Saturday morning, I took my tip jar and a bag of balloons to one of Birmingham's farmers markets. It was a bit colder than I thought it would be, so I wished I had worn pants and shoes as opposed to a dress and sandals. It went pretty well, actually… I mean I made more than half of my weekly wages in about 4 hours. I'm hoping to hit up a couple more markets int he next month or so to make a few extra quid for my trip this summer (which is, consequently, only 31 days away!!!)
Saturday afternoon, I met up with a few ladies from church to set up for Sunday's 'Cricket Fun Day' at the cricket ground where we hold our weekly meetings. Oasis has been setting up and running the kids' crafts and games at the annual fun day for the past few years. My fingers were already a bit sore from doing balloons all morning, but at the end of the evening, my nail beds were raw and red from handling so much latex. But the balloons looked fantastic! The whole room looked great, actually. The theme of the day was pirates. We had ribbons and streamers hanging from the ceiling, silhouettes of pirate ships, cartoon pirates, a beach scene a skull and crossbones, palm trees and a net hanging from the ceiling that held balloon fish, seahorses and an octopus. We set out the crafts: treasure boxes, pirate hats, eye-patches, hooks and parrots. We finished around 10 pm! England's first World Cup game was on (we missed it), so the pubs were still quite busy when I finally met Aussie for a drink. We did find a table at a pub that was slowly emptying out and we enjoyed some crisps and beer. Mmmm.
The next morning, I woke up quite early, donned a fantastic pirate costume (that I compiled from my own wardrobe) and headed to the cricket ground with my balloons. It was another full day. I must have made hundreds of balloon swords, monkeys and parrots and even a couple giraffes and poodles. Thankfully, on Sunday, I had some lovely assistants to inflate and tie my balloons for me! It was pretty much an awesome day. I got to dress up like a pirate, make balloons and eat ice cream all day. Wicked. There was even a pirate-themed juggling show! Unfortunately, it started to rain cats and dogs at half-time, so the rest of the game was canceled. As the crowd slowly filed out into the downpour to their waiting cars, we disassembled our pirate room. Later, I headed to Aussie's for some hawaiian pizza before cuddling up at home to watch Northanger Abbey.
I'm glad I had such a great weekend to lift my spirits. You see, I received some pretty disappointing news on Friday. For the past few months, I have been looking forward to going to volunteering with Oxfam at the Glastonbury Festival, an annual music festival held in England's South West that is known as 'the mother of all music festivals'. I had found myself a ride to the festival and even a camping buddy (who just happened to share my name and hair colour!) I had planned out which bands I wanted to see (Stornoway, Mumford & Sons, Marina and the Diamonds). I had even made a shopping list of festival essentials! Friday afternoon, I checked my email. In my inbox was a message from the Oxfam festival volunteer team. Apparently, they have received less volunteer passes than expected and I have been cut from the team! Keep in mind, they let me know only one week before I would be arriving! I am very dissatisfied with the outcome of this situation. Oh well… I guess this means I'll have to make a return trip to the UK one day to go to the festival apart from Oxfam. I'll start saving now…
Also, I watched the finale of Glee last night. Fabulous.
1 comment:
1) buy a new camera... :p
1.5) I do not understand cricket... do you?
2) I have not watched Glee yet (I know, of all people lol), but I will catch up soon, and then we can discuss.
3) I miss you and still want to talk!!!!
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