Lily's Diary Entry no.4: Prom

As Ella and I were in our last year at school this year, a part of the whole process of leaving included our school Prom. It was held at the East Sussex National Golf Club and it was quite fancy and big. I wore a green sequin bodycon maxi dress from ASOS and a pair of black heels, Ella wore a matching skirt and crop top with a floral pattern that was also from ASOS and heels that were a nude colour.

Here are some pictures of Ella and I with our friends. The photography was done by Edward Reeves Photography.

One problem with the night was that there didn't seem to be any air conditioning or anything so it was swelteringly hot, especially seeing as we were all so dressed up. To make this more annoying they were only letting 3 people outside at a time so there was a crowd of boiling teenagers gathered around the door begging to be let out all night. Overall it was pretty fun getting dressed up and saying goodbye to the people in our year.

Lily x

Lily's Diary Entry no.3: Don't forget your shoes

Ella and I really need to figure out some kind of schedule for when we each post, she is in Cologne for a dance competition at the moment though so I thought I would post today so the gap between posts isn't too big.

Our friend had a Hawaiian themed party on Friday that Ella must have been gutted to miss being in Germany (she is most in her element in any situation involving dress up, especially when floral shirts and flower garlands are an option). I wore a dress that my mum bought on her honeymoon in Hawaii and put on a flowery headband. It was great because everyone there had put in the effort to dress up so there were flowery things and colourful clothes everywhere.

The host of the party had another party last year that we went to, it was probably one of the more eventful ones because I ended up going to A&E (I think that's called the ER in America) with one of my friends. She had been in the garden with bare feet and stood on what she thought then to have been a thorn but was actually quite a big piece of glass, she went inside to the dance floor and started to dance, eventually someone noticed the trail of blood in to the room and it was discovered that she had a big cut on the bottom of her foot. Some people took her in to the bathroom and tried to help, they were all quite drunk though and when I came in they were discussing what kind of plaster they should put on the cut. At this point I was pretty sober so I decided to take charge and put something over the cut and apply pressure (basic first aid skills wahey), a girl at the party lived next door so we took her over there where the parents promptly put her whole foot in a bucket of Dettol (a doctor at the hospital later asked 'did they hate you?'). After some confusion the host of the party's parents came home and before I knew it I was in the back of the car off to A&E with my bleeding friend. 

When we got there we had to wait for quite a long time to be seen, but finally the doctor came and put 5 stitches (ouch) in my friend's foot. She was still pretty drunk and went a bit weird from cutting her foot, so my friend for some reason insisted on wearing her pair of glassed in the shape of beer glasses while she was being stitched up, the doctor wasn't amused.

All in all I would say that was a pretty exciting night, but it did prompt for me to officially say this time round that I would not be going to hospital with anyone, luckily it wasn't necessary as everyone was very conscious of having their shoes on and on the lookout for shards of glass.

Lily x

Lily's Diary Entry no.2: Goodbye maths papers

I did not realise it was the end of the month already I swear it was May like yesterday? This came as a bit of a shock to me as I was mindlessly ploughing through episode after episode of Call The Midwife (I've already watched all the episodes of Downton Abbey in a few days, not sure if that's impressive or weird and obsessive [definitely weird and obsessive]), I looked over at my phone and saw the date was already the 25th. This was one of those epiphany moments when I just thought to myself 'Lily, what are you doing with your life? You have practically not left your bed for a whole month, enough is enough. Get up and be productive!' But then I realised that getting up meant facing life and people so just like that my epiphany was over, it was a nice thought though.

Now when I say I haven't left my bed for a month I'm exaggerating a bit (only a little bit), one of the social things I have done was burning past papers and old workbooks with some friends. We all brought a stack of papers and books and between the four of us we had a pile almost a metre tall. We started by just throwing the paper in to the fire but as we all realised we would never have to do the subjects we hate ever again it got more ceremonial. Ella insisted on burning her things herself and cackled as her Spanish book and the little drawing of her English teacher that had obviously made her lessons well spent went up in flames. We slept outside in my friend's garden which was really nice apart from the morning when we all woke up with a nice dusting of paper ash coating everything, including us.

Here's a picture of Ella and our friend Nancy burning things.

I went to see my grandmother today, she lives a couple of hours away and I don't see her much so it was nice to go. She has lots of her funny ways, calling us up various times a day each time with a new observation or more likely complaint, the most memorable being the 'there are too many cornflakes in the packet' incident when we had to retrieve said cornflakes, and the 'there are no good apples at the co-op' time when we we unable to help. My grandma has lived in the same house for 50 years and I think it must be weird for her to have so many memories in one place, my granddad passed away in April so the house must feel so empty all by herself. I have decided I don't like the idea of ageing, its daunting, I don't think I need to be thinking about that yet at all but to me getting old feels like a terrifying concept. I'd quite like to stop ageing at about 20 if someone could arrange that please?!

Okay strange sort of rant type thing, but not really, over.

Lily x

Ella's Diary Entry no.2: I think I need dream analysis

I've just woken up, I'm slouching on the sofa with an episode of modern family playing in the background, still slightly disturbed by a dream I just had. A musical dream.

I'm not talking about a stage production, a real life musical where people just break into song like in the films. I may have just written the new smash hit.

So it started off with my family building a new house in a neighborhood full of our family friends, apparently we were rich because we had two buildings, one for living and one the had a ginormous pool. I only vaguely remember my mum joyfully slapping paint onto the walls whilst the neighborhood sang a rendition of 'bring the house down' by S Club 7. It was of course stereotypically sunny and everyone was wearing dancing shoes. But everything took a dark turn when we realised our new house was haunted, apparently by mysterious wood chips with the faces of deers etched into them?Things became serious when we found a dead deer in my parents bed. We had a meeting round our pool with our friends to discuss our action plan.It had a similar atmosphere to that scene in Les Miserables with the red and the black flags.

Suddenly all the men were dressed as robin hood and chanting a medieval song and ran out to the woods where a herd of deer started to attack, the swung from vines and stabbed the animals with knives made of bones and we all cheered, at which point my guinea pig shouted "WATCH OUT FOR THE MONKEYS". We all watched in horror as a herd, is it herd? of gorillas stampeded towards us and suddenly I was one of the men swinging from the vines. I could see a massive fight scene going on beneath me and everyone started to make an arena around the lead monkey, who was huge and hairy and had a sword and suddenly I had to give the deciding blow. I swung towards him and threw the knife, which promptly missed and someone else had to do it  for me (typical), but everyone cheered and broke into the finale, which was a dance number called "Thank god for all the wives"(don't ask, this came from the inner corners of my mind). This was sung by the men, still dressed in tight medieval trousers, whilst the wives danced in a circle looking very smug.

And all was well in the Russell household once more.

I'm still reeling so i'm going to go and make myself a cup of tea and sit in a darkened room for a while.

Ella x

Lily's Diary Entry no.1: Andrew Scott is basically my friend now

The last couple of months have pretty much been a flash of exams and failed revision attempts. After my final exam I expected it to feel different or freeing or something but it's pretty much the same for me, I didn't do a whole lot during the exam period and now will most likely continue not to do much for the 3 month holiday we now have. I could really use a job as motivation to do something and be productive, but as Ella pointed out in her post yesterday its a pain in the arse being some of the youngest in the year, so it still looks like getting up after noon every day is very much part of the plan for me, when I say part of the plan there isn't a plan and I have no idea what I'm going to do. Maybe I should have a plan.

It's kinda funny to think that the I probably won't see most of the people I have been at school with for the past 5 years again but I'm not sure how much I really mind, I reckon it will be a positive thing going to college and meeting some new people, anyway our year have this thing going on where no one talks to anyone outside their friendship groups (which made for a great last day when our whole year were together but awkwardly sheltering in little circles of comfort friends).

One of the good things about it being the end of school is that everyone is having more house parties, some of them have been pretty interesting, the peak of this being 'The Strypes guitarist guy incident' as it shall now be called, that Ella explained in her post. Apart from that its just nice to see some people before we all go off our separate ways and never see each other again.

YAY.

Things went so fast, it feels like only a week ago that I left the house, my little 11 year old self weighed down by my inevitably enormous bag as I went to my first day of secondary school. What the hell? I'm gonna need to start looking in to pension plans soon at this rate.

In London a couple of weeks ago I saw a play called 'Birdland' at The Royal Court Theatre, I think it ended a few weeks ago so I won't go in to recommending it or anything but it was very good, Andrew Scott was in the play (the actor who played Moriarty in the BBC's Sherlock) and afterwards he came outside and we met him which was really cool. The title of this post might be a bit of a lie... but I bet if we had 5 more minutes we would be best friends so whatever ok?!

On another note, I have discovered that the best way to eat chips is when you are almost too drunk to walk in a straight line but not quite. I was at a party and wasn't having a very good time, it was good and everything but I had just got myself a little bit uncomfortably drunk, in my obviously very sensible mind I decided that this would be a good time to walk home so I left, luckily my friend came with me so I wasn't completely on my own stumbling through town. On our way through the high street we stopped at this place to get chips, after we got them we found a nice quiet bench and I can honestly say they were the best chips of my life. There's something delicious about not fully being able to taste the chips, its just very good. After that it was a nice quite stroll home, the night had been saved by chips.

Lily x

Ella's Diary Entry no.1: Night with The Strypes?

15 is such a dead end age.

When one end (school) are telling me new doors were opening, numerous restaurants, cafes and shops are promptly slamming their doors in my face. “We don’t hire under 16’s”.

I just want to kick something cute and fluffy and strangle every 16 year old around. How am I meant to start my life when I can’t even get some measly job in a crappy sandwich bar? How am I meant to explore my personal style when I can’t buy any of my personal style? 15 is one of those limbo ages where you’ve come a long way but your still not quite there yet. Whoever came up with the logic of not letting someone who is halfway to 30 have a go at fending for themselves is a right twat if you ask me. I feel like my last year of school, my preparation for GCSE’s has all been a humungous anti-climax.

But. (Yes I have a but)

This was before I left school and got through the main body of my exams – only Jesus knows how. Leaving that tedious hole has put me in a different frame of mind, I would like a go at life please. Preferably whilst getting paid. I’ve bought myself a pair of gorgeous bright red patent brogues and taken my first step into my exciting new life (pun totally intended).

This didn’t go as smoothly as I’d thought, I stepped straight out of my last exam promptly into coming down with a manky cold, which did not agree with my fresh nose piercing (of course I was going to pierce my face, what else do you do when you leave school?). And a day later was whisked away on a family camping trip. Aren’t family such a burden? I can honestly say I have never been so numb for so long, so clap clap to the British weather, my faulty tent and my deflating airbed which made it necessary to sleep with a towel to soak up excess moisture.

Despite this minor hiccup I powered on, ending up at a house party with a load of people from our year.  It started out like the average party, then the lead guitarist from The Strypes walked in.

I mean how often do you end up at a house party with a member of a well-known band who are supporting the fucking Arctic Monkeys?

Not a lot methinks.

So obviously, being a fan of their music, I started internally fan-girling him (I literally detest the squealing girl act so my appearance was entirely cool, much like an aloof ice cube – it’s been typed I will not backspace what I just wrote) but did turn to my friends and excitedly announced that I planned to get with him. I mean wouldn’t that be great to tell the grandkids? I remember Lily, who was sitting there not giving a fuck, giving me her “you’re an idiot” look, before giving me a dismissive hand gesture as if there was nothing to be done and turned her attention elsewhere. Looking back she was in the right frame of mind. I moved over and started chatting with him, he seemed genuinely pleased to meet everyone and was easy to talk to.

 I was still totally up for plan A until he started choosing girls and taking them upstairs. Of course a lot of this goes on at parties, but 4 girls in an hour? All the boys started getting protective and asked him to leave when a couple of the girls claimed they found him quite forceful.  After a LOT of persuasion he went outside to wait for a cab and I remembered that I’d put my key in a friend’s bag that’d just left and ran back out to get it.

Now just to let you know in normal life I am probably the least confrontational person, but at the time I was stoned and had taken multiple trips down to the cellar where the house owners stored their alcohol (classy yes?).

So this Strypes guy, I think he was called Josh or something? Was getting very upset that a bunch of 16 year olds didn’t like him, he was particularly angry that the girls had been “chatting shit about him” and, being the only girl there he started directing his anger towards me.

Now this is the moment ladies and gentlemen, when we take off our hats and praise me, because I had my first ever argument and I had it with someone from THE STRYPES.  Holding my hands up, I said “Hang on” before launching into an angry paragraph about how, if he wanted to make friends he shouldn’t have got with all the girls and started arguments with all the guys. To top it all, I stormed off and slammed the door (side gate leading into the garden rather) behind me.

Good riddance.

The rest of the night went pretty smoothly I danced until 3am before needing to sleep and went upstairs where one of my friends made room for me. Now I surprised myself here because I’ve always dreaded the time when a relationship becomes serious enough for you to move in together. I thought I’d have to invest in an emperor sized bed with a sign saying “NO HEAT TRANSFERRAL ALLOWED”. But I was happily tucked under his arm and slept for a good hour before someone came round with a bloody megaphone. I did a little thumbs up to myself as that is one future worry resolved.  At around 6:30 someone started cooking sausages as I sat bleary eyed on the roof watching the sun come up. It was a little moment to reflect and I thought,

You idiot.

You still have two exams next week.

And as the reggae version of “live and let die” came on, I took my sausage and left.

Ella x

Starting Again

So after taking a break from blogging to do our GCSE's we both agreed that we wanted to change the style of our blog, after fearing it was slipping into a half hearted "beauty, fashion, life" layout. Not that blogs like these are bad - they are very interesting and useful when done well, but we just wanted something more personal ya know? 

So the plan is to change our blog into a diary, following our lives over our summer then as we start college. This is very experimental and we aren't 100% sure how its going to work, but once we start forming a routine it should come together.

Please feel free to give us feedback and advice on this new approach - it would be much appreciated.

Ella and Lily xox