Apologies dear friends and followers for the delay in getting the gritty details of the day to you! No sooner had we done the deed so to speak for the boys from the Jaxx than the next big event kicked in-to arrange a party for our lovely Spanish exchange students 13th birthday! Since then I have been in the land of the knackered, barely able to dribble my words out let alone think of them! No matter, because here we find ourselves once again and I have a story to tell!
For those of you who know not what day I am referring to...why not?! Have you not read the previous blog?! Do it now!
It was a Saturday like any other really in our house, where dressing as Frida Kahlo is a fairly run of the mill family activity. Once the decision had been made not to utilise one of Ophelias gifted merkins (the landing strip!) as the famous Frida monobrow and instead opt for an expertly painted swallow to do the job it was just a matter of threading cheap plastic carnations in my hair and dismantling my beloved mannequin to head for the glory room that is the Cambridge University Union Debating Chamber. I wondered if these walls had ever hosted a mannequin before, let alone one as prestigious and classy as our lady of the living room? However since the call to arms was a fairly late in the day affair the question of what that lady should wear was what lay heavy on my mind. Jaxx the lads had requested 'naked' initially I am led to believe, which of course would've proved easy for Ophelia and not so easy for me and the other 109 singers in The Dowsing Sound Collective taking part in these shenanigans! Thank the Lord that idea was put to bed swiftly! So we were left with 'fancy dress of any kind' as a guide and I am not usually one to be thrown by this but I didn't want Ophelia to look too out there because ,after all, sometimes we must let other stars shine but also I had lent out most of my best pieces to the various beggars and borrowers that come to my door in search of a new look. It occurred to me that putting her in something fairly ordinary in a grand room full of everyone who'd gone to town on the effort front was infact probably the best bet!
It was, as expected, quite a conundrum to fit 3 kids, a life size mannequin and a big bag of tricks in to my car-a puzzle worthy of being a GCSE maths question I would say. However we managed it after a few different approaches as you can see in the photo above! It is certainly the truth that our visiting Spanish Exchange had never before travelled in a car with a pair of marvellous mannequin legs across her lap! I have no idea what she must have thought of it or indeed of the whole day but needs must when the boys from the basement call.
Arriving in parts Ophelia still managed to stun those already in situ into silence (followed by tittering) and unfortunately there she stayed, not at her best, legs akimbo and arms recumbent until the clock struck and it was time to get our girl ready for the ball! With lots of hands on deck and only a few on her private regions we managed to get her straight and sorted in no time and lo and behold a swimming star was born. We are not talking Bo Derek or Baywatch here ladies and gentleman. Imagine, if you will, a serious swimmer and diver, competitive, dedicated, driven and there you have it-our one and only Ophelia's tribute to Tom Daley, Ellie Simmonds, Michael Phelps and the like, without getting a drip of water on her precious skin! She didn't look amused though, as I squeezed her in to a teenage sized swimming costume and cap! Nor when I squashed in the orange ear plugs and strapped on the rather strap-on looking matching goggles and snorkel!
Standing proudly alongside the rest of The Collective, Ophelia surveyed the scene-a grand room filled to the brim with colour and madness-Carmen Miranda, Sargeant Pepper, a giant bumble bee, a tiny dragon, Where's Wally?, Where's Wanda?, a book, a playing card, a poorly hospital patient, characters from every century, every decade, a goddess of nature, Marie Antoinette, a band of pirates and a few brilliant clowns thrown in for good measure to name just a few, all led and conducted by a brilliant Adam Ant! What a merry band it was that then delighted Ophelias ears (now minus the ear plugs) with their rousing rendition of the soon to be released Basement Jaxx written anthem 'Power To The People'!
But whats this? Whats this creeping out of the side of her Slazenger one piece? Dear readers it is with great trepidation that I report to you that our Ophelia chose this time, this moment in her life, in the midst of her first ever opportunity to star in a real proper music video, to show her affinity with her peers working for American Apparel...who you may remember, from a few blogs ago, have recently brought back the bush, welcomed the wool, thrown out the razor and cast away the wax. Not only this dearest darlings but she was papped at the point of the big reveal and I am not sure she will ever live it down! It is one thing readers to leave your lady garden or any other area of body hair to grow however it should choose and by crikey, some people do have interesting results! It is however, another thing to be photographed, laughed at and accused of leaving a trail of merkin material throughout the reputable debating chamber, one of the most famous university rooms in the whole of Cambridge. I know not what to say apart from that I feel it did not add to her look particularly and that she still has not had the call from American Apparel. It was a futile protest, a c**t stunt that may mean she finds herself on the floor of the editing suite. Its unlikely she will survive the cut I think.
I will leave it there dear readers with photos of the day-mostly courtesy of the fabulous Mike Oliver of www.bymikeoliver.com (do check out his work!) and fellow Dowsers who remembered to take snaps where I forgot. Many thanks to them all.
Thankfully things can move swiftly on for Ophelia in terms of her work-the release of the blog detailing her modelling work for Oxfam (Mill Rd) is hot on the heels of this fiasco. I will post a link when it has been published. She will be fully clothed and there will be no mention of merkins I promise!
Until then...
For those of you who know not what day I am referring to...why not?! Have you not read the previous blog?! Do it now!
It was a Saturday like any other really in our house, where dressing as Frida Kahlo is a fairly run of the mill family activity. Once the decision had been made not to utilise one of Ophelias gifted merkins (the landing strip!) as the famous Frida monobrow and instead opt for an expertly painted swallow to do the job it was just a matter of threading cheap plastic carnations in my hair and dismantling my beloved mannequin to head for the glory room that is the Cambridge University Union Debating Chamber. I wondered if these walls had ever hosted a mannequin before, let alone one as prestigious and classy as our lady of the living room? However since the call to arms was a fairly late in the day affair the question of what that lady should wear was what lay heavy on my mind. Jaxx the lads had requested 'naked' initially I am led to believe, which of course would've proved easy for Ophelia and not so easy for me and the other 109 singers in The Dowsing Sound Collective taking part in these shenanigans! Thank the Lord that idea was put to bed swiftly! So we were left with 'fancy dress of any kind' as a guide and I am not usually one to be thrown by this but I didn't want Ophelia to look too out there because ,after all, sometimes we must let other stars shine but also I had lent out most of my best pieces to the various beggars and borrowers that come to my door in search of a new look. It occurred to me that putting her in something fairly ordinary in a grand room full of everyone who'd gone to town on the effort front was infact probably the best bet!
It was, as expected, quite a conundrum to fit 3 kids, a life size mannequin and a big bag of tricks in to my car-a puzzle worthy of being a GCSE maths question I would say. However we managed it after a few different approaches as you can see in the photo above! It is certainly the truth that our visiting Spanish Exchange had never before travelled in a car with a pair of marvellous mannequin legs across her lap! I have no idea what she must have thought of it or indeed of the whole day but needs must when the boys from the basement call.
Arriving in parts Ophelia still managed to stun those already in situ into silence (followed by tittering) and unfortunately there she stayed, not at her best, legs akimbo and arms recumbent until the clock struck and it was time to get our girl ready for the ball! With lots of hands on deck and only a few on her private regions we managed to get her straight and sorted in no time and lo and behold a swimming star was born. We are not talking Bo Derek or Baywatch here ladies and gentleman. Imagine, if you will, a serious swimmer and diver, competitive, dedicated, driven and there you have it-our one and only Ophelia's tribute to Tom Daley, Ellie Simmonds, Michael Phelps and the like, without getting a drip of water on her precious skin! She didn't look amused though, as I squeezed her in to a teenage sized swimming costume and cap! Nor when I squashed in the orange ear plugs and strapped on the rather strap-on looking matching goggles and snorkel!
Standing proudly alongside the rest of The Collective, Ophelia surveyed the scene-a grand room filled to the brim with colour and madness-Carmen Miranda, Sargeant Pepper, a giant bumble bee, a tiny dragon, Where's Wally?, Where's Wanda?, a book, a playing card, a poorly hospital patient, characters from every century, every decade, a goddess of nature, Marie Antoinette, a band of pirates and a few brilliant clowns thrown in for good measure to name just a few, all led and conducted by a brilliant Adam Ant! What a merry band it was that then delighted Ophelias ears (now minus the ear plugs) with their rousing rendition of the soon to be released Basement Jaxx written anthem 'Power To The People'!
But whats this? Whats this creeping out of the side of her Slazenger one piece? Dear readers it is with great trepidation that I report to you that our Ophelia chose this time, this moment in her life, in the midst of her first ever opportunity to star in a real proper music video, to show her affinity with her peers working for American Apparel...who you may remember, from a few blogs ago, have recently brought back the bush, welcomed the wool, thrown out the razor and cast away the wax. Not only this dearest darlings but she was papped at the point of the big reveal and I am not sure she will ever live it down! It is one thing readers to leave your lady garden or any other area of body hair to grow however it should choose and by crikey, some people do have interesting results! It is however, another thing to be photographed, laughed at and accused of leaving a trail of merkin material throughout the reputable debating chamber, one of the most famous university rooms in the whole of Cambridge. I know not what to say apart from that I feel it did not add to her look particularly and that she still has not had the call from American Apparel. It was a futile protest, a c**t stunt that may mean she finds herself on the floor of the editing suite. Its unlikely she will survive the cut I think.
I will leave it there dear readers with photos of the day-mostly courtesy of the fabulous Mike Oliver of www.bymikeoliver.com (do check out his work!) and fellow Dowsers who remembered to take snaps where I forgot. Many thanks to them all.
Thankfully things can move swiftly on for Ophelia in terms of her work-the release of the blog detailing her modelling work for Oxfam (Mill Rd) is hot on the heels of this fiasco. I will post a link when it has been published. She will be fully clothed and there will be no mention of merkins I promise!
Until then...