Scottish Customs I

(available from here)

O borrowed this book from his parents last time we visited. I thought I'd share an extract with you;

Martin Martin
Western Isles, C. 1695


It was an ancient custom in the islands that a man should take a maid to his wife, and keep her the space of a year without marrying her; and if she pleased him all the while, he married her at the end of the year, and legitimated these children; but if he did not love her, he returned her to her parents, and her portion also; and if there happened to be any children, they were kept by the father: but this unreasonable custom was long brought into disuse.

Well O has had me as a trial wife for 7 years now so I reckon he is happy to keep me. We were both really surprised by this concept of the trial wife given the whole "you must not live in sin" thing.

Lottery Shoes

Moving on from lottery houses

Alice

Beatrice

Annalize

I first learnt about Emmy Shoes from this post on Love My Dress. Now if I could just win the lottery I'd have them all. Beautiful but with the cheapest pair being £260 I can't fit it into the budget. :(
The hunt for wedding shoes continues......

Bear with a sore head

(image from here)

O has tooth ache so he is not a happy bunny.

(or any other animal related cliche you can come up with)

The problem for O, and therefore me, is that he won't take painkillers. In fact he has never taken painkillers. Not a paracetamol or aspirin EVER!

I on the other hand always have painkillers in my hand bag.

I think he is a bit weird but I've said that before.

Our weekend

Our weekend started with some good news. When we were given our wedding date we weren't sure that one of O's best friends would be able to attend. However we learnt at the weekend that he is able to attend which we are really pleased about.

Other than that our weekend looked like this:

(image from here)

We went to Edinburgh so that O could look for a jacket to go with his kilt. I was a little put out that I had to go with him as he never came dress shopping with me but apparently it is different and I should stop moaning.

(image from here)

We went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. I think I can cope without films in 3D, 2D is enough for me as my head was starting to hurt by the end of it. Our general opinion of the film was that it was very good however not great and did not really live up to the hype which I think maybe the problem for more and more of Tim Burton's films.

(image from here)

Sunday we drove north and east to see friends and headed to Broughty Ferry for some ice-cream.

All in all a very pleasant couple of days.

I'm lost

You know I swear I used to have a personality. I just wish I could find the damn thing again. I used to be able to go for dinner with friends and have things to talk about other than the wedding. I can't for the life of me remember what those things were.

Last night I did the "what are you thinking about" to O. He was thinking about one of his friends but he added "don't worry you'll be glad to know I got here through a thought about the wedding" - as if I would be annoyed with him for not thinking about the wedding constantly. Ugh I don't want to be that girl.

I want my personality back - if you see it please let me know, reward offered.

Happy Anniversary Mum & Dad

(source via here)

Today is my parent's 43rd wedding anniversary - apparently the traditional gift is travel. Quite apt as they are currently enjoying a trip of a life time to South Africa.

I need to get a move on

At the moment I’m feeling very lazy.

Ever since I was told by the physio that there wasn’t anything which would improve my back I’ve done less and less. Even though I know that my back feels better when I do exercise and that to build the muscles in my back to give me any kind of hope of feeling better I need to keep moving.

Of course I’ve had excuses, first I had flu, then it was Christmas, then work got crazy busy and then I had a cold. Now I seem to spend most of my lunch hour attached to my computer looking for wedding ideas and contacting suppliers. The swimming pool I use closes for swimming lessons at 5pm so I have to go home after work and then go out again to swim in the evenings – and that just isn’t going to happen. Plus I spend my evenings doing more wedding stuff or watching the TV. Excuses, excuses, excuses.

I’d like to think that writing this post might be the motivation I need to start moving. I’d like to think the fact that I’ve put appointments in my work calendar for every lunch time will be encouraging. I’d like to think the thought of my lovely readers shouting at me for being lazy would motivate me. But come on if the thought that I might not be able to stand and dance for my entire wedding day doesn’t motivate me – although it does terrify me and make me want to weep – then what hope have I got? But I am determined to try my best and today I managed to drag myself away from all your lovely blog posts that I need to catch up on and swim so hopefully this is a new start…..

Why is it that doing the best for yourself is so difficult? Or do I just have so little will power?

Happy Mother’s Day

I feel about Mother’s Day a little bit like how I feel about Valentine’s Day. I love my Mum every single day and tell her how much I appreciate her unconditional love and support as often as possible. I do not need a specific calendar date to remind me of these things.

This year my parents are in South Africa ski-ing (spending kids inheritance) and #2 who is clearly the most thoughtful sister has arranged for the hotel to present her with a cake wishing her a Happy Mother’s Day. I thought I was being quite organised getting a card to her before they jetted off.

So away and appreciate your Mums.

(image from here)

It’s your birthday, we’re going to party like it’s your birthday.

(source)

Happy birthday O – today

Happy birthday #2’s boyfriend – tomorrow

Happy birthday #1’s husband – next Friday

Apparently we sisters have something for Pisceans.

Do me a favour

Wellies and Vogue asked what we were doing about favours. Well we haven’t fully decided yet but we have had a few ideas. First I wanted to give everyone tiny pots of herbs. The herbs could add to the floral decorations therefore reducing costs. But then I started worrying that we’d get soil all over the place and people might just leave them - as they wouldn't know how to transport them.

(image from here)

Then we moved on to watering cans or pails in which we could put a piece of oasis and a flower – again adding to the centre pieces but what do you do with a mini watering can after the wedding? Have still not completely gone off this idea.

(image from here)

Now we are thinking about packets of seeds for our guests perhaps in pails

(image from here)

Then I read Peonies and Polaroid’s post about her tags and it all started coming together in my head. We could have our guest’s names on one side and then instructions for the seeds/plant on the other side.

So we have finalised the place names we just need to sort out what the actual favour is going to be.

It is all my fault

This marriage malarkey is all my fault. When O and I had been going out for a little while the concept of marriage raised it’s head. At the time O told me he didn’t understand the point of marriage and didn't want to get married. Meh! we hadn’t really been together that long so I didn’t really think about it too much. I didn’t know my own thoughts about marriage so why make an issue out of a non-issue.

As the years ticked by the inevitable jokes started about how long we’d been together and when the marriage bells were going to chime. O was still in the “not a chance” camp and I was starting to be in the “really? not a chance? that’s kind of a shame I think I’d kind of like to get married, but its not a big deal” camp. O was very reassuring that he wanted to be with me forever he just didn’t need a bit of paper to confirm that. He listened to my concerns and conceded that if I wanted to get married (to the point of I reeeaaaallllly wanted to get married) then we could consider it more. It never felt like too much of an issue as I knew I wanted to be with him and I couldn’t put my finger on why I wanted a certificate to confirm that. I wasn’t going to end the relationship because it, I’d got this far with my eyes open and really, I love this boy why end a relationship because of that.

In the middle of all of this it started……………….

All of our friends started getting engaged – it started with my female friends (I’m sure there is something funny in there about pushy females). There was a point when all of my female friends (to be fair I don’t actually have that many friends) were engaged except one who had just got divorced and me! At that point I reeeeaaaaalllllyyy didn’t want to be engaged, I didn’t want to feel like we were jumping on the bandwagon, just because everyone else we knew was getting married didn’t mean we needed to. Lots of engagement announcements are inevitably followed by a lots of weddings – 6 in the one year and I was bridesmaid at 2. They sort of sickened me to the whole experience, plus seeing friends turn from normal sane individuals to raving lunatics on beta-blockers was not an appealing option. (seriously I kid you not)

O and I kept talking about marriage, what it might mean and why we might do it. I had by this time come to the conclusion that I reeeaaaaalllly wanted to get married, and for some reason I wanted to get married before we had children*.

To fit in with our 5 year plan** we had to get married fairly soon so I kind of knew the proposal was coming soon (still it was a lovely amazing surprise).

So you see it is all my fault, although O now insists that he very much wants to get married and believe me there have been many times when I have begged to call the whole thing off. If I’d just listened to O in the first place we wouldn’t be having this wedding and our relationship would be carrying on as always.

*I really can not explain this, it is just a deep rooted belief, I think deeply rooted in my own insecurity.
**are we the only ones that have one of these? Does anyone else’s seem to continue to be 5 year plans even though time passes – the 5 years never comes to an end or get any shorter

Favourite Friday Things

This is a bit of a cheat of a post as it is just pictures but I wanted to share with you one of my favourite Friday things. Every Friday on the BBC Scotland website they publish pictures taken that week by members of the public. Here are some of my favourites from this week:

Hope you all have fun plans for the weekend.

7 year stint

(source)

This day 7 years ago a shy girl and a very shy boy went shopping for records – yes it was only 7 years ago, O had found an old record player and wanted something to play on it. I can’t actually remember whether we bought any records. I do remember he bought me sandwich for my lunch which we went back to his student room to eat. In that freezing cold room a shy girl and a very shy boy shared their first kiss.

7 years later I’m in London on a course for work – boo.

Girls vs. Boys

When O and I were down south looking after my niece and nephew we played a girls vs. boys game. In teams you are asked to name 10 stereotypical things about the other sex while an egg timer runs. For example, name 10 things that a woman might carry in her hand-bag. Name 10 male film villains. Name 10 household chores. Name 10 things men do at the weekend.

The boys picked a card so my niece and I needed to answer: Name 10 jobs for men. I start rattling through all the careers I can think of:

Doctor; Accountant; Builder; paramedic etc. etc.

Then coincidentally the boys had to answer basically the same question: Name 10 jobs for women. So O basically repeats the list I have rattled off. He got to Doctor when my 11 year old niece pipes up with, don’t be silly girls can’t be doctors they’re nurses, doctor is a boys job. O and I looked at each other in horror (we were already not impressed with the game). We declared the game over and had a sit down with my wonderful niece informing her that girls can do anything they put their mind to; they can be doctors or astronauts etc. And vice versa boys can be nurses or stay at home parents etc.

This incident and other posts that have been flying around recently about the concept of wife (here, here) have got me thinking about the idea of female vs. male roles. Or in other words how spoilt I am. O works fewer hours per week than I do and as a result he is in the house more than me and so ends up doing more housework. He refuses to clean the bathroom but apart from that I’m spoilt rotten. He is also a much better cook than me and so does all the cooking. Which is why he continued to make the food while I took photos of potatoes. I do the admin for the house; I phone plumbers, get insurance quotes and make sure the bills are paid on time and I clean the bathroom.

(we've pretty much reversed the stereotypical gender roles)