Spooky Nights

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Happy Halloween!

I'll be spending Halloween having a girly night with some of my best friends. 

Oh and trying to get used the change of the clocks which happened this morning. It means an extra hour in bed but also that we leave the house in the dark and come home in the dark - becoming vampires never seeing any daylight.

*Revision, I'm actually spending the night 

with snotty tissues in front of the tv*

Work

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This picture perfectly illustrates my attitude to my job for the last few weeks. 

I need to get out of this rut. 

Anyone got any tips/ideas how to get my motivation back?

This morning

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*Sound of O’s alarm buzzing*
O: *grunt*
*Pause*
O: huh?
Me: *turns over attempts to get head inside pillow*
O: huh? Am I supposed to be getting up at 5:51?
Me: huh? I don’t think so.
O: then why does the alarm think I should?
Me: I don’t care switch it off and go back to sleep.
*5:56 sound of O’s alarm buzzing*
O: huh?
Me: *SIGH*

Writing a list

Check out the other wonderful books from badbooks

Driving

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This weekend we are driving up North to spend time with O's family. I'm looking forward to homemade soups, baby cuddles, leaning on the rayburn to absorb as much heat as possible and listening to the rain and wind battering off the velux windows.

I'm also looking forward to the long drive with my husband where we get the chance in our little cocoon to talk about everything, anything and nothing. We'll sometimes listen to an audio book. We sometimes play car games - will there be more VWs or Fords passing us in the next 30 minutes? This only works when we go north (where there few motorways or dual carriageway) because it is hard and dangerous to play on the motorway. 


#2 and her boyfriend are terrible in the car together they just argue and get stressed. I don't really understand that and they weren't impressed with my suggested car games.

I'm looking forward to my alone time with my husband.

How do you cope with long car journeys?
Do you have any nice weekend plans?

Mini Moon 2

While we were driving back to Scotland from the Lake District, we had various thoughts about what we might want to do with the rest of our time off. O has less holiday allowance than me and it seemed a waste to spend the weekend and three days annual leave loafing about at home (not that there is anything wrong with loafing at home in fact I could be a professional). We also couldn’t afford to spend any more time at the Duck which is why the stay was short. We talked about heading up North to see his family, without the distraction of the wedding, so we could spend more time with our nephew who is growing and changing so rapidly. It turns out that people won’t allow you to hold babies while you are wearing a wedding dress they worry that they might puke on you – I was rather annoyed as I’d been looking forward to lots of baby cuddles. However when we got home we got some news from O’s family that meant that we wanted to be with them.

So Saturday morning it was back into the car and on the road up North. Our departure was slightly delayed by the fact that the DVDs with our professional photos on arrived just before we were about to leave so we HAD to stop and look at them. We had a lovely trip with lots of family time, even getting to see my parents who were on a tour of Scotland in their caravan. We took our nephew swimming (with his Mum and Dad) which was both lovely and terrifying. It is amazing to see his little limbs kicking about it the water but I was so scared that I might drop him or that he might swallow all the water, he was splashing everywhere. We were even given the privilege of baby sitting while his Mum and Dad went off for some couple time. At the time baby nephew hadn’t figured out how to crawl yet and moved around the floor doing seal flops. He was particularly determined in his mission to bang his head off the marble fireplace so it was a constant job to turn him round so he could seal flop off in a different direction.

We left on Tuesday afternoon, leaving my parents with O’s parents – a scary experience don’t really trust any of them to behave themselves without us acting as moderators. We spent Wednesday (my birthday) our final day of leave, after a long lie in, going to the different banks with our marriage certificate to get my name changed (living the high life).

Then it was back to reality and work.

Dreams of lace

(image 1, image 2, image 3, image 4)

The amazing, fantastic, wonderful Rebecca is getting married today. I can't put into words how excited I am for her and James.

Wishing you both a day and future full of happiness

Enjoy your honeymoon but come back quick and tell me all about it. 

I'm going to miss you!

I call upon these persons here present

I’ve been trying to compose this post in my head for about a week and it hasn’t gone well so we’ll see how it goes written down. I do have a point really so please be patient.

Wedding range in size from teeny tiny to grand swaths of people, however no matter what the size you need to have two people other than you and your partner to make the marriage legal. Someone has to witness the promises that you have made to each other.

In most traditional services the couple being wed stand with their backs to the guests. Bride on the left and groom on the right. The Bride’s friends and family then sit on the left and Groom’s friends and family are on the right (or vice versa if you are looking from the registrars point of view). This means that when the bride and groom turn to each other and when they are not staring lovingly into each other’s eyes and when the bride sneaks a nervous look behind her all she can see is the groom’s friends and family.

Now when we met with the registrar we had stated that we didn’t care where people sat. When I gave instructions to our usher (nephew) via #1 I again stated we don’t care where people sit let them sit anywhere. I do find that it is a bit of a popularity contest – the groom had more people on his side or the bride had more. However when I started walking down the aisle I noticed that we did indeed have a grooms side and a brides side.

We’d made ‘reserved’ signs to be placed on seats for Cee and her husband (there was a chance they might have been running late), the piper O's brother and my Dad. For some reason the reserved signs for Cee and her husband had been placed in the front two seats on O’s side (where his Mum and Dad really should have been sat). It was no great disaster and it meant that I had a friendly* face to look at as I made my small glimpses at all these people watching us publicly declare that we would love each other forever.

Are you still with me?

*Now friendly is really unfair to O’s side. I love his parent’s to pieces and it was lovely seeing them smile as they welcomed me into their family. I get on very well with his friends and seeing them helped me not to take things too seriously or get over emotional.

HOWEVER these are not MY people, I would have liked to see my friends and family – I want to know if my Mum cried (although perhaps we’d have both been in pieces). I’m sure there is some deep seated tradition about looking forward to the family you are joining and having your family behind you or some such nonsense.

But if you are still to be wed it is worth considering even planting one of your friendly faces within the groom’s side to pull funny faces at you (maybe it is just me).
If you have already been wed did you have a bride and a groom side and is it just me that thinks it is a bit unfair?

AND please have a word with your venue about how they lay out the seats (unless of course your seats are fixed). Our venue laid out rows of 3! Which is great for any single people but most of our guests were part of a couple and therefore had to split up and spread themselves out! An annoying little detail that there was nothing I could do about by the time I was at the top of the aisle.

Mini Moon 1

When we chose – were given – our July date we knew that we wouldn’t be going on honeymoon straightaway. O is a gardener and just couldn’t take a lot of time off in the height of the summer (ha! what summer?). I also knew that I take a long time to wind down after periods of stress. Plus O thought planning our honeymoon after the wedding would give me something to do and look forward to.

We were, however still determined to have a few days away and enjoy some luxury straight after the wedding. As is always the way we had so much choice of where to go it was very difficult to narrow down where to actually go. After lots of "I don’t mind", "I'll go anywhere" and "that looks ok" but no firm opinions given I was ready to tear my hair out. Thankfully around the time when I was really losing the plot Cee told me of a trip she was taking to the Lake District – more specifically to the Drunken Duck. She had a great stay and we thought it looked fab so to save having to look any further we decided on the Duck!

Tuesday after the wedding we threw stuff in the car and made our way South. Unfortunately we got stuck in a huge traffic jam because of a particularly nasty accident. By the time we got to the Lake District it was quite late in the afternoon. We stopped by at Castlerigg Stone Circle – but not for very long. Once we got to the Duck we were offered afternoon tea but chose against it not wanting to spoil our appetite. It is very important not to spoil your appetite because the food is AMAZING! So so delicious I could have eaten everything on the menu. You need to book a table well in advance because they were fully booked even during the week.

We were a little disappointed by our room it wasn’t huge – although the bed was. The problem being that the bed was huge because it was two beds pushed together and there was a tendency to fall down the gap in the middle.

Wednesday morning was a bit drizzly so we decided to go to the spa to which you get free access to. We enjoyed leisurely swims, time in the jacuzzi and a bake in the sauna and the steam room – I wasn’t brave enough to try the ice shower.  Once the weather had brightened up a bit we stopped in Ambleside to buy some lunch and headed to Coniston to hire a rowing boat – how romantic?! Until I turned into a complete wreck. I have no idea why or where the fear came from but I panicked that we were going to fall in the water, that all of our belongings were going to be ruined (camera, phones, car keys) and that we wouldn’t make it to shore. O being incredibly confident on the water thought this was hilarious and tried to show me how safe we were by rocking the boat. He stopped as soon as I burst into tears! I still don’t understand why I was such a wreck, I’m an ok swimmer and I'd have been able to swim to safety, there were lots of people out on the water so a passing boat would have helped. Once we were back on dry land I felt really bad because it should have been such a lovely jaunt out on the water with O playing the strong guy doing the rowing and I’d ruined it with my completely irrational hysterics. 

After I’d disgraced myself we headed back to the Duck for afternoon tea. We lazed about watching the tv and I had a long bath before dressing for dinner, there have been very few occasions in my life where I have felt the need to dress for dinner, that is of course unless I’m not already wearing clothes! We had another wonderful meal and fell asleep stuffed and a little fuzzy round the edges.

In planning our trip we'd had a look round to see what was on in the area and came across Ambleside Sports and that is where we headed on Thursday morning after checking out. I’ve never been to a Highland Games of anything like it and Ambleside Sports seemed to be the English equivalent. There was fell racing, grass track cycling, Cumberland wrestling (with costume competition) and hound trailing, which we'd never heard of. They scent a path using aniseed and then let a pack of hounds loose to follow the trail. The first hound back wins the race – this was the only event where there was bets being placed. I wasn't aware that you were allowed to let packs of dogs loose in the countryside.

After a long day of fresh air and some sunshine we began the long journey across country to Leeds where we were had a free nights accommodation courtesy of my parent's house. Then on Friday morning we headed back up to Scotland. 

Details: Thank you Gifts

Thank you gifts were tough to decide on and I spent a long time trawling the internet. 

My Mum: We didn't give my Mum a gift the weekend of the wedding instead we promised to make her a photo album once we gathered the photos together. We have kept that promise and sent her a photobook made by BobBooks - which she seems to love.

My Dad: We got him a bottle of Macallan whisky - it is his favourite whisky and we hope he will enjoy it.

O's Mum and Dad: We bought them a bottle of brandy - sourced by my brother-in-law handy having a wine merchant in the family.

O's sister: For playing the fiddle while we signed the register and as a New House gift we bought her and her husband a Le Creuset pan.

O#s brother: For being our piper and for his New Home gift we bought him and his girlfriend a Le Creuset pan too.

Debenhams had a sale on Le Creuset at the time.

#1 and #2: We bought them jewellery from here

Niece: We bought her an initial necklace from here and a clothes hanger from here (please note that Anna warns that it takes 8 weeks and it really does.)

Nephew: We bought his scrabble cuff links in his initials - as he informed us he doesn't have any shirt that requires cuff links but hopefully once he is older he'll need them.

Cee: As a thank you for reading during our ceremony we bought her a notebook for her blog ideas (need to do a post on this soon).

Recaps: Married Day 1

After getting a few hours sleep – funny how it was completely different to the few hours sleep I had the night before – we woke and dressed for breakfast. I’d forgotten a sweater and O had forgotten his shoes (remember to pack for the next day too). Was quite tempted to put my dress back on but don’t think it’d have gone with the dragged back hair and clean face. We went down to the dining room for breakfast taking with us the thank-you gifts that we’d bought. We sat there for quite a while chatting with different family members drifting in and out as they came for breakfast or left to finish packing.

#1 and her family had to leave early to catch their flight and so the goodbyes began. After a while when everyone had at least started their breakfast we went back upstairs to start our own packing. The venue staff had gathered together a lot of the bits and pieces, table slates, table plan, left over order of services so that made things easier. All the vases of flowers had been placed in a back room so we invited guests to take as many of the flowers as they wanted and after taking plenty for ourselves left the rest at the venue for them to decorate their tables with during the week. If you are having flowers it is worth thinking about what to do with them afterwards – we didn’t.

Everyone was finally packed and putting bags into their cars so we said our final goodbyes and headed back to our flat. We’d let friends stay in our flat so caught up with them for a while. Finally it was just the two of us and we sat slightly dazed still surrounded by wedding stuff.