This weekend was spent…

Indulging in the arts

If you’ve been around for the last few years, you’ll undoubtedly know that Fringe Festival is the absolute highlight of my year. Hundreds of performers from across the globe flock to the city to put on nine days’ worth of entertainment – from noon until midnight every day you can have your pick of comedy, drama, musicals, improv, dance, even burlesque, and what’s usually one of the more desolate and dodgy areas of the city is filled with life, colour, creativity and culture. Lecture halls in universities, top floors of pubs, backstage areas of theatres and city streets themselves are turned into performance spaces, laughter and applause fill the air, and extravagant costumes, floating sundresses and musical instruments adorn the assortment of people spilling out of coffee shops and off of patios. Over the past week, I spent my time with good friends, laughing until my sides hurt, watching a secret torch-lit midnight cabaret, admiring brilliantly written scripts and breathtaking performances, and just soaking up every drop of the creative spirit which comes to visit just once per year for all too short a time. My pockets are empty, my houseguest has gone home, and another Fringe has come and gone, but I feel thoroughly satiated after a week of the arts – and totally inspired to write a show of my own!

Channelling my inner eight-year-old

This weekend I also had the opportunity to attend my first “Cake and Shake”. It’s exactly what it says on the tin – an annual party thrown by a friend revolving around the idea of eating lots of cakes, consuming lots of milkshakes, pulling out guitars and breaking into song. I think all grown-ups should have a cake and milkshake party at least once in their life – it was wildly fun (not to mention delicious), and with the encouragement of a wonderful group of people, I even got to conquer my fear of public singing!

Dreaming of winter

Yes, you read that correctly and no, I haven’t been replaced by one Raven Darkhölme –Winnipeg is indeed the coldest city in the world, with over half the year spent with temperatures plummeting well into the minus twenties and thirties, but with the recent heatwave, I’ve taken to daydreaming of all the things winter will bring. Snuggling in blanket forts watching movie marathons, decorating my new apartment for Christmas, braving the cold in nerdy Hallowe’en costumes on the bus, Comic Con, holiday movies, festive baking, cooking warm meals, walks down moonlit streets after a fresh, glittering snowfall, group Thanksgiving potlucks, excursions outside the city to see the Northern Lights, afternoons with hot chocolate, fairy lights and a big notebook… I absolutely adore summer, but lately I’ve found myself for the first time daydreaming of all the things to do while the weather outside is frightful. Always good to have something to look forward to. 🙂

What did you do this weekend?