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Tuesday 18 January 2011

When Blighty Met Lousie

Just the other day I went up to London and met Louise, an enthusiastic and loyal commenter of Faux Fuchsia, who then kindly took an interest in my blog and now has her own blog, http://fromnorthqld.wordpress.com/
Louise has been on an amazing tour of Europe (check out her blog for details and great photos) and was just swinging by London so we got together.

You must all be wondering what Louise looks like. Here she is:

Isn't she just super cute and gorgeous? MaiTai devotees: please note the Twilly artfully arranged.

I wore black and white stripes, as usual, and popped a Manolo Blahnik-designed scarf on. Don't look too closely at my chin, I seem to have gone a bit whiskery.


Ha ha Mrs B, you and your little jokes. Below is the real Louise, in action at Libertys of London where we met up. Louise cleverly recognised me as I was lurking by the marked down greeting cards (I was wondering whether I should buy some birth announcement cards and adapt them into thank you cards but was worried that might cause confusion:" Mr and Mrs Blighty are delighted to announce the safe delivery of their new toaster, weighing 1.2 kilos, courtesy of Auntie Norah, both toaster and white sliced loaf are doing well...")
As you can see the real Louise is indeed super cute and gorgeous, with the most beautiful hair, naturally curly. I come from a family of straight, hanging limply down hair and so does Mr B, so I find curly hair irresistible. I am now in a position to confirm, having carried out extensive research (meeting Faux Fuchsia and now Louise) that the women of Queensland are very attractive. It must be the climate.

We sat in Libertys and had two coffees each and chatted for Olympic Gold for our respective countries, occasionally pausing to breathe and/or listen to what the other one was saying! It was such fun, Louise is very interesting and knowledgeable about so many things - art, archaeology, chihuahuas, boats, sailing, teaching, diving, travel in subzero temperatures to name but a few of her areas of expertise. We talked about our mutual blogcrush, Faux Fuchsia; we were like a couple of schoolgirls discussing the prettiest girl in the school - " Well, I actually saw her put her nail polish on " I found myself boasting.
Eventually we dragged ourselves out of Libertys, (still chatting so much that Louise had to go back for her umbrella) and toddled off down Regents Street. By a weird cosmic coincidence, Hamleys, probably the biggest and best known toyshop in London and the place where Boy 2 sourced the bushbaby toy that later become famous as Blighty (er, this is getting a bit overblown, no?), had window display after window display of the same sort of bushbaby toy.
These ones are Space Blights. (In fact they are called YooHoos; I was very excited to impart this info to Boy 2 when I got home; he coolly replied, "Yeah, I know, it says on the label, but I call him NubNub, it's a better name...).


After Regent Street, we Tubed it up big time (trade mark, copyright FF 2010/11) and landed up at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. Where we had a blast, involving lunch, getting lost in the labyrinthine layout of the museum, looking at a replica of Kylie Minogue's dressing room from her something or other Tour and also seeing Dame Edna's egg and bacon costume (as Louise so astutely pointed out because Louise has pursued High Level and Erudite Studies in Fine Art, Dame E beat Lady GaGa to the food as clothes thing by years); in short I showed Louise the best that British culture can offer the overseas visitor.
Of course, as usual in all the excitement I forgot to take pics but don't worry, Louise has got it covered.
Before we knew it, the day had whizzed by, we had a quick but thorough rummage round the superior V&A gift shop. I might have been defeated by the Libertys greetings cards but I succeeded in picking up some discounted Christmas decorations, having vowed that one day my tree would be like FF's: never undecorated.

And then it was time to say goodbye, and we had only covered 5% of the issues we needed to work through, but never mind, because we had a smashing time. Louise, thank you for a lovely day and come back soon (but don't bring any snaks, promise!)

24 comments:

  1. Lol I did not realise that the bushbaby had such an enormous family. I want a Yoohoo now!
    So fabulous you and Louise meet up and just wish I'd been a fly on the wall to enjoy the chatter.
    xx

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  2. hi blighty,

    so jealous. i can just picture the two of you ffing it up. lovely. and btw is that a zebra head in your house? omg, it's so, so...zebraish.

    xo
    janet

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  3. Anne Marie - I think Mr and Mrs Bushbaby need to get a TV;
    Janet - zebra head was in Liberty's, and I am afraid I cannot say that no zebras were harmed, it was a real head stuffed, weird or what? Would not like a stuffed animal in my house, can only just cope with all the stuffed soft toys, teddy bears etc.

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  4. Blighty, Bush babies are now in Canada. L has some photos she took just for you.
    Am so glad you and Louise had such a great time. FF has started a great Trend in Blogger Meetings!

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  5. Haha - I have a photo of the elder daughter and me kissing that Zebra draped with Hermes scarves. In 2009 Liberty's had a special Hermes exhibition with elegant French experts giving lessons in scarf tying. Afterwards we popped down the Champagne and Oyster bar in the basement. Or was it the other way round?

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  6. Hi Deb - the best thing about this blogging lark is getting to know lots of nice people and sometimes getting to meet them in Real Life;
    Elegance - so that zebra gets around does he? he told me he didn't meet many people and led a very quiet life, the bounder!

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  7. Blighty-
    You sound like an official meeter greeter tour guide these days...
    galavanting to chic spots making friends...
    I am living vicariously through your adventures.

    BTW, those YooHoo's look very cute.

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  8. Ah Blighty, you crack me up. Would love to meet you too one day, so you never know!!! Sounds like you are never stuck for places to go when there's a good time to be had.

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  9. Hey Blights,
    That was a Fantastic post about Monday in the Big City.
    I had had as much fun reading about it here, as I did in the actual performance itself.
    I channelled you yesterday at the Big Boy Museum, (The British Museum) and lashed out on some Christmas ornaments myself. I bought dangly hippos.
    Thanks for the compliments on the hair - but you know how I feel about curls. Your hair is WAY superior!
    L
    xxxx

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  10. wish I'd been there!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  11. Dear Mrs Blighty, I am very envious. What a lovely day with Louise from Townsville. I would be rather disturbed about the Zebra's head except he or she has quite an arch look in his or her eyes.

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  12. How fabulously wonderful that you got to meet and fellowship. Now I feel the need to get on a plane to the motherland! A-M xx

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  13. Dear FF, we missed you, you were there in spirit, we even did ceremonial reapplication of lipstick in your honour xx
    A-M - would so love to meet you and your lovely boys (hatches secret plot to swap out the Hooligans for A-M Lovely Boys)

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  14. Gosh. A real glamourati get-together. Re-application of lipstick, even. PS: I am the younger sister, despite what she probably told you.

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  15. How exciting!

    You've both got me inspired to meet as many bloggers and followers as I can in 2011!

    Let's do it, people!

    SSG xxx

    Sydney Shop Girl blog

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  16. Dear Padddy - haha! v funny!
    Dear Siobhan - hello there!
    Dear Hostess - Yes, I am really enjoying meeting bloggers from Foreign Parts, so interesting.
    Dear Melissah - thank you for the compliment, I will shoot over to your blog now ( the ironing will just have to wait)

    Have a nice weekend everyonexx

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  17. well, obviously the bushbaby is the next big thing to reach Australia. I may stockpile via eBay now in readiness for the Christmas rush on them.

    I would love to meet up with you too, but alas, I am superglued to three small children who do not travel well. My husband is in London atm, but I wouldn't advise meeting up with him, in your official capacity of Greeting All Australians Passing Through the Mother Country. He is a terrible shopper, unlike Louise and FF. Despite the many, many major foreign cities and duty free airport shops he visits, I have managed to get just one set of chanel eyeshadows. And that took three phonecalls (from him) to ensure the right colour. It's so sad when you see such opportunities wasted.

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  18. Dear Heidi, the thought of all those retail opportunities missed makes my blood run cold, I had to have a comforting cup of tea just to steady my nerves, the horror! Mr B is the same, he gets v cross when i disappear off at the airport to check out the duty free shops. Well done though on the Chanel eyeshadows, that is a major managerial and logistical triumph, you are now qualified to send up a space shuttle xx

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  19. Blighty, sounds and looks like a great day out! You went to all of my favourite places :) I could spend a week in the V&A and still not see it all. I love it so much I took out a membership.

    I am loving that you sparked a friendship with a fellow commenter....what a great story. Off to check it out :)

    Loved this post!

    Jeanne xx

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  20. Hi Blights,
    I'm home, horrible (50 hour) trip, horrible flue, and poor little Bronson B (the 16 year old boy bichon frise) has bladder stones and had emergency surgery today.
    On a lighter note, Arnie one of the Dodgy Brothers thrived while we were away. He is 3.6 kilos, seriously fat for a chihuahua, 1 kg overweight. He got to do the WALK OF SHAME at the vet today, and was weighed IN PUBLIC. (the price of stealing everyone else's doggy leftovers for 6 weeks!)
    See, Boys 1 and 2 are angels compared to the doggy dilemmas of inTownsville.
    Cheers
    Fluey Louie.
    xxx

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  21. Dear Jeanne, thank you for dropping by, can't stop thinking about those nice boots of yours, I need some of those in my life!!
    Dear Louise, welcome home, 50 hours - eeek! So sorry to hear about your flu, rest up and plenty of fluids and escapist DVDs; poor Bronson how horrid for him! Well done Arnie, that is impressive, you obviously put in a lot of work on your physique! Boys 1 and 2 send their love to the Dodgy Brothers, they are busy thinking up some new tricks to torment their mother with - latest from Boy 1 is that I am ruining his life as I won't let him have a Facebook account... xx

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  22. Blighty, I'm with you on the Facebook issue. It's (FF2009/2010/2011) the devil's work!

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  23. Sounds like a brilliant day out! Isn't it nice meeting up with other bloggers? I'm off for lunch with a couple of blogging friends and a tweeter from Twitter a week on Sunday.

    If I'm never seen again, tell the cops to dig under the rose bushes....my body won't be there but it's horribly weedy and needs a bit of a turn over.

    I need to get me a cuddly toy!

    AX

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  24. Dear Alison - re roses bushes, ha ha, brilliant!

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