Things are changing around here, and to coincide the blog is having a bit of an overhaul. So far this has involved changing the template to incorporate a fabric chicken and other random object d’art, but it’s a start.

This morning I woke up to find my euphorbia – my favourite plant – has decided to unveil its show piece after many months of wintry gloom! I was never really one for plants until I had my own garden, but now I get quite a thrill out of seeing that things have survived for another year….

…and that all concerns regarding a certain ‘Weedol’ incident so far remain unfounded.

Well, we did it!

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It still intrigues me as to the number of ways in which Neil and I differ from each other and yet still manage to coexist in abundant happiness. I for example and as (in Neil’s humble opinion) display reckless abandonment of crockery in the dishwasher and have no concept of the correct stacking procedure, whilst Neil (in my humble opinion) surprises me as to the number of things he can’t see and often requires ‘girl eyes’ to locate all manner of objects in drawers, wardrobes, sheds and the like.

To answer my own question however, I believe the origin of our ‘lots of smiling’ is that despite our numerous foibles, quirks and potential irritations, we just quite simply get on. This manifests itself on a daily basis as much giggling, bouncing, chatting – and I love nothing better than the time we spend each evening in the kitchen cooking dinner and having a good debate about whatever has come about during the day.

What has started to get me though is the number of times Neil and I say or think the same thing at the same time. It’s actually got to the point of ridiculous, and it’s a little bit freaky when the thing we’re thinking isn’t even relevant to a particular situation. Not sure how I can explain that one.

Neil and I both gave each other a card on our wedding day. Mine had a rustic heart on the front (much to my taste) and Neil’s had a ditty about a lucky biscuit (as you do). On opening these cards however the first lines both read ‘Well, we did it’.

And thank goodness we did.

I would like to thank everyone who could join us on the amazing day that the 8^th May was and for all of the well wishes we received.

Also apologies about the rather soppy post, but if you can’t be soppy about your wedding day, when can you!

Be back soon.

If I achieve nothing else in this life, I shall at least try and keep my promises.

On his wedding day, as I sat lounging on a chair – a free glass of his bubbly in one hand and the remains of a chocolate torte in the other - Chris Maguire mentioned to me that it had been quite a while since I had last blogged. I responded by offering various excuses as to why this was so (all of which are quite legitimate), and promised him that my ‘come back post’ would  feature his special day. To be fair it was the least I could do sitting opposite a chap whose food I was so merrily scoffing…..

It was in this post last year that I featured ‘the ring’ given by Chris to my very good friend (and work colleague) Helen. On Saturday the 11th October of 2008 this fabulous couple married at St Nicholas’ Church in Worth, Crawley in the most glorious autumnal sunshine. It couldn’t have been a more perfect day, and despite Neil and I having mistakenly managed to book ourselves into a hotel 4 miles from the reception venue instead of the recommended one opposite, everything went without a hitch.

Helen of course looked stunning, as did her bridesmaids who I was informed beforehand were to wear ’Latte’. Knowing Helen has superior taste I wasn’t willing to question her decision, although I have to admit to being quite relieved when the bridal party teetered delicately down the aisle wearing dresses*.

Here is a picture of the happy couple having just signed up to a life of selective hearing and heated discussions over wallpaper samples…

The reception was in a delightful barn kitted out with balloons, bubbles and lots of little glittery bits adorning the tables. The guests were also welcomed with their own place cards – the adults being given a tasteful ivy design – whilst Helen had thoughtfully catered for the children by decorating their cards with favourite motifs….

The afternoon soon turned into evening… the cake was cut (and was delicious)…

… and drinks were had. One thing led to another and….

Enough said….

Thanks Helen and Chris for a top day/night! Wishing you every happiness in your lives together and hope you have a fantastic time in New Zealand!

* Author aware of sad ‘Dad’ joke. It won’t happen again I promise. I blame it on 2  and a half years of living with Neil.

Even though I’m a ‘grown up’, Father Christmas doesn’t visit the way he used to, and my current school doesn’t do nativity plays, I still get childishly excited around this time of year, and now it is Christmas Eve the butterflies have already started!

It is true what they say though – I’m starting to find as I grow older and perhaps wiser that the best kind of excitement at Christmas derives from the giving – not the receiving. It is finding that one special item for a loved one that shows how much you care, and how much thought has gone in to finding/making them the perfect gift…

Which is why I can not wait until tomorrow morning to see Neil’s eyes light up when he unwraps his ‘Barbie Mini-Van’ and ‘glitter fun’ accessories.

I just know he’s going to love them!

So here’s wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I have a sneaking suspicion that 2008 might be a good one….

Today is Friday, a joyous event that I would have been celebrating later with a generous gin-and-not-so-much-tonic if I hadn’t donated a pint of my blood today, but at least the nice tea lady was there this afternoon with an offering of chocolate orange ‘Club’ biscuits, that were so nice I would have given up a whole other arm’s worth of my red stuff for an extra one of those bad boys…!

Anyway, besides the excitement of a ‘Club’ biscuit and the fact I don’t have to go to work tomorrow, Friday is special for another reason….

It’s food shopping night!

Now you might, as did Neil and I, think that the weekly food shop in an overcrowded and blindingly lit pre fabricated building surrounded by a sea of badly parked cars sprawling across two spaces to avoid wrecklessly abandoned trolleys is the last thing you’d wish to do with your Friday evening, and a month or so ago I’d be tempted to agree.

Now however a revolution has occurred in our food shopping experience, something so brilliant a herd of stampeding rhinoceroses couldn’t keep us from Sainsbury’s door, so ingenous it must have been invented by a woman, so exciting absolutely all of the cool kids are doing it…

We’ve signed ourselves up to a beepy thing.

A beepy thing for those of you who have not yet been introduced to this extrodinary device, is a hand held barcode scanner which is used to ‘beep’ the things as you put them in your trolley, and what I can only imagine is that a magic supermarket fairy then flies above you as you walk around the store adding everything up, because on exiting the shop, all you have to do is hand over your ‘Nectar Card’ (a customer reward card for those of you who reside outside of Britain) and it knows exactly what you bought and how much it all cost and then all you have to do is pay! None of this having to load things onto a checkout conveyor belt and then bag it all up in record time because the bored early-twenty-something serving you wants to get home to play ‘gangster snooker VII’ or similar on their X-Box, or having to stand and wait in an enormous queue for the mum of 4 to recover their child whose adventures have got them stuck in the basket rack, and you don’t even have to suffer the painful looks of disapproval from the sensible elderly couple in the queue behind you as the juvenile shop assistant waves the 4 bottles of vodka (for a party of course…) you have purchased at their manager.

It’s great!

What is more you actually get a go at doing the beeping! Now as truly rewarding and fulfilling a life it must be to work on a checkout – and is something I truly believe should be given a higher profile in career libraries – it has never been a job that I have ever felt impassioned to do, although if I am honest, it has always been a secret ambition of mine to have a go at making things ‘beep’ (much in the way I aspire to spend some quality time in a post office just so that I could stamp things). Now I have been given this opportunity (to beep – sadly not stamp) and I don’t even have to wear a startingly bright orange fleece and ankle swinging navy blue polycotton mix trousers to partake in the privilege!

Really – what more is there to life!

So as I look forward with great anticipation for the clock to turn its little hand to 5 and the big hand to 12 so I can peg it down to my local prefabricated building with no parking spaces and ‘Rod Stewart Pan Pipe Classics’ offending my ear, I will leave with you knowledge of the beepy thing and the joy it can bring.

Plus if you scan the barcode on the shelf with the beepy thing opposed to the actual item, it makes a wicked noise like a game of space raiders!

Bring it on!