What We Love Wednesday!! Summer Lovin'!!!

These last two days have been so beautiful – sunny, hot, sunny, did we mention it has been SUNNY?? It’s been almost impossible to be down about anything!!

Brits are funny ones when it comes to sun. In Idaho, a place with actual seasons, we’ve always enjoyed our long summers, but nothing like the British. There is a sort of desperation about their sun-soaking love. Like they’ve gotten to hook up with the star (the sun, get it? Astronomy jokes are out of this world!!) they’d grown up idolising,  and for the night they are with them they can’t believe their luck and want to soak up every minute by being overly excited and clingy – because they know they won’t see that star again. Yes, that was an elaborate simile, what’s it to ya??

As The Fonze would say - 'Ayyyyy'

Sarah is a perfect example of the star-struck Brit. As soon as the sun is out, it’s deeply frowned upon to want to stay inside. You’ve twisted your ankle and it hurts like hell? Oh well, you still have to walk the hour home because the SUN is out. You want to sleep in until 11 on a sunny weekend morning? That’s not allowed because it’s a waste of the SUNNY day. All you have left in your cupboards at the end of the month is a can of soup for lunch? You still have to bring that hot, messy bowl of soup out of work to sit in the park and eat it in the SUN so her (and literally everyone within a 2 mile radius, all squished in the sunny spots together) can soak up 30 minutes of sunshine before going back to their indoor, depressingly sun-free jobs.

But can you blame them? It’s almost June – a proper summer month – and these have been our first proper good days since February/March. Sun doesn’t necessarily come all summer here in the jolly old UK, so they have to take any chance they can get to wear next to nothing and get their fair skin severely burnt. All we want is a solid three months to sit in beer gardens and drink Pimms (or ice cold Diet Coke, whatever you fancy), is that too much to ask?

So, in tribute to these two amazingly sunny days (please let us get some colour at lunchtime today!), we thought we’d do our WWLW this week on SUMMER!! All the things we are looking forward to in the (no doubt epic) summer 2012. In chronological order, yo.

Being thwarted by the sun numerous times in Boise, Idaho

The Queen’s Jubilee – As you all know, our flat overlooks the river – it’s one of our favourite things in the world. We are lucky enough to have front row seats to the Jubilee River Pageant! Well, kind of. They moved the starting point one bridge down due to the ‘lowness’ of Wandsworth Bridge, so we have front row seats to the ‘mustering’ of the 1000+ boats on the river. We are so excited to show a bit of British pride with our Union Jack balcony flags, watch the boats, then go find a place to watch the flotilla. The jubilee is a once-in-a-lifetime event for us (and for Queenie), and we are so happy to get to be a part of it! Laura will be putting on her best English accent all weekend. It is sure to get very annoying haha!!

A road trip to the country – Sarah has wanted to take me out into the countryside for awhile now, and while Laura’s a bit of a snob about where she goes on holiday (they must speak a different language, and we should have to fly there), due to our massive holidays later in the year, we are going to finally try to holiday in the UK this year. B&B in the Cotswolds? Don’t mind if we do!

Worldpride London!!! – We love a bit of gay pride, and have gone to London’s pride every year we’ve been together (Laura was going even when she was dating black men, but that’s a different story!), and this year will be bigger and better than ever – London is hosting Worldpride in 2012!! No doubt dressed up in costume, we are really looking forward to the parade, the music, the drag queens, and the all-around amazing atmosphere Pride brings with it!!

While we’re on the subject of Pride, of course we’ll be going to Brighton Pride too!! But it’s not until September, so shouldn’t really be on this list.

We are going to get a portable BBQ, and Laura is going to have a BBQ on her balcony. Is it a fire hazard? Probably. But year-long dreams shouldn’t be silenced at the little risk of burning our house down. We want to have an old fashioned BBQ, dammit!!

Sarah’s 29^th birthday!!!!!! – Laura is probably more excited than Sarah is as of yet, but this birthday promises some big surprises (hopefully!)! Either way, Laura loves planning for her love’s birthday, and enjoys the challenge that is making her so happy and not ask if she’s kept the receipt. Yes, really.

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The Wireless Festival – We have tickets to see Rihanna (along with a ton of other artists we like) at the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park!!! Woohoo! Not much else to say about that!!

The London 2012 Olympics – of course!!! Though we will be out of the country for the second week, we plan on making the most of the excitement and atmosphere during the first week of the Games. We’ll be watching on the giant screens around London, taking part in related events, and making sure that even though we don’t have tickets (sadface), we get to really enjoy the Olympic Games!

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And then finally, our trip to Thailand!!!! First week of August we are heading there to be at the wedding of our good friends Blakeley & Sam, who sadly (for us, happily for them) moved to Australia so they no longer live down the street. On our way we will have a long layover in Cairo, and are being taken to see the pyramids, Egyptian museum, riding on the Nile River, and to a market. Then back to the airport we will go, no staying over in Egypt required! Wham, bam, thank you….Egypt.

Then we are staying in a Fisherman’s town on Koh Samui for a week, where we will (hopefully) be getting a tan, boating over to experience a Full Moon Party, watch Blakes get married, and hang out with an elephant or two! We’ve never been to Thailand (or much of Asia at all, for that matter) so we are pretty excited!!

On top of all this, we plan on visiting Borough Market numerous times (to get cheese!!), enjoying all the fun things London has to offer throughout summer, hopefully coming out of it all a bit less glow-in-the-dark white than we currently are, and spending time with friends!

Brian Adams, the Summer of ’69 is SO over – bring on the Summer of 2012!!!

What are you planning to do this summer?

Love always,

Laura & Sarah xo