What a week it has been. I’m writing this whilst laying in bed on this glorious lazy Sunday! I’ve had such an amazing week that has been full of surprises and happiness. I apologise in advance for not posting daily this week but the moment I get really busy is when this sort of takes a back seat, which it shouldn’t but it has. Anyway I’m doing the same thing as I did with my Mum and Dad’s anniversary weekend and compiling everything into this one blog. I hope you enjoy!
Wednesday
It’s bonfire night! I had work today and hadn’t really got anything planned fireworks wise. However as you probably know, my housemate Sean has his own band called Dan’s Anyx and he had a gig on tonight so I thought that I’d tag along. I think I’m probably considered as one of their groupies now, but I’ve only been to two of their gigs, so perhaps not just yet. Their music is so good though, they do covers but they also write a lot of their own music. It’s music that sounds as if it could be a recent release from an artist currently in the charts. If I could describe their music, I’d probably say it’s a mix of classic rock and indie. I could be completely wrong in saying that but oh well! On another note, I can’t believe how cold it is in the evening. So far we have been getting good weather for the October/November period but jeepers has it gotten colder very quickly. Although it’s not cold enough in the morning yet, where I’m having to put my clothes on the radiator the night before, so that they are all nice and warm for me to just pop on when I get out of bed. I used to do that all the time when I was living up in the Midlands.
Thursday
It’s my birthday, it’s my birthday, I’m a spend my money! I woke up to the best present ever on Facebook this morning. One of my best friend’s Charlie had recorded herself singing 22 by Taylor Swift but had to my surprise, changed the words to fit better. I LOVE THIS GIRL! It made me tear up when she sung “I wish I could be there…’ because if we were still at university, she would have been! This is probably the one thing that I realised when waking up this morning, that there was no one their for me to open my cards/presents in front of. Until now, it’s been my family when I was living in Stoke and then my friends when I was at university. However, this is the first year where there was no one watching me open my cards. To solve this issue-ish, I recorded some of it so I felt like I was talking to someone. I realise this sounds really weird and sad but it made me feel slightly better! I got loads of lovely cards and a beautiful apron off Sam’s mum and dad which was gorgeous! It was a similar design to Cath Kidston which I loved and I will make sure I motivate myself to perhaps do some baking videos within the new year, so I can show off my apron. I had work today (why, oh why did I put myself in). To be honest it wasn’t as bad as I expected, I got to wear my cat birthday badge. This was given to me by Sean as we have a little on-going joke in regards to cat-themed birthday cards but that’s for another blog. After getting in from work, myself and Sean had organised to have a take-away as a birthday treat. We went to the local pizza house and had the biggest pizzas ever. We also brought a couple of bottles of wine to go with it and we ended up watching The Green Mile. Now I’ve never seen it before, even though it is a classic and I LOVED it! It was such an emotional film and it was a great movie choice for my birthday.
Friday
Work as per usual but with the added excitement of a commercial audition. Found out that I had it pretty much the day before so it was last minute organising the time off but the audition went really well. I think. It was a new experience for me as I’d never been to a commercial audition before. I think I impressed them but there were a lot of people auditioning for the role I had been put forward for so I’m not expecting anything. It was nice to have the audition as it just broke up the day more and therefore made it bearable! After I finished work, I decided to treat myself to a latte and whilst waiting in line, Hannah arrived. We hadn’t seen each other in a while so it was so good to finally see her again. She took me outside of StarBucks and told me she had a surprise so I had to hold out my hands. A little confused and not knowing what was going on, I did what I was told. The next thing, she told me to open my eyes and to my left was MARIA! Literally I screamed like a kid at christmas. It was totally unexpected seeing as she’d told me she couldn’t get the time off work to come down. BUT SHE LIED and what a beautiful lie it was. We headed back home and got lots of alcohol and fajita ingredients and prepped tea for when Sam arrived. Sam arrived around 11ish and I wore my new birthday apron to cook tea too! It was just the best having both Maria, Sam, Hannah and Sean in the house. It was great to have a big catch up and celebrate another day of my birthday and of all of us coming together!
Saturday
So I had NO idea where we were going today. Hannah had planned something, to which I had no clue whatsoever. We left early in the morning and got the train to London Bridge. We then got on the Underground and Maria had never been on the tubes before so that was a great experience for her to have. We ended up in Sloane Square, much to the others amusement at my confusion. We had breakfast at Pret as we had no time to eat at the house before we left and whilst having our coffee, Hannah handed me a brown envelope wrapped in cotton string. I opened it and to my delight it was a LUSH! spa experience, a treatment I was going to have today! I was unbelievably excited and overwhelmed when I realised that it was actually from Hannah, Maria, Sam, Sean, Elliott, Charlie, Laura and Sarah had all chipped in together to get me this treat. I know I’ve already thanked them but again, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TREATING ME! You’re the best friends in the entire world! The treatment by the way was incredible but I’m going to do a vlog about it in the next few weeks so I can describe it better and in more detail than rushing it in this blog. In the evening, we began drinking at the Slug and Lettuce and had SO many cocktails. We then went onto Nandos and weren’t impressed by the fact they’d gone and basically double booked our table but gave us the excuse that because we rang to say we were going to be 10 minutes late, they had to give up the table…what?! Not very good, but we did end up having a great meal and we got free carrot cake. We would have preferred free bottles of wine but never mind!
Sunday
We had a lovely lie in this morning, due to the fact we were just exhausted (I definitely was) from such a hectic couple of weeks. I did me and Sam breakfast and bed and then we headed on over to Harvester for lunch for their plantation platter and unlimited salad bowls, which is the best concept ever by the way. It also felt really festive in the pub, what with the cold and crisp weather and the christmas decorations that were now starting to form both inside and out. Hannah left after we had gone to the Harvester as she was meeting friends in London and Sam left a little after 4 to catch his bus. Now there’s just me and Maria, chilling out and watching some movies. I have my Head Shots being done tomorrow so I need to sort out what things I’m taking in terms of wardrobe as I want these to look amazing. Especially as they’re costing a lot! This industry is all about investment and hoping it pays off so here’s part one of that investment. Photos will be posted hopefully tomorrow so you guys can check them out!
Sweet dreams guys and sorry for the extremely long blog post. Hope I haven’t bored you to death!
Natalie-Ann x
P.S. An update on my weekly videos, I will either be posting one tonight or tomorrow night. Sorry for the lateness but my vlog for this week was all going to be set around my birthday week!
Check out my YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/NatalieRedman