Bennett In Britain

For those of you unaware, I started on my downward journey towards 30 this week in February. (This post has been an incredibly long time coming…let’s just dive in - and I’m fully aware that one’s mid to late 20’s are not old…It does however make my skin crawl that my Father jokes that I’m his daughter that’s almost 30).

While I’m not tremendously keen on birthday celebrations - primarily because of horrible past experiences. I, against my better judgement decided to have a wee get together to celebrate my voyage towards senility.

After a small melt down (which most of you will know (and likely hate), prefaces many of my personal social situations. I have a knack for setting my heart on, jeans that don’t quite fit, shirts that escaped the wash, new makeup techniques, and fancy hair. These generally lead to disaster and result in me wearing my fat day jeans, a shirt that I should have picked in the first place, runny smudged makeup that needs washing off, and wet hair. Fortunately, and unlike last year, my meltdown occurred the day before the party; leaving the day of celebration for just that.

Thankfully they evening was a smashing success! We started the evening in our living room with a Champagne toast and scalding hot oven baked snacks, and progressed with 12 of us eating dinner at a lovely Italian kitchen up the road, which was then followed by drinks, more people, some more drinks, and Kebabish. For those of you unfamiliar with the many delicacies London has to offer. One that very seriously tops the list is a late night Kebab. Everyone has there favourites (JB and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this place just down for the Blues Kitchen in Camden) and then everyone has the less than perfect place that is mere moments from your watering hole. Kebabish is just that place.

The night flew by, and as usual we were all on top form. Fiona was her regular irresistible self, flitting around like a social butterfly. JB as usual was tossing her bacon-mones around the pub, with men falling at her feet. I had so much fun, it felt like it could have gone on all night, which it did! I found myself awake until the early hours of the next afternoon. After breakfast with this the last few stragglers, I finally had the chance to get a few hours of shuteye.

As usual JB has provided me with the most incredible cards. The first being a Hannah Montana card, which sang. I laughed so hard I cried. (Ps. Click through any of the card if you want to know more about them; with the exception of the Hannah Montana card. Disney is everywhere…we know they own her, go to Hallmark if you want one.)

The second card (as usual) designed by Spike Milligan was heartfelt, loving, and was filled with willingness to turn a blind eye to murder.

More recently JB celebrated her day of birth. Her birthday, being the day immediately following St. Patrick’s Day, tends to lend itself to long drawn out celebrations involving a lot of recovery and pain. This year the choice was made to celebrate the weekend after, this allowed us ample time to celebrate the day where everyone if not Irish themselves will likely wake to find they’d had a wee bit of Irish in them (keep in mind I’m talking about Guinness, Baileys, Jameson’s, or the perfect trifecta an Irish car bomb). This was true to form for JB and myself, waking up on British Mothers Day/JB DAY, with tender noggins and the everlasting question…”WHY did I drink THAT much Guinness?” it really does horrible things to a person’s body from the inside out, it’s such a pity it goes down so well! 

I think it’s fair to remind everyone these photos were taken at noon on the 17th. 

JB DAY part Deux: Blue themed, was meant to be any number of things time changes, food, drink, and fun. It turned out to be one filled with delayed trains, forgotten burgers, double booking, and speedy cab rides. Despite these things the night was great. To be fully honest I wish I could have traded birthday parties with JB. She had great conversation, a great table, at a great bar. I know she was a little disappointed with how the entire evening panned out. In the end I was able to make her cry her eyes out over her incredible awesome birthday gift and even better birthday card. She’s my favourite person, seeing her cry is like angels singing inside of my brain. 

I’ve placed all the links in here to be CLICKED! Each one will lead you somewhere related to the post. Some special and some informative. 

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So last weekend JB and I attended the TNT Travel Show in Earl’s Court. While normally I look for every opportunity to avoid trade shows, I figured “what the heck; it wont be that bad, eh?” With this positive mentality, the incentive of foreign beer and time and place to meet Lele, JB and I ventured from our lair and headed west.

At this point I should probably digress and apologise for being the tardiest person alive. If there is a social aspect to our meeting I will guaranteed be I a minimum of 10 minutes late. The odds are more likely to lean in favour of me being 30 minutes late. It’s unfortunately something that can’t really be helped but it comes in terribly handy when planning a surprise party (for me…not other people) and I usually arrive fashionably late to parties; seldom am I the first, and never the last to arrive.

Right, where was I? West…

JB and I had the most incredible train journey on the way to meet Lele (If you’re ever looking she can continuously be found at underexperiment.ca). As we do, we get on the tube grab a seat and relax for the duration of our journey. JB has the most amazing luck sitting down next to a couple that could possibly (meaning probably not) be from Essex (I’m told the whole things sounds very East London as well…but really lets just go with Essex). Let’s also keep in mind that it’s 1:15 in the afternoon; meanwhile, the man in the couple starts cracking open beers (which I will remind everyone is illegal, tut tut tut) and essentially makes an ass of himself.  At one point he gets up to leave his beer bottle on the platform and someone sit in his seat. His wife glares at this new man, and Mr. Winner staggers over to start yelling “SON! SON! That’s MY seat SON! That’s mine…” as though he’s specially booked his public transport. As well, the guy Mr. Winner is yelling at is about the same age as him. At this point I’m beyond interested in what’s going on. Needless to say my iPad was open to make notes as opposed to playing Tetris as I had intended. The highlight of the journey was when Mr. Winner starts slurring in the direction of an Asian couple that were standing near him.

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The conversation goes as follows:

Mr. W: Konnichiwa

Asian Dude: (Looks Confused)

Mr. W: KOOOONNNIICHHIIIIWAAA

Asian Dude: HUH?!?

Mr. W: KOOOONNNIIICHHIIIWAAA. You’re Japanese.

Asian Dude: Ummmm… (looking VERY confused)

Mr. W: I’m saying HELLO. Aren’t you Japanese?

Asian Dude: (In PERFECT English – perhaps better than Mr. W) Nah, Mate. I’m not Japanese.

Mr. Winner and his lady person get up and exit the train.

Asian Dude’s lady person: I get that [kind of stuff] ALL the time in London.

Seriously. GOLDEN moment in my London transport adventures, it was amazing. Clearly Mr. W failed to receive the memo reminding him that the UK is a big ol’ melting pot and people can not only look different from him and still speak English/be English/or from ANY other country in the world.

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Back to the real story, JB and I meet up with Lele (tremendously late) and head to the travel show. 

TNT put on one heck of a show.  As far as trade shows go it was on the small side of what I’m used to, it was filled with friendly people, incredible information, and a very diverse showing of music, vendors and presenters. In retrospect I wish I had shown up earlier and taken in more of the lectures.  However, I’m not sure if it was just my shark eye but the yellow halogen lights were exhausting; I’m not sure I cold have made it much longer myself. Other than the lights, my only critique for the entire event was how unbelievably HOT it was in the venue (but again there is a very real chance I was the only person running hot that day).

After taking in the vendors filling our purses with leaflets, memberships, pens, and filling our shoes with itchy feet, we met up with the ever lovely and fellow Canadian Marie from EuroTripTips (If you’re unfamiliar with her blog you should get well acquainted, just click the link). We represented the Canadian contingent at Travel Massive (Quick How to Guide if you’re interested in becoming one of us). TM was full of people, conversation and as these things go more questions of, “what’s your twitter name” than “what’s your name”. I’m not sure if it’s something I can really get comfortable with, perhaps it’s because they are one in the same for me…maybe I should consider branding my twitter.

As the night moved along, the party gained momentum, and about 50 people.  After moving from The Pembroke to O’Neill’s for some food, we ladies parted ways.

In the end it was a quite night, but an overall-awesome day. JB and I have taken very quickly to Lele and Marie. We’re not sure they understand what that means for them; poor girls don’t know what they’re in for yet, we Bennett’s are a special breed! We’ve all started planning possible ladies trips and speculating about future adventures.

Thanks girls for a great weekend; we can’t wait to do it all over again!

On a side note I think the highlight of the evening was JB and I remembering to take a picture with one of the TARDIS outside of Earl’s Court Underground Station. It’s one of the only one’s left on the street in London.  It held more meaning for JB than her picture with one of the production models that the London Film Museum has in their showcase (this is because I’m slowly turning her into as big a geek as I am).

This concept is not strange to anyone. If you go to the gym, try to stick to new years resolutions, or participate in Lent; you have fist hand experience with how painful and frustrating self improvement can be. 

Personally bing an avid procrastinator I find myself at an impasse between what I should do and what I want to do on a daily basis. Seldom do these needs and desires converge. Most recently it has involved cleaning up my life…and by that I mean de-cluttering and organising. All attempts have been unsuccessful to date (But I’ve imposed a timeline with punishment - The 16th of March with horrible social humiliation as my treat if I fail). 

I have however made an attempt to procrastinate functionally. This is being accomplished by my conversion from Tumblr to Wordpress. It hasn’t happened yet, and when it does I’ll be sure to make very real efforts to redirect everything in the right direction. 

Please be patient with my sporadic updates, and more specifically my hatred towards all things digital while going through this difficult time.

All kidding aside…be prepared for the future boys and girls…because it’s a coming. 

As a few of you know JB and I have been getting a little more involved in the Travel community in London. M.Ball introduced us to a lovely group of people and we’re VERY glad. I was missing the broad network I had at home and was in serious need of some social diversity. JB was in need of a platform to practice her networking and overall social skillz (yes, I spelt it with a z).

JB (@YourGF), Dylan (@travelingeditor), Leelee (@UnderExperiment) and Marie-Eve from eurotriptips.com (@eurotriptips).

Last night was the 6th meeting of the MEARCATS – The Meandering Catalysts Society (Click here for an interview with Dylan the founder via Travelllll.com). It was our first meeting and what a good way to start off one heck of a relationship! The theme of the evening was Canada. The Canadian Tourist Commission sponsored the event and picked up the tab, and boy did Dylan (The Travelling Editor) from Student Travelog, and Nim Singh (Manager of Media and PR for the Canadian Tourism Commission) with Government of Canada, do quite the job!

The host for the evening was The Drift, an incredible restaurant and bar in Heron Tower in the City of London. It over looks on to a MASSIVE aquarium, which is apparently big enough for scuba divers to get in to for it’s cleaning, and was filled with a number of incredibly beautiful men in suits and perhaps one incredibly pretty gay dude in plaid. I can’t think of a better venue for a Canadian themed event, they have Caesars on their cocktail list!

Sneaky photos of @biggsy321, @CanadaNim, @sophontrack, @theaussienomad, and @RupeshParmarX among others.

JB and I picked up Leelee the Scientist (not her real name, but here at BIB we make little effort to respect peoples privacy. She’s our Canadian – because we’re entitled to having one if you guys are entitled to us) at Liverpool St. Station and almost immediately got lost. After Leelee’s quick GPS work we got our selves back on track and found our way. As usual, we were late but thankfully only by a few minutes as opposed to our regular 45mins.

Upon arriving we were directed to the top of 3 floors where there was a private bar and finger food awaiting us. This networking event/social escapade was advertised under the guise of being a cocktail making event, we took full advantage of this to not only take great photos, but as well, to have more of an excuse to drink the delicious maple infused drinks The Drift had concocted.

As soon as I saw a bottle of Canadian Club and a bottle of Sweet Vermouth on the Bar, I knew I was destined to have Manhattans (My cocktail of choice 150% of the time). After my first Manhattan we ladies took the chance to also try out the Maple Mojitos, and Maple Espresso Martinis (which I would not be surprised to see as a staple drink in my future – It was INCREDIBLE). As well the girls took the chance to make each of us an Old Fashioned despite no one being particular fans of the drink, with the exception of my-self.  

The night was filled with new friends and was a great way to get prepared for the TNT sponsored Travel Show coming up on Saturday. JB and I will be heading to check out the vendors, the job fair, presenters, and to participate in Travel Massive towards the end of the afternoon. If anyone is interested, entry is free with online registration.

Some of you will know the story of Annora vs. The Mouse. For those of you who don’t I’ll give you a brief synopsis.

Annora while working in North Battleford was living out of a hotel room. Now this hotel room was rather horrible to say the least, uncomfortable bed, tv pointed at the door and bolted so it could not be watched from bed. Essentially it was as crap as possible with the exception of it’s one saving grace. It had a kitchenette. For those of you who have worked for long periods of time out of hotels and away from home, the ability to make your own food is a perk that is priceless. 

Now, as previously mentioned this hotel room was horrible, it was run down, even when freshly cleaned it looked dirty. As well, this was all happening shortly after I had had my LASIK and I was getting used to my super awesome HD eyes. Initially I had thought I had seen things out of the corner of my eye, assuming these were auras caused by moving lights after surgery (which I still have to some extent, for those interested in knowing). I was mistaken; I had a mouse. This was my first encounter with a mouse outside of a man made containment environment. 

After a brief period jumping on the bed, screaming, crying and generally just having a break down. I took my dads advice and MacGyver’ed a mouse trap (because of course the hotel had none), made out of a water bottle lid, a soup can, and a piece of bread. While quietly perched on my bed, I waited for the can to drop entrapping the furry footed demon.

At this point I was doing that thing in my head where I doubt my father and his makeshift fixes; wondering if duct tape will actually hold my car together or if the can will actually capture my tormentor. Let’s just say, dad is always right…to a point. While being a good Elmer Fudd and staying out of sight my Bugs Bunny box trap worked on the mouse. What remained to be understood by my anxiety riddled brain was: “how do I get this thing out of here?”. Instead of the clear option - scoop up the can with something underneath and toss the mouse in the bit outside. I went with - panic, hyperventilate, panic that the mouse was trying to knock over the can, stack 3 cans of soup on top of the mouse filled can, wedge can against counter with steel toed boots, and listen to it scratch at the inside of the can all night. The first option would have taken courage (because mice are about as big as RUS’s in my brain)(oh, if you don’t get that reference we can never wed), and I would have got a great nights sleep and not looked like a sissy. Because I chose option 2, I got no sleep, and felt entirely out of touch with my inner hunts woman/Cinderella.

After this experience I promised my self that I would deal with my next encounter of the mousy kind with more tact and grace. So around the new year, I told my self I was seeing shadows when things would move out of the corner of my eye. Again I was mistaken (when will I learn?) From the first moment my eyes met her’s, I knew I would have the upper hand…I’d dealt with her kind before and she had never met a Canadian.

After a few days of very true concern for mental health (I thought I was actually crazy and seeing things for a while) and much persuasion I was able to convince JB that I wasn’t crazy and that we needed traps. JB convinced we should get snappy traps to kill mouse humanely wanted nothing to do with a dead mousy body. Me being the man in our chromosomal better-halfness wanted the sticky traps. While, yes they are horribly mean, I really didn’t want to have to deal with a dead mouse body either. I won. A kind of win…

After 4 days of me seeing her scurry around our living room and evade our traps JB finally saw her and agreed we had a problem. Trapping her under the counters in our kitchen we set a trap that would eventually be her demise. I now think I can manage snappy traps after seeing the mess this little mouse did to herself. To be on the safe side (because we all know mice come in multiples), JB and I left the traps out make sure there was no partner in crime for our furry fury. The situation went from sad to super sad when our remaining trap began to collect not adult mice but not one but 5 baby mince. We managed to save one and free it down the street. The others were binned or left for the birds (after dying in captivity) It was gut wrenching, the little one’s were too young to eat. We had clearly caught their mother at the most opportune time; no other adult mice were caught.

I think ultimately what had happened was momma mouse was left on her own and needed somewhere to nest, so she made her way into our house. We don’t exactly keep food out which explains why she was brazen enough to run up between our feet and move around more than I would have thought for a new mom.

Here are  few photos of the babies before they met their maker (not literally, she was already dead). They are covered in vegetable oil; I used it to get them un-stuck from the glue trap I was using. I also wont post the sad/gross/tormenting photos. Because I know some of you are rather fond of animals, and because I’m not proud of the situation.

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Our traps that eventually were able to out-smart the momma mouse.

The piece of flap jack he refused to eat was about 1cm wide.