Review: Maximise Active Hen Project weekend

Hitting the big smoke for the Active Hen weekend, in which I got covered in rice attempting to make sushi, won gold at the Shoreditch Olympics and practised yoga with an epic view.

Darren Cool- www.dcoolimages.com

I’m one of the guinea pigs for Maximise’s new Active Hen weekends, aimed at girls who fancy doing something a little cooler than your average booze-and-willy straws night out to celebrate getting hitched. They cooked up a fun, fitness fuelled weekend in London for the other girls and I to try.

The dream team that is Elle, Christine, Georgina, Laura and I stayed at the Marlin apartments, in a beautiful, chilled-out flat with epic views over London’s skyline.

On the Friday evening the lovely Alistair Instone of the School of Food rocked up laden with exciting ingredients, ready to teach us how to make sushi. Fuelled by a glass or two of prosecco, we rolled out bamboo mats and had a go at cutting beautiful pieces of salmon and tuna ready for maki and nigiri sushi. Alistair taught us how to season rice and assemble perfect California rolls, neatly parcelled in seaweed sheets. We were all so proud of our works of culinary art that we promptly ate them, my favourite part of the proceedings.

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The next morning we got up early for a yoga session with Martina Ziewe, who ran us through some simple, beginner-friendly moves whilst we looked out at the incredible view.

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Darren Cool - 07792308722 - www.dcoolimages.com

Elle and I decided to hop on to Boris bikes and cycle through Shoreditch in the sunshine to get to our next activity. Our incredible orienteering abilities meant that we only had to stop about once or twice a block to check we were going in the right direction. In Shoreditch’s dinky park, Maximise and North London Fitness had planned a rather awesome school sports day, complete with rainbow bunting, egg and spoon races and three-legged competitions, with sweets, medals and champagne waiting as a reward for all our racing skills. It turns out that trying to jump about in a sack whilst simultaneously screaming with laughter is a very good workout indeed.

Darren Cool - 07792308722 - www.dcoolimages.com

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In the evening we headed out for a cocktail making lesson at Jewel, where Georgina put me to shame by making a far superior Pornstar Martini to mine. We also all successfully flamed orange peels without losing our eyebrows. Result.

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After dinner, we headed back to our posh pad for a classy final evening, drinking champagne in matching onesies. A wonderful way to finish off a weekend of fun times and new friends. Good job, team Active Hen!

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1 Comment

  1. June 11, 2014 / 3:26 pm

    I think I’m most proud of the fact that I successfully flamed that orange peel without setting fire to myself .. or anyone else!

    Great weekend, thanks for making it so much fun xx

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