Trash or Treasure

The invitations for my first fundraiser have just gone out! The blurb is below:

Calling all single people – and if you are not single, please can you forward this to your friends who are – you are invited to:

A Charity Valentine’s Trash or Treasure Party!


What’s the deal?
You pay £10.00 to bring your single-self and a friend (who isn’t quite right for you, but might be perfect for someone else) to a party - i.e. the ticket is just a fiver each!
You’ll get a glass of bubbly each and the opportunity to socialise all evening with up to seventy-five other ‘non-couples’ and hopefully meet someone who does float your boat!

After all, your trash might just be someone else’s treasure!
Why?
Statistically, you’re way more likely to meet your perfect match through a friend, so maybe you just need to widen that circle of friends for the evening!
You’ll be raising money to ‘Send the Princess of Purple to Peru’ in aid of the Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity which provides valuable support to families with terminally ill children.
(If you’d like to know more about the charity effort you are supporting, please visit my donation page)

When?
Wednesday 14th February 2007, from 7.30pm – 12.00am.

Where?
The Bear, 2 St. John's Square, London, EC1M 4DE, 020 7608 2117 for directions

How?
To book your double place, please email Charlotte (aka the Princess of Purple) with your name and the name of the person you’ll be bringing.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Love from
the (one and only) Princess of Purple
Charlotte
xxxxxxxx

Basically its a singles night in a funky bar in London, but the idea is that the atendees are an expanded network of people. Therefore it is easier on the night to introduce yourself to anyone who takes your fancy and you've got a pal there if you need them.

I got the idea from a Sex and the City episode and when I ran it by a few friends they were really interested, so I thought I'd give it a go. I'm not at all used to organising events like this (art shows yes, singles nights no!) and I'm terrible at maths, so it hasn't been easy working out ticket prices and venue deposits, but I'm hopefull it will work.

A lovely girl who works for my Mum has designed me some really cute tickets, so now I'm just waiting while the bookings role in and keeping my fingers crossed that I can fill the space with fabulous people!

Minger!

Training has started in earnest, and you know what that means?! No make-up! Oh the horror of it all!

At the moment I am working-out about three times a week and walking twice a week. Its not as hardcore as it sounds though, most of my walks are short brisk ones of about two miles and my work-outs are really just beginners stuff. Mind you, I still hurt a lot of the time despite my gentle start! Who knew there were so many parts of you that could feel pain?!

So really I'm being very brave, and to show just how brave a reformed princess I am, I'm posting the first two pictures of me without my make-up and wearing my hiking gear!

My lovely lilac fleece came from TK Maxx on Wednesday. I actually went in looking for useful things for my new flat like sauce pans and hangers, but when I saw this snuggly thing I remembered G being cross with me that I didn't own a fleece for walking in, and as it was lilac I couldn't resist. My beautiful fuchsia pink, faux-fur, head-band was a gift to myself when I was in Chicago last winter and discovered it is possible to nearly freeze your ears off! So, importantly, I'm not completely sans style - even if my stretching technique could do with improvement!

In Love with Leon!

In order to get fit enough for the trek, I really have to watch what I eat. It isn't that I eat badly, in fact I eat a very healthy diet, but I've been underweight for a while and I need to support my body to get and stay fit. This mainly means that I have to eat a lot more protein, so each of my meals needs to contain eggs or fish or meat (I don't eat diary products - well not often anyway), but, hilariously, I'm also on protein shakes twice a day!

We have a local store called Extreme Muscle and Fitness, which is staffed by great-square-boxes-of-men who look like they might split their clothes incredible-hulk-style at any given moment, and I have become a regular! Its too funny! I'm still trying to convince myself that I'm not going to turn into a man, seeing as all the jars of shake have hideous pictures of male, oiled, body-builder's torsos on them, but the staff assure me I'm heading more for a Sugar Babes or Girls Aloud physique - hopefully only physique though as this is no time to end up with their IQ!
The other place I've become a regular is Leon in London. Leon restaurants are healthy fast food outlets and I can't rave about them enough! Firstly the food is incredible: each dish I have had from there, which I often pick up on the way to the British Library as they set me up for studying perfectly, has been delicious! I can particularly recommend the Leon Gobi, which is a vegetable curry and the Magic Mackerel Couscous which is a mackerel and couscous salad.

The thing about their food which is so wonderful is that they contain so many good things. It goes without saying, considering one of the chefs is Allegra McEvedy, that all the dishes are extremely flavoursome, but they are the type of food that you'd make if only you had the time, only better, and contain all the ingredients you know you should be eating regularly, but never get round to.

For example, the Leon Gobi is a yummy, sweet potato and and cauliflower curry that just oozes with coconut milk and spices, but the dish also comes with brown rice that is filled with sesame and pumpkin seeds and there is even a side of cooling raw veg which is like an Asian coleslaw. Likewise the mackerel couscous, which is known as one of their 'supersalads' is just crammed with great stuff, again including seeds, and all manner of raw veg and herbs.

(I've also sampled several of their juices, brownies and bars of dark chocolate which come in varieties infused with herbs and spices such as rosemary or cardamom, and they are to die for!)

The prices are great too! the Leon Gobi is £4.90, the Mackerel Couscous is £3.95, which is I guess more than a Big Mac Meal (not that I'd know), but comparable, and often cheaper, than other places like Pret a Manger, Eat, Starbucks et al. And when you consider that you are getting a large healthy meal for that - I didn't mention the portions are great too - I don't think you can even make such comparisons.

I just wish there were more branches!

purple princess logo

I'm so excited. My pal G has gone on her own charity adventure for three months - I'm not excited about that you understand, I'm missing her terribly - but before she went she designed me my own logo for charity efforts.

She is the hugely talented Georgie Ripper of Rainbow Magic fame, and in the past has based one of her fairies on me, so it was just a hop skip and a jump to draw me for my fundraising.

So, ta da, check out my beautiful logo below:

Now all I have to do is work out how to put it at the top of my blog and maybe make a button in case any of you lot out there are kind enough to put it on your own blog...

Princess Paris?

Really I think this just says it all.

A while ago I did this face comparison thing on the My Heritage site and discovered I (apparently) have a face that is 78% like Paris Hilton's. Can it be true? Is the Princess of Purple really just another Paris?

http://www.myheritage.com

Mind you, I don't know what I'm worried about because it also says I look 80% like a man!!!

Walk Number One

On Sunday G and I did a two hour hike from St Albans to nearby Sandridge and back; we believe we walked about 7 miles. This was my first proper attempt at seeing how much walking I can manage before the real training starts, and it turns out its not that much! The two hour walk was (mostly) really enjoyable, even though it was raining for most of it, as it was great to be out in the countryside and I only started to feel the pain towards the end (at which point G looked at me and said: "You're looking quite weary!" I should point out that G can run marathons!), but since then I've been in agony!!! - Mind you, thinking about it, some of the agony might have something to do with some suspect dancing on New Year's eve with a guy (who shall remain nameless so as to protect his career), who thinks dancing to cheesy music involves pretending to lasso other dancers!

Anyway, the hilarious part of the walk came right at the end of the hike when we encountered a 2ft deep flood under a bridge which was completely impassable - even in a car, people had tried and had had to call a tow truck! So because we were right at the end of the walk and couldn't turn back, we had to roll up our trousers and wade through it. This was all very funny - one man asked to take a picture of us - until we got to the other side and discovered that the water had turned out toes to ice. G, or Super-G as I think I should call her, just hopped about until her feet warmed up and after making me do the same (extremely reluctantly I might add), we were off again, problem solved. Mind you, her useful tips can go a bit far, as she also tried to introduce me to what sporty-type-people do when their activities make their noses run and they don't have a tissue! Honestly, it makes me wince just thinking about it!

So, I'm off to attach another hot water bottle to an aching limb and begin some fundraising planning!