Girls in Valencia

Last weekend I was in Valencia for a much needed, long overdue weekend away with five of my bestest girlfriends.  We have known each other for years, have been there through the highs and lows the laughs and tears but mostly we have just laughed and laughed and laughed.

We are an eclectic bunch, a real mish mash of personalities and although we don't get together as often as we really should due to family/work commitments, when we do get together we slot back into place like bacon into a butty.

We met at Gatwick and after much faffing going through security (someone, ahem) had to much make up, products, not enough plastic bags and then we were through!!  Someone (ahem) had to be called for the flight as was getting just a "little" carried away in duty free.  A little lesson to be learnt here, we were flying easyjet (so no flatbeds, champagne or molton brown products, tee hee) and at the gate a well dressed business women was having "words" about putting her handbag into her case.  As she walked off, she mumbled the word "bitch" under her breathe and was hauled off the flight for abusing the check in staff!

We landed in Valenica and arrived at our gorgeous pied a terre (3 beds, 2 bathrooms, lovely exposed brickwork).  We had a wee snoozy then pumped up the tunes, titivated and had a drink (or 3) before going out for Tapas at 10pm.  We were all a bit giddy and ended up with these:

Before having a SHITE tapas.  We then went to a lovely bar before getting home and chatting until 4am. 

The next say was Saturday and feeling rather tender (ahem, sick) headed off to the beach for a paella.  But not before we did a bit of shoe shopping (guess who?!).  There are SO many restaurants to choose from on the beach that try and get a recommendation if you can.   The paella was OK, the service was SHITE and by this stage we were giggling like loons at the appalling food experiences we were having. 

We hung out on the beach for a bit, playing the ridiculously childish but highly amusing game of "YOURS".  It was just so, so lovely to hang in the sun, gossip and laugh!

That evening the pressure was on to find an amazing restaurant and we struck gold by going to Tacita which was an absolute delight that I can highly recommend!  We headed home around 2ish (I think!) for more late night chats and crazy dancing!

Sadly, the weekend went all to quickly and we flew back to normality on Sunday, I had an amazing time and feel so lucky to have such loving, caring wonderful friends!

Until next time amigos!!!!

Love and Peace

S.A.M xx

Friends through the years......

This is a blog about friendship.  Ultimately my best friend is HAW but he is definitely from Mars whilst I am from Venus.  We disagree on everything from what movies to watch, to what colour to paint the sitting room to even what to eat!  We are always amazed at how well we do get on and how we actually fell in love, got married and had three kids as we are so opposite.

Friendship is a wonderful thing, I have never been one for having one best friend, Instead, over the years I have built up a number of different circles of friends of which people say I am the lynch pin that keeps everyone together. 

I have a wonderful group of friends from primary school, the kind of friends who you don't necessary have anything in common with anymore but you have a shared history that bonds you like glue. We have known each other for thirty years and although we only see each other a couple of times a year I know that we will always be in each others lives.  We share the friendship of innocence and nostalgia.  In fact, when we do go out, the conversation is 70% littered with "do you remember when"

My next group of friends are my "work friends" I went to work at 17 in the heady world of TV advertising and made the most amazing friends who went on to become flat mates, holding back hair whilst puking mates, sharing secrets and growing up with mates.  I adore these friends and these are who I call on should a crisis arise.  

I then have my "Mum friends" those who I have met over the last 8 years at either antenatal, nursery, school or sports clubs.  I socialise a lot with these ladies and although we don't have a shared past, we are busy creating one via our children's friendships and lack of alcohol tolerance that hits us all once we have kids!

So to you my dear friends, I salute you all and thank you for the love of friendship, long may it continue to flourish and long may we continue to enrich each others lives.

Peace and Love

S.A.M

7 things you don't know about me.......

I’ve been tagged by Missie Lizzie over at Me and My Shadow and Michelle at Mummy from the heart to share 7 things you didn’t know about me.  Pop over there and read theirs.

I ignored this for a while as it all seemed a bit too chain lettery but Gemma from Hello, it's Gemma has been on at me to participate and seeing as she is my blog twin, I can't say No.

What you are meant to do is choose 15 people to tag.  It's going to be hard to see who has and hasn't been tagged so for today, I am going to choose the following people who are all lovely and make me laugh.  Some of them are new to blogging, so let's share the blog love and support them! 

http://kailexness.wordpress.com/
http://lotusflowerlily.wordpress.com/
http://chocorangecitymum.blogspot.com/
http://cherrymumof6.wordpress.com/
http://bod-for-tea.blogspot.com/
http://manic-mums.blogspot.com/
http://ghostwritermummy.wordpress.com/
http://emsyjo.blogspot.com/
http://missbehaving.wordpress.com/
http://mummysquared.blogspot.com/
http://insidethewendyhouse.blogspot.com/
http://ladouceviesuisse.blogspot.com/
http://i-heart-motherhood.blogspot.com/

Here are 7 things you don't know about me:

1) I have snogged a member of a very famous boy band. I didn't know who they were and it was when they were touring round schools and youth clubs performing.  He is now a global superstar and I shared an illicit snog and fag with him outside the youth club.  I was drunk on 20/20 and he probably was as well!  He was a fabulous kisser but I will never kiss and tell (erm, well maybe give me a £5 and I might).  I now have a ridiculous school girl crush on him that HAW thinks is insane.

2) My grandmother was a survivor of the Titanic.  We don't know anymore as she was orphaned and bought up in a nunnery in Oxford.  She always alluded to this but confirmed it on her death bed.

3) I was a teenage wild child.  I used to sneak up to London on the train and go to all the cool clubs.  My parents still to this day think I was at a friends studying. (sorry mum!)  Her parents were very liberal and would cover for me, mine were super strict.  I find it incredible now that one parent would lie to another parent. 

4) I am a make up junkie.  I have enough products to open my own department.  Space NK fills me with joy.  I blame this addiction on my first job.  Can you guess what it was?

5) I failed my maths GCSE 3x. For a grammar school girl this was unheard of.  Despite this, I went on to successfully run blue chip companies advertising teams dealing in trades of approx £20m.    I have never needed to use trigonometry since.  My grammar and spelling is also atrocious.  I am very grateful for spell check.

6) My daughter is named after Jodie Foster's character in Bugsy Malone.  I am still amazed I managed to get that one past HAW as he vetoed it for 10 years.  I think he was so fed up with the pregnant me, he did it for an easy life!  Despite this, she is called Pixie more often than not!

7) I have been in a commercial with I heart Muthahood's husband!!  I went to stage school when I was younger and had to recruit lots of friends for a  crowd scene in a Young Person's Railcard TV/Cinema ad.  He was a great friend of mine and along with the rest of our gang we had a brilliant day out.  We didn't realise that we "knew" each other until we started reading each other's blogs!

Your challenge now is to complete this and link up with me (I think)

Good Luck! xx