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!!!
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