Happy St Andrew's Day

(source)

O don't read - Still no dress

First of all apologies for the very short post on Friday I had guests arriving any second and wanted to get something posted before they got here. I hope you all had a good weekend.
We were pretty busy, O’s sister and her husband stayed Friday night they are expecting a baby boy at the end of January and were down to buy baby stuff. On Saturday I met my Mum and Dad in Edinburgh – they drove up that morning. O and my Dad went to see the rugby, unfortunately Scotland didn’t win and they got extremely cold.

The dress dilemmas continue – short version I still haven’t found the right one and need to continue looking.

Long version -
Firstly we went to Rachel Scott, Rachel was really lovely, we were the only ones in the shop so received very personal service. I liked two Alan Hannah dresses, the bodice of one (Bella) and the skirt of another (All that Jazz). Apparently we could get the two combined however they were both £1,800 dresses (way over budget) and I think I'd have come out with the Maggie Sottero Adele in the end anyway - although they were much lighter weight.

Then we went to Berketex and found a really lovely dress. It has straps, its light I'd be able to dance all night long in it. It's much more what I had in my head when I thought about my dress. It isn't perfect though, the sample dress was too big so I don't think it was an accurate representation. It is made with satin, and hides absolutely nothing - you can see the outline of my belly button piercing through the fabric which I don't really think is appropriate! But it does make me feel beautiful and elegant. Unfortunately they wouldn't let us take pictures and I can't find a picture of the dress online. It is by a designer called Christina Sposa called Bali.

Finally we went to Emma Roy to show my Mum the Adele. Unfortunately the shop was absolutely heaving (think my Mum might have been a little overwhelmed by this point and all the dresses were blurring into one) there were women and dresses everywhere. There was also a girl trying on the Adele which was off putting. I tried it on again and I do still really like it but it was much stiffer and heavier than the Alan Hannah dresses I tried on. They can remove some of the net underskirts to make the skirt less full. But the skirt is made of a very heavy fabric and that can't be changed.

It is killing me that I can't ask O what he thinks but he doesn't want to know anything about the dress.

So the search continues…………………………….

Happy Weekend Everyone

I'm busy busy.

Got my sister in law to be and her husband staying tonight and then my parents for the rest of the weekend.

I'll be back on Monday - hopefully with some pictures, feel like I've been a bit wordy this week!

Hope you have a great weekend. Let me know what you are up to.

x

Wedding Traditions

I love reading overseas blogs, and I love having bloggers from overseas read and comment on my blog. It is great to have such a wide variety of opinions.

Earlier in the week Stacy from the delightful blog You Can't Take It With You posted about this gorgeous card box she had found. And I sat reading the post going: What is a card box? Do I need a card box? What do you use a card box for? Where will I find one? That is such a pretty box.......

May be I'm just a being a bit daft here......but What is a card box?

But there are lots of different traditions that we are embraced all over the world. I mean please could someone explain to me what Escort Cards are - I've seen lots of lovely ideas for different ways of doing them, I've just yet to figure out what they are used for.

And I imagine the tradition of having a chimney sweep at your wedding doesn't mean much to those overseas - in fact it doesn't mean much to me, anyone got a clue? I also imagine I will get horse-shoes from friends at the wedding - to wish us luck. Anyone having a scramble? We went to a wedding last year where they had one and it was hilarious.

So I thought I'd use this opportunity to clear up some mysteries about wedding traditions - tell me about some traditions you don't understand (hopefully we'll get some answers), some you are adhering to (why and what they mean to you), some that you aren't going to adhere to.

Some traditions are becoming wide spread, for example Save the Date Cards seem to be taking off in the UK.

My Mum really wants to send out Save the Date Cards (her bf's daughter got married earlier this year and they had Save the Date Cards - I've a feeling there could be quite a bit of comparison going on).
We're not all that fussed, we don't have guests coming from overseas and we have spread our date through word of mouth - so I told my Mum if she really wants them she could just write a note in her Christmas cards (which will only go to my side of the family). Her exact words - "I don't want to force the issue, it is your choice, but I really think we should send them, just a little card in the Christmas cards would be fine" - ok well if you really want to send them, I won't feel pressured - but you'll need to come up with the little card yourself because I would have just used a pen and written it on the Christmas card (sorry did that sound like petulant ungrateful child oops).
My Mum has been very good so far, you can tell she is itching to jump in and take over but she has been very restrained.

Love Stories - My Grandparents

(From here via We heart it)

One of my biggest regrets is not paying enough attention to the stories my grandparents’ told. However there are some special things I do remember which make me smile.

For my big* Nana and Granddad (my Dad's parents) their fourth date was actually their wedding day (we'll be getting married on what would have been their wedding anniversary). They met during the war and somehow managed to keep their fledgling romance going while my Granddad was deployed on service, only seeing each other while my Granddad was on leave. I can’t imagine marrying someone I’d only met three times previously.

With my little* Nana and Granddad (Mum’s parents) my favourite story was my Granddad’s chat up line the first time they met (so typical of him, he was a huge flirt). My Granddad was walking his Alsatian, Flash, in the nearby park, he walked past my Nana (a woman he’d never met previously) and Flash barked and went to sniff at my Nana. My Granddad pulled the dog back saying “Down Flash you’ve already had your breakfast”. He went home and told his Mum that he’d met the girl he was going to marry. From that brief encounter he knew – must have been love at first sight.

*we distinguished between our grandparents by height.

O don't read - More on the dress

I feel like I've lost my mind!
So something bad happened this weekend - I went dress shopping with two of my friends we went to Emma Roy and Pretty Woman (I have to say the service in both shops was excellent). I tried on about 15 different types of dress in different colours, shapes and materials.
The bad thing that happened is that I think I might have found "the one". Bad because it totally contradicts everything that I previously expected about my dress. The list has gone totally out of the window and that is messing with my head. My list was based on rational, sensible, logical decisions, and yet I had an emotional reaction to this dress (yes I realise how ridiculous that sounds, it's only a dress, but I didn't want to take it off).

Remember the disclaimer – I reserve the right to totally change my mind after trying on more dresses.

This is the dress Maggie Sottero - Adele

So lets have a look at the list;

The Wedding Dress List: Comfortable, No train, Not too big, Affordable, Off the rack or a sample, Structured but not too structured, No bling

Adele - has a train (which I would have cut down a bit), has a big skirt (felt big to me), is much more than I wanted to spend (but not more than I can afford) - then they charge you for alterations on top of that, not off the rack - will take 6 months to come in (the wedding is in July so just have enough time), has a full corset, no straps and the skirt is quite heavy, it was comfortable for the 10 mins that I stood staring at it but I'm not sure how comfortable it would be after a whole day. I think the only thing I've stuck to is the no bling (and even then it does have a tiny bit of bling).

A Tia (Benjamin Roberts) dress came a close second - see pictures of me in it here (hope the link works). I just didn't like it as much (perhaps because the sample was too big for me so I couldn't get a proper idea of how it fitted) - even though it is a much more light weight dress.

My Mum is coming to visit this weekend so she can see the dress.

So do I;
(a) Go for it (feeling extra pressure because they are offering 15% off if ordered before the end of November). Or,
(b) Go to a lot more shops and continue trying on - trying to stick to the list

I guess it is a head over heart issue - not sure which to listen to.

Apologies for the bracketed inner dialogue as always. Feel like I've got bad fairy/good fairy on my shoulders nagging in my ears - bad fairy saying go for the Maggie dress - good fairy saying explore your options and be sensible.

Don't install a cat flap!

(I should probably explain that we live in an upstairs flat - so our flight of stairs is right at the front door)

So there is no denying that our cats are a pair of big girls blouses who wouldn’t say boo to a goose and regularly get bullied by the other cats in the neighbourhood.

However it is very rare that they will allow another cat into their house (their territory starts inside the cat flap)! But on Sunday morning (4am) we had an intruder, I was woken to the unmistakeable sound of cats growling and screaching at each other, and it was definitely inside the house. So to prevent the further flying of fur I leapt dragged myself out of bed and went charging through to the living room shouting and hissing hoping to scare the b’jesus out of our intruder and get this monster out of our house (I should probably mention that I hadn’t put my glasses on and so couldn’t see a bl**dy thing). I managed to scare my own cat into the other room but on not hearing the cat flap rattle at a rate of knots I figured the intruder hadn’t gone anywhere – and right enough there was a whitish blur still under the couch. So more shouting, hissing, growling, clapping and stamping (our neighbours love us) from me resulted in the cat getting to the stairs, down the stairs and to the cat flap. More shouting from me and it made some pitiful attempts to get through the cat flap but failed so started coming back up the stairs meowing pathetically like I was hurting it! So I shut the door at the top of the stairs and went to get my glasses so I could see the imbecile that had broken into my house. Thinking that there might be something wrong with the cat flap (maybe it had locked itself shut?) I went down the stairs – nothing wrong with the cat flap – so I held open the cat flap and the intruder escaped with a skelped arse from me as it went past.

I object to foreign cats coming into my home to terrorise my cats
I really object more when they are too thick to let themselves back out of the house.

Random Question I

Ok so this isn’t so much a question more of a discussion point. I’m 7 months older than O. I graduated University the year ahead of him and he is born in a different year to me (not sure why I highlight this but it seemed important). When we first got together we got quite a few comments about him being a toy-boy and my being the older woman. 7 months people!! Not exactly a big age difference and I firmly believe that if he were older than me it would never be mentioned. I’ve never seen a relationship where age difference is an issue except for those outside the relationship.

Is there an age gap in your relationship? Does it make any difference to you? (Sorry these are very personal questions I may have overstepped the mark). Do you know relationships where the age gap is an issue?

(from here)

Because I'm a big tease

This is not our venue, this is Fernie Castle. But I was seriously considering it for the TREE HOUSE!! Sorry I had to shout that bit but how cool is the Tree House. Do you think I can ask for a night there as a wedding present??!!:

Love in the modern era

O and I have been together for 6 ½ years and in that time we have seen some pretty big leaps in technological advancements. I went to University 10 years ago and took with me my very first mobile phone – which I mainly used for phone calls to my parents. I don’t think I sent my first email until I was at University either.
O and I would not have got together without the assistance of text messages. I got horribly drunk and made a fool of myself, using this as an excuse, I got O’s number from a mutual friend and text an apology which sparked a text conversation which led to a date and the rest as they say is history. If we had got it together a year later we would have probably communicated via Bebo before graduating to Facebook and then Twitter.

When we’d only been together for 5 months I left him with his studies and I spent two months travelling across Canada. We communicated and kept our relationship going through email and the occasional text, we literally didn’t physically speak for two months. When we started going out we didn’t talk on the phone very often at all. O still is scared of the phone – he hates talking to people he doesn’t know very well on the phone. He says it is because he can’t see their facial expressions so never know what they are really thinking.

I didn’t date much in high school and I was thinking the other day how difficult it used to be to talk to boys! Because you literally had to ‘talk’ to them, you couldn’t just text, poke or tweet them. You had to endure the awkward pauses in conversation where you desperately tried to come up with something witty. It took O and I a long time to get together and without text messages it would have probably taken much longer. What would we have done while I was in Canada?

Don’t get me wrong I love receiving letters through the mail (especially those that aren’t from the bank). I’ve still got all the letters that my family sent me during my first year at University. But now life is all about text messages, emails and for me blog posting. I still send O at least 2 texts a day and if he worked at a computer it would be a lot more emails. It is the instant thoughts that I want to tell him about and don’t have the patience to wait until I get home (plus I forget). Life is about instant communication, but also about thought through communication, you can take your time when responding to an email or text to make sure you really are letting your wit and brilliance shine through. Rather than in telephone conversations with boys where you just had to go with the first thing that came into your head. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about these things anymore.

O don't read! My Thoughts on the Dress

So huge respect needs to go to Buhdoop for her series of dress posts here, here, here, here and especially the beautiful dress she has chosen. Here Buhdoop freaked me out, the day before I read this post I was writing this list in my head!
Disclaimer – these are my thoughts on the dress that would be suitable for me and our wedding. I have only tried on 3 wedding dresses so I reserve the right to totally change my mind after trying on more dresses. You never know I might end up with a huge pink meringue but somehow I doubt it.

The Wedding Dress List

(not in order of importance)

Comfortable – There is going to be some wild ceilidh dancing at our wedding and I need to be able to burl with the best of them. I was bridesmaid to one of my best friends and she was begging to be able to take her dress off by 10pm as the dress was too heavy. Luckily we managed to persuade her to keep it on until after the last dance, although it would have been funny having her finish the dancing in her pjs.

No train – I don’t want people worried about standing on the dress and I don’t want to trip over it while I’m dancing.

Not too big – I want people to be able to get up close and hug me on our wedding day, especially my new husband. I don’t want hoops and underskirts meaning they can only hug me from the waist up.

Affordable – I don’t spend a lot of money on clothes and I don’t especially want to spend a lot of money on a dress I will only wear for one day. I want a new kitchen more than I want an expensive wedding dress.

Off the rack or a sample – my friends are making me panic that I’m not going to have enough time to find a dress, I’ve been told it takes 6-9 months to get a dress made. In which case I need to find the dress now! Like right now.

Structured but not too structured – I need to keep the boobage under control but I still want to be comfortable with out too much scaffolding. (Thanks to Gee for the warning about buying a dress for the more well endowed girl). I’m kind of leaning towards straps.

No bling – I don’t seem to suit bling, and our wedding isn’t going to be very bling, we just aren’t bling people.

Our Venue

So we have chosen our venue, booked a date and the registrar is organised. Not too much more to do right?

Anyway I promised to tell you about the venue. I’d rather not reveal the exact location so I’m going to try and describe it. I thought this would be easier than it is, I’ve spent ages trying to write this and it’s going no where fast.

We are getting married in a castle! It’s a bit of a shabby chic castle – not sure the owners would like to hear it described as shabby but what I’m trying to say is that it isn’t Disney perfect and therefore just right for us. It is a tiny little place with 10 bedrooms built on the side of big hill. We get exclusive use so it will all be ours – handy when both families are travelling over 200 miles. The dining room is beautiful for the ceremony and hopefully the meal. I say hopefully as we are trying to persuade them that we will all squeeze in or we will just have to invite less people. There is a big hall where we will have a kick-ass party with lots of dancing and where the meal will happen if we can’t decide who to cut off the guest list. Although there isn’t a huge amount of land or garden there are plenty of places for photos both inside and out. The management team are sarcastic and down to earth – which also makes it perfect for us. We have managed to forgive them for the date mix up although it is fun to watch them squirm every time we bring it up.

Apologies that this is such a poor description, all I keep thinking is – oh it’s our venue and it is so perfect for us!

The Joys of Cat Ownership I

The Owl and the Pussy Cat get on very well which is apparently quite unusual, both of them are dark tortoiseshells (their fur is black, brown, orange and blonde). The Owl does have a white bib and paws but the Cat is all dark. When we first took them to the vets we were asked if they were feisty. Feisty? They are about as far from feisty as you can possibly get. According to the vet dark tortoiseshell cats are the red-heads of the cat world. They tend to be fiery in temper and don’t play well with others.

Our cats are a couple of big pansies and regularly get bullied. How do we know that they get bullied? Because they get chased home. The cat flap rattles and you hear the thundering of paws as one of the cats reaches the safety of the top of the stairs. What you then hear is the bully cat outside battering at our cat flap rattling it back and forth as if saying “Come here and finish this you big pansy” (or so it is in my imagination). In the middle of the night it sounds like someone is trying to break into the house – not a good way to wake up.

I'm back & its the weekend

So I'm finally feeling more normal after being poorly last weekend.

Things I'm loving this week:

(From here via here)

(From here)

O bought me this jacket for my Christmas last year and I lurrrrvvvee it!! So cosy!

(from here)

Really like this centre piece

There you go, that is your insight into my totally random thoughts this week. Finally got some blog inspiration so coming up this week:

The Joys of Cat Ownership I

Our Venue

My thoughts on a Dress

Love stories

Another random question

Please let me know if you'd like to hear about anything else.

It is the season for giving

I feel like all my Christmases have come at once.
 Buhdoop gave me this lovely award – thank you:

In this award I am supposed to detail 5 things I am obsessed with and then pass the award on to 5 other fab blogs:
1. Blogs and blogging
2. Strictly Come Dancing
3. Cats (I’d be a crazy cat lady if O let me)
4. Tangerines, Satsuma or Clementine
5. Woolly socks

From Rebecca gave me this award and the one below too:
 

For this award I get to answer all these quickfire questions about myself, and then pass it on to other people that I'd like to find out more about - I want to find out more about all of you so please jump in and answer. Here goes...
1. Your hair: curly and usually tied back
2. Where is your cell phone : beside me
3. Your father: practical and supportive.
4. Your mother: is the best.
5. Your favourite food: Italian
6. Your dream from last night: I don't remember
7. Your favourite drink: Hot chocolate
8. Your dream/goal: to see more of the world
9. What room are you in: living room
10. What is your hobby: swimming/Pilates
11. What is your fear: Going blind
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years: Having fun
13. Where were you last night: at home. Would have liked to be at the cinema seeing Men who stare at Goats but still coughing too much to be out in public
14. Something you are not: I’m not good at going with the flow, I like to have a plan.
15. Muffins: Chocolate
16. Wish list items: new handbag, cleaner, wedding planner, new sofa, new kitchen, new car, new carpets
17. Where did you grow up: Leeds
18. Last thing you did: went to work for the first time in a week – I hate being sick
19. What are you wearing: black trousers, black t-shirt and a fluffy grey cardi which sheds everywhere
20. Your TV: Spooks, CSI Miami, Strictly Come Dancing
21. Your pets: 2 cats The Owl and the Pussy Cat
22. Your friends: Brilliant
23. Your life: Good
24. Your mood: Tired
25. Missing someone: my Nana, she’d be so excited about the wedding plans.
26. Vehicle: a piece of crap! Which lets in water to the extent that the carpets are damp and the windows are always steamed to the point that you need to scrape the inside of the windscreen more than the outside!
27. Something you're not wearing: a necklace as I’ve a big scarf on instead
28. Your favourite store: Next for clothes
29. Your favourite colour: Blue edging towards grey
30. When's the last time you laughed: last night
31. When's the last time you cried: at the weekend being ill on your own sucks!
32. Your best friend: Going to become my husband!
33. One place you go over and over: Whitby
34. One person who emails me regularly: Nigerian Princesses wishing to give me lots of money in exchange for my bank details
35. Favourite place to eat: on the sofa

This award is Portuguese and translates as “Your blog is super cute"
Thank you Rebecca and Gaynor

Now to pass on all the love:

Lila Puppy
Everybody says don’t
What Helen did
Witty Title Pending
Red Boots

Remember

This poem was among my Granddad's belongings.

The family story is that the poem was written by a man who was in the same hospital ward as my Granddad when he was injured during World War II.

(If anyone knows any other history to this poem I'd love to know)

A Moment of Silence

(image from here)

Today is Armistice Day and at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month I will be observing a moment's silence.

Today it is also 5 years since my Nana passed away. I can’t believe it has been so long. I miss her everyday.

Random Question

Which side of the bed do you sleep on?
Last week O and I watched the first episode of the BBC series Wonderland, The British in Bed (via iPlayer). The programme interviewed British couples, about their relationships, while they were in bed.

We both loved the elderly couple who had been married for 40+ years and were absolutely hilarious. Almost as soon as the programme started O noticed that some of the couples sleep on the wrong side of the bed, by wrong I mean different from us.

As you look at the bed I sleep on the left and O sleeps on the right (opposite to the picture). This is the same as both our parents and about 99% of the other couples we know. My sister #2 is actually the only person I know who doesn’t sleep on the right (i.e. left) side of the bed.

Remembrance Sunday

I’m not sure I have the words.
It has been a horrific week for those in the armed services and my thoughts are with them and their families.

I disagreed with us entering this war but we are there now and I would never want to take away from the amazing work that is being done. These men and women are doing work I can not comprehend with bravery and dignity I would not be able to muster.

Today I will remember those who fought and were taken, those who fight on through injury and adversity and those who are on the frontline.

Thank you

Poorly* Sick

I’ve had the** cold all week, I thought I was successfully battling through but then after three nights of barely any sleep I was hit by a fever yesterday. Having a high temperature has made me feel unbelievably pathetic. I’ve taken obscene amounts of paracetamol to try to control it to no avail. O is away this weekend which is not helping the patheticness – means I have to make my own chicken soup and fetch my own hot water bottles.

And yes I’m blatantly fishing for sympathy.

(from here)

* According to O I don’t pronounce poorly correctly. I say pauly (which I think is the Yorkshire accent) where as O says poo-rly.
**Scottishism, the Scots seem to have ‘the’ cold rather than ‘a’ cold.

It has taken me a while to write this post. (This is not about anything that has ever happened to me).

My friend Sarah* is the oldest of three sisters, she comes from a loving family and has what most people would call a normal happy upbringing. She is a strong, independent and courageous woman as is her younger sister. However her youngest sister Nicola for some reason has always been troubled. She was badly bullied at High School and left home at 16 claiming to have been kicked out (not true). She has never gone back to her parent’s home and moved in with her older boyfriend, she is now 19.


When we got off the plane in London last week I received a text message from Sarah to say that Nicola had been beaten unconscious by her boyfriend. It made me feel sick. But I knew that this wasn’t the first time he had beaten her. Sarah has agonised about how to get through to Nicola.


She told me about a conversation they’d had when she begged Nicola to leave and asked why she stayed. Nicola’s response – “I love him and it happens in all relationships doesn’t it. I mean can you seriously tell me that Chris (Sarah’s boyfriend) has never raised his hand to you?”


Nicola is lucky to the extent that her friends had been in the house earlier and had seen that things were not going well. When Nicola’s boyfriend kicked them out of the house they called the police. Nicola came round to the police light being shined in her eyes. He spent the weekend in the cells and was up in court first thing on the Monday morning. Sarah hopes that this will be the wake up call that Nicola means to get away and stay away – even though Nicola is stubbornly independent and after being discharged from hospital she insisted on going back to the flat that they shared, as it is her home. The system however seems to be mixed up. Firstly the police called Nicola and asked that she bring fresh clothes and belongings for his court appearance. This just seems ridiculous to me, of all the people to call, his victim? Secondly he has been released on bail because he pleaded not guilty – I don’t know the legal system and I’m coming at this from a purely emotional stance. But a man beats a young woman unconscious and he is allowed to walk free from jail after two days because he says he didn’t do it. Sarah has learned from their lawyer that this is a legal loophole at the main hearing he will probably plead guilty for a reduced sentence.


It makes me angry that a young woman believes that being hit is part of a loving relationship. It makes me angry that the legal system doesn’t seem to be able to protect her. It makes me angry that there is nothing I can do to help. It makes me angry that I can’t make him feel as scared and powerless as he has her. It makes me appreciate the loving, supportive relationship that I have with O. It makes me appreciate the fact that, to my knowledge, my Mum, my sisters and my friends have never been victims of domestic violence. It makes me grateful for the shelters and women that support victims of domestic violence.

* I’ve made the names up but the story and emotions are real

Blog Award

Thank you to the lovely Rebecca for this award.

10 things about me - physically

1. I have very thick curly brown hair. From when I was born to approx 6 year old I had blonde curls (I remember the dinner ladies at school calling me Goldilocks), from the age of 6 to 10 I had mousy brown, straight with a kink hair. When I was 10 I had my hair permed (it was the fashion). The perm never went away and I’ve had curly hair ever since, I’m just about coming to terms with the fact that I was pre-destined to have curly hair and it wasn’t the perm’s fault.

2. I dislike my curly hair but O loves it. I came home having had my hair straightened at the hair dressers, he saw me with straight hair for the first time and freaked out. He refused to look at me because I looked so different.

3. I have dark blue eyes. O has incredibly piercing pale blue eyes (they make me swoon).

4. I have my Dad’s nose which handily comes with a shelf for my glasses to sit on! (If I were to ever have plastic surgery it’d be a nose job).

5. I have large hands. I should be good at the piano however having tried to learn for many years when I was younger I just don’t have any musical talent.

6. I have deceptively large tatty bojangles that I don’t like showing off. (Love Russell Howard)

7. I have a long torso. I discovered this while lining up for school photos. We had to line up in height order and then when we sat down I had to get moved as I was taller when sat than those next to me.

8. I had my belly button pierced when I was 18.

9. My skin is a very pale blue colour. I don’t tan. The only time I have ever tanned, to the extent that you would notice (rather than just comparing the white bits) was when I spent 3 weeks in Italy after 1 week on a water sports holiday in France. Seriously 4 weeks in the sun and I managed a vague tan.

10. My second and third toe on my right foot are slightly webbed (no it doesn’t help with swimming). Do you remember the socks that had individual toes? They were a total nightmare for me.

So I now have to pass this on to 10 other lovely blogs:


Anna and the Ring (welcome back)
Our day by Design
Some Vague Utopia
Seven Weddings (Gee’s getting married this month eeek! Congratulations)
Dreaming of an Aga
Adventures of a lady in training

Now I'm going to cheat because some of the blogs that I love most, that along with the above blogs I will always read first have already had this award (Thank you ladies).

Buhdoop
Conversation Pieces
You can’t take it with you
Daydreams in lace

Rain Rain Go Away

(from here)

My thoughts and sympathies are with those affected by the flooding in the North East of Scotland this weekend.

Seriously have we not had enough rain already?

Our wedding date

So last weekend before we left for London we contacted our venue and asked to reserve our date 11/09/2010 (remember the angst). They said they didn’t usually do that and required a deposit to secure the date. After I explained we were going to be away they promised that they would phone if anyone else expressed an interest in the date, essentially giving us first refusal and that we should come in on Sunday, when we were back, to pay the deposit. Having not heard anything and checked that all our family would be available we went to pay the deposit. Only to be told by a very shame faced manager that they’d given our date to someone else – another couple had turned up cash in hand and they went with them instead of phoning us. We were stunned (I felt physically sick) and very angry, but what were we to do. We love the venue we didn’t like any other venue the same way. So all we could do was ask what other dates were available. It is funny that in a week we’d become so attached to a date that was arbitrarily assigned to us because that was what the venue had available.


So it turns out we are now getting married at the end of July 2010! Argh so soon, scary soon, so much to arrange. Turns out that, that it would have been my paternal Nana and Granddad’s 65th wedding anniversary, it would have also been O’s Granddad’s birthday so it does have significance for us (#1 got married on my maternal Nana and Granddad’s wedding anniversary so I guess we are carrying on the tradition). Unfortunately also means that one of O’s best friends will not be able to attend. He is in the merchant navy and is only in the UK 4 months a year which unfortunately doesn’t cover July. Give us a week though I’m fairly sure we’ll be as attached to this date as we were the other date. We’ve checked that there is a registrar available to marry us, hopefully there will be a photographer, florist and band etc…..

For the wildly curious, I'd rather not reveal the exact location of our venue but I will describe it as best I can in an upcoming post!

Happy House Anniversary

(image from here via here)

We got the keys to our little home 3 years ago today!

I wish my home looked like this photo, including the balloons.

Over the last 3 years we have very slowly decorated each of the rooms in the flat (4 so far). I’ve seen more woodchip wallpaper than I’d ever care for – it was even under the bathroom tiles (who does that?).

We’ve just got the kitchen to go (nothing like saving the best till last).

Oh and the rooms that we have finished need a new coat of paint. The lining paper we put up instead of paying for a plasterer seems to have sucked up all the paint.

Last Week

So O and I spent last week in London at #1’s house looking after my niece (E) and nephew (B). We had a great time – I just hope the kids did too. What we got up to:


Chessington World of Adventures: This was O’s first visit to a theme-park and his first ever trip on a roller coaster (seriously). He loved it, although he was slightly bemused by the ratio of queuing for 40 mins to a ride that lasted for 30 seconds (hmm welcome to the joy of theme-parks). We were lucky that the weather was bright, clear and warm (having got used to Scotland’s autumn temperatures the warmth was quite a shock to the system). The warmth was especially appreciated after we got soaked on the water flume – had to be done though!


We went to the cinema, trying to please an 11 year old girl and a 12 year old boy turned out to be too much of a diplomatic struggle for me to deal with (I can negotiate a senior management meetings but these two are scary). So we saw two films practically back to back Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus and Up. Both films were really good although different to say the least. Spending the day in the dark eating sweets isn’t the best way to spend time with kids so we didn’t feel like very good baby sitters after this!


Science Museum: It was half term holidays for the schools so the place was packed out! O and I could have spent all day here wandering around the different exhibits, however the kids got bored after a few hours. It was interesting to see the differences in kids today and when we were young (how old does that make us sound). They were fascinated by all the interactive screens and things to play with whereas we found the interactive screens a bit dull and preferred to read the signs and actually look at the stuff in the glass boxes!


I tried on my first wedding dress!!! Argh, went with #1 and E to look in the department store bridal sections, we had assumed that department stores have bridal sections – turns out they don’t. We found a very busy packed shop in Kingston where we tried on three dresses, the first one was ok the other two were hideous on me. (Promise to post my thoughts on dresses later).