Post Wedding Madness
I should really be studying, but I've been at it all day, I'm finally averaging 80% in the mock exams and 70% is the pass rate, and my head is mince.
What's been happening? ;)
Well, the wedding eventually went incredibly well. It's fair to say that at 6am on the morning before the big day (the Friday) both of us were at our wits' end trying to get everything done - there's nothing quite as surreal as tripping round the James' Centre trying to find poles to stick bits of card on for your tables and actually beginning to believe that it'll be a disaster if you don't find any. Fortunately two lovely Clinton Cards employees sorted us out with some helium balloons and Larry gave us a lift home with them.
Halls both looked fantastic I have to say, with a lot of help from various willing friends. Everyone was genuinely fantastic at pitching in with whatever needed doing, and we got through it all in record time. Which was just as well, as neither of us had really slept or eaten in days and were not too far off passing out. Well, I thought that, but ended up getting about 2 hours sleep anyway.
So to the big day. Well, it pretty much went without a hitch, the ceremony was great and the speeches were too. Fourteenhours, DJ's Nomad Soul and Mr Zimbabwe did the tunes and a phenomenal amount of booze was downed - it was particularly noticeable to Gills and I as we were the soberest people left in the end! And Gillian looked *amazing*. I mean obviously she's normally pretty hot but this was something else. I'm a jammy git, really I am. Still sorting through a ton of photos but I will get around to putting them online in some format or another once this exam's out the way....
Big shout-outs to Larry for his ringmastering of the evening (and also for the awesome hotel room that night - The New York Suite in Le Monde, I highly recommend it), Mark for MC'ing the event, Dan, Tommy and Greig for ushing, Hazel for being a stunning bridesmaid, the parents for all their help and of course Fraser for being a cracking best man. And to everyone else for turning up and being great. I feel like I'm reliving our (totally shambolic and unwritten speech) so I'll stop now.
So we flew to Barbados the next day after an party at the folks' - again, just a great place. We basically slept and ate for the first two days, as everything caught up with us, but recovered a bit after that to sightsee, snorkel, chill out and relax - and unsurprisingly we were gutted to come back.
It feels like no time at all since then, but actually a pile of stuff has been going on. We got a car which has predictably stopped working (the battery's flat and we can't drive anyway!), I've been on courses in London and Glasgow and have been studying a lot (though probably not as much as I should have) for tomorrow's Financial Regs exam. Gah, frankly. Gah. Also a friend we haven't seen in 11 years dropped in for a couple of nights with her 8 and 5 year olds, which was ....interesting. Back in London for another course this week, but if I can get through the exam tomorrow and three days of attempting (and failing) to understand derivatives I should get a bit of a break afterwards, which is really quite overdue, I think. We still have thank-you letters to write for the amazing gifts we got!
And finally...my dad had a heart attack on Wednesday night and is now awaiting an angiogram in the Infirmary. So far it looks like it was relatively minor, but it's still a hell of a shock for everyone and we're all still a bit discombobulated I think. Fingers crossed that everything will go alright....
On that note - Gillian is on nightshift tonight so I'd better go make some chilli.
What's been happening? ;)
Well, the wedding eventually went incredibly well. It's fair to say that at 6am on the morning before the big day (the Friday) both of us were at our wits' end trying to get everything done - there's nothing quite as surreal as tripping round the James' Centre trying to find poles to stick bits of card on for your tables and actually beginning to believe that it'll be a disaster if you don't find any. Fortunately two lovely Clinton Cards employees sorted us out with some helium balloons and Larry gave us a lift home with them.
Halls both looked fantastic I have to say, with a lot of help from various willing friends. Everyone was genuinely fantastic at pitching in with whatever needed doing, and we got through it all in record time. Which was just as well, as neither of us had really slept or eaten in days and were not too far off passing out. Well, I thought that, but ended up getting about 2 hours sleep anyway.
So to the big day. Well, it pretty much went without a hitch, the ceremony was great and the speeches were too. Fourteenhours, DJ's Nomad Soul and Mr Zimbabwe did the tunes and a phenomenal amount of booze was downed - it was particularly noticeable to Gills and I as we were the soberest people left in the end! And Gillian looked *amazing*. I mean obviously she's normally pretty hot but this was something else. I'm a jammy git, really I am. Still sorting through a ton of photos but I will get around to putting them online in some format or another once this exam's out the way....
Big shout-outs to Larry for his ringmastering of the evening (and also for the awesome hotel room that night - The New York Suite in Le Monde, I highly recommend it), Mark for MC'ing the event, Dan, Tommy and Greig for ushing, Hazel for being a stunning bridesmaid, the parents for all their help and of course Fraser for being a cracking best man. And to everyone else for turning up and being great. I feel like I'm reliving our (totally shambolic and unwritten speech) so I'll stop now.
So we flew to Barbados the next day after an party at the folks' - again, just a great place. We basically slept and ate for the first two days, as everything caught up with us, but recovered a bit after that to sightsee, snorkel, chill out and relax - and unsurprisingly we were gutted to come back.
It feels like no time at all since then, but actually a pile of stuff has been going on. We got a car which has predictably stopped working (the battery's flat and we can't drive anyway!), I've been on courses in London and Glasgow and have been studying a lot (though probably not as much as I should have) for tomorrow's Financial Regs exam. Gah, frankly. Gah. Also a friend we haven't seen in 11 years dropped in for a couple of nights with her 8 and 5 year olds, which was ....interesting. Back in London for another course this week, but if I can get through the exam tomorrow and three days of attempting (and failing) to understand derivatives I should get a bit of a break afterwards, which is really quite overdue, I think. We still have thank-you letters to write for the amazing gifts we got!
And finally...my dad had a heart attack on Wednesday night and is now awaiting an angiogram in the Infirmary. So far it looks like it was relatively minor, but it's still a hell of a shock for everyone and we're all still a bit discombobulated I think. Fingers crossed that everything will go alright....
On that note - Gillian is on nightshift tonight so I'd better go make some chilli.