The Year of Celebration

It has been MONTHS since I've blogged, and yes there has been plenty to celebrate. With The Year of Celebration ending on March 31st, I figured I needed to start up again. I've just discovered Pinterest and I am in a word, OBSESSED. I could spend all day on that thing, it's like having a movable mood board. And I'm not one for liking a lot of solid paperwork around as I move so much, I'm definitely a keen member of the digital generation. My pinterest board is here .  It was my sister Nadia's 30th birthday a couple of weeks ago (picture of my Nadia and my mother Isabella at the party), and obviously that was a huge thing to celebrate. We bought a bunch of glasses from the Barn, and there were some old school 1920s style champagne glasses, so it felt a little art deco. There were fairy lights and tea lights everywhere. We started with a delicious dinner made by Nadia and the chef at Taste, Tammy for 30 people. Afterwards there was a raging house party with ...

When I was a child I went to a private school in Bermuda, and it very much followed the UK mold in terms of both structure and content. Sadly, as a result, my Bermudian historical education was quite lacking, but I also later learnt this was the case for most Bermudian students. It is improving, but there is still a great gap between our history and what is taught to us. Today I discovered that on June 13th, 1373 the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance between England and Portugal is the oldest alliance in the world, and still remains in force. This is of note because Bermuda has a significant enough proportion of people of Portuguese descent to count as its own category in the census. They have mostly come from the Acores Islands and they contribute greatly to the economy and the functioning of society. I mention this in particular because my best friend, Mia, (of Mohawk Radio) is of Portuguese descent and I met her at Fairmont Hamilton Princess, where I had possibly the most delicious fish s...

1984. What a wonderful year that turned out to be. Why, might y ou ask? Well, because I was born. And I suppose it's also worth a mention that the world fortunately was not what George Orwell predicted (unless you're a conspiracy theorist) in his book of the same name, published today, June 8th, in 1949. Why else was 1984 a great year? Well, on today's date in 1984 homosexuality was declared legal in the Australian state of New South Wales. As I've mentioned before I'm all for equal rights in every arena, including sexuality. Whether you're gay, straight, bisexual, transgender or transexual I say get married, if that's what floats your boat. No majority should ever be able to affect the rights of a minority. It's frankly disgustingly late for such equality. Enough of the tirade, this is a blog about celebrating after all! Which I've done plenty of today. After a red-eye flight from LAX, and a 4 hour layover in Baltimore I arrived in Bermuda in time ...

So today is one of those down in the dumps for no reason, anxiety-ridden, want-to-hide-under-the-duvet days. Now it could have something to do with over-indulgence on Friday night, so I'm not exactly innocent in all of this. Motivating myself to do something today has been tough, but that was the entire point in the Year of Celebration - to force myself, on days like these , to be positive. Research-wise I've been very lazy today. Today is Kristen Stewart's birthday, but anything Twilight-related will make me more depressed. It is also Elle Fanning's birthday and I've been wanting to see Sofia Coppola's Somewhere for quite a while so I rented it off of iTunes, though have yet to actually watch it (off-book deadline for Sand in the Air is on Monday so I'm line-reading). Seeing as my sister lives just down the street from Chateau Marmont (where the film is set) I could have completed the day by heading up there for some drinks, but instead my dad's friend...