New Year ideas

Image from Pixabay

For me, last minute New Years plans are normal. It gets past Christmas and suddenly everyone is asking: "What are you doing for New Years?" and "Got any plans?" and I realise... I haven't even thought about it.

I love going out on New Years Eve but everywhere is so busy and pretty expensive and I definitely don't want to end up in Marilyns, (we're talking sticky dance floors and underage girls dancing to Nicki Minaj!), but I can never think of any alternatives!

So, for all of you in the same position as me, here's 8 ideas of how you can start 2017 with a bang...

1. Head to the Capital...

If you get the chance, head to London for a night of fun with so many events to choose from. My pick would be Kensington Roof Gardens, which host a circus themed evening; drinks, live entertainment, a huge fireworks display and plenty of surprises along the way.

https://www.designmynight.com/london/bars/kensington/the-roof-gardens/new-years-eve-at-the-roof-gardens-2016

2. Game on!

Grab all of your friends and have a night in. Lots of alcohol, drinking games and takeout food makes for the perfect New Years, with no worries about finding a taxi or spending it alone!

3. Go to the Races

Going to Cheltenham Races is one of the highlights of my year and their New Years Day event makes for the perfect excuse to go! Wrap up warm and grab yourself a few drinks while you're there... carrying on the party from NYE.

http://cheltenham.thejockeyclub.co.uk/

4. Host your own

Host your own New Years party with a fancy-dress event. Casino night, Hawaiian Luau or an 80's themed party will make the evening more fun, not that you'll be able to remember it the next morning!

5. Drink in Dublin

Dublin's New Years Festival last 3 days and has pretty much everything you can imagine; a light extravaganza, sky dance, poetry slam and not to mention their concert, which this year sees Walking on Cars headlining! All of this and plenty of drinking will make for a New Years to remember. 

http://nyfdublin.com/

6. Or head further...

NYE is the perfect time to take a holiday. Expensive, yes, but the atmosphere that you'll experience in cities such as New York, Hong Kong, Berlin or Rio will make it completely worthwhile.

7. A girly evening

If you like a more laid-back evening, grab your girlfriends and set up camp in your garden. Plenty of blankets, fairy lights, projector films and bottles of Prosecco will make your New Years unique.

8. Just enjoy it.

No matter where you're off to this New Years, make sure that you're spending it with your faves. And really, as long as plenty of food and drink is consumed, you're sure to have a good one!

Birmingham Break

 This weekend, we had a little pre-holiday mini break to Birmingham. Although we only live about 50 minutes away from the city, we were going to see Krept and Konan on Friday night and thought we might as well make a weekend out of it!

Hotel La Tour was absolutely gorgeous; big rooms, modern technology and right in the middle of everything. I would highly recommend staying there if you find yourself in Birmingham for the weekend!

Friday night was great. We went for a meal and had some cocktails, before heading to The Institute for the gig. I bought the tickets for Ollie's birthday and I'm so glad I did, it made the perfect weekend. Krept and Konan were amazing, their new album is so so good (check it out if you haven't already!), and bringing out Yungen for a couple of songs made it even better.

Shopping on Saturday was as busy as ever. The german market is now up and which was lovely, but we didn't get much time to look around. I saw so much that I'd have loved to buy, but coming up to Christmas I thought it would be better to just hint!! We managed to get quite a few presents and bits for ourselves, before heading back home.

Here's just a few pictures I managed to take over the couple of days:

Wireless weekend

Waking up this morning, I still feel a buzz from the weekend. 

On Saturday morning, we both couldn't wait to get to Finsbury Park and see some of our favourite acts perform. From MNEK to Avicii, Gorgon City to Kendrick Lamar, this was going to be such a good weekend!

We decided to stay in Reading for the night. As it is a non-camping festival, Reading is a lot closer for us to drive but still convenient for travelling into London without much planning. I was booking the hotel and wanted to make it nice and relaxed for both of us so I chose to stay at the Pentahotel. The bar and lounges were amazing and the hotel was a short walk from the train station and town. I would definitely recommend the hotel for anyone travelling to London.

 We found it really easy to find our way around the underground lines and made it to Finsbury Park for around quarter to one. Getting into the festival was easy and quick but once we were in there, it soon got very, very busy! We'd already looked at the stage times and had a pretty good idea of who we were going to see. The layout of the festival was good and the stages not too far apart, but with plenty of different bars and food stalls.

After staying at the main stage to watch a few of the earlier acts, we headed over to the Pepsi Max tent to see MNEK and Robin Schulz. Although it was pretty much a sweatbox, we didn't really care, both the acts were amazing. My favourite performance on that stage has to be MNEK - Never Leave You; such a good atmosphere.

We spent most of the afternoon at the main stage where we saw Gorgon City, Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar and headliner, Avicii. All artists were amazing and definitely got the crowd going, building up the atmosphere for the night. 

After Childish Gambino we headed over to the smallest stage, where Stormzy was mid-way through his set. The crowd for him was insane and we got there just as he had announced Krept and Konan to the stage. Hyped up, it only took us a few seconds to realise that we were stood right next to MNEK, who had just finished performing with Gorgon City. He was such a nice guy and happily spoke to us, while taking pictures on my phone.

My highlight of the day was definitely Kendrick Lamar; the crowd were really enthusiastic and the songs that he performed were incredible. You could tell that a lot of people had come just to see him and the impact his songs had on the crowd left everyone wanting more. Avicii also ended the night with a bang, performing old and current songs, along with remixes of classic dance tracks. 

It was such a good day and I'm so glad we picked Wireless as our festival for this year. Now, back to work... enjoy your Monday!!