Edinburgh Fringe Festival Pt 2

Wow.

Seriously, wow. It was AMAZING!

We saw so much stuff it would be too hard to list let alone explain and describe so I asked people for their highlights:

• Toby loved seeing Russell Howard again in his own stand up & at various other times throughout the festival.
• Belle's highlight was seeing 'Street Life' by Renegade Theatre (Germany) - it was an amazing mixture of street dance, live music and digital graffiti. The fact that it was held in a beautiful old church just gave it such a great atmosphere. At £12 a ticket it was probably our most expensive event but so worth it and everyone loved it. Chuffed.
• Mum loved it all and was glad we were able to fit in a walking tour of Edinburgh and the Auld Reekie tour which was pretty gruesome and scary. Being out and about in the street with a variety of performers doing their thing is so fun and thankfully the rain held off for most of it! A group of young guys called Out of the Blue were one of the best acts we saw doing a-cappella versions of pop & rock songs, very animated!
  

We ate well, drank well (Chocolate Soup, amazing), sang along, gasped, laughed and even fitted in quite a bit of dancing! Sitting on the grass in the sunshine underneath a beautiful weeping willow watching the last performance of the 'The Elephant Tree' was a welcome rest and a nice chance to reflect on all that was going on around us.

If you get the chance to go I definitely recommend it - I know that I'll be going again and again in future. A few tips for survival:

1. Get a programme from the website in advance, it's worth paying the small fee to prepare as you need an idea of what you want to see and where they are, some venues are far apart and there are lots of very steep hills in Edinburgh!!
2. Take a bottle of water an umbrella everywhere you go.
3. The Free Fringe was ace and we had some of our best laughs here so definitely worth investigating and get there early as smaller venues get very busy.
4. Sleep well in preparation, we started most days at 9am and were still out on the tiles sipping cocktails at 4am (some of the best jazz didn’t start til 3am!)
5. Don't panic. Its no fun if you’re rushing from venue to venue & getting stressed. Catch a bus/cab if you need to but mostly leave yourself plenty of time for mooching and relaxing in-between performances.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival Pt 1

Yeyyeyyeyyey! We're off to Edinburgh first thing in the morning with Wendy for 4 days of Edinburgh Fringe madness. So cool.
Have already booked some tickets to the big events. We're particularly hoping to see some amazing dance, comedy and Belles looking forward to soaking in the street atmosphere as well as visiting Scotland for the first time!!

Mums Birthday Celebrations

Since everyone's now back in the UK and generally around we decided to celebrate Mum's 60th birthday (again!) by having a fancy dinner cruise on the Thames. A limo picked up Mum, Caroline, Jenny, Anna, Mark, Toby and I from St Osyth and whisked us down to London while we enjoyed a champagne breakfast aboard...although most of us had more champagne than breakfast!

The dress code was 'wear something red' which Jenny just scraped through by having a red Volcom logo on her shirt! We arrived at Embankment to meet with another limo which had bought up some of mums good friends from Swansea.


While enjoying some very tasty food, including an orgasmic chocolate torte, we listened to live jazz and watched all the famous sights of London pass us by.

After opening her presents, including some lovely Welsh pottery and a painting of Mumbles, Mum was presented with what can best be described as a flare in a wine glass as we sang happy birthday to her - she was delighted but very, very scared!! We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting & chatting out in the sunshine with drinks on the top deck.

It was a brilliant day and it was really great to catch up with everyone from Swansea - its always good to find out what everyone is up to these days!

While I'm here might as well put in a mention to Liz Hind's blog (http://liz-and-harvey.blogspot.com/) who has links to a whole bunch of Swansea people. More photos can be found on our flikr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/belleandtoby/ under 'Our Lovely Friends & Family'.

Ta-ra for now, Belle x

Fruit & Soul

Headed down to London for a fun-filled day out.

Started at FruitStock at Regents Park - wicked festival with lots going on, cool music and great atmosphere, although it got very busy as the day went on and very hot...not a great combo. After mooching 'round and enjoying our picnic to the sounds of the Puppini Sisters we met up with Caroline, her bloke Mark, Nick & Connor. Had a blast and I'll definately go again next year!

As the sun started to set we headed off towards Brixton to meet up with the very beautiful Rachael Sharpe who we hadn't seen ages for the Soul in the City event at Brixton Academy. The very talented 29th Chapter were playing and it was a cool event kind of spoiled by the so very bad sound system (or perhaps some very bad technicians).

It finished earlier than expected so we stayed around to grab a late night meal & a couple of glasses of wine with Rachael when who should show up but Becky & Ben (with two very jet-lagged American friends). Had a quick natter and catch-up on life before we all had to head off for the last bus/train home. It was really great to see everyone and I hate that I always leave it so long between visits - don't take it personally I love and miss you all!

Belle xx