Not our first dance song 1

This isn't our first dance song but technically it is "our song". When we first started going out we spent a lot of time at the student union and this song was on ALL THE TIME!! We've decided that it isn't really appropriate for our first dance.

Do you have a song? Is it going to be your first dance?

I queued for Wimbledon 2010

I even have a sticker and a numb bum to prove it. I didn’t unfortunately get into the ground or to watch any live tennis.

This post is my lessons learnt:

• Arrive early, we arrived at 9:00 and were 8,700 in the queue, had we been half an hour or an hour earlier we would have probably gained access to the ground.
• Queuing is hard work, take something comfortable to sit on and plenty of food and drink - the burger vans were selling bottles of water for £1.50 and it only gets more expensive inside the grounds.
• The toilet facilities were actually very clean – a huge relief.
• The grounds open at about 10:30 and around 12:00 there is a big decampment and people are led closer to the grounds – they take you from this lovely grassy field where you have plenty of space to spread out, where the kids can play football and sit in the shade and make you stand on a plastic roadway which is about 3 metres wide for, potentially, 5 hours. There are some places to cop a squat but it is far from comfortable – why having something to sit on is important.
• Once the show courts have started play at 13:00 and people have taken their seats another wave of people are let in. If you don’t get in during this time you are in for a long wait as it then becomes one-in-one-out.
• The stewards are pretty good at estimating how long it might take you to get into the grounds and at crowd control – they’ve done this for many a year and can judge the queue. They also know what capacity allowed for that day, this varies from day to day depending how many corporate tickets or presales have been made.
• The overnight campers are hardcore! They were setting up camp from 10am.
• Queuing for Wimbledon is like a form of torture, you gamble with yourself – if we haven’t moved by 12:00 we’ll go home, we moved. If we haven’t moved by 14:00 we’ll go home, we moved. If we don’t move in the next 20 minutes we’ll go home. We did move but not far enough so we went home.

#2 and I joined the queue at 9am and needed to leave at 18:30 to meet our parents for dinner, we gave up at 14:30 it was looking unlikely that we wouldn’t get into the grounds until 17:00 giving us an hour and a half of tennis without any guarantee of getting onto a court. Next time we will know better.

Race for Life

Today is the ninth year that Mum, #1, #2 and I with our relevant hanger on-er-ers have come together in the summer for Race for Life. It is a female only race so the hanger-on-er-ers are left with the bags/coats/water and sometime *fingers crossed* suntan lotion.

#1 and #2 run the 5km while Mum and I walk as fast as we can. As much as possible we avoid reading with the heartbreaking messages* people write on their backs in memory of loved ones or stories of successes - crying makes walking difficult! The family tradition has grown and my niece has joined in for the last few years now she is old enough.

We take part to raise money for a very good cause, we take part to remember those who have lost the battle with cancer or those who are still struggling against it. We come together to celebrate our family of women and to celebrate other women.

*I'm taking part for my cousin who is currently battling an incredibly rare form of cancer, he was released from hospital this week after another round of treatment because the bastard came back again.

Tuesday evening

*

O – “You went out so I had to make the tea, I shouldn’t have to clear up as well”**

Me – “I went out to the Family Planning Clinic*** that isn’t my idea of FUN. I had a 2 hour wait so I can pump myself full of hormones on a daily basis so that we don’t make babies. You try it!!”

*hormonal breakdown
**he makes the tea and clears up everyday. I’m not sure why on Tuesday it all got too much for him. I put the bins out which is clearly a boy job!
***I don’t mind waiting but they had two new incompetents on the reception desk and not enough nurses and the waiting room was absolutely roasting hot.

On reflection I may have been a little unreasonable.

Just finished reading

(image from here)

Bloggers you have to read this book, if you enjoy crime “who dunnit” novels. I’ll try not to spoil the story but the plot revolves around a blog writer, the subject of a blogpost and the comments that the post sparks – a warning not to give too much away on the internet and to watch what you say. So if you want to freak yourself about your anonymity in blogosphere this is the perfect book for you.


If you want more cultured book recommendations, please visit Stacy and see her “I just finished reading” series.

Dad's Day

(from here via here)

#1's Birthday

(image from here via here)

Hey big sis, I love you. I hope you have a great birthday.

Special Women 2

Not only do I have two Mums and a fantastic Mum-in-law, I also have an extra sister in my best friend who I'm going to call Cee. I’m not sure where she fits in the #1, #2 and #3 rankings as she is 17 days younger than me (a fact she likes to gloat about), however she is also the eldest of three sisters and often treats me like a younger sister. Cee is infinitely wise but a total klutz, the first words she uttered in my presence, on our third day at university, were ”I’ve just spent ages lost on a flight of stairs,” stairs go up, stairs go down, how do you get lost? - was my reaction. To be fair our halls of residence did have two flights of stairs per corridor and she had been on the wrong one so every time she came out at a floor it looked totally wrong – now I've known her for nearly 11 years that story is the tip of the iceberg of the scrapes she can get herself into.

Cee is the only real life person (apart from O) who knows about the blog, in fact I told her before I told him. Why? Well she has a blog too and was brave enough to tell me about it. If she ever gets back to writing on her blog – she hasn’t for over 2 years (nag) and if she gives me permission I will share it with you, she is hilarious. Why the massive break? Because she has spent the last two years studying for an MSc, she got married and her job got horrible.

Cee welcomed me into her family from the start. She supported and distracted me while I was horribly homesick and not very together. I hope, I supported and distracted her while some members of her family weren’t very together. I love her little sisters as if they were my own. Oh and her grandparents are ah-mazing! Although don’t get her Gran to pour you a drink or you could end up under the table there is nothing like a small measure when Gran Cee is around.

Having lived together for the majority of our university life we decided after graduation that we would go travelling to Canada together. We spent 2 months travelling from Vancouver to Montreal on a greyhound bus with a sly trip to Seattle and New York at either end because it was cheaper to fly in and out of the USA. We had some adventures, we met some characters, we sang to some bears (we were trying to scare them and if you could hear our singing voices you would know that we succeeded in terrifying all nearby living creatures). We had a glass of wine in a Fairmont hotel, we battled a hurricane in Kingston, we scared ourselves witless in Montreal and we had an amazing time!

For what feels like FOREVER she has been battling with this blessed MSc until earlier this month when she has discovered that she passed. I am so over the moon happy for her as I’m acutely aware of all the hard work she has put in. Acutely aware because it has meant that my bestest friend has not been at my beckon call, has had to cancel lunches/dinners so that she could study/cram for an exam and has been stressed to the nth degree. The cheek of it, do I sound suitably spoilt and ungrateful? Good because I’ve missed the heck out of her and can not wait to have her back.

Making it legal

(image from here via here)

Today we took our marriage notice forms to the registrar*.

There was confetti on the floor outside.

I grinned quite a bit.

*we happened to be helped by the registrar who will marry us. That was a bizarre feeling - meeting the woman who will marry us, eek.

Dress fitting

Eeek today is my first dress fitting - why am I nervous? 

I know that it doesn't need too much adjustment. The hem needs taking up and it is too big at the top. As the shop assistant said when I collected the dress "we needed to get you the bigger size to get it over your hips".

Oh thanks for that! I'm pretty confident that as a woman my hips are always going to be the biggest bit of me!

Anyway I'll let you know how I get on.


*Update
Of course it went absolutely fine. She was lovely. Said nice things about my dress and was full of very wise advice.
Oh and so reasonable in terms of cost, less than half what I had in the budget.