Festivality Casualty

Having barely recovered from Secret Garden Party, along comes Boomtown! Now, I love a festival as much as the next raver. I fully  embrace my hippy side by wearing mismatched clothes, waving farewell to any sense of personal hygiene (bar the mandatory baby wipe shower), chattin breeze to individuals never to be seen again, and generally behaving in a raucous unashamed way. Fine for a festival, less acceptable in the real world. Of which I may have slightly lost grip of...however now thats all over, its time to say farewell to the festival mentality and start treating my body with a wee bit more TLC (for the most part). Today is a new day! But before I turn my back completely on the mud, portaloos, and uncomfortable moments day time drinking around children...here is the picture show of 2012 festival fun times...

SGP was a last minute outing - I'm talking the day before last minute. Got a cheapo ticket, knew a crew that was going, and was on me merry way! Though not before going to my big bro's wedding in London on the Friday which was amazing. Despite missing the actual wedding, it was so good to meet my sister in law and so many Anyia's - more than I've ever seen in recent memory! Also awesome to see my bro who looked so handsome in his white suit (which I ruined at the moment of my arrival by getting red lipstick on his lapels during an excitable hug...). After having a fair few glasses of strong red wine (drunk predominantly through the speeches-standard) I stumbled onto the tube with my festival bag, travelled to SGP, arrived at the festival finally around 10pm only to find that all my friends phones were off...bit of an issue as my festival bag was with them, as was my accommodation in the form of a shared tent.

Ever the optimist, I made myself a strong drink, put on my glasses, and decided I would wander the festival till I found them. The seeds of doubt began to form 45 minutes in, when at the main stage I realised it would be a miracle to find a group of 10 in a crowd of 26,000...and yet miracles do happen! I wandered down to the big tree by main stage, looked for a group of people dressed like maniacs, and low and behold! I had found my group. So that was Friday, Saturday was a day of halucinigenics, the dance-off, and the birth of the tripod. I laughed for eight hours straight, despite the sludge mud we were wading through and ended it by raving to Oxide and Neutrino, amazeballs. Sunday went by in a bit of a blur but there was dancing, there was drinking, there was laughing, with the slight fear at the back of the mind of the upcoming travel home....which was suitably horrendous. Thank god we had this song to play us out...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfw0pJUyT34










Then came Boomtown, where Bristol goes to listen to urban music in a field. The only downside I will say is...so many crusties, so little time for them. That aside, it was fucking amazing. The new garage area was a personal highlight. Everyone went in hard at the Bad Apple from day one which set the groundwork for upcoming carnage. Friday was mushroom day, laughing like a giddy idiot, and looking more lost than an abandoned child. Saturday was singing in the Hidden Wood with Laid Blak, meaning I kept myself fairly straight through the day. Arrived at the stage to a full house- literally had to battle my way to the front for when I was called up. Loved every moment of it, standard. Give me a mic, and a stage, and I'm home! Sunday, in a bid to make up for the easy ride the day before I started the day with vodka...realised that was a mistake when I went back to the tent to refill it and passed out for 3 hours - fail. That evening was Arcadia, and another little visit to the Bad Apple-where it all began. Overall, Boomtown = Bristol with no rules, and many a story. Wouldn't be a summer without it!

Beautiful People...

So, boomtown has been and gone and what a festival it was! I will report on it more fully when the pictures have landed. But I will say this-I went expecting to get mash-up for four days (which I did) but I didn't expect to embark upon any deep thoughts or realisations...that was a surprise.

Allow me to paint the picture...on Friday I managed to lose all my girls - bound to happen at some point, and unsurprisingly found myself raving at Arcadia with some other mates when out of the blue I start dancing with a bit of a fitty on my right. First hour I thought - jackpot! Good dancer, good kisser, bit of a looker...but after a few 'conversations' in which he told me which car he drove, how much of a playboy he was and how much money he makes, I realised that he was...how to phrase this...a dick.

I've never thought of myself as superficial and I've never wanted people to judge me by the way I look because I've always thought of myself as ugly and in some ways I've felt saddened by that. I always thought it would be nice to be considered as a 'beautiful one' because they had it easier and people automatically treat them better but after an encounter with this beautiful person I began to think it can be somewhat of a hindrance. How do you ever develop your personality when people aren't that interested in it? Why bother having anything thoughtful to say if people only ever see you in a superficial way? Obviously this is a huge generalisation, and I have many stunning friends who have equally stunning personalities but I do think there is something to be said about having to learn how to connect with people on a level that goes deeper than what you see on the outside.

I found it really rather hilarious that the guy in question couldn't quite understand when I told him money and material things didn't impress or interest me in any way. In fact I seem to remember him saying "oh, I just assumed because your attractive, you would be" which made me think quite a bit about how people see me now. Obviously this guy had lines he used on girls generally, and as he complimented me, promised me dinners and gifts etc, told me I was wifey material, ('which is a big thing for me innit cause I can have any girl, but I want you'.... Bellend.) and pulled out the stops to try and impress me, the more I went off him and I could see him getting confused but the difference between me and these other girls, is that I could see it was all bullshit. In fact later that night I told him, the thing is I have a brain, and I am a realist, and I look for more in a man than what I can see.

Maybe because of my past I find it hard to see myself the way other people see me, but it is quite a weird thing having being bullied because of the way I look for more than a decade, and now having lost some weight and having people find me attractive. A lot of the time its difficult not to think, fuck you. You didn't like me when I was fat, and I'm still the same person I was then so what's changed?! I'm now acceptable to get with because I've lost a few inches? Thanks, how very generous of you.

I know I'm pessimistic with men, and generally I don't have a lot of hope for romance, but I think its because in my mind I've had to work for people's acceptance all my life by being clever or funny or witty or entertaining in some way to make up for my appearance. I like having my own ideas, and something interesting to contribute in a conversation. To have new people put me in a 'pretty but dumb' box after just meeting me this late in life is more than a little annoying. And for people who have known me for years who suddenly find me attractive...also pretty annoying!

Anyway, rant over. Basically what I've discovered about myself is that I need to be a lot more in my life than a beautiful person. And if you have nothing interesting to say to me, do fuck off. I dont care about your money or your car or your six pack. If that's what you've spent your life working on, I really don't have any time for you. Give me interesting conversation over dirty talk any day. 

Before Boomtown...

Annoyingly insomnia has hit me before Boomtown. No sleep for Ngaio pre weekend of messines...this can only end well!

As I have some time to spare thought I'd share my latest cooking escapade which was making eclair's for Clare's birthday. Never made before, no idea how they were supposed to work...but Jonno dared me so I couldn't say no.

Made the recipe from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chocolate_clairs_03600 and followed the recipe like my life depended on it...but sadly they didn't come out quite as planned...

I was proud of the creme patisserie (which I made from scratch), and rather enjoyed the tense filled moments desperately trying to prevent the mixture from turning into scrambled eggs, but the dough mixture was a little too dense so they didn't rise properly which made filling them a bit of a challenge... Though never one to waste, they turned into mock eclair biscuits... and Clare liked them so everyone's a winner!

Ngaio Anyia at St George's Acoustic Music Festival

So, I seem to remember mentioning earlier on in the blog my gig at St George's Festival which was tons of fun! So here it is: live and kicking for your listening pleasure...

Ngaio Anyia at St George's Acoustic Music Festival

AmsterDAYM Day 1

How have I not yet posted about the hilarity of the trip that was Amsterdam?! Fail... Its so far back now that I don't even remember half of it (though that could have been down to the 'vibe'), but luckily I did some writing while I was out there which I've just found! So, here are my ramblings from my trip to Amsterdam...and some pictures too!

Well its been a while in the making, but here I am in Amsterdam, coffee shops galore! The people are lovely, the city is beautiful, and the coffee shops...wow. Not that I've gone full blown tourist and smoked away my whole time here thus far. Me and my partner in crime have wandered the streets of our quaint suburb of Haarlem. For anyone that's interested in visiting Amsterdam, I would definitely recommend staying in Haarlem- it's nicer, cheaper, and though quite a way out of the main hub, definitely worth it. Despite being called Haarlem, I think it resembles a Dutch version of Bath. Organic food, tea rooms, fancy restaurants, lovely! They even had a rather impressive flower festival on our last day...but back to the beginning!

After a beautifully sunny bus ride into Haarlem from the airport, we stepped off into a rather brutal hailstorm which proceeded to destroy our rather flimsy map every time it was exposed. However, we eventually arrived at our Wimdu destination and were pleasantly surprised by our lovely little attic room above an organic restaurant equipped with two very comfy beds, a chandelier, and a kitchen with fridge and freezer at our disposal - not too shabby! 

So after enjoying a glass of wine with our landlords, we ventured out to find Haarlems nightlife and found ourselves at an open mic night...of pretentious proportions. Deciding we stuck out a little too much in our travelling gear, we got directions to the nearest coffee shop where we purchased a modest amount of hash and proceeded to terrorise a lovely lad from Finland with twenty questions. He seemed a little slow, and after 2 tokes of his spliff I could see why. Good christ. There's a reason its called super skunk. Once we could no longer keep it together, we embraced the streets in hysterics and laughed our way home. Not a bad first day! Although there was slight embarrassment when we couldn't make the key work when we got back...shockingly our landlord had no problem when we finally went to ask for assistance...

Basic blogger

So clearly I am the worst blogger like EVER. Laaaaaaaazy. In my defence, I didn't want to bore people with mundane bits of information but as I have 3 followers, I don't think it matters cause no-ones reading it aaaaaanyways!

Now I've had this epiphany (and am currently unemployed-more on that another day) I have de died I am going to blog AT LEAST once a week. I have no excuse now that's have a swanky iPhone-the world is at my fingertips!

So look forward to many a post of my cooking inventions, I like to experiment, and if your lucky, some mundane thoughts.

I think my baking passion was born when I became completely obsessed with The Great British Bake Off. Bizarrely it was while I was dieting, I couldn't go a day without watching some sort of cookery programme, although that was my favourite. So unsurprisingly I decided to try one of the recipes from the show this morning when I decided my very hungover friend needed some cupcake love. I call these little gems, Strawberry Inspired Orange Cupcakes!

Here's where you can find the original recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/raspberry_and_cream_89607

Cupcake love

Although I made a few amendments... Before any cooking began, I boiled an orange after zesting it and cutting it in half for about an hour until it was reeeeeally soft and then blitzed it with a hand blender. Keep the orange zest separate as I did do this once and blitzed the entire orange but the skin made the mix a bit bitter so better to zest it first and then boil.

I then made the cake mix according to the recipe above, and added in the orange mush at the end. Whilst tasting, add the zest bit at a time until you feel the taste is right. I'd probably use roughly half, but trust your tastebuds!

After lining the muffin cases, I put a dollop of cake batter into each cases, followed by 1/4 tsp of strawberry jam, and a 1/4 of chopped strawberry, before adding another dollop of cake batter. You want the piece of strawberry to be well covered to ensure it doesn't burn in the oven.

Popped into the oven, I let them bake for roughly 20 mins whilst getting on with the icing. Again, I followed the recipe above pretty closely except for adding in strawberry jam instead of fresh strawberry's and a little bit of the orange zest from earlier.

After allowing the muffins to cool, I made an icing bag out of a plastic zip lock bag and piped it on. As you can see from the photo, the first ones (left) took an a rather dog turd aesthetic...not ideal. So I attempted to do hearts on the rest of them.

Gotta say, pretty darn yummy! And before getting involved, I recommend watching this brilliant lady....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-BxWV77MGc&feature=player_embedded&fb_source=message

Happy baking kids!!! Xxx