"Stop Comparing this to Toddlers and Tiaras!": Cheer Competition

This morning I woke up aching all over and tinged orange, which can only mean one thing. We had another cheer competition this weekend. We hauled our oversized makeup bags and sparkly bows all the way back to the Birmingham NEC, this time for Legacy Dream Extreme.

I haven't changed much in 20 years apparently

As per usual, the bus became some kind of frantic beauty salon on wheels, with teasing combs, eyeliner and cans of hairspray flying left, right and centre. By some miracle we managed to get there without anyone blinding themselves with a mascara wand, but the stress of having to apply winged eyeliner whilst on a moving vehicle threatened to ruin team morale for the day.

This time we had to wear our hair in giant, back-combed ponytails. Personally I hate wearing my hair up in any way, shape or form because it exposes by ridiculous Dumbo ears, but I'm a sucker for huge hair so I ended up loving it. The only issue I had with it was that my ponytail wanted to curve around the sides of my face, which made me look disturbingly like I did when I was three years old and my mother thought I'd look cute with a bob.

The competition itself went brilliantly. Every stunt hit, there were only two minor wobbles and this time I didn't feel the overwhelming urge to run off the mat during the pyramid to be violently sick. A win all round, I would say. We weren't even phased by our music cutting out towards the end of the routine.

As my friend, Helen, pointed out after we had finished performing, "You just have to keep going."
"Oh yes!" I agreed. "I've seen enough episodes of Toddlers and Tiaras to know that no matter what happens (if your musics cuts out, if you fall over, anything) you just keep going."
"I wish you would stop comparing this competition to Toddlers and Tiaras." Said Helen.
"There are rhinestones and big hair. It's pretty much the same thing." I insisted.

And then came the awards ceremony (or, as I kept accidentally referring to it all day long, crowning). I loved the way Legacy set it up. All the teams from all the divisions were called out one by one and we all sat on the mat. It was like a sea of sparkly, oversized bows! Then, in true American fashion, (because Legacy is run by Americans) the presentation of prizes for each division was accompanied by the cheesiest of music, presumably to create suspense. Naturally, I loved it, as I do all things cheesy and over the top.

And we came fourth! Not last! Sure, some teams were hoping for first or second, but for us not coming dead last meant we had significantly improved since last time. After all, half the team is new, most of them have never cheered before and Future Cheer last month was the first time a lot of us had ever even stepped foot in a cheer competition. So fourth place was a major win for us!

But the day wasn't over. First we all had to commit to the odious task of brushing all the back-combing and hairspray out of our hair (which I can confirm was both painful and exhausting) and then we headed back to the Holiday Inn for the night. And can we pause here to clarify that a three-quarter-sized bed is not meant to fit two people, especially when it's not actually a bed, but a sofa bed?

That night some of us went out for a meal, some of us stayed in the hotel and ordered pizza, and some of us drank what I can only assume was an excessive amount of alcohol. The next morning when the party-goers climbed onto the bus I was glad I'd opted for nothing more than a few glasses of wine with my cheesy chicken. Hangovers are bad enough without adding a three and a half hour bus journey into the mix.

So our weekend went spectacularly well! Our team performed better than we ever have before, came away with a fourth place trophy, and I got to stuff my face with chocolate in the hotel room. I don't think I could have asked for anything more.

For more cheer competition craziness, you can watch my Cheer Vlog here:

24 Hours of Fancy

If three years in Exeter taught me anything about myself it's that I am not a fancy person. I drink Blossom Hill instead of Prosecco, I do not understand the obsession with Jack Wills, and I have never held a £50 note. (While we're on the topic, does anyone actually know who's on the £50 note? I've always been curious.)

But last week I got the opportunity to pretend to be super fancy for a full 24 hours. It was exhausting. 

As a birthday treat for my mother we went to the Celtic Manor Resort, a golf, spa and leisure hotel and resort in Newport. Everyone from the Prince of Wales to Elton John, Shirley Bassey and even Obama have stayed there. Clearly, if it's good enough for Barack then it's good enough for us. 

I drove (purely because my car would fit in fractionally better among the BMWs and Porches than my mother's Ford Focus) and there was a long, winding driveway up to the hotel. Even the shrubbery was fancy! But there was a £15 charge to use the car park overnight! In a hotel as posh as the Celtic Manor you'd expect a valet in full livery with some kind of elaborate moustache to come and park the car for you (not that I would have dared let a valet get in my car, amongst the discarded Cadbury wrappers and crumpled up parking tickets). At the very least you expect to park for free. I mean, I can't imagine Obama standing at the ticket machine, counting out his pound coins.

However, by the time we got to the check-in desk, any irritation had been completely replaced with awe. The lobby was huge, with impressive dragon sculptures and giant Rolex clocks, showing the time in a random assortment of countries. It was even more impressive than the Radisson Blu in Cologne (although I may be biased because, well, there were dragons).

It was while we were queueing to check-in that we first spotted our holiday enemy. There is always a holiday enemy, regardless of where you go or whether you're there for two weeks or one solitary night. The holiday enemy is the person who keeps popping up at various points throughout your stay, seemingly with the sole purpose of irritating you.

Our holiday enemy was a lady in amongst a group of women who clearly thought they were auditioning for 'The Real Housewives of South Wales'. I didn't even know that people like this existed in real life, but there they were, looking more glamorous than any person has a right to at three 'o' clock in the afternoon in Newport. And then there was the holiday enemy, flicking her hair as if she was sponsored by L'oreal, laughing loudly so all the little people could hear, and staring down her nose at the rest of the world (literally, because her heels were so high).

"Look at her," My mother said. "She thinks that being in the Celtic Manor means she's really something special. But obviously it doesn't. After all, we're here!"

The room was amazing! There was so much space (I wish my bedroom was half as big) and we had a little sitting area with arms chairs, a desk, a dressing table, a view that stretched out for miles and a mini bar that we were too afraid to so much as look at. Then there was the bathroom. It was heavenly! I mean, the Bryn Meadows may have had a tv in the bathroom, but this bathroom had a giant mirror with lights all around and ample room to do makeup (even for someone who spreads out mess as much as I do).

After exploring the room we did a little turn around the lobby again, investigating the cocktail bars and restaurants and I taught my mother to carry her bag on the crook of her elbow because "that's how the rich people do it". Then we sat and had a coffee (which came with complimentary cakes!) and we tried to work out how we were possibly going to raise enough money to move into the hotel. Because clearly there was no going back to real life after a taste of such luxury.

We ate dinner in the Olive Tree, one of the restaurants downstairs, which served a hot buffet. I won't lie, I stuffed my face. Soup, turkey, duck, vegetables, weird rice things, some kind of gnocchi...I didn't turn down anything. I had five desserts and I feel no shame! Everything was delicious and, best of all, everything was labelled stating whether or not it was gluten free.

Then we got the bill and I thought my mother was going to throw four courses worth of food back up onto her plate.
"£9 for a glass of wine?!"
She complained all the way back to the room. Yes, she moaned about the price of wine all the way through the lobby of the most posh hotel in the country (but, even as she was ranting, she kept her bag on the crook of her arm in an attempt to blend in). Luckily she didn't find out how much my Cosmopolitan had cost until the next day.

After a night spent in wonderfully comfortable beds, and a morning spent stuffing our faces full of delicious breakfast goodies, we went to the pool. It was amazing! There were saunas, steam rooms, hot tubs, jacuzzis, sun loungers, a ceiling with little LCD bulbs, painted to look like the night's sky. It was all so...fancy!

But, all too soon, it was time to check-out. It was so sad, knowing that we were heading back out into a world where people wouldn't rush to our aid whenever we needed something or call us ma'am, a world where there was no one to come and re-fold our napkins between courses, where the baths were regular sizes and no one came to refill your wine glass.

We caught one last sight of our holiday enemy again, flicking her hair and posing.
"You know," I said. "If she really was that posh then she'd know you're not meant to wear open toe shoes after Labour Day."

And that's the story of how, for just one night, my mother and I became all fancy-shmancy, sipping on overpriced wine and dining on food we couldn't pronounce the names of. But alas, when the clock struck 12 it was check-out time and, as we pulled out of the car park, we instantly turned back into pumpkins.