Chatiryworld

Moments

• Hearing our clarsach players (they play with my dad in Kilairum) rendition of the bagpipe music from Orkney Wedding with Sunrise by Peter Maxwell Davies.  Beautiful.
• My mum and family seeing our dear friends from Orkney for the first time since 1993, it was the only time I cried that day.
• Everybody giving Emily (The Cutest Bridesmaid Ever) a wave during the ceremony.
• Saying our vows and exchanging rings.
• Finally allowing myself to look at all our guests after our vows and realising there were a lot of tears.
• Jon whispering 'you're my wife now' after we signed the register.
• Walking back down the aisle, glancing up to the balcony and seeing the Book Trust staff who had sneaked in to watch the ceremony, they had big grins on their faces.
• Guests of all ages enjoying the bubbles we provided.
• Finally getting a photo of me and my siblings all together, the wedding day was the first time my brothers had met my sisters on my mums side.
• Our sisters all getting on like a house on fire.
• Two little girls who had never met before becoming firm friends (and getting me to read a story to them later!)
• Taking Emily for a walk around the bookshelves of the library at the Book Trust.  My dress was big enough to protect her from the scary giant ladybird toy, which several other small people were merrily hurling themselves onto.
• Guests wanting to snuggle up to my shawl.
• People being totally wowed by the cake.
• My dad's girlfriend's son asking me if he was allowed to take the books in the library home.  If only.
• Marilou presenting Emily with a picture book from Belgium.  She's probably a fluent French speaker by now.
• Walking up to Marlin's Wynd with Kal heckling the other wedding party who were coming down the hill.
• Gregor carrying a bin liner full of Tunnocks goodies up to Marlin's Wynd.
• Evening guests applauding us as we came down the stairs.
• Our sisters trying to sing a Girls Aloud song over the music, only to realise that said music was Come on Eileen and was more fun to dance and sing along to.
• Kal saying his goodbyes only to return a few minutes later having decided he didn't want to go home after all.  Yay!
• Lucien and Marilou recreating the video of Fat Boy Slim's Praise You.
• My cousin's 2 year old, Callum, dancing to Adam Buxton's The Hours song.
• Jon and I giggling when we heard the Adam and Joe pirate radio clips we'd inserted in the playlist.  It's unlikely anyone else noticed them.
• Kal deciding it was time to eat more cake, so went off in search of a knife, cut it up and handed a load out.
• Marlin's Wynd staff complementing us on the music.
• Al and Carrie dancing to Born to Run.
• Seeing people write masterpieces in our guest book - and then enjoying reading them all the next day.

Things I didn't see but would have liked to:

• Emily headbanging to the clarsach music.
• My mum and MM wanting to nip in to the PDSA shop between venues to have a look at something from Clothkits (retro version).

There's probably more, but these are the things that have stuck out for me the most.  It was a truly wonderful day and I am married to a truly wonderful man.

The faces of poetry

Jon and I currently feature on the homepage for BBC Radio 3's Poetry Season.  If that seems completely random, let me explain.  The photo was taken about 10 minutes after we got engaged and I titled it using a quote from Edwin Muir's The Confirmation.  This was one of the poems selected by presenter Mary Anne Kennedy for the season, and when someone from the BBC searched for images using the same quote I used as a title, they got our photo.  I thought the photo might appear on a page about the poem, rather than the general one as it's not really clear why we're there.  Not that it matters, we (and you) know why.

I am finding it very surreal that people start arriving in Edinburgh tomorrow for our wedding.  I'd blog more about it all but I'm finding it all pretty tiring.  Nearly there though when all our hard work will be worth it.

Bagpiping bride

Croila married E yesterday, Kal, Jon and I went along to the evening reception where we got to see the bride playing bagpipes.  More of this sort of thing.  And isn't that dress stunning?

Jon and I weren't sure we should make it as about an hour beforehand a leak from our bathroom was brought to our attention, which was causing the ceiling below (fortunately 'just' a passageway rather than in someone's flat) to buckle.  But we managed to find a reliable, helpful and value for money plumber who came and sorted what needed sorting there and then, and told us what else had to be done.  Phew!  Then Free Cat decided to camp out on top of the wardrobe and wouldn't come down whatever we did, so Jon had to wrestle down the suitcase Freeky was sitting on so I could pluck him up and send him on his way.  Little bastard.

We made it though, and Kal even managed to persuade me to dance the Virginia Reel with him.  Good times.

Cake!

I iced Jon's birthday cake this morning, he decided he'd rather have pudding at Iglu than a cake on his actual birthday.  This is the Birthday Custard Sponge from Nigella Lawson's Feast .  The Magimix made the whole process very easy and I produced my best buttercream ever.  Along with the chocolate icing on top, it's very thick and naughty.  I've had one slice and no IBS problems so it's even more of a winner.

Here are all the birthday cakes I've made Jon since we've been together:

Top Left: Nigella Lawson's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake (Domestic Goddess )
Top Right: Green and Blacks Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake
Bottom Left: Green and Blacks Chocolate Stollen.

Happy birthdays

Happy 200th birthday to Charles Darwin and happy 2nd birthday to Emily!  (I am so tempted to do a Darwin themed set of birthday presents for the girl one year, including a Darwin doll of course.)

What is it with kids and monkeys (I should mention that I thought I had more monkey photos, this was supposed to be a bigger mosaic)?  We bought Em the monkey shown here in Belgium and you can see Jon here with the monkey we bought Croila's D for his 3rd birthday (I think).  Maybe they're just funny.

Anyway, birthday hugs and kisses to Emily, you're amazing! 

Happy new year!

Aims for this year are to have a wonderful wedding and honeymoon without turning into a bridezilla, and to find a new job.  That's all. 

Useful christmas presents

After having read In Praise of Slow and Enough this year, I've decided to aim to give people useful presents.  I don't mean boring presents, I mean thinking about what the person might use.  Chocolate and other edibles are good, because people eat them, things like soap and candles are fine if you know the person will want them.  Of course I may totally fail and buy stuff that I think is useful for someone but they totally disagree.  I'm not perfect. 

But what would be useful for me?  Here's some things I've come up with, yes, partly to help family, but also to help us think a bit more about useful presents.  I'd love to know what your list of useful presents would be.

Muji travel slippers - I like wearing slippers and but don't always want to take them away with me, using up vital luggage space.  These seem like the answer.

Liz Earle handcream - I'm a pale northerner with dry skin, handcream is always useful and Liz Earle stuff is gorgeous.  Useful yet also a bit of a luxury.

Big Onya - I love my Onya bag, it fold up much smaller than most reusable bags, but sometimes it's not quite big enough.  But now there's a Big Onya, hurrah!

Soft foam play mat - Why the hell is this useful for someone with no kids?  It's incredibly useful for knitters as you can use them for blocking your work.  I'm going to need something like this when it comes to blocking the wedding shawl.

Spring bulbs - For one reason or another I didn't get around to buying and planting bulbs this autumn so those planting gift sets that you see in shops and think are a bit of a cop out, well, I would appreciate them this year.

What would your useful presents be?  Plus, apologies to my family if the presents I get you aren't useful, this is the first year I've tried it.

Light

Here's a photo of a rather good light installation that was on in Brussels when we were there the other week, by Yann Kersale.  We were too early for all the christmas stuff but saw some of the market huts go up in Place Ste-Catherine.

I went to the Country Living Fair at the weekend, apart from a delay in opening due to a power cut, it was a good event.  Too busy though, if I hadn't already had a few days off recently I would have taken Friday off to go.  I bought some presents and tried not to stalk the Orcadian stalls too much, I just liked hearing the accents!  There were some lovely stalls and some shite stalls selling the same as the other shite stalls.  I feel I go to the fair to buy something different, I know where to buy shite from.  A not shite stall was Twice, where many people were purchasing spurtles made by my dad Hugh.

I'll be doing my advent calendar again this year (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007).  I wasn't feeling much enthusiasm for it but I know there will be plenty of interesting festive links floating around over the next few weeks that I would end up posting anyway.  I think I also tried to take a fair few images of our tree last year for the calendar, just have to find them now!  I also tried to think of a way to tie it in with Emily's fundraising but couldn't, indeed it was that thought process that lead me on to Helping Hats.  Maybe I'll just link to it lots.

Waffled up

NOW WE FEED! NYARRRRH!, originally uploaded by Falling Sky.

We had an amazing time in Brussels, thank you so much to Marilou and Frederic for being such great hosts and letting us stay in their lovely flat.

We seemed to be on the move a lot while we there, but mainly we were wandering and talking, doing a bit of window shopping, deciding that Belgian children are much better dressed than British ones, that kind of thing.

My birthday on Sunday was lovely, I had a special breakfast complete with candles on a bread ring. Jon and I went to the Natural History Museum then slowly wandered back via the European Parliament, a few shops and a late lunch at Cafe Arcadia. That evening we went to see Sigur Ros who were fantastic. I'd never seen them live before, which made it extra exciting. We sat high up on a balcony which was a little unnerving but we had a fairly decent view of the stage. If you get the chance to see Sigur Ros, go go go!

Then it was back to reality and sitting around in London for the train. London is hard work, there are good bits, but it's hard work. We ate well in Leon though, and I enjoyed browsing in Muji and Liberty.

Je vais a Bruxelles pour mon anniversaire.

Grand Place - Bruxelles, originally uploaded by Spigoo.

A few weeks ago, as we sat down to dinner, Jon informed me that Sigur Ros were playing in Glasgow in November.

'We've got to make sure we book and go!' I said enthusiastically.

But Jon looked a bit odd.  He had to spoil a surprise, that was why.  He'd booked tickets to see them in Brussels on my birthday and this was going to be my present.  He had to tell me so that I didn't get suspicious as to why we weren't going to the gig in Glasgow.

I suppose it's a good job he told me, not least because I had to get another passport (application posted on Friday, received passport the following Wednesday, unheard of!), but also so I can do my usual reading up and plotting.  Not that we'll be there for that long.  We'll travel to London on the Friday, have an early night and get the first Eurostar to Brussels on Saturday morning, giving us a good chunk of Saturday and then Sunday in Brussels.  Back to London and then Edinburgh on the Monday. 

We're staying a with a very good friend, and I'm really looking forward to seeing her.  I'm not sure what we will do in Brussels, we'll be staying very near the centre in a lovely area.  Both of us have been to Brussels and have a bit of a soft spot for it.  I can see lots of just wandering around and stopping for waffles and hot chocolate.  Yum.  Jon's never been to the comic strip museum so I'm sure we'll end up there.

I love having an adventure to look forward to, especially when it involves one of my favourite bands and my birthday!