When it's a cold and wet Friday and staying in bed is not an option, going out for a coffee and a pastry is the next best thing.
After a long break, coffee-club is back and we visited The Field Office in the Fringe District.
You know those scenes in TV shows where the quirky single gal with a huge appetite and petite thighs spends her days tapping away at her Macbook and sipping a coffee while pondering the existence of any good men? While if those shows ever needed a perfect backdrop - and were filmed in Cape Town - this is it.
The Field Office as the name gives it away was created as an inspiring meeting point, a office without all the usual dramas, a quiet place to work or just a comfy place to be.
It's certainly that as you can either work as I saw some peeps doing, you can meet friends or you can just sip your coffee and watch the city. It's in the Fringe District so you just know it's bursting with creativity and cool people.
The other side of the cafe is a kind of showroom for Pedersen + Lennard furniture. The kind of pretty stuff I could never afford or never buy because I just know I'll mess it up.
The coffees were amazing and the pastries even more so. It's a large space so you can really just do your thang and not worry about anyone else. Also they have free WiFi. So if you wanna browse Facebook, er work really hard, you can.
Here’s a confession: I know us girls are crazy.
I am probably one of the worst. Luckily for you I try and keep it in.
Unluckily, it might all burst out in a shooting rampage one day. But back to
the majority of girls…We change our minds all the time. We say one thing but we
really mean another. We need you to break our codes. Yes we talk in codes.
All these little things mean that boys try so
hard to do the right thing, to impress us, to make us happy and they have it
all wrong. And thanks to fairytales, romantic comedies, some of the men of Sex & the City there is so much more
pressure to treat us girls well. So to help you out a bit, at least in the
romance stakes, I have drawn up some simple guide to romance with some helpful
hints.
Setting the Mood
Candles? They work. All the time. Girls love
flattering light. Therefore a few well-placed candles are the perfect setting
when you want to be romantic. Note, a few. Not shitloads. Not only is it
dangerous. It will take ages to light all of them.
This just says "Hi there, nice bedroom, let me take off my pants."
Rose petals? They do not work. What a waste.
Flowers are nice (see below point) but spread all over my house and on my bed?
No thanks. Let me clarify that again, all over my bed. Hell no! If it’s my bed,
you can bet that linen is Egyptian cotton because we are no longer students and
can afford to sleep on soft sheets. As soon as you put rose petals on there,
you either ruin the mood by waiting to clean it all up *or* you get busy
on top of the petals. And then they stain. My sheets. My expensive sheets that
you didn’t even notice are now ruined.
Bunch of Flowers
I’m not a big flower girl. I think they are
lovely and receiving a big bunch at work is a sure-fire way to make the office
mean girl hate you even more but they die. Quickly. And before they die, they
get grotty and smell. Oh the smell. Therefore if you want to surprise me with
flowers, try something different like an orchid which is classic and timeless
or tulips which are not always in season. If you got me tulips I know you mean
business. Or just save us both some time and just get me cupcakes. Even better a bouquet of cupcakes.
Hello Lover!
Gifts
Most girls, I assume, love presents. And the
mere fact you were thinking of us goes a long way. But there are only so many
times we can fake joy at receiving a bad gift. Areas you can stay in and you
will excel in:
Lingerie because sometimes you get the really
sexy stuff we would never buy ourselves in case the La Senza lady judges us.
Jewellery because if it sparkles, it can stay.
Spa Vouchers because you almost always go for a
package deal which includes everything or you give us a monetary value so we can
get our Gellish done and not feel bad we spent over R200 for two weeks
Sadly there are so many places you can go wrong.
Particularly clothes and/or jewellery. If you really, really think your lover
wants a sequined boob-tube or horrible granny scarf then please re-think your
purpose in life. Call her best friend or find a suave gay guy and ask them for
help. We appreciate the gesture but there are some things that will not fly and
this is one of them.
THIS IS A HELL NO!
Public Displays of Love/Affection
Firstly I am not talking about necking in a
club or shopping mall. I am talking about those large-scale proposal type
events that guys in movies do. These have ruined me and the rest of the world’s
girls into thinking that out there is a guy out there who loves us so much he will
get a bunch of friends to perform a Bruno Mars song for us. Now I cannot sugar
coat this. We all do want this. And we want a Youtube video out of it as well.
The only compromise I can say is it doesn’t have to be a Bruno Mars song. A
Jason Mraz song works just as well :)
You know how they say every girl has something
about her body she’d like a change? Well I have a list. And it’s long. Just one
of my gripes are my hands and nails. My mother has long slender hands and those
elegant, pointy nails. I have short, sausage-like stubs with square nails. Beauty
therapists like to convince me they’re square-oval because at least that’s a
fashionable shape. But these babies are nothing fashionable.
Since they don’t make magic knickers or a Wonderbra equivalent for nails, I resorted to the next best thing: nail polish.
So from a young age when all I was allowed to use was that Tinkerbell stuff
that you could peel off to the days of Gellish, my nails are almost always
covered in varnish. You can imagine how attractive they look when I go bare. (Sometimes
I like to scare men who have wronged me by flashing my nude nails at them and
watching them recoil in fear)
So when I received an invite to Cosmo Polished
event, I squealed with glee. In fact I probably did break out into a Glee-inspired number.
The event was hosted by Cosmopolitan (duh) and
Revlon and held at the super-fancy Bree Street Studios. Me and one of my
besties Sara grabbed some pink champers and made our way to the front row.
Thanks Cosmo for the reserved seating, you know how to make a girl and her
friend feel special.
The setup consisted of a nail station with all the
essentials a girl would need for the perfect manicure. There was cotton buds,
sponges, toothpicks (oh yeah), nail polish remover and some other products from
the Revlon range. Most importantly there was stand of nail polish including
Revlon’s latest collection Brilliant Strength. You may have noticed the ad
campaign with Emma Stone doing the rounds at the moment.
To start we were welcomed by Cosmo’s new editor
Cathy Lund, who is all kinds of adorable in real life. Seriously I wanted to
hug her but that kind of behaviour normally gets me kicked out of events. She
in turn introduced Chi Chi who was our manicure tutor. Chi Chi took us through three
styles that are gonna change the way we do our nails: ombre, nail art and
marble effect. No more boring red for us. Chi Chi showed us all the steps
needed to try these three styles and you know what, she made it look *just
as easy* as those smug bitches on Pinterest make it look.
And the truth? It was relatively easy. To mess
it up. Sara managed to do the marble effect on her first try. And it looked
amaze. Seriously have a look. The rest of the nails were a little bit more
interesting. Sara, if you’re reading this, love ya.
I attempted the ombre look. It was more like
the sombre look if I’m honest. It was all going so well until I found a way to
mess it up. In fact one of the very helpful and nice Revlon ladies had to come
over and help me. Like the slow kid in a classroom. I was that girl.
While we were doing our nails, we were
entertained by the band Shenfm who you have to check out. If only because they
are super-hot. Music isn’t bad either :)
So after numerous attempts at trying to create
some nail art, I finally succeeded and came up with this masterpiece. Yes that
is a smiley face with eyebrows. Take that Pinterest!
Massive thanks to the wonderful peeps at Cosmopolitan
who invited us and made this whole evening special. Special shout out to all
the Revlon girls for not laughing at my nail art and being so patient with me.
Also massive props for the insane goodie bag. I didn’t take a picture of the
contents because as soon as I peeked inside it was a goner. Hopefully this
picture will suffice.
How we roll at events.
Why I'll probably not be invited to another event.
