THE Maillot par Zadig & Voltaire

About three months ago, during an evening fuelled with Pinot Grigio, my friends Mel and I came up with the idea that we should run together in the morning.
I had just watched a re-run of Eddie Izzard's amazing performance when he ran 43 marathons in 51 days. Having run the Windsor Half-Marathon with Elodie years ago and remembering the physical pain, I couldn't help admiring his achievement knowing that his body must have been in pieces.
I mean, no offence to Eddie, but he wasn't exactly the most athletic person to begin with but his spirit, stamina and determination were incredible and very inspiring...I couldn't do what he had done but I thought I could at least move my bum and run 3 times a week steadily.
So that evening, running together sounded like a great idea.
Getting up 2 days later at 5.45am didn't sound so great though but the thing is, at 6am, you don't let your friends down. You can't possibly text them 15 min earlier and come up with a crap excuse because you can't be bothered so we sticked to it. Now, I'm very proud to say that we are now running an average of 8kms/run 3 times a week along the river and we love it!
Steve, kindly offered to treat me with this gorgeous swimsuit by Zadig & Voltaire as an incentive.

And what happened at the end of June, went I went to the Zadig & Voltaire website to treat myself! My 'maillot de bain' was no longer available! SOLD OUT!!
Ermm....excuse me....I have been running for 3 months an average of 25 kms per week and now I can't have my bikini!? I don't think so!!
You have to understand that Friday was the last straw for me....In the past 3 weeks, I had gone to a meeting a day before it was scheduled, realized a week too late that I had forgot about the Charlotte Gainsbourg concert Steve & I had tickets for and Friday morning turned up at the Sheerluxe conference that was in fact on Thursday....
All of this being very unlike me, I thought I was either getting old or I had too much on so half-laughing, half- frustrated I thought enough was enough and rather than having a nervous breakdown, I took the day off and went shopping!
Luckily, the Zadig & Voltaire shop in Westfields had a couple of this fab bikini left so I'm sorted and I just need to keep running to get a bum like the girl above :-) but if you are in need a bit of retail therapy and great bargains, here are a few shops I highly recommend....
BODIE and FOU (of course!) for gorgeous home accessories and gifts
Little Fashion Gallery has some gorgeous childrenswear up to 60% OFF and I got some really gorgeous dresses & Liberty tops for Mila & Lily
Zadig & Voltaire have some cool t-shirts & cashmere jumpers and the girls in the Westfield shop were really sweet
Hush: the Byron dress is super comfy for the weekends and I love how sexy my Sloppy Joe sweetshirt looks. Habitat has some great, large contemporary planters perfect for our terrace and Zara some cool and inexpensive dresses which are simply perfect for this gorgeous British Summer and holidays at the beach.
So the moral of this story...well there isn't one really but if life gets too much (because of course there is more than the 3 things I shared above), just stops and take the day off...Don't answer the phone, don't read your emails, simply stop and switch off from everything.
And start running with your friends because I honestly think that if I was not running, I would have handled the past events and the realisation that everything was getting a bit too much, in a more dramatic way...
And tonight, while Mila sleeps over at her friend's and Steve is off to a BBQ I can not attend because I have a backache (probably due to stress), I'm just going to appreciate my day...a fantastic 4-page feature of our home in the Telegraph magazine, a glorious sunny day, a puppy sleeping quietly and a house to myself, ready to watch a girl movie...alone, in peace...bliss