Balls, balls, balls ....

Being summer in England it is, of course, chucking it down with torrential rain - in August; I mean honestly. Confined to the house as I am, I can think of no better way to pass the time than to fill you all in with how my term ended ...

On the day of the ball, I picked up my friend from home who, despite staying only for one night, had managed to accumulate five suitcases! I can veritably hear the baffled cries of my readers: how can one person need so many bags, indeed five times the amount of bags one might originally assume? Why, by bringing three changes of outfit for one evening, of course. My friend is nothing if not a glamorous trouper.  After the aerobic workout that was getting them up the six flights of stairs to my room, situated in the eaves of my college, the girls came over to get ready. The night was amazing - from hairstylists, to vodka fountains, a thousands types of food, gorgeous fireworks accompanied by wonderful music, dodgems, ferris wheels, shisha, jazz bands; Tinchy Strider even made an appearance! All was a blur of excitement.

However, I am most definitely a morning lark, not a night owl, and love to go to bed early so as to wake at dawn, enjoy the quiet calm before the traffic starts and college awakes. Needless to say, I was a little worried about how to make it from 6.30pm to 7.30am straight without collapsing from sheer exhaustion! But, without getting drunk and without the need of an IV of caffeine, I danced my way through the night. A slight slump around 2.30am was cured by an amazingly effective power sit (totes the new power nap). Amazing night with amazing friends ... though not such amazing sleep afterwards since I was top and tailing with two others in a single bed! Two hours sleep + packing + four hour trip back to London does not make for a happy girlie ...

Miniature prosecco and absolute joy!

I won't beat around the bush: finals may be boring but finalists are more so. It may sound callous, it may sound unsympathetic - actually, it is. This term has, thus far, been intolerably dull as I am living in the strange twilight zone of a third year sans examens. All my friends have been following the French dictum of 'metro, boulot, dodo' (tube, work, sleep) except there isn't even the hint of 'metro' to ease the tedium of constant revision, just the quick walk to and from the library. Not only is summer term distinctly less fun without friends to muck around with, it is disconcerting to view veritable spectres of your future self, worn down by the stresses and strains of finals revision. The finals fear seems to be contagious for I feel a little apprehensive about my own. Yep, I'm actually nervous about those tests, you know, the ones a year from now.

However, today, the first of my friends completed their final final (if that makes any sense!) and I couldn't have been more pleased for her ... as well as a little gleeful for myself! After running around like a headless chicken trying to find a suitably hysterical card (merci, Edward Monkton) and a nice miniature bottle of rose prosecco (merci, Hotel Chocolat), I dashed over to the exam schools to greet mon amie (this post is becoming tres francais, n'est-ce pas?)

It soon became painfully clear that I needed to up my game. Cards and prosecco were clearly not enough. There were inflatable magnums of champagne, garlands of kaleidoscopic colours, vuvuzellas (no, I'm not sure how this instrument, which quite frankly sounds like a bee breaking wind, adds to the celebrations either), huge bouquets of flowers, confetti, silly string...  The list goes on. There were also covert tins of baked beans, bags of flour and boxes of eggs for the inevitable trashing (essentially where you besiege your friend with any edible substance to hand; the more disgusting, the better). However, being the goodie-two-shoes that I am, throwing food was clearly not an option. However, I refuse to be upstaged and so next time will be bringing all of the above AND a bubble blowing machine or something equally spectacular.