Half a week to go (eek)!

On Monday I am still distraught about my hair.  My boss, Anne-Louise, went to Toni & Guy on Friday for her own appointment and tackled them about my horrible hair.  I am to phone Liz on Monday morning to see what she can do.  I phone at 10.00am (no, I’m not that restrained, I had a dental appointment!).  The receptionist says ‘bear with me’ and disappears, coming back on the line a little while later to say that Liz is ‘busy with a customer’ and can she phone me back. I leave my number.  At 12 she hasn’t phoned so I phone again and the process is repeated, except this time I’m told she’s very busy and won’t be able to fit in a phone call to me until about 4pm….  Great customer service or what?  So I take a long lunch and, after returning the hire tin for the top tier which we had borrowed (west of Cardiff) I go to another salon where one of the girls at work gets her excellent highlights done (east of Cardiff).  Thank goodness for little Smart cars that you can park anywhere…. I have a chat with a girl called Helen who agrees it’s horrible but is worried that any more colouring will cause it all to break off.  She gets a second opinion and they agree that they can thread more highlights through the worst bits and then give me a golden toner to make the whole thing more ‘golden’ than ‘rust’.  This Sounds Promising.

On Tuesday I return and they look after me very well – there’s a glass of wine, a cooling gel eye mask and an Indian head massage.  Very relaxing.  And at the end of it, I’m an acceptable blonde again.  I am SO relieved. She did ask ‘why did you go to a new salon just two weeks before your wedding?’ and then agreed I’d had rotten luck when she’d heard the reason…  Helen is now My New Hairdresser.

When I go to work on Wednesday everyone says I look like me again, rather than ‘Sarah with dark hair’ and I am hugely relieved.  I know it’s only hair, but it was HORRIBLE…  We don’t have anything weddingy we have to do on Tuesday evening, so I find myself making a chocolate cake to take into work, and Guy makes more chutney…  Seems neither of us can remember how to not do things for an evening!  I also write to Toni & Guy asking for my money back for the rubbish colour.  It’s £60 and that’s about 4 bottles of champagne, so keep your fingers crossed!

On Wednesday we go to IKEA for bits and bobs and then realise we don’t actually have that much to get.  But we eat there and it’s another night not doing anything weddingy!

On Thursday we make the chocolate cake for the middle tier… looking good!  We also work on the photo board (photos of me and Guy through our lives, looking remarkably similar – uncanny, really).  Some need scanning and re-sizing, and we need captions for all of the pairs of photos… hilarious looking through the old albums!  To give you an idea, this is both of us achieving the same hairstyle in 1978…

On Friday we marzipan the middle tier and make an enormous list of all the food we are serving on both Friday and Saturday so that we don’t forget to put anything out.  We’ve done that before!  Next we need to convert it into an enormous last minute shopping list…  I am absolutely knackered – I think it was all the ‘brown hair’ stress that did it (although going in to work at 7.30 for two days to paint the meeting room was probably unnecessary but I wasn’t sleeping and thought it was A Useful Thing To Do) so I head to bed very early and try to unwind…  I sleep for nearly 12 hours, so I guess I have unwound.

On Saturday, after I eventually wake up, we put another collar of marzipan on the middle tier (we find that two layers works best on sponge cakes) and then ice it with the green icing.  Almost a wedding cake!  We also finalise the photo board, check the second string of lights, buy disposable cameras for the big party and write ourselves Lists of Things To Do for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday…  It’s a glorious sunny day so I also top up the tan and we have a lovely dunk in the pool too…  unwinding nicely!

On Sunday we FINISH the wedding cake.  It’s not perfect if you really stare at it, but it’s very ‘us’ and we’re hugely pleased with it.  It’s a lousy photo because it’s indoors but the thing weighs a ton and we weren’t risking carrying it outside unnecessarily!

Guy and I are keeping with one tradition and not seeing each other before the ceremony so I’ll have to lug it outside to the marquee on Friday morning so that all our guests can see it while they eat their lunch.  We have booked Simon (Karen’s son) to sit in the marquee while we’re off getting married and make sure the squirrels don’t eat it….

We also make sure that the two cartoons fit the gate (they do) and … well, that’s about it.  We’re pretty ready, really!

Weight: Who knows?  With all the scaffolding the dress now fits, and that’s what matters.  However, it does mean that I won’t be having one of those ‘showing off the lacy underwear’ photographs…. What with the major construction work on the top half and the Bridget Jones knickers on the bottom half, it’s not something to be viewed by ANYONE!

Bruises: Cracker on my right knee where I clobbered a bistro table when my bosses took me out for a drink last Thursday.  Since it’s hot and I’m wearing shorts, Guy has seen it, and I’ve managed to convince him it’s got to go by Friday or it’s going to be on show.  Poor chap – he now thinks the dress is red, spotted, shows off cleavage (what cleavage?) and above my knees….

Hair:   Blonde again!  Phew, phew and PHEW.

Nails:  I am still managing to hang on to the broken one, thanks to Boots Superglue.  I have had it professionally mended twice, and both times it lasted less than 48 hours.  So now I mend it myself on an almost daily basis.  The rest of them are looking lovely, but there are still two marquees to put up…

Cake:  It’s finished!  It’s a little, er, wonky in places and I don’t think we’ll be taking it up professionally, but as it’s cost us about £80 instead of £600+ and we’ve had huge fun making it and it’s completely original, we’ve VERY happy with it!  However, we did decide not to use the two cats, black dog, melodeons, guitars and power tools that we had made to go round the bottom.  They’ll come in very handy when we are making a cake for someone with the same interests as us…

Roses:  There might be two I can use, otherwise zippo.  But it was fun trying, and I’ve got three new rose bushes!

Wrinkles: Plenty of wrinkles, and the Eyessential hasn’t yet appeared on Ebay because I couldn’t get the listing thingy to work… but I will do it eventually.  Not before the wedding though!

Unbridal moment of the week: Washing out dustbins.  We’ll need them for bottles, cans and rubbish at the weekend – there’s going to be a whole bin/recycling area going on.  Nice job!

Plan for the week: Test new lawnmowers tomorrow (mine broke last week – timing, eh?), clean house, clean cars, put up marquees, collect flowers, collect ordered food, arrange flowers, do last minute food shopping, make salads, cook beef, slice beef and hams, do nails again, get married.  Easy peasy or what?

And because you asked:

Something Old: My pearl earrings.  Only from Argos years ago, but they’re exactly the right size.  I am now living in fear of dropping one of them down the sink and having to hurtle into Argos in the full gear on Friday morning…  maybe I won’t wear them this week!

Something New: My shoes!  I have been longing to wear them since I got them, and I absolutely haven’t.  I guess the ‘boobs in a box’ are new too, but there’s not so many people I can tell about them!

Something Borrowed: Pearls from Jenny (Karen’s daughter) in my tiara.  She had an old string that needs re-stringing, so I have borrowed some for my tiara (ok, headband) and will have them re-strung for her afterwards…

Something Blue: I didn’t really want any blue, but it’s tradition and all that, so I am sewing one tiny blue glass bead onto the dress.  I went to Karen’s one evening in about February and we raided her bead box and found the most perfect little bead.  Which we then promptly dropped on the carpet…  We never did find it again, so I now have the second most perfect little bead.  I haven’t actually sewn it on yet… maybe I’ll do it Thursday evening when I’m restless!

And that’s about it!  At some stage I guess there will be a ‘how it all went and some photos’ diary entry, but it won’t necessarily be next Sunday/Monday!  Apart from the wedding on Friday and the party on Saturday, we’re doing brunch on Sunday for anybody who’s still standing….  I think by Sunday evening we might just be sitting in a heap!

1.5 weeks to go

We've decided to have the houses valued... we have no intention of moving, but I bumped into the local mercenary estate agent recently and he had heard we were getting married. Making the rather obvious leap from 'getting married' to 'living in the same house' he offered to value the houses. I swear he had £ signs in front of his eyes... Anyway, it seemed a shame to turn him down, and it's always nice to know what your house is worth... so he's coming on Wednesday! So my first job after work on Monday is to repaint the bit of wall next to Guy's front door where Blunkett sticks her paws - it's a really grotty colour, and doesn't take long to cheer up at all.

Then it's home again to cut more of the long grass down - it's hiding the beautiful tall yellow wild flowers. It looks lovely when it's done.

It's only when I finish and stand back to admire my handiwork that it dawns on me that a marquee will be smack in front of that bit. So the flowers won't show for the wedding.  Hey ho.

I also housework, water, deadhead roses and generally tidy up - and all this on the hottest night of the year. But I do have the most glorious dunk in the pool afterwards - bliss!

On Tuesday we make the last four quiches (broccoli and stilton). That's 19 in the freezers now, and we're all quiched out. We're slightly demob happy and then I go whizzing off to see Anna to help me apply Velcro to the back of The Frock. She very kindly doesn't laugh at the scaffolding, and says The Frock looks lovely.... She works magic with pins and then feeds me as well - lovely!

The estate agent duly comes round on Wednesday. The last time he saw my house it was thoroughly overgrown, had no kitchen, was mostly painted blue and had a grey bathroom. It's now neat and tidy, the garden is under control and it has a swimming pool....  Actually the agent is HUGELY impressed by the pool – been thinking of putting one in for years etc etc. The valuation is fantastic - I have tripled my investment in 7 years!  Guy's cottage has more than doubled in value too – the agent tells us what percentage he charges and how good he is and it’s hard not to scream ‘WE’RE NOT SELLING’ but we manage…

On Thursday it’s Hair Day and I am SOOOO excited.  I have booked the afternoon off work to pamper myself, so I go to the party shop for more cutlery and paper tablecloth, the florist supplies shop for more ribbon to make bows and the cake supplies shop for marzipan, icing, boards and bits to finish the wedding cake,  I buy local red wine in town for the Friday do and I have my engagement ring polished.  And then it’s off to the hairdresser…   The cutting person says she’s going to take an inch off all over.  I say that’s too much.  She says ‘Trust me!’  The colouring person shows me the colour she will use.  I say it’s too dark.  She says ‘Trust me!’  I trust them and spend an agonising two and a half hours before discovering my hair is brown and short, just as I had feared.  I am VERY upset but say nothing as I just want to go home.  Well, you don’t, do you?  I had a nasty feeling it wasn’t going well….  So now instead of being golden and gentle on the day, my hair will be brown and spiky.  Here are the photos, bearing in mind the ‘before’ shot was taken with my horrible two tone hair and when I’d just woken up…

Before:

After:

Can you spot the difference between the two?  A hint: the ‘after’ hair is shorter, and £115 more expensive. Also note the tense set of the jaw in the ‘after’ picture…  Toni & Guy Cardiff: avoid like the plague.  I text Guy who walks down to comfort me.  He kindly says it looks thicker, but it is darker than he’s seen me with before.  We agree I’m meant to be blonde…  I take to drink.

On Friday night we make the top tier of the wedding cake – Madeira, and we also hunt through all the old photo albums to pick out photos of the two of us at comparable stages in our lives… hilarious!  Guy used to have HAIR.  He says he used to be able to tuck it under his arms.  Probably best I didn’t know him then!!

On Saturday morning we marzipan all three cakes we have so far – that’s the bottom tier fruit cake, the top tier Madeira cake and the Friday cutting cake.  We’re making the middle tier (chocolate cake) next weekend.  In the afternoon Guy’s playing at a folk festival in Chepstow so I go along with Blunkett to watch.  I meet lots of friends who, without exception, say ‘You’ve had your hair done!’  followed by ‘It’s darker!’  followed after a slight pause by ‘Oh but it’s nice really’.  I hate it more than ever.

On Sunday I buy hair colourant in Asda and get to work.  By the time I’m finished I have blonde streaks.  Better.  Still not what I wanted, and I’m still furious – I’m going to have to have it redone…  We also make cream ready to roll icing into pale green icing (4kg of it – it takes two of us together to knead it!) and we ice all three cakes.  It’s beginning to look like a wedding cake!!

We also watch the men’s tennis final on Sunday afternoon while making ribbon bows.  We hang them off beams in the kitchen… thank goodness it’s only for a week and a half!

Hair:   It’s brown and I hate it.  I’m going to have to have it recoloured by another horrible hairdresser.  I’m NOT going back to Toni & Guy as the girl there clearly doesn’t understand English – what part of ‘light brown with honey blonde highlights’ didn’t she get?  Hate it, hate it, hate it.

Nails:  I have had the smashed nail mended professionally with a fibreglass wrap.  Looks completely natural!  Done on Friday – lasts till Sunday.  Will have to get it repaired again tomorrow…

Cake:  Three cakes made, marzipanned and ICED!  Decorating them is next weekend’s job!  We’re VERY pleased with it (so far)…

Roses:  I doubt if any of them will actually be in flower a week on Friday, but it’s been fun trying!

Unbridal moment of the week:  The hair.  You know when you have a ‘bad hair day’?  Well, I’ve had 6 weeks of it being horrible, and now I’m actually wishing it was back where it was.  Yep, it’s that bad.

2.5 weeks to go

On Monday we visit Debbie to finalise the food for the Saturday wedding party – we’re aiming to cater for 200 and Debbie is doing almost all of it, apart from our 20 quiches!  She’s getting the hang of the quantities now – we’re working on ‘a mixing bowl’ of each salad for each tent.  Feels about right for us!  And the tiramisu is going to be ‘about this big’ which is nicely specific too…  Mum comes with us to look at Debbie’s garden to re-plan it.  We’ve bartered Debbie doing the catering for us doing her garden – we buy food and she cooks, she buys plants and we garden, everyone’s happy!

Guy has practice on Tuesday so I make the cake stand.  Or paint it, at any rate.  We didn’t think one of those glitzy silver stands would look quite right with our slightly funky cake, so we’re painting a circle of chipboard and we’ll raise it slightly off the table and fill the gap with remaining waistcoat fabric.  Yes, I know – sounds rubbish.  It’ll look lovely, trust me!

On Wednesday I have a serious go at the underwear for The Frock before we go to the cinema.  I finally manage to fill out The Frock by wearing two padded bras and some extra padding.  Only one problem – anyone hugging me is likely to bounce off to a range of about ten yards…  I think I may need to head for an underwear shop to find a serious padded bra and some chicken fillets…

We also have decided to have a night off from arrangements and go to the cinema for Guy’s birthday.  His birthday was four weeks ago, but we’ve been busy…  The plan is to go to the 9.45pm showing of X Men 3 (or whatever it’s called) and eat before at the restaurant near the cinema.  The plan works fine until we get to the restaurant at about 7.50 – the manager tells us none of her staff have arrived and we would have to wait over an hour to be seated.  We leave and head for a pub in the country.  Which we miss by taking a wrong turn… all the pubs we pass look a bit grim until we’ve driven nearly a full ten mile circle and finally stop.  This pub is busy too – there’s over an hour’s wait for food and by now it is 8.10…  We abandon the idea of trying to find a pub and head for the 24 hour Tesco instead – at least it has a café!  Which closed at 6pm.   In desperation we raid the shelves instead.  We buy bread, cheese, garlic marinaded olives, smoked salmon, ham, small vine tomatoes, cherries (dessert!) and wine.  Together with cheap wine glasses and little parasols on cocktail sticks to spear the olives with – well, it is a party!  We park at the far end of the car park in my little Smart and have a picnic!  It’s a fab evening – good company, excellent music on the stereo, eating al fresco (windows open) and spitting cherry stones straight onto the grass verge.  We play ‘car I-Spy’ (pick a colour and count cars in the car park – I won with 7 red against Guy’s 3 green) and stare back at the shoppers staring at us…  And later the film is excellent – good birthday all round!

On Thursday we hurtle off to Bristol to meet Caroline at Costco to see how fabulously cheap food can be.  The Grand Plan was always to visit the last day before the wedding but before we arrive we decide all we actually need is profiteroles and salad – long way to Bristol for just that!  We’ll buy the salad locally, and if we ask nicely Caroline can get the profiteroles for us nearer the time and bring them with her on the Friday for the Saturday.  Organised or what?  We get to Costco and find it is utterly brilliant – huge salads in bags, cream by the litre, fabulous cheeses and fruit, excellent wines – we join up and will definitely be visiting the day before the wedding for all the things we need…  See, we can be flexible and change things…  Guy’s photo on his membership card is ghastly, and mine is worse… they have the camera pointing too high so my face only just makes it into shot.  I look like a hobbit.

On Friday I whizz to M&S after work to have another crack at the underwear, and this time I get it sorted thanks to boobs in a box and a bra two cup sizes too big.  Looks fab and not a bit like Jordan really…  This, at last, makes the dress fit.  Phew!  Then I go to see Joy (Guy’s mum) to collect photo albums – we are doing a photo board of how similar Guy and I are and as we’re going through the albums it strikes me just how similar we are.  This Is Good.  Joy kindly feeds and waters me – it’s a nice girlie evening!

At the weekend (the hottest this year by far) we do nice easy jobs like making more quiches, cutting the long grass, repainting the garden walls and mowing grass…. But we do have the odd dunk in the pool to cool us off!

The Frock: It fits!  Well, it fits the new ‘me’, anyway!  All I have to do now is add Velcro to keep the scaffolding in place and turn the odd bit of droopy hem up at the front – I think it’s so you can stand still and look ‘draped’ but I just know I’m going to trip over it…

Hair:   It’s now too long, too two-toned and too out of control.  Hair cut and colour on Thursday – just in the nick of time!

Nails:  I broke one!  I think it was doing something pretty violent like … er … getting dressed.  I glued it back together and also managed to spectacularly glue two of my other fingers together….  Considered leaving them glued together but two hands stuck together is not good for a typist… It took a lot of prising apart and for a while I thought I was going to lose all the skin on each finger.

Roses:  Desert Island is now flowering – pretty little rose, yellowish when in bud, opens to a nice cream.  Again, absolutely no scent…  So, I’ve got one the right colour but no scent, one yellow not cream and no scent and one with good scent which is pink not cream.  Hmm…  If any of them are in flower for the wedding I shall use them, but the smell (which was the whole point of growing them) is not overwhelming!  Shame…

Wrinkles: I spent nearly TWO HOURS trying to list the Eyesential on Ebay and then gave up…. Anyone wanna buy it?

Unbridal moment of the week: Painting the floor of the outside loo.  Still, the good news is that I met Kevin The Teenage Toad for the first time this year – he’d got himself stuck (again).  It’s a long story!

Plan for the week: Haircut and making the madeira cake, probably some marzipanning oh my goodness, it’s getting CLOSE!!!

3.5 weeks to go

Monday:  We do what we should have done at the weekend when I was busy being a canoeing hen… and that means pressure cleaning the patio, steps and brick paths.  MUCKY JOB OR WHAT?  Yes, I know I’ve said that before, but it really is quite disgusting…

On Tuesday we go to the local designer outlet centre to find Guy a shirt for the wedding – and find three!  I love shopping with Guy – he finds it, tries it and buys it – none of that ‘let’s just look in the other shop’ business..  It’s the night of the England v Sweden game so the shops are really empty.  After the shops we go to the vineyard in Cowbridge and collect our wedding champagne!  We also try a white and a rosé which are delicious so we buy some of those too - we pack it all into my little Smart and it fits beautifully!

On Wednesday we go shopping again – to the supermarkets for ‘provisions’.  This is stuff for the big party on the Saturday that we can buy in advance – juice, pop, plonk, beer, lager, crisps, olives, peanuts, all that sort of stuff as well as the really exciting bits - loo roll, washing up liquid, kitchen towel, bin liners, cling film….  We feel Very Organised and my sitting room feels Very Full.

I also make Bridal Bear.  Not for me, but to chuck instead of a bouquet – I’m making my own bouquet and I am NOT chucking it away!  So I will throw Bridal Bear instead.

On Thursday we make four more quiches - two pepperoni and two bacon/egg/tomato. We're now getting organised at this and so we have time to sit and discuss the hiring of tables and chairs while the first two are cooking...

On Friday I go to the Registry Office in Cardiff to pay for the Registrar and give them details of the vows we'll be saying and what readings we want.  Except that we're not having any readings because we couldn't think of anything applicable other than an excerpt from the Endless Pools Handbook....   I pay the money and wait for a receipt.  Then the door opens and somebody says 'can we have a word?' swiftly followed as I go in to the office by 'there seems to be a problem'.  A zillion things rush through my head - is Guy married already?  An illegal immigrant?  Am I still married?  Are we too old?  Too ugly?  The lady explains that, according to their diary, our wedding ceremony has been CANCELLED by Castell Coch. WHAT?? ARE YOU KIDDING?? Apparently not... she says that she has been trying to phone them to find out what's going on but they won't answer...  She tries again while I stand with my mouth open, stunned. She gets through this time and they disappear to find their diary. After what seems like an eternity they come back - we're still in the book for 21st July, all ok.  Phew.  The registry office staff think that they must have had a cancellation for 21st July 2007 and put it in the wrong diary.  Oh well, that's ok then.  I'm sure my heart will start beating regularly again soon...

On Saturday we re-stain the boards for the chequerboard in the garden –there will, as at previous parties, be games in the garden on the Saturday night party.  We also mow the grass, re-seed some bald bits (over enthusiastic weed killing!) and blow rubbish off all the gravel.  We test the lights for the lane and measure the lane and also find time to visit the local fete where Blunkett should have entered ‘Most Beautiful Bitch’ but she refused point blank to go into the ring… Guy won a coconut and I fell off the bucking bull – I’d always wanted to have a go on one of those as I thought it would be easy after all my years of riding – I lasted 1 ½ minutes, strained all sorts of muscles and twisted my knee.  Shan’t be trying that in a hurry again then…

On Sunday we put the chequerboard back together – in the winter we lift the decking boards and it’s a bonfire site, and in the summer it goes back to being a chequerboard.

We also make four more quiches (butternut squash and pinenut) and make little icing bits for around the base of the wedding cake – there’s a black dog, two cats, power tools, instruments and plants…  we figure that about sums us up!  We reward our hard work by sitting down to watch England in the World Cup… and fall asleep.  Seems they won without our help though!

Weight: Not bothered!  Still haven’t worked on upholstering The Frock as the evenings were a bit packed, but maybe this week…

Bruises: The two cattle prod ones on my back are fading nicely!  Whole new bunch of scratches and bruises from re-doing the chequerboard.

Hair:   I actually like this two-tone hair.  How sad is that?  And how appalled will Toni & Guy be if I say I want to keep it two-tone?  Although it would look a lot better if the highlights didn’t start an inch away from my scalp…

Roses:  Commonwealth First is flowering too!  Beautiful flower, though I would dispute the ‘peach’ description.  Distinctly pink, frankly.  But the good news is that this one does have a lovely scent.  Not hugely strong, but if I keep my nose stuffed in my bouquet I should get the odd whiff…  However, the flower is HUGE and more like a cabbage.  Might have to be a larger bouquet then…

Unbridal moment of the week: At the risk of repeating myself – it’s the pressure cleaning.  Again.  Although covering my arms in ebony woodstain was a pretty good runner up…

Plan:  The Grand Plan is working well: On Monday this week we will see Debbie who is helping with the food who we should have seen last Wednesday but it got moved then on Tuesday I’ll be doing the things I would have done on Monday if we weren’t seeing Debbie and Guy has a practice and on Wednesday we would have made quiches but we did them today so we’re going to the cinema instead then on Thursday we’re seeing Caroline at a big wholesalers which should have been Wednesday but she got an invitation to a party.  Like I say, it’s working well…

4.5 weeks to go

On Tuesday I play with the heart shaped thing which will go on the outside loo door – in the past it’s been called a Pottering Shed but this time it’s going to be the ‘Honeymoon Suite’.  The heart has white fluffy stuff around the edge and looks really, er, weddingy.

On Thursday Guy comes round and we start on the quiches.  In our Grand Plan we’ve decided that we need to make four quiches on each Thursday until almost on top of the wedding and that will be enough.

This time we make two Three Cheese quiches, and two Tomato and Pepper.  We always have more veggie quiches as we seem to know a lot of vegetarians!

On Saturday Sarah and Vincent arrive for HP3 and Guy zooms off to collect his suit from the tailor.  Jo, Karen and Anna arrive too, and we’re all set.  Anna has brought goodie bags for each of us with sweeties, lip gloss, hand cream, water, half bottle of champagne each and a straw – and water pistols!  Mine also has a flower garland and a PINK garter…

Steve the taxi arrives and drives us in style to the canoe place, then we walk along the river bank to a field for our picnic.  And, boy, what a picnic!   The idea is that we’ve each brought something to share.  Except we’re all bought LOTS of somethings to share – it’s a fantastic spread including potato salad, chicken, ham, avocados, olives, strawberries, stilton, tomatoes, two kinds of bread, humus, mozarella, couscous, two kinds of pecan pie, blueberries, crisps, gin and tonic in a tin (thanks, Jo!) and Anna’s champagne…

I try different ways of wearing my garland…

Note the garter round the neck by the time I acquire the hat – it’s the ‘call girl’ look…

After all that food we’re ready for action.  Or not… the weather is absolutely stunning, the field is comfortable and we could just stretch out and have a snooze…

However, once we’ve filled up the water pistols and tried them on Anna for target practice, we’re ready to CANOE!

We leave most of the rest of our picnic (we’ve hardly made a dent in it) in the office, we’re kitted out with lifejackets and taken in a minibus up the river so that we can paddle back down again.  We carry the canoes to the river, climb in and then we’re off!  Jo and Sarah B have one canoe, and Anna, Karen and me are in the other – neither Jo nor I have done this before, so we decide it’s sensible to have one beginner in each canoe…  It’s FAB!  We have been told how to paddle, and how to steer and we get the hang of it quite quickly.  And we’re at least going in the right direction.

Here’s one of Sarah B and Jo paddling like fury.  Probably to escape our water pistols…

Karen, me and Anna in action.

There are frequent water pistol fights – our canoe has the advantage here as I’m in charge of refilling…  And, yes, we do collide with each other rather a lot…






Refilling:

And…. FIRE!

About half way down the river we’re aiming at a landing point and, whilst Jo and Sarah B elegantly negotiate round the flora in the middle of the river, Karen, Anna and I head straight through it.  We end up stranded, but it’s shallow, so we punt our way out.

What we haven’t realised is that the landing point takes you up a steep hill to a grassy area that is, basically, a grandstand…. So we sit and watch other people messing it up too...

The weather is absolutely brilliant – the water pistols are fantastic - being soaked is really refreshing.  Although Jo, who got the wettest, might not agree!

Apart from the glorious river, we see ducklings and dragonflies, buzzards and swans…. And magical scenery.  HUGE thanks to Anna for organising such a brilliant day out!

When we get home there’s just enough time for…. Another picnic!

Weight: I don’t care!  I’m slim and feel really well – that’ll do for me.  However, I do need to work on the scaffolding for under the frock to help fill it out a bit…

Bruises: Two corkers on my back from a bit on the canoe that rubbed.  Looks like I was struck with a cattle prod.  Which I wasn’t.

Hair:  Everyone says it looks fine, and it’s certainly thicker.  Horrible colour, but that will change on July 6th when I get it re-coloured by new salon who (hopefully) know what they’re doing.

Nails:  All that canoeing, and they’re all Still Intact!!  Woo Hoo!

Roses:  I’ve got a ROSE!  Well, two to be precise.  Glamis Castle (the one with ex-black spot and a chemical habit) has produced two stunning flowers this week.  And the scent?  Aaah, the scent.  Actually, not ‘aaah’ at all as there is Absolutely No Smell Whatsoever.  Zilch.  Which is a shame as that was The Whole Point of planting them…  Two very nearly roses on one of the others, so hopefully better smells by next week!

And finally, just to show what a fab time we had, and the fact that we all spent the day grinning, here’s the crowd:

Sarah B:

Jo:

Anna:

Karen:

And the very happy hen:

5.5 weeks to go

On Tuesday I decide to really test drive the Eyessential by wearing it to work for the day.  I follow the instructions and put it on clean, unmoisturised skin - it sets like concrete!  It certainly clears wrinkles, but then so would wallpaper paste…  Weird stuff, and my face feels really tight, but when I smile the wrinkles all reappear!  After 10 minutes it feels so weird I give in and take it off.  I guess that’s the end of that, then!

We finish the MDF ‘me’ by painting, varnishing and gluing.  It’s FAB!  One teensy snag – when I put ‘me’ next to ‘Guy’ I find I’ve used different paint colours for the skin and, whilst I am a pleasant slightly tanned flesh colour, ‘Guy’ now looks positively jaundiced

On Friday I get my bunting back from the Parish Hall Committee.  It’s all absolutely fine, completely clean and folded up neatly.  Phew.  They have a summer fete on 24th June, and I have to really bite my tongue so that I don’t say ‘why don’t you borrow it for that too?’

At the weekend Guy has a wedding gig near Cardigan and the client has offered us a cottage for the night – a weekend away!  Just to prove that we’re communicating like a proper married couple, he didn’t tell me the date (or I wasn’t listening), and I’ve arranged HP2 with my old flatmates (no, we’re not ‘old’ – how about ‘college’ flatmates instead?) in Bath.  I meet Jane, Heather and Ruth off their train and we go to Sally Lunn’s for coffee (ok, water in my case) and then to a fab restaurant called Fishworks for lunch – we sit on decking at the back under cooling awnings on what is probably the hottest day of the year so far – it’s beautiful, and we could be in the Mediterranean!

We have pink champagne and the girls buy me lunch – reminds me what lovely friends I have.  Heather, who flies the world with British Airways, has bought me a beautiful pearl encrusted compact for my wedding day – it is absolutely beautiful, and goes with The Frock perfectly!

After lunch we hit the shops – Heather even does Christmas shopping while I buy Guy a mug that looks like a Penguin paperback reproduction entitled ‘The Pursuit of Love’.  Somehow it seems more suitable than Murder At The Vicarage…  We ask some poor unsuspecting passer by to take our photo – from left to right it’s Ruth, me, Heather and Jane…

It’s a totally brilliant day, but goes all too quickly and the girls head off for their train and I start my drive - the roads are empty because of the football, so I belt down the motorway with my new Rolling Stones CD turned up full volume…

I find the wedding where the band are playing and it’s lovely – a beautiful house in rolling Pembrokeshire countryside, and they’ve done all the food themselves – so we have a good look and pinch a few of their ideas.  Fantastically relaxed wedding and everyone having a really good time – we hope ours is as much fun for everyone!

On Sunday we stop off at the National Botanic Garden of Wales for lunch, and a spot of planning.

We write down all the jobs that we have to do, and all the days we have left, and then stick jobs against days.  Feel VERY organised afterwards…

We also decide that our guesstimate of 200 guests for the party is probably way too high, so we try our hardest to really estimate the number.  After much finger counting and memory searching we end up with far fewer.  193.  Yep, all that work and our ‘about 200’ guess is spot on.  Hey ho.

When we get home we make road signs to tell people where to park, and stencil little labels so we can let our guests know what’s in the food….  We cross two things off the ‘To Do’ list!!

Weight: I’ve LOST two pounds.  And I’ve been really, really trying to put weight on.   The good news is that I feel healthier than I have done in months, so I figure my body has settled at its natural weight, and I’ll just have to stick padding in the frock.  Will end up shaped like a Barbie doll.  And none of it will be real….

Bruises: Cracking one on my ankle.  Hosepipe (from watering garden) flicked round and clobbered me.  Don’t you just love hosepipes?

Hair:   On Saturday the girls said my hair looked fine, but it’s VERY two tone and with a weird dark root ‘halo’.  The good news is that it is really growing now…  Have never heard from the ex-hairdresser’s insurers.  I don’t think she told them…

Nails:  Beautiful but dangerously long.  I’m going to file them all down shorter so that I don’t break them – I don’t trust myself not to smash a couple!  I think it’s the buffing that’s making them so strong.

Roses:  They’re growing!  I have LOTS of buds and may have a rose by next week.  The one with black spot (which was sulking) is now growing faster than the others.  Obviously a chemical junkie…  And Desert Island has greenfly so is also going to become hooked on chemicals.

Wrinkles: Eyessential will soon appear on Ebay!

Tan line: Mostly I’ve kept out of the sun to avoid getting a worse tan line across my back, but on Friday I did hurtle home from work and throw myself front down on a lounger to make it a bit browner.  Izzy thought the lounger was an excellent idea and cuddled up next to me.  Very cute, but a bit HOT!

Unbridal moment of the week:  Cleaning my feet in the washbasin at Magor services en route from Bath to Cardigan.  Washing them was ok, but drying them on the roller towel presented somewhat more of a challenge.

Plan for the week: Plan for the week?  We’ve now got plans for EVERY week from here to the wedding!  And of course it will all go to plan…

6.5 weeks to go

Surprisingly unweddingy start to the week but busy as mum had a birthday and Guy had a birthday…  The only thing we do is to pot up the painted pots with busy lizzies – they’re going to be great if the slugs don’t get them first.

I go to M&S and buy T shirts for HP3 (Hen Party 3) which is in a few weeks time and involves canoes.  HP2 is next week in Bath, and HP1 is Friday of this week.  Alex from work is also getting married, a month before us, so she and I have a joint hen party in a restaurant in town on the STRICT proviso that no L plates, veils or fluffy pink handcuffs make an appearance!  There are 18 of us from the office which is lovely… everyone looks very glam!  We have an excellent meal and Pam, one of the secretaries in my office, sprinkles confetti in Alex’s hair, and in mine too – Alex’s looks really cute in her curly hair, and mine sits in a lump on my parting….

Guy is playing in town on the same night, so I walk across town to find the gig – it’s above a very swanky clothes shop and, in fact, it’s INSIDE the very swanky clothes shop.  You know the sort of place – white walls, clothes sparsely arranged  and the decimal points in the wrong places on the prices!

On Saturday morning we whiz up to Treorchy to see the tailor who has almost finished Guy’s wedding outfit – it’s FAB!  The waistcoat with the sari shop silk is fabulous, and the jacket fits beautifully…. Trousis need adjusting as they are a bit on the snug side…  Maybe Guy is putting on weight as I’m losing it!

Then we hurtle home as Gareth and Nic are coming to lunch – Gareth is a buddy who does printing, so he’s going to print the HP3 T shirts for us, and also put ‘Just Married’ graphics on my Smart when we’re getting married…. We’ve given him a pretty free rein with what he does - I just hope we like it…!  It’s a beautiful day so after lunch we play croquet on the grass (which is a bit too long to be called a lawn)….  Well, if it’s good enough for John Prescott….

The only trouble is that because it’s so warm and sunny I am wearing a vest top thingy and by the evening I find I have half a brown back and half a paler back.  And the join is smack in the middle of where my low back dress is going to go.  Mmm, nice look!  On Sunday I wear a halterneck bikini top and tell Guy that I don’t want a white stripe on my FRONT….  He now believes (because I’ve told him) that my wedding outfit is red, spotty, not a dress and low cut at the front.  Tee Hee!

On Sunday we cut me out in MDF and paint me.  I am in bits, so can be arranged with my wellies over my head.  Which is interesting, and makes me look like a contortionist.

We wash the gate where the cartoons are going to hang, and half the flaking paint falls off, so we end up sanding it down and undercoating it….

We also saw down a fallen tree in the wood and then chain saw it into new draughts for the chequer board in the garden for the party and then we actually sit in the garden in the sunshine – first time we’ve stopped for ages, and it’s utter bliss!  Makes me realise that all this rushing around isn’t really what’s important – it’s really just Me And Guy on the day.  And 17 guests.  And then 200 the next night…

Weight: I’ve no idea!  I’ve discovered, since ‘the copper incident’ that I simply can’t drink alcohol, so all those gin induced empty calories are a non-starter…  Have decided to leave dress till about 2 weeks before the wedding and then see what the fit is like!  Hopefully the drink thing is temporary…

Nails:  Completely smashed right thumb nail!  I suppose with all the jig sawing and chain sawing and gardening it was inevitable.  However, it is a bit galling that actually I did it on a tupperware container….

Roses:  Desert Island and Commonwealth Gold are coming along very nicely, but Glamis Castle has got black spot!  I’ve launched serious chemical warfare and it’s improving daily.  Phew.

Bruises: Loads of bruises on legs, and a cracking set of scratches too.  This is what comes of tying your handsaw to your shorts belt in order to carry large tree trunks.  It cuts neat little grooves into your leg….  Interesting!

Wrinkles: Eyessential has arrived!  Weird stuff… we tried it on one of the chaps at work (only one eye) and it definitely smooths the skin.  Feels really weird though because it sets tight like concrete, so I need to try it out properly one day and see if I still feel like me!  It may yet appear on Ebay…

Unbridal moment of the week:  Sitting in a bikini cleaning the chain saw.  Probably not quite so unladylike as being able to strip a machine gun, but it comes close…

Snag of the week:  Discovering that the new building work at the bottom of the lane means the lane is going to be dug up.  That’s where my gas, electric, water and sewage pipes are.  Have to speak to foreman to make sure all of the above are working for 21st July.  And that the lane is NOT dug up at that time otherwise I have visions of 200 guests falling into trenches…