the wedding (the groom's in the navy) and there were none at all! Sigh! But it was three days of hanging out with my dearest friends, staying up late to gossip, dressing up, going out. How would a girl survive without her girlfriends?

So yeah, it's all been fun and good.
But tough - and not in such a good way.
It's strange but whereas everything seems ok - I feel as though I need to question every single aspect of my life. Question the choices i'm making, the decisions I'm taking. I feel a bit powerless somehow, powerless to move the rudder of the boat that is my life and steer it in the way I want it to. And the main problem is that i don't know as yet where I want to be and hence where to steer to.
Self-help gurus would tell me to write down my goals-short-term and long term and work my way towards them! Easier said than done, I say. Received wisdom (aka my wise and wonderful girlfriends) say this is the rule as opposed to the exception. Apparently, it's ok to feel a bit directionless. So I'm trying not to be too hard on myself and just let things be.
The one (and Only) big lesson i've learnt in life so far is that everything happens in its own time, every dog has its day etc etc.
But letting go is hard! grrrr...

It's weird how this blog stirs up the emotions in me. I totally did not want to blog about this. i wanted to talk about the wedding and my bridesmaid dress - which was really lovely but was made of this flammable sort of polysilk material which meant I spent most of the day dangerously close to going up in flames. Oh and the polysilk+bangalore heat=sweat patches which meant that I was attempting to do all my bridesmaidenly duties with my arms pinned to my sides, mortified should i raise them and shock the world with views of hideous sweat patches. I haven't seen the wedding photos as yet but am convinced the sweat patches will overshadow the loveliness of the bride by a mile! Oh well..

But But it was a lovely wedding. With a lot of joy and love and happiness..so much so that i felt enveloped in a protective cocoon. It was like attending the beggining of a happily ever after!
Ah..I wish them the best of life!

Till next time x