In which there is a wedding!

I spent this weekend enjoying the company of friends and family, in beautiful surroundings.

My oldest and best friend got married on Saturday, to a lovely bloke. I've know J for over 20 years, and her shiny new husband for nearly 10, and couldn't be happier that they they have now married.

I travelled up to Derbyshire on Friday - it was a lovely day, bright sunshine, getting nicer and nicer as I went north!

After arriving, and settling into my luxurious hotel room (in this beautiful hotel, originally built in 1652, and which has been an inn for at least 200 years), I met up with my friends, and J's parents, all of whom were staying in the hotel on the Friday night, and we spent the afternoon catching up, running errands, and all had dinner together.

On Saturday, I had some spare time while those in the wedding party were doing hair and nails and the like, so went for a walk around the village - it was not quite such a beautiful day as Friday, but the landscape is absolutely stunning (Chatsworth and Haddon Hall are both just up the road..)

And then of course the main event. I met up with other friends  at the wedding venue, (another very nice hotel).

Everything went smoothly - there was a ceremony, and photographs, and laughter, and food, and dancing, and laughter, and more food, and time with friends, and a very happy married couple.

It was a lot of fun.

On Sunday (Another gloriously sunny day) I drove to Manchester to see my Brother and his girlfriend, and catch up with them (and eat out at a superb tea room!) all of which was delightful.

More family stuff

I stayed in Devon for a couple of days after the wedding, hanging out with various family members, which was fun.

 Having poured with rain for the wedding, and on Saturday, the weather improved and Sunday turned out to be sunshiny, almost as if it were properly summer!

I took the opportunity to play more with my new camera, taking pictures of flowers and leaves and baby frogs. And then, of course, on Monday I had to come home (and face a disgruntled cat, who assures me he was starved and mistreated during my absence, although he seemed to be looking very well on it, so I suspect he may have been lying to me.) and on Tuesday it was back to work.

This could have been a bit of a come down, but happily my Aunt S, who lives in the frozen north, had decided to make good use of the fact she'd travelled south for the wedding, and she came to visit for a couple of days, en route to visit other friends over the bank holiday weekend. It's been fun having her here, and having someone to cook and eat with, after work, although as she wasn't here for the weekend, I couldn't go out and play with her!

On Friday, I found that my parents' Local Paper came out, (and that it has a website!) including a story about K's wedding and the ringing afterwards. Which was nice, although I think it's a pity they didn't use a group photo, as the entire band was made up of family members, which they seem to have overlooked..

In Which There is a Wedding

Proud Dad!

My sister, K, got married on Friday! The weather was atrocious, but everything else was fantastic.

K and C met through sailing, and decided on a nautical theme for their wedding, so the hall was decorated with signal flags, the tables were each named for a different type of yacht, the names for the places setting were boats (crewed by jelly babies) and the theme was blue and white.

And of  course, the cake was in keeping as well. (My mum, C's mum and I each made one tier of the cake, and my mum then made all of the blue icing sails (with strict instructions from the Groom to ensure that they are on the correct tack and sailing in the right direction!)

Almost everything was done by family, or by K and C themselves, so it felt really personal to them.

K was, of course, absolutely beautiful. The ceremony itself was in the village church - one of our aunts played the organ, C's daughter (12), my other sister, E, and I were bridesmaids and my brother R, and C's nephew J were the ushers. My parent's house is very close to the church, and, wearing anything other than a full length dress with a train, it is a 5 minutes walk. However, on this specific occasion it had been decided that a car would be more sensible, so we put some ribbon on my dad's car and he drove us down to the church, where we dodged the drizzle,  and then rearranged shoes and skirts in the church porch before heading up the aisle with suitable solemnity.

All went smoothly, and at the end of the service there was a very brief family ring (all of us learned how to ring, as children, and K decided it would be nice to have a short ring herself so 6 of us (K, me, my parents, C's daughter SmallC, and our cousin M) headed to the back of the church and rang the bells for about 5 minutes before handing over to the local ringers (several of whom have learnt to ring in the last 18 months or so, taught by my parents) rang while we had lots of photos taken.

We had to take the pictures inside the church as it was pouring with rain, but fortunately the plan was to have a fairly small number of pictures anyway. Equally fortunately, the village hall, where the reception was held, is next door to the church, so it wasn't difficult to get everyone there under relays of umbrellas, without too much trouble, and then, with the formal business of the day over, we were able to party!

All of the toasts/speeches were commendably brief - (I may have had a tear in my eye when my Dad gave his!, and the Best Man managed to be entertaining without embarrassing C too much) and after my Dad, C and the best man had all given their toasts, C's daughter, SmallC, also got up to speak, to say, basically, that not all step-mothers are evil, and that either K isn't a wicked step mother, or else she must be the best actress in the world, and hiding he wicked step-motherliness extremely well!) It was a lovely thing for her to do.

The reception ended with a live ceilidh band, so there was lots of dancing for all, (and of course, conversation and wedding cake) then about 2 hour after the reception finished, a group of us went (by invitation!)  to the hotel where K and C (and quite a lot of the guests) were staying, and spent the evening in the bar.

In a surreal finale to the day, it turned out that the owner / barman is something of an entertainer, who has taught himself to play a 'drum' accompaniment to George Formby's 'when I'm cleaning windows' using the bottles behind the bar as a drum kit... (there is a youtube video of him,  here..)

All in all, it was a wonderful day. K & C are a great couple, and the wedding was lovely. I'm really happy I was able to be a part of it.

Brand New Mr and Mrs

Family, and Fun Things

I arrived in deepest Devon on Tuesday night, to help prepare for my sister's wedding on Friday. The weather is pretty poor, with lots of rain, but other than that, things are good.

My sisters and their respective partners, plus my step-niece-to-be all arrived on Tuesday and by the time I got there, were all busily engaged in making origami flowers. This is the first time my (younger) sister's boyfriend has met us en masse, but he hasn't panicked and run away yet!

On Wednesday, the party was augmented by my brother and his girlfriend, so we now have a VERY full house (my parents are sleeping in their caravan at the bottom of the garden!)

As lots of both extended families live quite a distance away, several of them have come down early and are incorporating the wedding into a summer holiday, and on Wednesday morning my cousin S, with her husband and 2 children arrived at the house to see everyone, and then E and her partner, and I, joined them for a trip to the local zoo, which is very small, but fun, especially if you have the foresight to take a 3 year old child with you!

I also enjoyed playing with my new camera, to take pictures of some of the animals (and of course of the 3 and one year old cousins...)

In the evening we had the rehearsal for the wedding, and discussions about how and where to take pictures if, as seems likely, it pours with rain.

Today has been entirely taken up with preparations - the hall has been decorated (with a nautical theme) tables set up, (much consultation of the plan required) wine and soft drinks ferried to the hall, flowers collected, crockery and cutlery laid out, and many, many other things! My mum finished constructing the cake (which has delicate icing 'sails' all around it)

The ladies of the party had their nails done, in relays, and there was a last minute dash to pick up yje buttonholes, and then the evening was spent making the bouquets for the bride and bridesmaids.

It's been a long day, but I **think**  everything is in hand. (except of course the weather, which is out of our control. We have emergency umbrellas.

In Which There Are Hens

I may have mentioned one or twice that my sister is getting married soon - and this weekend just got was her hen party. Since getting while wearing L-Plates and a veil isn't really K's style, we went for the more sedate and civilised option, of going to a hotel with it's own spa for the weekend. Which was nice.

As well as several of K's friends, both my Mum and K's future mother-in-law came, as did one of C's sisters and her daughter,so it was an opportunity to get to know them better, too.

We went to the Isle of Wight, K's home. Most of the weekend was rather grey and rainy, but as we were mostly sitting in the hub tub and chatting, or sitting in the sauna and chatting, or having manicures or pedicures or facials or massages, so the weather really wasn't a major issue.

After doing the spa day, we did tease K a little over dinner - my sister E had set C a quiz, and K had to guess what answers he'd given (we judged that she got enough right to be able to go ahead and marry him!).We also brought various little bits and pieces to talk about how we knew her.. which was also fun - one friend, who went travelling with K, brought a world map with stories about some of the more interesting events of their travels, the friends who work with her had prepared a story, with visual aids, in the style of the ones they make for the (special needs) children they work with, about her wedding, and so on.

 On Sunday morning, those of us who didn't need to rush off too quickly went for a short walk in Shanklin, making the most of the weekend's brief sunshine, then K, E and I, with my mum, had a very good pub lunch before heading home.

It was a nice weekend, and I think K enjoyed herself, which is the main thing. And now it's only a month to the wedding!

In Which There is Baking

My sister is getting married in August, and some time ago, I, perhaps foolishly, agreed to make one tier of the cake. Mine is the bottom tier, which means it is BIG - 12" x 12".

All the ingredients

I woke up early this morning, and headed out to buy ingredients.. the recipe calls for almost 6lbs of dried fruit, as well as 9 eggs, over 1lb of butter, and a fair bit of brandy. All of which turns out to be quite heavy.

Brown paper and string

Once I got back to the house, I started on the weighing and measuring, and also on what turned out to be the trickiest part of the whole enterprise, the lining and wrapping of the tin. It had to have two layers of greaseproof paper inside, and two layers of brown paper outside.the purpose being (I assume) to provide some insulation so that the outer extremities of the cake don't burn while you wait for the middle to be cooked. For the same reason, you sit it on a pad of newspaper in the oven, and make it a little hat out of greaseproof paper to wear after the first hour or so of cooking.

I've never made a christmas/wedding cake this large before. In fact, I don't think I have ever made this kind of cake on my own before, and although I have been party to christmas-cake making at home with my mother, I haven't done that for about 10 years. So I was a little bit nervous, especially as the recipe I am using has quantities and timings based on round cakes (up to 9" Diameter) whereas I was making a Square cake (12" square) I spent a lot of time last night doing calculations, and looking through my recipe books for similar cakes,  to work out how much of everything I might need - at one point, based on volumes and the 1969 Good Housekeeping Cookery Book, I was up to 17 eggs, but I decided that was probably excessive, and would need a taller tin.

Actually making the cake probably took about an hour, and the actaul mixing is surprisingly hard work (physically) there's a lot of resistance in all that butter and sugar and flour and black treacle.

for size reference: the mixing bowls are each 12" across

However, the mixture ended up looking pretty much how I expected it to look, which is always a good sign, and when I ladled it all into my carefully lined and wrapped tin it filled it without having any left over, so it looks as through I got the quantities about right.

After a little over 3 hours in the oven, the cake seemed done.

It will be spending the next few weeks carefully wrapped in paper and then foil, being fed a spoonfull of brandy once a week, before it is brought out to be covered in marzipan, after which my responsibility will come to an end, as I am not going to ice the cake - I believe my mother is going to be doing that, for all three tiers.

I may cheat and buy ready to use marzipan, instead of making it, depending on how much time I have. That wouldn't make me a bad person, would it?

The colour scheme of the wedding is blue and white, and the decorations are  nautically themed (K&C met through sailing). I believe that the plan is to have sail-based decoration on the cake - something similar to this, although I think without any people.

Which reminds me - I don't think I shared the lovely invitation - each one was individually hand-made by K - the love-knot is made with real string, which is a nice touch.

And as it turned out that this June day has been characterised by torrential rain, and occasional hail, I feel that the decision to  stay indoors and bake a cake was a good one!

Shopping!

So, my sister, K is getting married in August and me and my other sister, E, are to be bridesmaids. Which of course meant that we need to buy frocks.

So, after much e-mailing, we arranged that both sisters would come to my house onThurday night, with a view to our having a major shopping trip on Friday (which, being Good Friday, was a Bank Holiday so none of us had to work)

They duly arrived on Thursday evening, and I plied them with food and alcohol with a view to lulling them into a sense of security, and then on Friday we got up almost as if it were a real work day, in order to get to the shops early, before they became too crowded.

We started with Clarks Village in Street, which has lots of sale/outlet shops, then went to Bristol, Cribbs Causeway (an out of town shopping centre which turns out to be way smaller than I remembered) and finally went to Bath. we spent around 7 hours all together (including about 2 1/2 hours travel time). this is about 5 hours longer than my normal tolerance time for shopping, but we were ultimately successful.

We found, and bought, some lovely full length navy blue dresses (these, for those keeping track) which seem to work for both of us,) of course, this isn't the end of the preparation - we still have to work out shoes, and jewellery, and flowers and whether or not we shall have anything in our hair, but it is a big step. And while shopping is not, by any means, my favourite pastime, it was good to spend some time with my sisters.

Having sorted our outfits, we were then all able to travel down to my parents' home, where we met up with K's fiance, and are all set to spend the Easter weekend together.

So farm this has involved some lovely food, and a trip to the pub. I approve.

(we have also inspected, and approved, my mother's 'Mother of the Bride' dress. Somehow, I think sourcing and approving a suitable tie for my father's 'Father of the Bride' will, by comparison, be very straightforward !)

Family & Culture

I had a call from my sister, to ask whether I would be around on Friday and Saturday, as she & her fiance would be in the general area and would like to pop by. This may have something to do with the fact that it was forecast to be a VERY cold weekend, and at times like this, one can see the appeal of visiting friends and family who have central heating, rather than staying at home on a boat which is sitting in a big heap of cold water. I'd like to think that some of it was because they'd like to see me, tho'!

Anyway, I thought that sounded like a good idea, and so on Friday I left work very promptly in order to come home & start cooking Boeuf Bourginon. (I misread the cooking time at the list-writing stage, and had to skive off a little early in the hope of getting to eat sometime before midnight)

K&C arrived bearing sparkling wine, on the basis that an engagement cannot be celebrated too much, and we had a most convivial evening (and the Boeuf Bourginon turned out to be yummy, although it was a little late by the time we ate it)

On Saturday, after breakfast, K&I girded our loins and set out to look at Wedding Dresses. It seems that just down the road from here is one of Oxfam's bridal centres, and K thought that that would be agood place to start looking to get a feel for different syles etc, without the pressure you get in a 'real' bridal shop. I'm not normally a huge fan of shopping, so I will admit that I had some reservations (I well remember from our teenage years that I tend to reach my 'get-me-out-of-here' point a LOT sooner than K) but she is my sister, and she wants to get married, so, off we went.

It was actually more fun than I expected. It turns out that the bridal department was on the third floor, and so they basically showed us a room full of wedding dresses and let us get on with it. We spent the next 2 hours slotting K in and out of dresses, with my role being to do up zips, buttons and laces, to striaghten skirts, and then undo them all again. (And some of those dresses, you could get lost in...)

Because they are al 2nd hand dresses in a charity shop they are not precious over the designs, so we were able to take lots of photos so K can hone her thoughts about what style she fancies, and how to achieve it, and although she didn't have an 'o god this is so amazing I'm buying it right now' moment, we both got a look more girly and excited than we had expected!

Although I must confess that after 2 hours I was ready for a break, which was fine, as after 2 hours it was time for us to go home and lunch. (C had stayed home, doing his homework and the washing up)

All in all, it was lovely to see them both, and to have some time with my sister. K&C left after lunch to spend some time with C's parents, and I had a few hours to relax before heading back into Bath for another Lit. Fest. event - this one with Michael Frayn, who was there to promote his new book - Travels with a Typewriter which is a collection of articles which he wrote for the Observer (in order to pay the bills) in between novels. My familiarity with Mr Frayn comes from having read his novel Headlong, and from occasional reviews etc on the theatre pages, but I thought the evening might be interesting, and it was.

Mr Frayn was 'in conversation with' Sheena MacDonald, who is a journalist - I found her a little irritating as several times, she interrupted a perfectly good anecdote with an unrelated question.. (she also fidgeted a lot, which when you are seated on stage with lots of spotlights focussed on you, is rather noticable!)

However, despite this, it was an interesting and entertaining event - Mr Frayn started out by saying that he thought all fiction writers ought to spend some time as journalists in order to remind them of the messiness of real life, and then went on to talk about his early experience working for the [Manchester] Guardian, which included telephoning all the local fire stations and police stations every hour during the night to check whether anything had happened... he was an engaging speaker, very entertaining - he learned Russian as part of his National Service (Which has stood him in good stead, as he has translated a number of Russian plays in addition to his own writing. He cliamed that he keeps turning down invitations to go back to Moscow as he doesn't want to expose his poor spoken Russian!

The Q&A included one question from another ex-National Serviceman who had done the same, and started his question with a comment in Russian, although this was not translated for the benefit of the remainder of the audience!

I had been in two minds as to whether to attend, as I have only ever read one of his books, but I'm glad I went, as I enjoyed myself, and will definitely look out for any productions of any of his plays in the future.