Karen

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 23:45:07 GMT

It's very rare I post. I'm not much of a diary person. I think I had the instinct removed as a teen when my mother regularly screamed at me because of something she'd read when my diary "accidentally fell open when she was cleaning my room"

But some things you want to remember. Yesterday my husband turned 40. His damned employers exercised their usual unerring instinct for these things and sent him to Edinburgh for training. Apparently, even though he had prebooked leave, it was far too important for him to miss. Yeah, right.

But now he's back and tonight we went to see Monkey: Journey to the West at the Palace theatre in Manchester. Fantastic show. Lovely story, written in the 1500's, which is very familiar to those of us old enough to remember the catchphrase "Irrepressible!" Acrobats, circus performers and through it all struts the Monkey King, cocky & fearless.

Jem loved it and that is what matters. Dinner tomorrow night with those few of our friends who (a) live near enough to come and (b) aren't at moots/weddings/on holiday.

But what I wanted to remember is: my husband turned 40. When he turned 30 I broke my leg at a Moot and he took me to hospital. I had broken up with my first husband Fraser only two weeks before and it would be another 5 months before we got together, and another year after that before we truly started to shake down. He's the best thing, the very best thing that ever happened to me.

Happy Birthday Jeremy.

go back a space

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 12:25:37 GMT

Had phonecall from house buyer last night. She's having unexpected difficulty scraping together the 10% deposit (and the evil stamp duty), and has advised that we accept other viewers as she can't guarantee being able to buy.

humph

House photos

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 23:19:40 GMT

Help please.

I need photo's of my house to assist with the sale of it. We are selling privately because frankly nothing an estate agent can do is worth 3 grand of our money.

Any attempts to take pictures of the rooms with a normal camera results in a picture of a fireplace and half an alcove.

So, does anyone who lives or visits Manchester (and would be willing to help) have either
(a) a camera with a wide angle lens, or
(b) an SLR camera for which the wide angle lens wouldn't be too expensive for us to buy it for them.

Or can anyone offer an alternative solution.

Ta.

Considering I'm meant to be convalescing, I'm bloody busy...

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 23:00:56 GMT

I've been avoiding posting for a bit because I didn't want to cover and recover the same ground. And now I realise that as a result, I haven't covered any of it. Bum. So here goes:

Since back surgery mid August, I spent the first few weeks alternately lying down and standing up. It's astonishing how few activities there are available that are vertical and non-strenuous. The geese in the Park are consequently so full of bread they can barely stagger up to me for the next instalment. Sitting is a no-no, which has kept me off the PC almost completely. I have a laptop for t'internet and games, but not email. I am now much recovered, and can do most things except sit. Sitting is still bad, and as a result I'm still off work and will be until probably the end of Oct. The neuro-surgeon reckons that he has fixed the left side by removing some bone and ligament to make space for the nerve. Apparently the right side requires spinal injections, which he will be prepared to do in December when I've healed a bit more. So it's not over yet, but hopefully I can see the winning post.

For some time now Jem & I have been considering moving house. We love our house, but it's not big enough (if you've seen it; don't laugh, it's true!). Also, having watched our next door neighbours sell theirs, we've realised that it is worth about 70K more than we thought it was. As a result I spent the best part of a fortnight following surgery trawling estate agent sites on the laptop from a prone position and arranging viewings. We find that buying a house is incredibly complicated. Last time we viewed three houses on the same street and picked the best - easy-peasy. This time they are all big beautiful period houses that tick most, not all, of the wish list. (Apparently if you want to tick all boxes, you have to spend more than 350K, even in t'North). They are all totally different from each other, all gorgeous, would all cause us varying degrees of headache and we have no idea how to pick one over the other. Heartbreakingly, the very best one of all, the one that is the template of housy perfection for us had to be discarded - it was on a main road and having insisted that our second viewing be at rush-hour we just couldn't convince ourselves that we could put up with it.

At the same time we have to get this house ready for sale. Jem has cleared both the cellars and the backyard and will be gravelling the yard at the weekend, and I'm painting the lower and upper hall in very small stages, about 1 - 2 hours being all I can manage in a day. It's a big hall -I 've been at it for nearly 2 weeks and am less than half way through it I think. The other big job will be stripping and papering the kitchen.

So there you are: a six week update in one gulp which saves you from reading variations on a theme every few days, and protects me from everyone realising just how much I vacillate over major purchases. Honestly, I've come back from half a dozen viewings firmly believing that this is The One, and then cooled off overnight. It's getting embarrassing. But, in case anyone's interested, these are the two main contenders currently:

http://www.housescape.org.uk/cgi-bin/full.pl?&roe1&&ROE1001477 (lovely house, big rooms, but it needs a full rewire and has a 70 year old coal-fired Aga which is giving me the heebies)

http://www.houseladder.co.uk/SearchEngine/PropertyDetailsForSale.aspx?PId=86973 (gorgeous, gorgeous house, been fully renovated to conservation standards, but has no dining room and absolutely nowhere for guests to park other than the dentist carpark two doors up)

tomorrow

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 22:53:22 GMT

I'm going into hospital for back surgery tomorrow.

Fingers crossed, guys. I'm not scared of surgery, but I really want it to work this time, so I can do normal stuff without it breaking me.

My other great challenge is to survive the next few weeks without being completely smothered by ellistar's anxious pampering. Bless his little heart.

Can I have some SQL tech support please?

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:56:53 GMT

I'll start with a disclaimer: I am not very good at SQL. I don't use it much.

So, can anyone tell me why the following query isn't working?

USE [DATABASE]
GO

SELECT *
FROM [TABLE]
WHERE [DATETIME FIELD] BETWEEN [FIRST DATE] AND [LAST DATE]
GO

SQL accepts and runs the query but brings back zero results even though I know there are records that should fall into the range. I note that the display of the datetime field in Enterprise Manager is dd/mm/yyyy and that in a Query Result Pane it is yyyy-mm-dd. I have tried both of these, but no success. The exact same query runs fine on a numeric field, so my syntax is OK. What am I doing wrong?

Keeping a secret

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 10:00:31 GMT

Two more days before I can tell ellistar about the holiday I've bought for his birfday.

I may explode.

Unfortunately, due to the fact that his work was in too much turmoil for me to just ring his boss and arrange his hols from work behind his back, I had to tell him "book these days, and ask me nothing". As he therefore knew there was a secret, he's been far too aware of what's going on around him over the last 6 weeks or so and there's been some info leakage.

I'm bloody awful at keeping secrets from him. I shall never try to do this again.

The Blondenburg has burst.

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 09:32:52 GMT

For those who know them, I received an email today from Chris & Katie Hill via the House of Tallard yahoo group.

"William Christopher Hill

Arrived at 06:45am 18th June 2006

Weighing in at 10lbs exactly (Ouch!)

Katie's fine but very tired and sore"

Dancin'

Thu, 18 May 2006 22:26:24 GMT

On Sunday, Jeremy and I will take medal tests in Ballroom (Waltz & Quickstep) and Latin (ChaCha, Rumba & Samba) As of today I think the only one we have nailed is the Samba. Worse, we have just worked out that we have been consistently making the same mistake in our spin turn for 2 years. The chances of correcting it before Sunday are remote.

NWO Grand Tribunal

Wed, 17 May 2006 15:22:10 GMT

My only real regret about NWO is that, having never played Ars Magica prior to attending, I feel it took me 3 of the 5 games to understand the colour and richness of the different Houses, and to see all the levers and buttons that drive the Hermetic World.

I wish I could go back and play it again with what I now know - not about the plot - but about the Order.

Playing a Harco redcap for Rome and Grand was a revelation. Most Houses take from the Order, a few give and take, and one or two give of themselves wholeheartedly, and Mercere is one of the latter. But they are repaid many times over with the strength of their Family, and Harco have the closest family of all. Despite the hardships of her world I envy Lyssa.

There one major thing about her that I found it hard to play: she is meant to be the Fury of Harco and by god she had good reason to be furious. At Grand Tribunal, where battles are fought with words rather than spells or swords there were 2 or 3 times when she wanted to haul off and punch someone, or haul them up a wall by their throat or in one memorable moment (Cadamon) throw them downstairs, and this is where I came unstuck.

ellistar</lj>informs me that most boys instinctively know who they can roughhouse with, who wears (as Morgan put it) the extreme combat armband.
I had not the faintest idea who was fair game, or indeed how to initiate such a thing. What I know is what (I think) most girls know; who they can hug, kiss or cry with in the interests of great roleplay.
How to grapple without having to break the mood by stopping to check? No clues on that one.

So I apologise to the writers if they were hoping to see the Fury of Harco let rip. Because I couldn't find a larp-safe way to let the fury out so I channeled it into positive action instead.

"Don't talk about it. Talk about it, and you'll warn your enemies and let your allies steal your thunder. Talk is cheap and wastes time and lives. Do it. Talk about it afterwards. 'You should not have…' is music to my ears compared to 'should I…' I have no time for ditherers." Livy Catullus Mercurius

Letting someone else stick pins in me

Fri, 05 May 2006 09:52:34 GMT

Bridesmaid dress fittings for Em&Andy's wedding last night, and by god the shop woman faffed.

Two and a half hours to pin a couple of alterations and hems for three of us. I was itching to take the goddamned pins off her and do it myself.
When it came to her wafting around a metre of chiffon and utterly failing to work out how to turn it into 3 sets of bodice straps while leaving over enough for velvet_the_cat to make handbag straps I actually did snatch it away from her, measure the whole thing myself and tell her exactly how many inches to cut for each piece. I suspect that saved us half an hour. Fortunately she's an easygoing lady and took my interference in good part, rather than treating me like the Managing Baggage I am.

ellistar and I were meant to be going to a dance lesson afterwards (we take medal tests in a couple of weeks!), but I had tripped and cracked my knee against a stone step on Monday, and dresslady's faffing meant that I was stood in one place so long my knee seized up.

AND she stuck a pin in me so I bled on the dress. Now I do this all the time, and in fact I can think of a couple of ladies who will agree with me when I say that all the best costumes require a little bloodletting. But it's a bit much when someone has BOUGHT the dress.

The next few weeks are a nightmare of hair tests and makeup tests and stuff. It's last year all over again.

Roll on NWO. I'm looking forward to being a tomboy for a few days before Going All Girl.

Legislative & Reform Bill

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:03:48 GMT

Like several other friends on here, I wrote to my MP, Michael Meacher, regarding this Bill.

The letter I received back is singularly brief:

"Thank you for your letter.

The aim of this Bill is to usher in a number of the wide-scale reforms announced in the Better Regulation Action Plan of May 2005.

Yes, I have been looking into this Bill, and I agree its implications are unprecedented and very worrying."

And that's it, that's all I got. I can't decide whether I've just been agreed with or just been blanked.

So I looked up the Better Regulation Action Plan. Apparently this Plan is designed to move away from "the assumption since the first legislation of Victorian times - that business, unregulated, will invariably act irresponsibly." and towards "the better view .. that businesses want to act responsibly."

Yeah right, sure they do.

Scratchings in the woodwork

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:15:07 GMT

ellistar and I have heard very loud scratching noises in the house these last couple of nights.

I do hope this doesn't mean that a mouse has moved in again. You know what happened last time, and I value my frying pans.

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 15:58:08 GMT

I've fallen in the habit of only posting either to communicate something specific, or to capture something that I want to remember.

This is one of the latter.

The weekend just gone was spent in Venice for the wedding of westernind & forbinproject

I gloss over the hideousness of the 8 hour journey of interconnecting flights via Frankfurt, and the surpassing horrendously of the 10 hour re-tracing of these footsteps on Sunday. I merely note that no-one should go via Frankfurt airport, to anywhere, ever. It is a horrible, confusing spread of gates and passport control areas and virtually no shops, and what makes it utterly, totally, ghastly is that every single restaurant and coffee shop, even Starbucks, is a total Smoking Zone.

ellistar & I have been avoiding going to Carnevale for several years now. Naturally I find the idea of having an incentive to make new and beautiful clothes extremely appealing (and have come home with my head full of ideas), but we had baulked because being a tourist magnet didn't appeal very much at all. We all have different ways of getting our ego fed, and this one didn't feel like the one for us. In this I think we were correct. Some people seem to feel that the tourists taking pictures are feeding them. We felt more that the ravening hordes with cameras were feeding upon us, and we didn't like it much. However, I did enjoy it when virtually the entire wedding party were lounging on the steps of Santa Maria della Salute waiting for the bride and groom to arrive for the official photos, and a huge horde of tourists gathered to take pictures. This was pleasurable because of the cameraderie, rather than the cameras.

The wedding itself was lovely. The bride and groom were waiting together outside to greet their guests as they arrived, which was sweetly informal and very nice. I've never seen either of them look happier. Their costumes were ....perfect. This is the only occasion in my adult life when I have admired a piece of dressmaking and had to admit to myself that I genuinely could not have achieved the same result. The civil ceremony was prettier than its English equivalent with many references to a life fully shared in all its aspects, and,although I can't remember the exact words, at the end the registrar said "I hope your lives are as bright(?) and vibrant(?) as they are right now", with a smile that encompassed a room full of people in peacock colours.

The atmosphere in the room lifted more and more as the ceremony progressed, and by the end I had a smile on my face that could not be contained, and could physically and spiritually feel the joy of the occasion as a tangible thing.

Thank you Roz & Simon for inviting me to share this day, and big thanks also to velvet_the_cat & Dan for putting us up for 2 days.

Next I have the scary job of transporting bits of the CovenWork to Brum on Friday ready for the party Saturday night.

Tentacly story

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 10:05:52 GMT

I suspect I'm probably very, very late with this, and that anyone who's interested read it years ago.

But just in case I'm wrong, here's a link to Neil Gaiman's "I, Cthulhu":

http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/essay07.asp

The lure of the deep

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 11:15:33 GMT

Watch until the end of this advert; it's the best bit.

http://www.visit4info.com/details.cfm?adid=23883

News

Fri, 25 Nov 2005 10:55:16 GMT

I'm not sure how many LJ'ers know them but:

Matt & Karen Jakeman have had a baby girl, Amy Eileen Janet, 23rd November, 7.10pm, 7lb 10oz.

If you do know them, then you may know how many problems Karen has previously had getting successfully to term, and therefore how important this is to them.

Mediumship & Hypnosis

Mon, 14 Nov 2005 14:52:15 GMT

ellistar and I spent this weekend at Arthur Findlay Spiritualist College at Stansted Hall doing a course.

We went this time last year to the same place to do Trance Week. This changed the direction of our mediumship from scrappy, ill-disciplined attempts at spirit contact via various churches and circles, to committed, determined regular sitting for Trance every Wednesday pretty much without fail. We even intended to sit when we were on honeymoon in Turkey, but realised too late that it was in fact late Wednesday night and we had missed it.

I also committed to trying to do at least one course every year, and this year we turned our backs on the wealth of Trance courses available in favour of doing something a bit different. So we plumped for Mediumship & Hypnosis - a weekend course run by Brian Gledhill, a fully Qualified Hypnotherapist, SNU Minister and working Medium of approximately 30 years or so. The aim of the course was to introduce us to the principles of Self-Hypnosis and show us how we could use this to enhance our mediumship.

Deciding not to do a Trance course seemed at the time to be a bit of a strange decision, as we have both been finding it a bit hard recently. It has been clear for some time that our regular spirit friend attendees are keen to speak, but we have not been able to take that step. It's incredibly difficult to explain why in descriptive text of this sort; but suffice to say that the relationship between medium and spirit speaker is very, very delicate and complex, and co-existing to the point where you can open your mouth and let someone else's words pour out is incredibly hard at first.

But, although we didn't see exactly how this course could help us, it felt like the right course to do and we trust our spirit friends and teachers to lead us right in such matters.

Oh boy, did they ever lead us right.

Two major things emerged from the weekend.

One is that although we knew that everything from the lightest meditation to the deepest trance is an altered state, we didn't realise just how far down you can go before inviting spirit in. When we usually sit we close our eyes and spirit are there waiting for us - it's like opening the door to a party when all your friends are already in the room waiting for you. We invite them in and then seek to drift deeper. What Brian showed us is a hypnosis technique that allows you to go deep while retaining full clarity of mind. This is an altered state that you can use for self-improvement, but from here you can also invite spirit in and sit for Trance mediumship. This is massively more effective - by the time you are inviting spirit in, you have already raised your vibration considerably, which helps them to connect with you without having to lower their vibration as much.

The other thing we did not know when we booked the course is that Brian is an accomplished trance medium. He did a demonstration for us on Saturday night, one and a half hours with various speakers coming through to advise or answer questions. Very smooth demonstration, obviously genuine and very inspiring.

Five out of eleven of us on the course were sitting for Trance - we were at all levels of experience. Brian took the five of us into a separate group for one of the lessons and led us into trance using his techniques. He then implanted the suggestion while we were in the altered state that we can easily return to that state merely by counting 1 to 10 quickly (I look forward to testing that). He then led each one of us individually to speak. For two of the experienced ladies present this was nothing new - they spoke without difficulty and he discussed with their speakers what they felt the medium needed to do to improve further, which he helped them to implement.

But for the rest of us? Ye gods, it was hard. By the time it got to my turn, tears were already pouring down my face from the presence of spirit. The sensation of being touched by a close spirit helper is like meeting family at the airport after years of separation. You know the moment when you hug them for the first time, and the tears rise? It's just like that. And then, while feeling that way, you need to feel the words of this person rise within you, and open your own mouth and begin to express them. They can't just take control off you and do it for you. They don't yet have good enough control of your lungs, mouth, larynx. You have to speak for them at first - let them get used to what it feels like, and how all the mechanical bits work. And all the time my body was fighting it - presumably trying to tell me that the request for speech hadn't come from me, error, error. My breath came in gulps, the tears streamed, words poured through my brain, and all that came out was "yes" to the questions Brian asked. Although an experienced trance medium will express only what the speaker wishes to say, with none of their own impressions included, I couldn't manage to express anything that I didn't totally agree with; we were speaking by committee. Even when Brian told my speaker that I would make a fine instrument for him, we couldn't manage to say "yes". I couldn't be sure I agreed; a nod was the most my speaker could manage to get past me.

ellistar managed better that I did. Each syllable came out in a tortured breath, but it came clearly. When Brian told the speaker that practice would improve their collaberation, he even managed a whole sentence "That - would - be - des-ir-a-ble"

I was so proud of him.

So now we get to sit at home and see how much this course has helped us. We accept that Brian dragged us to the point of speech, and also that Stansted is an incredibly powerful environment. We may therefore find that we cannot do so well at first on our own. But we shall use the new lessons to best effect and see where it takes us.

Being Charitable

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:30:37 GMT

I had a horrendously busy weekend.

In a weak moment I volunteered to assist at the Women's Institute tabletop sale on Saturday morning. This involved me getting out of bed at 7.30am ON A SATURDAY. Not good.

I was astonished by the tat people will buy. Bargain hunters hoovered up bric a brac that I had experienced extreme difficulty in even putting a price to. During the pricing process I kept having to bag some other WI lady and display a cottage shaped lamp, whimsical eggtimer, or truly nasty ornament in order to get her opinion on a price for it. My personal opinion was that you couldn't give it away, but I was proved totally wrong.

I donated a large quantity of books. They had all been read once, were all bestsellers of the last 5 years or so. They were almost universally ignored by the buying public in favour of dogeared old copies of books that appeared from the covers to have been written by authors of the Catherine Cookson school.

There were some bright lemon hand knitted bedsocks. I only know this because someone told me, as they were not in any way sock shaped, but in fact bags that tied at the top. One customer expressed a disturbing amount of delight that they were available, as her current pair had worn out. Weird.

I arrived home in time to shoehorn ellistar from in front of his pc and get ready for the other thing we had rashly volunteered for. Those of you who came to our wedding may remember Deborah & Jeremy, our photographers. Jeremy is involved in a charity called The Back-Up Trust which provides outdoorsy type activities for spinally injured and able-bodied to enjoy together. He was one of the organisers for the BackUp Ball which is their annual fundraiser, and when he found out that we run a casino in lrp (Maelstrom), he wheedled us into running one for the Ball. So we begged and pleaded with our House of Tallard group, and in the end Jem & I + Chris, Mike, June and DA toddled off to the Birmingham Metropole to run a casino for 600 black-tied and evening-frocked people.

This is both easier and harder than running for 600 lrpers.

Easier because there is no currency to worry about. The gambling laws are hideously strict, so in order to avoid it completely each person there was entitled to 20 chips to have fun with, and when they brought chips back after playing I made a list. Those 3 people who won most chips got a prize of booze. Easy. No multiple currencies, no chip accounts, and no IC paranoia about whether an armed gang would try to roll the casino.

Also easier and more fun for the croupiers because the poeple there were not taking it anywhere near as seriously as lrper's do. So virtually no spreadbetting which meant easier maths.

Harder because whereas lrp has unwritten rules about how you can/cannot behave; this was the real world, and these really were paying customers. The Ball was £65 per head, and the room reeked of money. Most people were lovely, but some got way too pissed, and one arsehole visibly skimmed chips and walked off with them, and then refused to give them back. We brought all our own gear and were not being re-imbursed for anything, not even petrol, but we got no support from the organisers - they were not prepared to make any trouble with their paying customers and regular supporters. I have to wonder what would have happened if anyone had got really ugly with us; the lesson learned is not to do this kind of thing without clear agreements with the organisers.

november_girl's birthday party

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 13:13:38 GMT

Can any kind friend in the Brum area offer ellistar and I a bed for the night of Anita's birthday party on the 19th November?

Pretty please?

Can't wait for tomorrow.

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 23:33:05 GMT

We fly off to our honeymoon in Turkey tomorrow, and are staying here for a week of lounging around being waited on.

Really, really, looking forward to it.

Perfect day

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 11:31:55 GMT

I need to post this now, while it's still fresh in my mind.

When we started to talk about getting married, nearly 3 years ago, we wanted something pretty specific and non-standard.

We wanted a spiritualist ceremony somewhere big enough to hold as many of our friends who wanted to be there. We wanted afternoon tea with those friends, conversation, fun and laughter. We wanted to spend the evening together in a nice hotel, get out of our wedding clothes, have a bath, have our dinner brought to our room and eat it in our bathrobes. Drink wine together and talk over our day.

It didn't seem possible that we could have all that. Our budget was small, and our needs were outside the mainstream.

Thanks to the wonderful community of Longton Church, our lovely generous friends who worked hard for us, our spirit friends quietly working behind the scenes to direct us where we needed to be, we got EVERYTHING we wanted.

Yesterday was the perfect day.

The Church, decorated ready for Harvest Festival today, looked gorgeous. ellistar was dapper and sexy. I felt beautiful and loved, as every bride hopes to. We didn't cry during our vows, but only by not catching each others eye too much; every time it got too emotional one of us would studiously look away. Our photographer was lovely and unobtrusive. Afternoon tea was marvellous, especially velvet_the_cat's spectacular meringues. Our wedding cake, made by Em sans lj was gloriously chocolatey. ellistar and I were hugged and kissed by so many, many wonderful friends that his buttonhole got utterly flattened. And then we were whisked away to Mottram Hall Hotel, to a splendid room with a four poster bed and a terrace looking out over the lake, courtesy of a group of friends who clubbed together as their gift to us. We sat on the terrace in our wedding attire and opened all our cards and gifts, bathed, changed, dined and found time for each other, the rarest gift that so few couples find on their wedding day.

At 2am I woke up and thought back over the day, and cried my heart out in an outpouring of joy so huge that I just couldn't contain it. Our physical forms are too small a vessel to contain so much love and joy for long.

Thank you to all those who came, all those who couldn't come but thought of us, special thanks to all those who gave their time and effort generously for us; Em & Andy sans lj, paulbenwell, noj sans lj, velvet_the_cat, tamsin sans lj, june, joyce, arthur and the rest at Longton.

*sniffle*

Normal, biting, caustic service may now be resumed.

Wedding nerves

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:35:07 GMT

Well, I have been facial'd and waxed and nailed. But not in the best sense of the word.

I strenously persuaded the beautician that I really genuinely wanted them shorter, no really, having my actual fingertips be the first thing that touches a surface is a Good Thing, and nails that take this away from me are a form of sensory deprivation. So she filed them shorter, and within 2 hours of getting home I have lacerated my face with them. I feel like Edward Scissorhands.

ellistar assures me that it is merely a flesh wound, gonna be healed by tomorrow, and anyway makeup will cover it no problem. But there is no getting away from it; I am short one inch of skin on my chin that I definitely had earlier.

Most of the packing is done, we leave at 11.30 tomorrow to meet Emsie at the church, drop off my dress, cakes, and all kinds of other wedding frippery. Then it's off to Holmes Chapel for ellistar to stay with paulbenwell together with best man Andy. Em & I are staying in an hotel in Stoke for the night before she hoys me off to the beautician again at 9am Saturday for the last round of feminine frolics.

I'm nervous. Not about marrying ellistar; in truth we've been married for 8 years already, this is just the formal bit. I'm nervous about being all girl and centre of attention. I'm nervous about having 70 people travel from all over the country for no better reason than to watch us recite vows. I'm afraid that our little wedding and simple refreshments won't merit the time and effort they will all have put in. I'm humbled that so many friends want to attend despite its simplicity.

I'm crying typing this and don't properly understand why.

Any gentlemen coming should make sure they have a hankie in their pocket. It's quite possible that I'm going to be a little watering pot on Saturday.

wedding agonies - part two

Sat, 10 Sep 2005 19:56:16 GMT

We are finally seeing the end of the to do list.

[Tick] Wedding rehearsal last night - walked five times down the aisle with my stepdad vibrating nervously beside me, and Em still thinks I take too big a step. Suck it up bridesmaid.

[Tick] ellistar had facial today.

[Tick] Typed up the Order of Service.

I still need to hem my dress, but everything else that can be done in advance is done, I think. Everything else is scheduled events, like picking up suits, dropping off cakes and stuff.

I am soooooo looking forward to writing Auntie Em's to do list for her wedding next year. Anyone got a piece of paper 5 foot long?

Curse my memory

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 14:46:23 GMT

I know what I've been intending to post all day:

Hands up all those who saw westernind on telly on Sunday singing in the Proms.

*raises hand*

Em'n'Andy sans LJ TiVo'd it and showed me last night.