From George Clooney to Turkish Delight…
I do love a Law of Attraction challenge. And last week I got just that when I had the opportunity to spend 24 hours in London with The Duchess, a woman who is not entirely convinced by the premise that we create our own personal reality by virtue of our thoughts, actions and words.
Once The Duchess was calm (for she is one of the most OCD traveling companions you could ever encounter!), and we were safely aboard our Gatwick Express train into the city centre, I announced:
‘We’re going to play a 24 hour LOA game. And I am going to convert you! Our mission: to choose 5 random objects that we want to come into our experience between now and the end of the trip.’
At first she looked at me as if I’d lost the plot. But then, glancing around us surreptitiously to make sure nobody was in earshot, she agreed. I think she had secretly been waiting for me to invite her to indulge in this kind of experiment for a long time. And to any other fence sitters out there, this is a great LOA doubt buster to play along with. Especially on a long trip with kids. So without further ado, we let our hair down and had some fun.
These were our joint selections:
-George Clooney
-A Bowler hat
-A distinctively mustardy/gold cushion of extremely high quality
-Turkish Delight
-Hugh Grant
Hey, I did say the more random the better…
And then we both forgot all about it.
Which in hindsight is always the best way when you are wanting the Universe to manifest the stuff of your dreams. Although, George and Hugh aside; the hat, cushion and even a box of my beloved Turkish Delights I could (probably) live without…
But anyway, several hours later, having snapped and interviewed our way around a celebrity book launch (the glamorous and exciting event we’d been invited to cover for our The Glass House Girls magazine), The Duchess squealed with delight – sadly not of the Turkish variety though – almost spilling her champagne cocktail onto the toupe of the Lord seated next to us.
‘Look over there’, she squeaked. ‘Look, look, remember our list?!?!’
I must confess, by this point my heart was going ten to the dozen with visions of Hugh coming into focus through the crowd, flashing his alluring grin beneath cheeky floppy schoolboy hair around the room.
But what do you know? It was the next best thing…
A sort of Bowler hatted gent. And not just any old sort of Bowler hatted gent either, but a trendy hip young Viscount, Dan Macmillan, who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a rock band. Yes – this was one extremely posh book launch party. And I loved the quirky direction the Universe was taking us in with its bizarre cross between a Cowboy and Bowler hat. Literally coming to us at the party. I couldn’t have made that one up if I’d tried.
We almost high fived. Wasn’t quite the time and the place. But that was when my antennae pricked up to notice another item on the list.
No, sadly not GC. But it was another gent. And quite a dapper specimen at that. He wasn’t carrying a cushion. Granted. BUT he was draped in the most incredibly alluring silky and expensive looking mustardy gold scarf. I mean you could’ve seen it from Tim Peake’s window in space. It was dazzling. And it was exactly – and I do mean exactly – the shade and degree of sparkle I had conjured in my mind’s eye!
That’s when I realised LOA was having some fun with us. Some might call it clutching at straws. But I knew it was all part of the Universe’s plan.
Because we get so caught up in things being ‘just so’…
When actually, as proven here by the Universe bringing two of our ideas almost to our very feet at this intimate party, when you leave it to LOA to fill in the details; when you surrender, let your precise idea go and enjoy yourself, the final product is so, so, so much more fun. And it is usually so much better than anything you could have dreamed up yourself anyway.
We left the party before we’d outstayed our welcome. Very important tip! And hobbled across Piccadilly for dinner. Prezzo’s sign shone like a beacon for the weary and un-used to stilettos, and lo and behold, what was the first place we passed en route?
Only a Nespresso shop!
And come on, nobody requires a degree in rocket science to figure out the correlation between the luxury brand and a certain Mr Clooney…
I was gobsmacked. And no, not just because of too much champagne and too few canapes. This was one helluva large shop and one helluva manifestation. I mean events would have taken a different turn had we not been so hellbent on a George Clooney deliverance. We could have been invited out to the after-after-party… Or we could have been extravagant and spent the rest of our allowance on a taxi and cocktail at The Ritz. Just because – we were under my spontaneous influence after all, and The Duchess was too tipsy to be her usually sensible self.
But instead, we ate our quite yummy Italian meal, washed down with more alcohol. When in London. And of course we kept our eyes peeled and hair pretty should HG happen to waltz through the door… or be thrown with panache across our table by Colin Firth.
Sadly neither scenarios were to be and so we paid up, hailed a cab and then bed.
Next morning we’d clean forgotten all about it.
Such is the beauty of an LOA treasure hunt. But I did soon realise LOA was having it’s humourous way with us when we were carrying out our next round of author interviews…
Calm before the storm.
You know how it is. You could hear a pin drop. The reception of your boutique hotel is as serene as a tropical beach in the Maldives and there’s not a person to be seen. Half an hour passes and you realise your guests are, well, pretty late. But hey, this is London. That’s par for the underground/taxi/walking in heels with your coffee whilst dodging pigeons, tourists and rat racers course.
You are both stressing because the first interviewee is late. You’re totally out of LOA ‘alignment’.
But, finally, the author arrives. They settle into their seat. The camera is in position. You are ready to roll with the questions.
And then a pneumatic drill starts up outside.
Somebody starts vacuuming the lobby (despite the fact you were guaranteed peace and quiet from reception), the most irksome man perches himself on the furthest edge of the sofa adjacent to you and embarks upon a showstopping display of broadsheet paper flicking – open and shut, open and shut… a smile of schadenfreude type satisfaction half curled on his lips.
Oh, and several people fling open the doors of the hotel announcing to the world that: ‘I’m late (pant, pant, pant!) Oh My God, I am so late… is Mr Branson/Morgan/Sugar ( insert namedropping businessman/PR guru here) still here?’
And who could forget the lorry that almost reversed into the boutiquey sash window next to our cosy spot by the grandfather clock? Nope, neither could The Duchess’s heart…
As for me? I was secretly (I didn’t dare make it too visible for fear of being clouted around the head with the clipboard) smiling. We had attracted all of this. That was how powerful our angst over being late for our plane trip home truly was…
And it was also proof that The Universe wanted us to have some fun with the rest of the treasure hunt. So, interviews wrapped up, cab hailed: that’s exactly what we did. We forgot about it all over again, went to the airport, ate, drank cider (don’t ask me why…) and boarded that plane.
The hours passed. I doused myself with Maltesers and caffeine thinking of the long drive home when we landed. And as we disembarked the aircraft, I spotted a most bizarre smile crossing The Duchess’s face. It’s not to say that she doesn’t smile often. This was an unusual smile, let’s say… a cross between a cat getting the cream and someone who had been mildly flattered.
‘I’ve just seen the Turkish Delight‘, she whispered excitedly, once again doing her surreptitious looking over her shoulder thing.
I turned my head as 360 degree(ish) as I could but was none the wiser. Nobody had left any boxes of sweets on the steps of the plane. Fry’s hadn’t set up a factory on the grounds of the airport. I couldn’t see a single Turkish Airlines plane in sight.
‘No! Not in sugar form… in male form. A guy was, well, you know, giving me a bit of a checking out as we left our seats,‘ she paused to re-compose herself, but it was too dark to see her beetrooty cheeks, ‘… and he was only holding up a Turkish passport!‘
You just couldn’t make this LOA stuff up…
Nice one, Universe. We were loving this distinctly male style.
But what about Hugh?
We pondered this over and over as we walked back to the car park.
‘Hugh, Hugh, where are you Hugh?’
‘Hugh Grant! Hugh Grant! Hugh Grant!’ we even started to chant in desperation.
Yep. We were tired. I’d had way too much sugar (even for me) and caffeine. Fortunately, there was nobody trailing in front or behind to witness our wild behaviour.
In fact all I did spot was a mahoosive ‘WHY?’ etched into the boot of a nearby Porsche.
‘Because it’s meant to be a fun, outside-of-the-box, random LOA treasure hunt and we thought the very least you could do was deliver ALL of the items on the list. That’s why!’ I shouted.
Oh dear…
Liz Hurley was the key.
Yes, finally, we agreed between us that we’d probably arrive home to find each respective husband engrossed in a movie starring Hugh’s gorgeously glam ex-girlfriend. It would follow the weird and wonderful LOA pattern we’d encountered so far, after all.
Not so much Hurley as Haig.
David Haig. Yep, my husband had – and okay I didn’t find out until the next morning so technically we were out of time but it IS so ridiculously random that I am going to let it count – become obsessed not only with watching re-runs of The Thin Blue Line… but a certain David Haig’s gags in said comedy. And David, for anybody who might not be able to put a name to the face… is only flippin’ well Bernard from Four Weddings and a Funeral!
I laughed and laughed.
And I am still laughing.
The Duchess’s husband on the other hand…
What did she find him doing the moment she walked in the door? You’ll think I’m trying to pull the wool over your eyes with this one, but he was only watching Liz Hurley playing The Queen of England in The Royals.
And that Ladies and Gents, as I am often reminding both you and myself, is the sheer power of Law of Attraction
