Most of you have met the hosts of our wedding, Lorraine and Neil, but if you haven't, you'll soon discover that they are the life and soul of the party and you'll no doubt find them boogieing the night away on the dance floor. They will go to the end of the world to make their nearest and dearest happy, and always put others before themselves. They are known to giggle uncontrollably for no particular reason and are both cheeky and adventurous. They love to galivant across the world, collecting amazing stories and photos whilst cycling, hiking, and even canyoning their way through their bucket list.
Lawrence and I love hanging out with them, whether it's for walks in Epping Forest, Bermuda boat trips or online exercise classes. In Bermuda, they even joined in with our evening yoga sessions and we were amazed by Neil's impressive level of natural flexibility. When we stay at Albion Park, they have been very accommodating to allow us to turn various parts of the house and garden into our gym. This has worked in Lorraine's favour as she often gatecrashes our morning exercise sessions and is the custodian of all our equipment when we are away.
Neil shares my obsession for bread-baking, and during lockdown, the rest of family were delighted to have a fresh loaf every day. We are very passionate about the details of our dough and our conversations can get quite geeky talking about bakers percentages, hydration levels, and stretch-and-fold techniques. This turn of phrase has sometimes caused confusion when yoga and bread baking take place simultaneously.
Lawrence once made the mistake of accompanying Neil on a Sunday cycle with his "Team Danish" cycle buddies. At first, Lawrence thought it was very kind of Neil to invite him along, but once Neil's cycle buddies began the (very inappropriate) banter, Lawrence and Neil soon realised it was a big mistake! All we can say is that hopefully the cycle boys behave themselves better at the wedding than they did that Sunday!
Last summer, Sylvia and Howard left Manchester after 42 years of living in our family home to move closer to the rest of the family in London. One of the only things that they did not leave behind is their well-known Northern warmth and friendliness, which they certainly have in abundance, so be prepared for a long chat when you say hello!
Aside from having 4 gorgeous grandchildren to keep them busy, Sylvia spends most of her spare time either enjoying a nice coffee, working out how long it is until she can have another cup of coffee, or baking a delicious treat to have alongside her coffee! Meanwhile, Howard can often be found watching Man United, reading the Man United reports in the Times newspaper, or organising his social schedule to fit around the Man United fixture list.
Howard's other main passion is golf, and after many years of searching for his lost balls in the rough and replacing huge divots taken out of the fairway, in 2019 he finally won his first trophy, topping the Whitefield golf club 'Winter League'.
Sylvia and Howard also make a formidable bridge team and enjoy days out to the countryside for a long walk (only if Man United aren't playing and there is good coffee available!).
We are so delighted to see how happy they are in their new life in London and we get incredibly spoilt when we go to stay with them on our visits back from Bermuda, especially with Sylvia always cooking up an absolute feast, for which she is renowned. Perhaps they are conspiring to entice us back home from Bermuda as quickly as possible, as they remind us what we are missing. It's definitely working!
Jason, or Nosaj (Jason backwards) as I nicknamed him, is not only my brother but one of my closest friends too. We share the same adventurous streak and have had fantastic times hiking skiing, scuba diving, 'Zorbing' (rolling down a hill in a giant inflatable ball), paint-balling, rock climbing, fly-boarding/jet-packing, and of course holidaying together over the years.
We have celebrated many occasions together and enjoy a good party! I surprised Jason by going to visit him at university for his 21st Birthday night out. which ended in him chasing me through the streets of Lancaster shouting "Einahpets, Einahpets!" (Stephanie backwards). Another favourite memory is when we were both backpacking in Asia and met up in Hanoi, Vietnam. We bought an 'egg coffee' which has a very frothy top that ended up on Jason's upper lip, like a moustache. We spent the next 10 minutes laughing our heads off at the idea of people in business meetings around the country sitting there with egg-coffee moustaches!
Our family has now expanded to six with the additions of Lawrence and Jason's girlfriend Maggie. Following the completion of Lorraine and Neil's flat-building project, all six of us lived at 1 Albion Park for a while. Jason and Maggie liked to keep themselves to themselves and sometimes we wouldn’t see any sign of them for weeks, apart from if the communal washing machine was in use or they needed to add onto someone else's Sainsbury's online order.
Paula is 4 years older than me and has always been a great role-model as a big sister. She has always inspired me to emulate her achievements through every stage of my life, although this has not been easy since she has set the bar extremely high. She achieved great reports and grades at school whilst always socializing and having fun, going on exciting travel adventures, and she was the first sibling to live away from home at university and then move to London. Soon after, she met her perfect match (David M) and now has a beautiful family.
Paula was the first of us to live in Mill Hill. Mum and dad were delighted when my brother and I followed suit, buying flats just around the corner. Paula and David's house became the centre for all our family gatherings, including Friday night dinners, football Super Sundays, summer BBQs, children's parties and an absolute feast on Christmas Day.
Paula is definitely our mother's daughter. Growing up, mum seemed to defy the need for sleep. Her day would start at 6am with some laundry, cleaning or cooking, before a full day at work. On her way home, she would visit our grandma, go food shopping and then prepare a home-cooked dinner before turning the lights out at 2am, but only after all of shirts were ironed and packed lunches made. Similarly, I do not know how Paula manages to fit everything she does into a 24-hour day. She is an absolute workaholic lawyer in the City of London, whilst simulatenously being the most meticulous, conscientious mother to Freddie and Joella, and looking after her husband. Paula has most definitely inherited these attributes from mum.
One of Paula's secret talents is her cake baking. She is always up until the early hours the night before Freddie and Joella's birthdays, putting her art A-level to good use in designing and producing professional-standard birthday cakes. Her masterpieces include a digger, unicorn and football pitch to name but a few. She is always so thoughtful as to hold some back in the freezer for when we visit home.
Saying that my brother-in-law David is a massive Crystal Palace fan is an understatement. I have never met anyone so bonkers as to travel far and wide to the least glamourous places in the country to support his boyhood club, even on the proverbial wet, cold, midweek nights up in Stoke! When Freddie was born, the Glass family was so excited to see him in a replica Man United jersey but David set a blanket ban on any Man United merchandise being bought for Freddie. I guess we should be thankful that Paula didn’t meet an Arsenal or Chelsea fan! Over time, we have all taken a liking to Palace and see them as our second club.
David and I share the same birthday, albeit we are 13 years apart. Every year, he always seems to beat me in the race to wish each other happy birthday first, although these days I am severely handicapped by the 4-hour time difference from Bermuda.
David and I are only separated by 16 months in age, and as such, we have always enjoyed a very close relationship. We have a lot in common, not least our love for sport, which totally dominated our household growing up.
Looking back, mum and dad must have been thrilled when we turned every room in the house into a different sports arena. Mum's precious dining room became the Crucible Theatre, with the lovely dining table replaced by a snooker table, and our living room became the venue for the World Table Tennis Championships, as the beautiful marble table was used as a table tennis table with video cassettes set up across the middle acting as the net.
It was no better for mum and dad when we played outside. Our endless kickabouts in the garden destroyed the plants and led to dad needing to totally re-landscape the lawn, whilst at the front of the house, a new garage door was required after the old one was severely dented from many sessions of cricket!
One sport I did not enjoy "playing" with David was wrestling. He used to practice all the WWF (as it was formerly named) wrestling moves on me and as the younger, smaller brother, I struggled to defend myself! I'd like to see him try now!
Later down the line, I left home and moved to London. David could not cope with being far apart from me and decided to make the move down south a couple of years later. We lived together for nearly 3 years until David met Natasha and we bought our own flats in Mill Hill. Fearing being far apart again, we ended up buying flats in the same block. This was not actually planned but turned out to be incredibly convenient, even if I had no privacy and had a couple of spies watching my every move!
Since then, David and Natasha have moved into a new house in Mill Hill and have had 2 gorgeous kids, Ruby and Jake. One of the great positives of delaying our wedding is that we have an additional page boy, as Jake would not have been born by our original wedding date!
Adam and I have been great friends for over 22 years. He is incredibly loyal, trustworthy, and entertaining, and I am delighted to have him as my best man!
We met at Manchester Grammar School, around the time of our Bar Mitzvahs. During school holidays, we regularly played tennis at the David Lloyd and pitch and putt in Bruntwood Park in Cheadle. Playing tennis against Adam was so frustrating as he had the most unconventional technique you could imagine but it was always so effective. My frustration would almost boil over when he played his signature annoying disguised drop shots that would bobble just over the net and into my side of the court.
I was absolutely convinced that I was the better player, but time after time, Adam always beat me. I even remember one match where I was 5-0 up in a set and still somehow managed to lose.
Adam is also from the wrong side of Manchester (the blue side!). Our friendship has survived some turbulent times due to our great footballing rivalry. The ultimate torment was seeing his outrageous celebrations following THAT Aguero goal, which is unfortunately a moment I will never forget!
We have written about David in the 'Parents & Siblings' section.
We have written about David in the 'Parents & Siblings' section.
We have written about Jason in the 'Parents & Siblings' section.
Adam (aka Dennis) and I grew up together in Manchester and he is my oldest friend. As kids, we spent many weekends and school holidays playing countless games of Monopoly and Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64, or making our way through his huge collection of DVDs, including the Friends boxset, which used to keep us occupied for hours!
Adam is not interested in football, and despite my best efforts, there was no chance that this was ever going to change. One sport we did enjoy together was golf, playing at Whitefield Golf Club for a year or so. We soon realised that neither of us were particularly good and unfortunately, this hobby did not last for too long. It's definitely something I hope we resume when we retire though!
As we approached our mid-teens, we put down the video consoles and started to spend out Saturday nights going to house parties and discovering alcopops and shisha. Like all other 16 year-olds, we bought fake IDs and hit the Manchester clubbing scene. Every Thursday night, we would go to Paparazzi, which at the time was booming with under-aged Manchester Jews, drinking far too much and turning up to school on Fridays feeling very worse for wear.
At the age of 15, we also had our first holiday together without our parents, going to Puerto Banus in Marbella.
Adam also passed his driving test quickly and started driving us to school in his trusty Fiat Punto. He used enjoy putting his foot down (to be polite!) but getting in his car was still worth the risk to avoid the 149 bus that we had taken for many years prior.
Adam is now a dentist, and funnily enough knew the Driver family well before I did as a result of their visits to his surgery! All those years I was looking for my wife and there was Adam, periodically peering into her mouth. Damn those dentist-patient confidentiality rules!
Richie and I met through our mutual close friends (and fellow ushers) Elliot and Andrew. Since our birthdays are just 2 days apart, Elliot and Andrew would be frustrated as our parties would often clash on the same weekend. To solve this problem, Richie and I joined forces and started sharing birthday parties, even before we properly became friends.
Our friendship grew and our birthday parties became a big night in the calendar, with some very memorable nights at Loop Bar, Piano Works and culminating in the night at which Stephanie and I met at our 31st birthday party at the Lucky Pig in 2017.
Before I met Stephanie, Richie and I used to scout for our future wives on the dating apps, as is very common these days. One evening, we cooked dinner together in Richie's flat. Despite us both being fairly limited in the kitchen to say the least, we somehow made the most succulent, tender, delicious chicken that we could remember. As a joke, we decided to both put on our dating profile that we make fantastic chicken. The impact was unbelievable as it appeared that half of the Jewish girls in North West London found this to be an extremely attractive characteristic in their search for a husband (top dating tip for any single guys reading this!).
When Stephanie and I visit London, it is always a high priority for the 3 of us to make time for dinner with Richie at our regular Italian restaurant, Isolabella in Holborn. We are never let down by this place, and our order is always the same, a pizza to share for starters, followed a monstrous veal milanese, with some lovely Italian ice cream to finish, washed down with 3 diet cokes. What a feast!
Avi and I grew up together in Manchester, and went to primary and secondary school together. However, our friendship really only took off once we started Birmingham University and lived at Hillel House. Surrounded by a whole group of strangers from London, it was really comforting to have Avi's familiar face there and our friendship grew along with the level of alcohol consumption!
After university, we both moved down to London and we even lived together for a few months in my old flat in Mill Hill. He was the perfect housemate, spoiling me with his phenomenal cooking. The only issue was that Avi refused to eat any fruit or vegetables which caused great negotiation between us, as I tried to get some greens on the menu! After a while, I realised I was fighting a losing battle, especially since Avi is a lawyer and knew he had a strong bargaining position with the gourmet meat and potatoes that he served up every night.
I also used to love our winter Shabbats, as it became a weekly ritual for us to spend the whole day sat in our dressing gowns with hot drinks on tap, courtesy of his Shabbat kettle (a giant urn that keeps water hot all day).
Stephanie and I love hanging out with Avi, his wife Rachel and their growing family, including Pocahontas, their pet hedgehog! They are fantastic hosts and we are always so excited when we are invited over, especially for their legendary BBQs (those spare ribs!) and Shabbat lunches. We just have to make sure we go for a 10-mile run before any meal at his house.
Elliot and I met at Birmingham University where we lived together with Andrew for 3 years. We were pretty inseparable and did everything together. We absolutely loved our time at university and have such great memories of the days where we could all return home at lunchtime from lectures to make pasta and eat it on the sofa whilst watching daytime Neighbours. Those were the days!
Partying several times a week was also a massive part of our university life. Looking back, I do not know how we did what we did, drinking vodka red bull after vodka red bull, then dragging ourselves out of bed for 9am lectures the next morning. We would literally still be shaking from all the alcohol and caffeine, but no matter how tired and hungover we were, we would always somehow make it to our lectures! When the hangovers were at their most severe, we even took "Joey and Ross" nap times together!
Ironically, the only party I remember Elliot not attending was the one we travelled half way around the world to get to, the infamous Full-Moon Party in Thailand, in 2008. Unfortunately Elliot had one too many buckets of alcohol at pre-drinks and was in no fit state to come with. He ended up sat in his semi-conscious state on the steps of our hostel the whole night until the rest of us stumbled back at sunrise the next morning.
We have enjoyed some other stunning holidays around the world, including in Corfu, Croatia and Italy (cycling trips), Israel, South Africa, and of course Las Vegas!
Elliot met the love of his life towards the end of university which was very bittersweet for me, as he was not able to party as much and it was never the same without him. It was always a running joke that Elliot was the first of my close mates to settle down and get married, as no-one in our friendship group saw it coming! Nowadays, it is always great to see Elliot and Antonia and their 2 kids in London when we visit.
Andrew was the first person I spoke to when I arrived at Birmingham University in 2005.
As soon as my parents dropped me off I felt totally out of my comfort zone. The place was quite rowdy and everybody seemed to know each other, but I had to bite the bullet and decided to talk to Andrew. Predictably, it didn’t take very long for us to start talking about football. Andrew is an Arsenal fanatic and we immediately bonded over the great rivalry between our beloved football clubs, who were running the roost over the Premier League at the time. From then onwards, I felt much more at home and Andrew and I have remained great friends.
Given that I lived with 2 massive Arsenal fans (Andrew and Elliot), I was very fortunate that our time at university coincided with the decline of the Wenger era at Arsenal. Meanwhile, United continued to succeed, with the Ronaldo-Tevez-Rooney triumvirate conquering Europe. It was a running joke that ever since they met me, Arsenal did not win any more trophies for years and apparently it was all my fault! However, there were still rare occasions when Arsenal did come out on top and I did not want to leave my bedroom for fear of being confronted by 2 gloating, boisterous Arsenal fans. Unfortunately, these days, Andrew is taking great solace in seeing United follow Arsenal's decline.
Andrew is the unofficial social secretary of our friendship group. For many years, he has done a fantastic job organising Monday night 5-a-side football and frequent curry nights. Somehow, he seems to know everybody and is always well-informed about where the best party is happening at the weekend, making sure that we are all invited. It was definitely an easy choice to include him in my stag-organising 'committee'!
We have also had fantastic holidays together including Corfu, Paphos, Thailand, and multiple trips to Israel.
Andy was my brother's best friend from a very young age and the 3 of us used to hang out together regularly. However, being the youngest, I used to be the brunt of many jokes and windups, not least since I was fairly chubby in my earlier years which was the source of much banter for the 2 of them.
We also all shared a great passion for cricket. We were teammates for Prestwich Jacobeans in the Manchester Jewish Cricket League, establishing a formidable bowling attack. However, batting was a different story, as Andy always talks about his memorable forays as an aggressive lower-middle order batsman, whilst David and I would compete for the number 10 and 11 spots, with my career top score being 13 not out! The 3 of us also used to enjoy watching Lancashire play cricket at Old Trafford and in 2015, we also had a very memorable day out at Edgbaston as we saw Lancashire win the T20 trophy.
It wasn’t until we were both living in London that Andy and I became really close. We had a lot of common, being ambitious, professional, single guys from Manchester. We also enjoyed exercise, sport and parties, and became almost 'glued at the hip', hanging out regularly (when Andy could fit me in around his remarkably busy schedule of 5am workouts and hair dressing appointments!) and partying together every Saturday night.
We spent 3 summer holidays together in Tel Aviv, as well as an ECJS trip to Tuscany, and a stunning two weeks in Riviera Maya, Mexico. I will always remember how well we got on in Mexico, despite spending two full weeks just the two of us in one place, we never ran out of things to talk about and had a phenomenal time.
Along with Adam, Avi, and Ric, Eddy is another of the clan who grew up in North Manchester, studied at Birmingham University and settled down in North West London.
We became friends when we started playing tennis together in the summer of 2006 at our local park in Prestwich (St Mary's Park). We also bonded over our shared love for Man United, and have enjoyed many highs and lows watching them together through the good and bad times! Unfortunately, these days, the lows outweigh the highs and we are repeatedly bemoaning the abject United performances and debating the drastic changes needed at the club.
We have been away together on some unforgettable trips including camping in the North of Israel and a couple of stunning cycle rides in Italy and Croatia. Going away with Eddy is always great fun and I have particularly enjoyed some of his unconventional ways. On our camping trip in Northern Israel, he convinced us that vinegar was a good substitute for deodorant if in an emergency, that it was acceptable to eat Shawarma for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and when he persuaded us to try hitchhiking, which was surprisingly successful.
I will always remember being at Eddy and Muzzi's house for Friday Night Dinner the night before my first date with Stephanie. I was so excited about the date that I don’t think I talked about anything else that whole night. I was telling everyone there that I had a really good feeling about Stephanie, and that she was different to all the other girls I had met previously. Nobody was convinced but for once I was right!
Craig and I met at Birmingham University. He was 4 years ahead of me (hence his nickname uncle Craig), but whilst all of his old mates had left university to find proper careers, Craig was still enjoying student life too much, especially his student job as a barman at our favourite club night "Vodbull". He always looked after us there, ensuring we always had VIP tickets and serving us far too many £1 vodka redbulls.
After university, I was sad to see Craig leave the UK to make Aliyah to Israel. However, I have visited him many times in Tel Aviv where we have great memories and he has always made a huge effort to keep our friendship strong despite the distance. A week barely passes where we do not talk on the phone and we always manage to find things to talk about for hours on end. Over the years, I think I have still seen him as much as my friends in London!
Just before the pandemic began in March 2019, we were fortunate to squeeze in a weekend trip to New York, travelling from Bermuda and Tel Aviv respectively. Stephanie was adamant that I take anti-bacterial hand gel on the trip, but obviously Craig and I thought we knew better and didn’t use a drop of it. Little did we know that New York was going into full lockdown less than a week after and this would be the last time I would see Craig before our wedding over 3 years later.
Ric and I grew up together in Prestwich, spending most of our time doing football-related activities, either playing Championship Manager or FIFA on the computer, playing football in the garden or in the Sunday League, or watching Man United on the TV.
Ric's family decided to leave Prestwich and move to South Manchester, but we remained best friends at school and made toasts to each other at our Bar Mitzvahs back in 1999.
In 2005, we inter-railed across Europe (with Adam Calmonson), visiting some of the most iconic cities, including Amsterdam, Paris, Cannes, Florence, Rome and Venice. Some might say this was far too much of a romantic trip for 3 teenage boys!
Towards the end of the trip, we visited the Great Synagogue of Rome, which was stunning. Despite signs everywhere clearly prohibiting visitors from taking photos, Ric does not like being told what to do and did not want to miss out on such a great photo opportunity. Unsurprisingly, he was caught out! The security guard wiped the memory card of all data, and we lost hundreds of priceless photos from our trip. However, Ric is also a very determined guy and was adamant that data is never totally deleted from the memory card, so he did some research and impressively managed to retrieve most of the photos.
We had some other stunning holidays but most memorably, we shared the trip of a lifetime in 2009. Ric was living in Buenos Aires as part of his Spanish education at Birmingham University. I flew out to meet him, and the 2 of us travelled across South America for 9 weeks, through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. We cycled down the "World's Most Dangerous Road" in Bolivia, trekked to Macchu Picchu, quad-biked across La Paz, went into the Amazon Rainforest, saw the Bolivian salt flats, and enjoyed many other incredible experiences.
Alannah, my first cousin, was born 8 months after me and we have been close friends since then. When we were children, we would often be mistaken for sisters even though Alannah would always be wearing pretty dresses and I'd be in tracksuits – not much has changed on that front! Alannah loved Barbie and dancing, and I preferred Action Man and outdoor activities but we balanced each other out despite our differing interests.
When we were 11 our grandparents took us on our first tour of Israel, including to the Dead Sea. We covered ourselves in mud and since Alannah was into fashion and beauty from a young age, she already knew how to do a face-mask so left holes for her eyes and mouth. I tried to copy her but had no idea what I was doing, so smothered my whole face, stinging my eyes in the process.
In our early teens, we went on a big family holiday to Club Med in Turkey. Alannah and I spent the week trying to get orange (adult) wristbands so that we could sneak into the beach bar at night and try our first cocktails. We thought it was a great plan until the next morning, when we experienced our first hangovers!
More recently, we had a fabulous weekend together when Alannah visited me in Dubai. We lived the high-life, partying together on a yacht, drinking coconuts at a beach club, and sampling some of Dubai's great restaurants. Ironically, we still shared a bed, just like our childhood sleepovers.
After Lawrence and I got engaged, we arrived home from the Maldives to find that Alannah had spent the whole day decorating our flat with balloons and covering it in confetti! It was the most thoughtful surprise and we loved it!
Lauren and I have been friends since we were babies. We became close when we were in the same form for three years at King Solomon High School. I moved to Forest School in year 9 and I remember Lauren bursting into tears when I broke the news to her. We remained friends and my favourite teenage memory is of us giggling away at the Johnny English movie on a tiny TV set in Lauren's bedroom. We did this so often that we knew all the words and would always cry with laughter at the ‘Pribbib’ scene.
We both studied at Nottingham University, and it was really special to graduate on the same day even though we did different courses.
Over the years, Lauren and I have had many nicknames for each other, with Lauren's including Laurena-por-favor, Lozzie-pops, shnuggle-buggle, Lozzle-berry, and Loz. More recently, this has created confusion as Lawrence is also referred to as Loz or Lozzie by his friends. To me, he will always have to be Lawrence, LG or Laurie, as Loz and Lozzie are strictly reserved for Lauren. Clearly, I seem to like Loz's!
It was Lauren and her husband Josh (Lawrence's friend and marathon-running partner) who introduced me to Lawrence as they brought me along (uninvited) to Lawrence’s 31st birthday party. Lauren sent me photos of Lawrence beforehand as she had an inkling that we might be a good match. Following the party, Lauren was telling Lawrence that she was sure I’d like to see him again, despite the fact that I hadn’t actually said this to her! She was very persistent and her meddling paid off as she managed to persuade me to go out with Lawrence. Without her interference, maybe our wedding wouldn’t be happening, so thank you Lauren!
We have really enjoyed staying with Lauren and Josh when we visit England, despite Josh ‘ordering’ us into their hot-tub before we have even had time to say hello! We also love their gym-shed for our early morning workouts, and their swanky coffee machine that produces artisan coffee brewed at the most precise pressure, served alongside a delicious brunch.
Orli and I instantly became good friends when I joined Forest School in year 9. We spent every break time together and for some unknown reason we would hang out in the cloakroom. My earliest memory of Orli involves us sitting on the cloakroom floor eating our Pesach packed-lunch matzah sandwiches! Thankfully, we have now discovered more sophisticated establishments to dine at.
Orli, Lauren and I became an inseparable trio in our mid-20s. We were all still single and starting to explore the world of J-Swipe and Tinder. Lauren and Orli were successful in their swiping and Orli started the domino effect of the three of us meeting our future husbands when she met Ben on J-Swipe. A few weeks after, Lauren met Josh, and they introduced me to Lawrence. We started ‘triple-dating’ and have continued to hang out together since then. Remarkably, we all got engaged between April and August 2019 and will all be married within a year of each other!
Orli and I both love yoga, long walks and a good cup of tea so most of our catch-ups involve at least two of those things. For my 24th birthday, Orli treated me to a yoga class and brunch at the top of the walkie-talkie building with views over London. We used to go to Lulu Lemon yoga classes in London at the weekends, but more recently we have had to resort to Zoom yoga. Orli has recently become a yoga teacher so now when we do Zoom classes, they are led by her.
Orli and Ben got married last summer and it was really special to join her on the morning of her wedding for a calming yoga class, hopefully we can do the same on 16 June 2022!
Our friendship has revolved around our mutual passion for sports and began when we joined Essex Open Netball Club in Year 7. We were teammates until the end of our Forest School years and we played in every sports team together. Annoyingly, we always wanted to play the same position and Nicolla, being an exceptionally rounded star-sportswoman, always got picked ahead of me. She is exceedingly modest and will probably hate me saying that, but on the other hand she is ridiculously competitive and will love the fact she won! Thankfully, the healthy competition from a young age seemed only to strengthen our friendship into one that will last forever.
When we were teenagers, mum and dad would treat Jason and I to fun day-trips out and we would sometimes be allowed to bring a friend. Nicolla would always be my top choice. One memorable outing was a tour of Buckingham Palace. We loved looking around the regal building, fabulous gardens, and of course spent ages in the gift shop! We had fun mimicking the guards in their big fluffy hats and taking pictures.
I have so many other great memories with Nicolla, including at Wimbledon during the 2012 Olympics, having fun on geography field trips, going to Winter Wonderland together (for at least 5 years on the run), filling the sixth-form centre with ball-park balls on our last day of school, going to our school Prom, and countless teenage nights out at Faces Nightclub in Gants Hill.
Emily and I became friends in our first year of university. I remember the two of us rolling around laughing for no apparent reason on Emily's bedroom floor when we were all dressed up ready to go out for Halloween. The giggling has continued throughout our friendship and I have never laughed as much with anyone as I have with Emily.
One of the many reasons I love Emily is because of her crazy ideas and adventurous nature. She is always finding new challenges and in 2017, she suggested we did a "Tough Mudder" together. Over 12 miles and 25 obstacles, we were plunged into freezing cold muddy waters, beaten with arctic winds and covered in copious amounts of mud, and somehow still had a great time! But then again, it's impossible not to have fun when Emily is around. Emily ended up with some inappropriate hand-print mud marks on her top, and maintains that this was a result of my cheeky mood that day.
In 2018 Emily moved to Dublin for work. Louise, Milly and I went to visit her and had a great weekend. Emily had a box for a bedroom and the three of us slept on the floor all squashed up. I asked Emily if there were any good stories from that trip and she said "I remember you sticking my mint-chocolate ice cream in my nose"...I strongly deny doing such a thing!!
Milly was my first friend at Nottingham University. All new Lincoln Hall students were put into a Facebook group together before university started. I thought I should be brave and chat to someone from the group and randomly picked Milly. Coincidentally, it turned out that our rooms were just a few doors away from each other and it was really nice to have a friendly face from day one.
One night, Milly asked me to curl her hair. She requested loose curls and was horrified when she looked in the mirror and saw that I had essentially given her a perm! Thankfully, she still wanted to be my friend, but she will never let me forget how bad my hairdressing skills are.
In the summer holidays, we spent a month travelling in Thailand. We did a Mahout experience, riding elephants bareback for three days and camping out in the jungle. Milly taught me to love spicy foods, and I introduced her to scuba diving. We bought all sorts of ridiculous tat from market stands and tried all the street food we could. We ate Pad-Thai almost every day and constantly discussed and revised our "Pad Thai Ranking" (if you are wondering, the best one was just off of Koh San Road in Bangkok!). We got chucked off a sleeper train in the middle of the night and had to transfer to a bus. There were four busses at the train station so we threw our bags on one of them and quickly nipped to the loo. When we returned, we couldn't actually remember which bus we had put our luggage on! Luckily we guessed correctly but we spent the rest of the very long journey worrying about it!
It became clear on the trip that we shared the same soppy sense of humour. This was typified by the time we bought matching turtle key-rings and started talking deliriously to them when we were over-tired in a hostel room, totally oblivious to the massive water leak that was flooding our room.
Louise and I met on the first day of university as our rooms were a couple of doors apart. Louise's room was the biggest in 'B-Block' and she was always hosting group events - quizzes, pre-drinks, birthday parties etc. We also lived together in second year in a mad house of 8 people. We helped each other revise for exams, Lou quizzed me on legal cases and I tested her on complex mathematical equations. Since I know very little about maths, each algebraic symbol had to be renamed in order for me to identify it, so poor Lou had to recite her equations saying 'cactus', 'squiggle', etc.!
This photo is from Fresher’s Week on one of our many fancy dress nights out. My favourite fancy dress outfit was when we were the Jamaican national bobsleigh team from Cool Runnings; we spent all day making a cardboard bobsleigh that we hooked over our shoulders with string. We walked through the streets of Nottingham proudly wearing our bobsleigh. Unsurprisingly, we got a lot of honks when navigating the pedestrian crossings.
In 2018, Louise and I had a great time skiing together in Austria. We skied as much as we could every day, from the first lift until the last, and raced each other on slalom courses. We were perfect skiing buddies and enjoyed our own version of ‘après ski’ back in the hotel spa. By chance, the World Snow-Volleyball Championship was taking place at our ski-resort that week and bizarrely, we found ourselves really engrossed in the games, picking allegiances and cheering them on from our deckchairs in the winter sun.