An evening of drinks and canapés hosted by the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park

What a wonderful start to the New Year!

The first event of 2012 for the ACA-UK was hosted by the award-winning Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde Park, London, where great lengths were taken to ensure we had a fabulous evening. The reception was held in the beautiful flower-filled Loggia room, one of the many function rooms available within the hotel, where we were treated to skillfully mixed Lychee Martinis and an abundance of delicious canapés. Isabella's team also took the time to take us on mini tours of the hotel, showing us classically decorated bedrooms, sumptuous suites, the gorgeous spa and the hotel's restaurant, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and the stylish Bar Boulud.

We were delighted to welcome guest speakers Liz King from Liz King Bespoke Travel and Duncan Marsh from ET Travel to the event. Two lucky members won the generous raffle prizes of dinner for two at Bar Boulud, kindly donated by the Mandarin Oriental, and complimentary flights to and hotel in Copenhagen, dontated by ET Travel.  As our evening came to a close some of the remaining members decamped to the Mandarin Bar to enjoy the famous Espresso Martinis. Delicious!

Thank you to all who came and a special thank you to our Co-President for all her hard work in arranging the event.

Champagne Reception with the Illamasqua Educators

A wonderful time was had by our members at the Illamasqua School of Make Up Art on 23rd November 2011 at their flagship store on Beak Street.

We were greeted upon arrival with champagne and Buck's Fizz and treated to a demonstration of Illamasqua's trademark make up techniques featuring a subtle day time look and a more daring night time look. I realise that I've been stuck in a make up rut for many a year, so it was a treat to be inspired by the wonderful Daniel and Claire who took such trouble to provide a fun and informative session.

It was then time to mingle and shop - taking advantage of Illamasqua's generous 25% discount off all products in store, along with special offers on their make up classes.  We were also given some gorgeous goodie bags containing some of their most popular make up items.

For more information about Illamasqua, please see their website: http://www.illamasqua.com/

HEAVEN ON ICE

If I told you that I visited heaven in April 2008 and spent almost three glorious days being pandered to my every whim by selfless Scandinavian angels, would you believe me?

Well let me tell you, heaven is flipping freezing! It was also under about six feet of snow. Heaven is the Levi Spirit resort in Finnish Lapland – literally a snowball’s throw away from Santa’s humble abode I was told, though he was apparently on holiday when we were in town!

I am of course talking about the ACA (UK) trip to Levi, Finland hosted and superbly co-ordinated by Levi's Spirit. It was without doubt the event of the year!

Our magical adventure started at Heathrow Airport on a cloudy afternoon when we boarded a Finnair flight bound for Helsinki. Being Finnish virgins, we were all filled with excitement not knowing what to expect. On arrival at Helsinki we met up with a couple of delegates from Quintessentially and transferred onto a short internal flight to Kittilä situated within the Arctic Circle and fittingly under tons of snow.

We were greeted by our hosts and driven to the Levi Spirit resort and to their luxury chalet complex in a snow clad pine forest in the middle of nowhere. The chalet that was our home for the next couple of nights was something special. In common with the other chalets, ours slept up to ten people and was built to a superb modern standard with a Jacuzzi, steam room, ski room, log fire, superb fitted kitchen, excellent sitting room areas replete with plasma TV's and the whole three storey structure was kitted out with an in-house music system. And did I mention the bedrooms? Very stylish!

Lounge
Click to enlarge

Sauna
Click to enlarge

There was a reception awaiting us once we had settled in with catering staff handing out the glasses of champagne and the canapés that included reindeer on toast. Yummy. Later that evening, we were treated to a gorgeous three-course meal prepared in our kitchen with more flowing champagne. The proceedings went on into the early hours only interrupted by my need to go to another part of the building to watch a Champions League football match!

The next morning saw some of us slightly worse for wear as we donned the arctic clothing provided for us by Levi Spirit. We headed out for our first adventure – a skidoo (snowmobile) safari. It was truly amazing, whizzing around the tundra feeling the cold fresh air hitting our faces when our helmet visors were up. Next, we visited a Husky farm filled with baying Huskies – some of the dogs didn’t look much different from wolves. Riding and controlling a Husky sleigh must go down as one of the things that you need to do before you die. It was totally magical.

After lunch at a ski resort we journeyed to a Reindeer farm that was run by two very hospitable sisters. Entranced, we listened to the stories from generations gone by about how their home was used as a free half-way house by weary travellers from further north. We returned to our base tired and elated in the late afternoon to freshen up before our evening meal at a traditional Lappish hut. All the food was cooked before us on a small open fire by our Lappish husband and wife hosts. On the menu apart from copious amounts of vodka was a strange dish containing bear meat. This was one nibble that I decided to pass on.

Rudolph
Click to enlarge

Barely seconds after finishing our last mouthful, we were joined by a real Lappish man, one of the last of the remaining true nomadic Arctic people. Dressed in traditional garb, he proceeded to bang a drum and sing Saami folklore chants before marking our foreheads with weird squiggles with some black ink that he happened to have and getting us all to sample a foul tasting fertility drink.

The following morning some of us woke up whilst others hadn't been to bed at all! We all, however, couldn’t believe how lucky we had all been to have experienced such an amazing couple of days. We were treated superbly and we were truly heartbroken to have to leave to get the flights back home.

If it's the last thing that you do, you have to experience Lapland for yourself. The people are ultra friendly, the food is great, the scenery is mesmerizing and you will not leave Lapland without falling in love with it.

We should all tell our bosses to come and chill, in every sense of the word, in a world a million miles away from their daily lives.

Contact Levi Spirit at:

Website: www.levispirit.fi

Tel: +358 600 17747

Email: info@levispirit.fi