If Sick of Royal Wedding, Look Away Now

Wasn't it fantastic.

As William joked to his father-in-law, "And this was supposed to be a small family affair."

And the dress? Perfect. It could not have been better.

Throw in one hot bridesmaid, and there's something for everyone.

Although I would have liked to see more of this:

Weren't we all fortunate there were no hunting mishaps? An easy mistake...

I can't even bear to have my earrings match my necklace. It seems that Tara Palmer-Tomkinson has no such qualms.

Why can't this woman ever smile?? Why?? Cheer up love. Plenty of women would be thrilled for their husband to look like that. She should be grinning from ear-to-ear. Someone needs to tell her all that pouting will give her smokers' wrinkles. I might send her an email. Smile! SMILE!! SMILE!!!

My husband thinks I'm obsessed with this, but I'm going to say it anyway. Did anyone else notice that he would give her a signal before each salute, so she could bow her head? Anyone?

And did anyone else see they held hands briefly when going through the small tunnel entrance, only to let go once they were out of it? Protocol eh. So not fun.

Just showing everyone I have one of these. One day I might use it to pretend I was invited.

My husband got this for me - with a little note from the author, if you don't mind. It's a book telling the love story of Kate and William using lots of poetic license and lookalike models. Isn't it great? It can get a little bit saucy, but since this is a wedding post I'm going to keep it clean.

The groom getting dressed.

At the reception.  This is Lady Gaga dancing with the Prince of Wales.  

Don't we all love Harry?

And while I am babbling, I'll tell you I spent the day wearing a British flag as a cape. This felt odd since I'm Australian, and a pro-republic one at that. But it was all such fun, plus I discovered I really love wearing capes. Should the super-hero look be in fashion one day, I'll be wonder-womaning it like there's no tomorrow.

What a day.  Even the Daily Mail was nice to Carole Middleton.  And the world was given this picture:

I hope you all had a great day too.


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Well Since It's Wedding Week...

This week's Listography theme is "5 things I'd change about my wedding."

While this provides some great reading on other blogs, I initially didn't think I'd join in. There is nothing I'd change about our wedding, except that keeping the guest list small was an unpleasant challenge.  For a couple that originally didn't want a wedding, the fact that we loved ours so much was a very pleasant surprise.

I am even perfectly happy with the fact that people mostly remember our wedding for the air guitar.

Time for some gratuitous wedding photos.  By the way, I might not be a natural blonde.

"And when hell freezes over, you can wear your bridesmaid dress again!"

We married under a very impressive tree.  
In close vicinity of an equally impressive yellow cello case.

If I really think about it, I'm sure I can rustle up a few things that could have been done differently. Here they are:

1. Before attending your wedding, it is advisable to unwrap your new shoes.

Yes, this one stopped the earth turning with its significance, I know.

But there I was, a bride skipping along merrily on her way to saying "I do" when my little sister said, "What's with your shoes?"

They were still wrapped in tissue paper and I didn't notice. I'm so lucky she spotted this error - just imagine - the whole thing would have been called off and the world would have exploded.  A bit like this:

This may or may not be from Star Wars.

2.  When marrying in a park, it is best for the gate to be open so you can enter it and attend your own wedding.

We sat in the car for at least half an hour, waiting while someone came to unlock the gate. At least it was a very nice car. The driver was visibly fuming and I think that's why he didn't help me out when we finally arrived.

At least the other, non-car, gate at the other side of the park was open so our guests showed up.  Every cloud...

3. Signing your marriage certificate is a good thing. Losing it on your wedding day is not.

Below is the proof that it was signed.  Although in truth, I only included it so you could see my manicure. Sadly the certificate has not been seen since.  Nor have my nails looked anything like that.

4.   Don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart...

We were married in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.  This is beside another park called the Domain, where Carols by Candlelight was being held on the same night.   The special guest that year was David Hasselhoff and he sang Achy Breaky Heart (loudly) as we were saying our vows.  Spontaneous singalong, anyone?

Actually, I really liked that.

5.  When marrying outdoors, check dress and veil sporadically for twigs, leaves and dirt.

This is because a friend picked big twigs out of my hair that had been there for the entire ceremony.  The dress has been cleaned but the grass stains remain.

But the truth is, I quite like that too.  I can feel another wedding photo coming on.... here is our Best Man making us reenact the time my now-husband called to ask me out, explaining he'd just asked someone else and she said no.  Yup.

Over to you - what would you change about your wedding day?


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Just Go Online

I have bought very little furniture in my life.  This is a good thing, for I haven't enjoyed the bit of furniture shopping I've had to do. Although I do dream about furnishing a room from scratch using a mood board, a colour wheel and with money being no object.  All with the help of an interior designer who knows what mood boards and colour wheels are.

In truth, we've been extremely lucky.  For the times in your life when you really need furniture tend not to coincide with times when you have much dosh - for most people, anyway. Hello milk crates and garage sales (I love that garage sales don't exist here in London because people tend not to have garages. Instead we have "car boot sales"... handy for when your car needs a new boot).

We're lucky because we've been given the majority of our furniture.

We inherited all our baby furniture from my sister.   Our son's beloved racing car bed was a present from my father.  Our dining table was a wedding present to my husband's parents.  Our dining chairs belonged to my husband's great-grandfather. Our armchair came from the house I grew up in, and without wanting to sound ungrateful, I'd love to know where the matching footrest ended up. Which I know does sound really ungrateful.

We did buy our bed.  It was a hellish shopping expedition ten years ago, with my husband standing in the middle of the shop loudly asking, "do they install ceiling mirrors?" and cracking inappropriate bedroom jokes.  He'd also pose on a bed on all fours going, "ooh baby..."  That man is immune to embarrassment.  I wish I had won the "we need matching bedside tables" argument. Instead we found a badly handpainted, broken bedside table at a garage sale and paid $3 for it. Which was $3 too much.

We spent years sitting on the floor because we couldn't decide on a couch.  We actually did have one - a 1970s brown and yellow effort that would say "what do you think you're doing??" if you sat on it.  I've written about it before here.  It was a very good day when we did finally buy one, for we both lost days from our lives spending countless hours shopping together for the perfect couch that didn't exist.

When misty-eyed new couples talk about furnishing their love-nest, all while one is rubbing their foot up the other's leg, I scoff. Don't worry, it's an internalised scoff where I'm thinking "good luck with that" but smiling politely and going "Oh really? You'll decide on a couch together in one day? Great!"

Maybe the answer really is to buy all this house stuff online. Which brings me to the point I am being paid to say... are you ready? For this is me dipping my toe into the world of sponsored posts. Anyway, Tesco Direct sell a huge range of home furnishings online. For example, if you need a bunk bed or a mattress, it's just a few clicks away.  Save yourself some time and perhaps some embarrassment. You're welcome.

They've even supplied the following pictures, which remind me so much of my children's bedrooms. My kids really work the pristine, show-home look.

Oh girls can be so messy, can't they?

I love the strategic football and skateboard to give the room an authentic, messy feel. 

Have you bought furniture online?
Does the thought of a sponsored post on this site make you run for the hills?
Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?


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Chicago the Musical

I've spent all day feeling completely un-sexy, devoid of talent and the polar opposite of fabulous. (I just re-read this and found I had written "pole opposite." There's a lesson to not write a blog post at 2am. Couldn't sleep. Will stop this bracketed italics nonsense now. Sorry to interrupt.)

Want to know why?

Last night I saw Chicago the Musical. I spent the evening watching the most incredible, lithe, talented, hot people on the planet. I stared up at them while wearing my thick glasses, eating a bag of Galaxy chocolate and trying not to cough.  Hot stuff.

To be honest I wasn't really in the mood to go. I was tired and have a cold, so I was sure I'd spend half the show having sneezing fits before falling asleep. But Chicago is such a fast-paced spectacle that you could be anethetised and still not manage a snooze during it.

How do they do it? For example, let's look at the dances where a chair is used as a prop. They will do handstands on it, whip their legs over it, flip around it like Russian gymnasts - and it all looks so effortless. I just vacuumed this room and couldn't even be bothered sliding the kiddy-sized chairs out of the way. I can sit in a chair for my country. But don't ask me to dance around one.

But I digress. The music was fantastic and I loved that the band was on stage, not hidden in a pit.  I've had the songs in my head all day. Luckily for everyone they stayed there, you can't have someone singing "the gun, the gun, the gun..." at the park.

 It was one of the best shows I've ever been to, and I'd see it again quite happily.  Preferably without a cold.

Ouch. 

The cast of Prisoner (or "Cell Block H" in the UK) without Lizzie Birdsworth.
I just had to include this picture to illustrate the similarities in prison garb.
Come on Aussie!

I was given tickets by an organisation called Superbreak, who provide hotel packages, one of them being for Chicago the Musical.  They have a number of different London theatre packages, check out their London Theatre Guide for more details.

Sounds good to me.  



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Q&A

There's a quiz going through blogworld that mirrors questions put to celebrities in The Guardian. I've been tagged by London City Mum to play. Answering these questions felt a little self-indulgent, but then I've enjoyed reading other people's, so I decided that made it OK.

I found this quite hard, so some of my responses barely qualify as answers.

Which living person do you admire most, and why?
I admire lots of people. I admire single parents, those whose partners are in the armed forces, people with seriously ill children, people who devote countless hours to charity... to name a few. So this is a really hard question.

So I'd have to say I admire Paris Hilton.

Just kidding.

For this question I'll pick Bill Gates. Yes he's a geek devoid of any glamour and I admit I don't know much about him. But I like that he, with his wife, decided they had more money than they will ever need so are using it to eradicate malaria. That is impressive.

When were you your happiest?
It's impossible to narrow this down to one moment. Obviously the life-changing moments are right up there: getting married and the birth of our children. Then there are quiet moments when I stop and think there is no way I'd change a thing right now. I consider myself very lucky to have these moments often.

What was your most embarrassing moment?
Well the first thing that leaps to mind is not going to be mentioned here, ever. So we can rule that out. And the second thing, and third actually. That doesn't leave much. Hmmm. Spending my twenties confusing the words "exotic" and "erotic" certainly threw some embarrassment my way.

Aside from property, what's the most expensive thing you've ever bought?
I once bought a Lisa Ho dress that didn't fit and was in a colour that made me look dead. Mental note: avoid coral.

What is your most treasured possession?
As much as I firmly believe you should never love something that can't love you back, I'd have to say my wedding ring. If I ever lost it... well now that I think about it, if I lost it I'd say "Where's my wedding ring?"

Where would you like to live?
I've moved around enough to know you're not going to really enjoy a place if you're pining for somewhere else. So I don't want to live anywhere other than where we live. Naturally that would be different if we lived in really grotty, dodgy parts of the world though.

What's your favourite smell?
Lawn that's just been mowed.

Who would play you in the film of your life?
Matt Damon, so I could meet him. Although there is one obvious flaw in this plan: his accent.

What is your favourite book?
I can't decide on a favourite novel, so instead I'll pick But No Elephants by Jerry Smith.

This might explain why I've always loved elephants. It was given to me by a friend for my 6th birthday, although since he was also 6 I'm certain his mum chose it, not him. It's now extra special as he was killed just after my daughter was born. I really love this book.

What is your most unappealing habit?
Pointing out people's pimples. You just never know - maybe they didn't know they were there!

What would be your fancy dress costume of choice?
I'm not sure if this qualifies but I really want to wear a Valentino gown one day. Trying one on in a change-room doesn't count.

What is your earliest memory?
Diving through the waves while riding on my grandfather's back, with my hands around his neck.

What is your guilty pleasure?
A full bubble bath with candles and chocolate.

What do you owe your parents?
Gratitude.

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
To the elderly lady I crashed into when I lost control of my toboggan. Sorry about that.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
I've found that love gets bigger and better with time. When I married my husband I knew I loved him, otherwise I wouldn't have married him. Obviously. But I love him more with time too, for the great life we've built together and for the family we've made. He is the love of my life.

For someone who really doesn't like anything soppy, this is sounding very soppy. Sorry everyone.

What does love feel like?
I've filled my soppy quota with the previous answer. So let's just say love feel fantastic. Done.

What was the best kiss of your life?
I'm not telling you.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"That's just weird."

What is the worst job you've done?
I was the worst bakery employee ever. I would panic when having to count change so customers would make a profit. I'd be pissed off with whoever bought the last pie - I had my eye on that all day... grrrrrr.

If you could edit your past, what would you change?
I'd make some wardrobe adjustments - eradicating all evidence of scrunchies, fergie bows, boob tubes and my oversized red Snoopy jumper.

What is the closest you've come to death?
An abscess after my wisdom teeth were removed. Now that's what I call a headache.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Two happy children that are great mates.

When did you last cry, and why?
When I got us all lost. Maps are not my friend.

How do you relax?
Wine, good food, fun company, a good book.... I could go on.  I have a talent for relaxing actually.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Easy. A cleaner.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
The option that scares you is usually the one you should choose.



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London Roads: 1, Me: 0

Man can navigate to the moon and back.

Good for them. Really - that's great. There are many reasons why I'll never be an astronaut, and one of them is I can not navigate. I'm going to do one of those annoying full stop phrases for emphasis here: I. Can. Not. Navigate.

As I mentioned, we've just returned home from a holiday. We decided to hire the car for one more day so we could go somewhere in London that isn't easily accessible on public transport. We whittled it down to a few options, and for various reasons we decided on the RAF Museum in north London. Rah rah, chocks away, what what. (With apologies to anyone in the RAF.)

This was a mistake.

We packed two very excited children into the car, and we were off. My husband was driving, and I was to navigate. You might be wondering why I didn't drive. I loved driving in Australia, and I always considered myself a good driver. Roads are wide and long. You have time to think between one intersection and the next. But I see cars squeeze through these tiny London streets and park within an milllimetre of the car next to them. Should I attempt that, I have no doubt I'll get the car stuck and be trapped, attracting the eye of the Daily Mail who will call me a fat, daft immigrant "and who paid for that car anyway?" No thanks.

We started out OK. Sure, I might have sent us on a cute little detour or two, but no matter. Then things got bad. We found that intersections in London can have about a gazillion roads coming off them. Street signs are often only on one side of the street. The directory doesn't have handy red dots where traffic lights are. A road might have a name, but it's the road's number that matters. Leaving my glasses at home doesn't help either.

Curse you, A406 North Circular! You might be easy to enter, but that's where all matters of ease, well, ease. A plague on both your houses, M4 Motorway and Church Road A504! You and your badly labelled lanes and general evilness.

Whenever my husband would ask which direction to go, I'd have to make something up.

"Left!"
"Really? Did you look at the map?"
"No... but Harrow sounds nice."

My husband is a patient man. He would pull over, ask where we were and realise I couldn't even tell him which page on the map we were on. I just couldn't keep up.

Finally, he stopped the car and we had the same conversation again. Except this time I could feel that I was going to cry. The kids are in the back chanting "planes! planes!" and I'm in the front seat, dangerously close to having a tanty.

Happily, we were in a McDonalds car park. My husband suggested we all go inside, I told him he was nuts and started hissing, "Have you looked around? We'll be stabbed... this is a brand new Volvo." Suddenly the free upgrade from Ford Mondeo was life-threatening. Rolling his eyes, he stepped out of the car.

"Get back in! Have you never watched The Bill?"
"Do you want me to bring you some fries?"
"Ooh yes please. And a cheeseburger."

We had been driving for over two hours. Where I grew up, I used to drive further than this for McDonalds, so it should have been a wonderfully nostalgic moment. It actually reminds me of a time when I was very young... Dad piled us into his car and drove all morning to McDonalds - something that happened, oh, once in every 500 years. When there, he put an Esky on the counter and said "50 Big Macs please." Once they worked out yes we were serious, and yes we were taking away, we took our Esky full of Big Macs home. In case you ever wondered, Big Macs that have been defrosted in the microwave go really wet.

Now where was I. Ah yes, McDonalds. I'd eaten, so I was certainly calmer, but I admitted defeat and asked if we could go home. The kids were happy, they had their Happy Meal toys which made me anything but:

So we turned around and came home.

It had been over three hours and and we had not done anything.

To add to the insult, when we got home my UK drivers license had arrived. For all that driving I will so not be doing here.

How are your navigational skills? I think I'll feel better if they are worse than mine.

It's been a great surprise to find this blog has been nominated for a few MAD Award categories - Best New Blog, Best Writer (can we call this writing?) and Post of the Year. Thank you to those who nominated me. The blogs with the most nominations become finalists, and the prizes are fantastic.

So this is a shameless plug to say if you like this blog, please do nominate it for an award by clicking on the button on the top right of this blog. Anyone can nominate and I'd really like to win a prize - especially for Best Craft Blog or Best Small Business Blog. Just kidding.

Thank you x.


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Exploring the UK: Hampshire

We've just come back from a short holiday. If I wanted to really annoy you, I'd now say something like "I need a holiday to get over my holiday."

But I will say we have had a fantastic few days.

We hired a car and spent 4 nights in the New Forest, Hampshire. So yes, we really went crazy, going so far from London. To get to the New Forest, you need directions to the New Forest. Luckily, I've found that English people love to give directions. In fact I was given so many different directions I decided to ignore them, and to put my faith in a sat-nav instead. Many stories of bad luck start with that little sentence.

If you're not familiar with it, there is a road called the M25 which does a circle around Greater London. We were on this and just needed to know where to jump off. But our sat-nav was evil, and would make us exit the M25, then tell us to do an immediate u-turn and get back on again. So navigating was up to me. I once tried to navigate in Italy using a map of France. I have been lost in a really big bathroom. I have lost my car in a car park for three hours. So this was bad. We had nearly circumnavigated London before I decided to just pick an exit, so I did. It was wrong. But what's a family holiday without the obligatory drama at the start? And anyway, once we worked out where we were, we just exhaled before seeing a sign welcoming us to Hampshire. This is a seriously small country.

And I saw my first traffic jam outside of a major city ever. Yup. Big highlight, I know.

The New Forest is beautiful. One of the things that make it unique is an old law that says if you live there, your horses, ponies and donkeys can roam around like they own the place. We saw donkeys just wandering down the street, having a chat and shopping.

"Daffodils!  Let's squash them!" 

Now this is all very well. But it's not ideal if you're sh*t scared of Shetland ponies. They lure you in with their "I'm half a horse! I used to work in mines - oooh poor me!" thing, you get close and then they try to eat you. Well OK they don't really eat you, but they are bastards who bite. Trust me. So yes, I have a fear of Shetland ponies, and I have definitely just passed that on to the kids. We were playing in the woods near our hotel, when one came over to us. The kids were delighted. Thank goodness I was there, I saw the fire in its eyes and screamed at the kids to run for their lives. They ignored me, so I picked one up under each arm and ran. Sure we got some funny looks, but are any of us half-eaten?

Another first: I slept in my first four-poster bed. I could never see the point, and now I can. In fact the hotel was really lovely. Although their complementary two-in-one conditioning sea lettuce shampoo made my hair look like a blonde frilly lettuce.

So pleased we took the buggy just so we could push Rock Star Dinosaur around. 

We walked through the woods, we raced sticks down a stream. We ate. A lot. We kicked a ball around. We took the kids to a farm where our little girl rode a horse and our son operated a digger. We took them to a car museum, and to Peppa Pig World.... which, I'm embarrassed to say, is how I came to hear of the New Forest in the first place.

It opened on Saturday, we were there on Sunday. Our verdict? We loved it. We lost years off our lives making our 2 year old queue for that long, but still, it was great.

So tonight I'm feeling a bit sad that it's over. But there's one thing for that... to start planning our next one.

I'm entering this post in the Tots 100 Holiday Story Competition. To enter, I have to include a link to Best Western Hotels. Their website is www.bestwestern.co.uk. Fingers crossed!


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That First, Fabulous Five

This week's Listography theme is My First 5 Albums.  It's part confessional, part musical.  I especially like this theme because just a few days ago my husband and I were discussing the fall of the great album.  Most music is now bought on-line as a single.  While this has its positives, it's a shame to think fewer people are loving whole albums.   

Having said that, please don't expect a list of five great albums here.  

The Bangles- Different Light

I saved to buy this album.  My hard work was rewarded with Susannah Hoffs singing through her nose and pictures of big hair.  I thought Walk Like an Egyptian was the most amazing song ever, and I felt so glamorous and international just by association.  To me, Manic Monday was a work of genius. Then there was Eternal Flame - deep, very deep.  

Crowded House - Self Titled Album

Just saying the words "self titled album" makes me feel all musical.  This was given to me by my sister's then-boyfriend for my birthday, and it was my first ever record.  I loved it then, I love it now.  In fact there is no Crowded House song I dislike. The same goes for Split Enz now that I think about it.  

Apart from their music, another great thing about Crowded House is their album artwork. 

Paul Hester coming out of a fan.  A fan! 

Mel & Kim - FLM

I had a terrible moment writing this list when I couldn't remember what this album cover looks like.  I found it online, and although I loved it at the time, I don't remember it looking like this.  Not remembering what one of my very first albums look like makes me feel really old.  

Anyhoo, in case you're wondering, FLM stands for "Fun, Love & Money" as in, "If you're in confusion, here's a solution, fun... love... and mo-o-o-oney."  Did you like "Respectable?"  Because I thought it, y' know, like, rocked.  

John Farnham - Whispering Jack

Farnsy is Australia's Favourite Son.  He keeps announcing he's retiring, goes on a "farewell to Farnsy" tour and has so much fun he does it all again the next year. Liking John Farnham is a bit of a guilty pleasure.  Whenever someone tells me they don't like John Farnham, I don't believe them.   Nor do I blame them for keeping this a secret.  

I still love You're the Voice, although I will admit the bagpipes are a bit over the top.  

I had a great collection of compilation albums, so I tried to work out which were chronologically in the top 5.  This was hard.  There were titles like "Yo, Let's Go" but I couldn't recall which year they were around.  Especially "Choose 1985."    

Truth be told, there were so many compilation albums I couldn't limit it to just one. So I ditched that idea.  Instead...   

Dave Dobbyn - Slice of Heaven

This was the first ever vinyl single I bought, is that allowed? Sorry about this, I go on about how singles are killing albums then I put a single into this list.  But this whole time I've been writing this post, I've had this tune in my head.  In a way I count this as one of my first albums, probably because it was a record in a world of cassettes.  

This song hasn't dated well, but still rates up there for all-time happy songs.  I also love it because I always loved Footrot Flats... despite never having seen the movie.  I know the vast majority of this blog's readers are going "Footrot what??" because I actually do look at this blog's stats.  

But for the Aussies and Kiwis reading this, I give you this gold nugget of musical happiness:

I used to think his cowboy shirt was really cool.

It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I discovered Dave Dobbyn is actually quite famous in New Zealand for other songs too. Go Dave!

So there you have it, my first five albums.  What do you think?  

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