Apart from June appearing to mark the return of winter at times – back in woolly winter tights, coats and heating on one moment then summer a moment later – it was rather a lovely month!
We were still on a high from our amazing trip to Israel but there was other stuff to get excited about too! First, Penelope and Parker got a new look…
I’d long been stalking websites that do templates for wordpress.org and liked what I saw on Pipdig. It just took me a long while to pick my favourite, but when I did it was live within a day and I think it looks rather lovely. At the same time Mr P surprised me with a new blog header. Our favourite picture from last year’s retreat in Maine has been the sites theme photo for a while and it’s been turned into something simpler and arty by the lovely people at Etch UK in Southampton who we’ve known for years. It’s come together nicely! I particularly like my little Instagram ticker tape along the bottom of the page, I’ve wanted that for ages, and the less cluttered layout!
When we were in Israel I shazamed a lot (believe me, a lot, I left it on auto) of music – old school classics and some I just hadn’t heard before, seriously cool and funky. It then took me hours to find some of the tunes as they weren’t available on iTunes, but this led me to the You Tube playlist function which then identified even more music (Magical Music and Chill Masters especially)! But by way of an old Notorious B.I.G. track that was on repeat at Machneyuda, I discovered Matoma – an artist in his own right but also purveyor of amazing remixes.
The big event for me was promotion day at work – I got the nod in March after months of prep, panels and a full day assessment centre then finally on 1 June it kicked in. Obligatory champagne was drunk and LinkedIn updated, but beyond that, so much celebrating had already happened, that on 1 June life (and work) carried on the same and rather uneventfully!
Sailing with a boat full of girls? I thought this would be challenging, but it wasn’t in the slightest – it was a fabulous weekend on the water. Unfortunately we didn’t have that much wind, only just enough to race but I had the pleasure of sailing on two different boats – with old friends and also making new friends. Normally on a boat the boys take charge, so it was nice to prove that when they weren’t there we can still get on with it, know what to do, and do a good job! Oh and G&T on the dock after racing, what a great idea!
I cannot remember the last time I had afternoon tea as it just isn’t the same if you don’t eat dairy. But One Aldwych’s restaurant Indigo sells itself as dairy and gluten free and so a gathering was called – Emma from Adventures of a London Kiwi, Kelly from Around the World in 80 Pairs of Shoes and Angie from SilverSpoon London. There wasn’t much stopping for breath with me just back from Israel, Angie from Japan and the Philippines, Emma from Vienna and Kelly about to hop on a plane to Madeira… But eat we did. Mixed thoughts, it didn’t live up to previous blogger-hosted reviews that’s for sure… For me it was nice to have good deserts on offer, Indigo offer something exciting (as they should). That said – the scones resembled bricks, or biscuits if I am being kind. Really it was disappointing that for a restaurant that sells itself on being allergy friendly that they aren’t offering the best damned allergy friendly afternoon tea in London… I didn’t like the loos either and the mezzanine level we were sat on was lacklustre… Hmm
Mr P travels a lot with work and has overtaken me with the number of gold cards! Finally we took advantage of this travel and I flew out to meet him in Milan for 48 hours. This was fun as it wasn’t somewhere I would ever pick but we loved exploring. We ‘did’ the city in 3 hours and the next day took the train to Lake Como which was perfect!
When we are busy we tend to languish quietly at home at weekends if we aren’t away or sailing, but not always. There was my work summer ball – always fun and because I don’t spend much time in my ‘home’ office it was nice to see everyone. So many new faces and when some of the younger crowd were mine-sweeping for wine, I happily gave them a bottle of our table… What happened?
We also headed to Cowes to see our chums from Israel. Fun was had and we managed to bump in to countless other friends wandering around the town and Mr P flexed his credit card on an awful lot of new (and necessary) sailing kit!
Brexit was a surprise… I love England and I love that we have a democracy but never have I woken up so sad, worried or sick feeling as when I picked up my phone at 6am on 24th June to see the BBC News alert. Hopefully things will settle and the hard work of untangling our place in Europe and agreeing new deals can commence, as well as the challenges we now have in a divided society and set of home nations. Que sera sera, time to wonder-less about wander-lust until the £, markets and my investments rally…
At the end of the month we attended the most fabulous wedding party, such fun. We pitched our tent in some heavy rain and from then on the day just got better and better – we were last men standing and had the most excellent time, even waking up to sunshine and horses just outside the tent!
The month ended in the Cotswolds with a training conference, as June has done, in fact, for the last 4 years running! This was of course achieved with hard work… 6am starts to run around the lake trying to keep up with my boss, followed by a days in training, followed by the after hours working day followed by a late supper and then an early start… Exhausting!
With that I had best go and trot around a few lakes again!
