Sunday Morning; Woke Up Married

The deed is done
The vows are read
The knot is tied
Made the marriage bed.

The sky stayed clear
The rain came not
The photos taken
The nerves forgot.

The food was ate
The wine was poured
The speeches read
And none were bored.

The couple danced
And cut the cake
They kept in step
Without mistake.

As the sun fell down
On the start of their life
A new beginning
Husband & wife.

Photos by Lina Karlsson

Symptoms of Withdrawal

I had a week off work last week, and much needed it was too.  Not that I do a stressful job or anything - far from it in fact - it's just that we've been a bit short handed lately and with the knowledge that I have to get some spreadsheets in place later in the summer it felt like I wasn't moving forward.
Anyway, it was a nice break, in some ways nicer because by fiancee was feeling unwell and as such we didn't really do much.  It was a week of reading books, listening to the radio and marking the time of day with meals, with a brief excursion to the registry office to register our intent to get married.
After somewhat withdrawing from the world for a few days you get to realise that you don't miss it at all.  One of the hardest things as a human being at the moment is reconciling your own personal life and all the things that matter to you with the world as a whole and how that may or may not affect someone in a small village on Kiribati.  And what is hardest is knowing how little control you have over it.
For all our democracy we still only have a faint say in who even runs the country, and how they then act afterwards is completely beyond our control for five years, until we get a faint say again.  So by the time their actions, combined with the actions of other leaders and other countries, affects that person on Kiribati we have lost all control and influence.  But then the media portray that it's all our fault, and if we just buy a different shampoo then it'll all be well.
Well, maybe I'm being a bit over the top, but you get the point.
What I'm trying to say really is that when you get away from all the 'stuff' that floats around in the world, you begin to realise what is actually important; It's the people you care about, a roof over your head and some good food in your belly.  It just gets you wishing for an isolated cottage somewhere with a bit of land to grow vegetables, a fruit tree, a handful of chickens and a couple of sheep; At least it does in my dream world.

Quietly

Not much to blog about this week.
Disappointments in the sporting world with Sheffield Weds losing their unbeaten run at home, followed by losing a last minute goal to get only a draw this week.  Then the England cricket team's shambolic batting in Dubai against the Pakistan spinners - they'd do well to get a draw out of that series.
Regarding the wedding, we've been slowly working on the invitations in order to try to get them out by the end of the month.  Realistically there is not much we have to do for a while as it is several months away.
I do have more time off in a week's time however, when hopefully we may be able to get out for another walk, or at least later in the week I will be visiting Somerset and may be able to get walking there, weather permitting. One thing that we do plan is to visit Glastonbury and perhaps get up to the Tor.  If you believe some, it runs along a ley line, and so it will be intriguing to see if there is anything to 'feel'. I'm prepared to keep an open mind.

Ice Ice Baby

Spent the afternoon at Canary Wharf where they had their annual Ice Sculpture Festival. It was somewhat disappointing since there was little going on other than thousands of people milling around and getting in your way.  I think however that most of the sculpting had gone on earlier in the day, and the sculptures that were on display were pretty impressive, despite occasionally dripping!

It was also possible to have a go at ice sculpting yourself, but most of their slots were already booked, all the way up to the finish at 6pm.  A friend of ours was quite excited about the prospect of a snow pit, but this too turned out to be a disappointment since it was only about 4 m square and full of kids! Never mind, if the prediction that there will be snow by the end of the month comes true, then we'll have plenty of the real stuff to play with.

In other news we're getting into full swing with the wedding invitations; Paper has been bought, and the text has been through its first draft.  The most stressful bit to come will be all the legal paperwork, with its myriad certificates, forms and licences.  It will be worth it, but I just find the whole thing daunting.  I guess that means that when the big day finally comes I'll know that the worst is already behind and won't be at all nervous!

It's been a long while since I've done much writing and in order to get some inspiration I've put some different types of information into an excel file with a number randomiser to come up with some interesting suggestions for characters of stories that may well suggest the stories themselves.  I hope to write some in the near future, which I will then post up here (perhaps with the original conditions to see where it came from -what do you think?).  It was an idea I read somewhere but no idea where.  If I find it, I'll let you know.

New Foods

I am trying to make a little effort to make new foods this year.  After last weeks very successful attempt at profiteroles (wish I had had a working camera at the time to take a photo!) I wanted to have a go at dumplings this week.
I started off with a very simple chicken stew made from chicken thighs, onion, garlic, mushrooms, stock and a huge pile of herbs.  After frying off it went in the oven with plenty of water, then I made the dumplings with a very basic ratio of 2:1 flour to butter, with a dash of water to bind, before putting these on top of the stew for about half an hour.
Here is the result:

I found them very tasty, although my fiancee didn't quite get the idea of balls of pastry in the middle of a stew.  By the way, she made the roast potatoes, not me.  Despite not being a native, she's taken to roasties like a lass to Yorkshire.

In other news we now have a date for the wedding...I'm starting to get nervous now...

Beach Wedding

Planning a wedding
Is like getting stuck in quicksand
Not so much of a sinking feeling
More for every forward step
A dozen more ideas pull you in
I guess this means that
There's a beach wedding for us all

Plans and Banquets

Moving forward with wedding plans today, although a backward step with having the engagement ring resized.  My fiancee won't have it for at least four weeks now and she's disappointed.  Even after just a week she's gotten used to having it on her, albeit wrong, finger since it kept sliding off the right one.
However been checking out paper for possible use in invitations and various other leaflets required.  I think it has only just dawned on us both how many little things there are to organising a wedding; we do have some ideas for gifts though.
Visited the Banqueting House, the last remaining part of the original Whitehall Palace, and dating back to the early 1600's.  The best way to describe it is sugary, like an over-iced cupcake, with it's Reubens ceiling, columns and balcony.  Also the throne and canopy looked like it hadn't been dusted since Charles II became King.  You can actually hire the place for functions, but after careful consideration is probably slightly out of our price range...donations anyone?
Finally have our 2012 calendars too...a His 'n' Hers with columns for us both...anyone would think we were already married!