Being Mrs

Well it's done. We are married. I'm a Mrs.I have a ring and a massive credit card bill to prove it.

The day was lovely but lost in a sea of tiredness and a lesson in why it is important to follow your heart rather than other people's opinions.

I can't lie I was disappointed. Not the service. No it wasn't that bit at all (even though I had to be 20 minutes late as the serving staff got lost and my mother-in-law had to go find them).

No it was all the bits after that. 

When we got to the reception the serving staff hadn't set up everything the way we had asked resulting in a queue of people waiting for food (no big deal I said). We had forgotten to put tables outside so people were milling around (no problem just pop a few chairs out I said). There were less flowers than I wanted as we had all gotten too tired the night before (we left the hall at 2am after decorating, we had flowers who needs more flowers!) so it was all perfectly adequate but not as I had envisaged. 

My main route of all the stress was that I had done what people told me, all the struggles to do the things we wanted in the planning meant a lot of compromise to the point we ended up with very little of what we (OK me the boy would have been happy with anything) had dreamt and the things that I did get were there as the result of nasty arguments, and many tears. 

Don't get me wrong the day was lovely, the Boy looked so handsome, the sunshine was amazing (it was torrential rain the day before!). In all the photos everyone is smiling. There were tears of joy. There was great food and lots of dancing.

I ignored some of my new family commenting on not liking this or that. I concentrated on speaking to the people that I knew were happy for us and I tried to ignore the tired eyes the many who had helped us with all the decorating. But in the end it all added up and now I can only look back and think that all the months of hard work resulted in a day that wasn't right and my heart feels heavy.

The Boy of course tells me I am utterly stupid for concentrating on the negative and to be honest I am guilty of that but I had dreams of this day. I don't mean big grand dreams (we never had the budget for that). I mean dreams where the Boy and I could sit and plan things and laugh about them, and enjoy the process, where we spent quality time with family and friends but we ended up trying to find ways to encompass the demands that were put on us. One thing led to another and we ended up at a place we said we would never be, utterly miserable and all for one day in our lives. 

Ironically after all the struggles to get some of what we wanted we found out that one of our guests decided to carbon copy our wedding - down to the same suppliers.

I am trying to be positive about the day but in my heart I know it was not the day it should have been so my advice to all brides to be: Ignore those around you making demands. Yes I know this feels impossible but if you don't you will end up with a day that is not a reflection of you both and on which you will look back and feel sadness. Instead if you have a demanding mother or an aunt who thinks you should only wear this or that type of dress and uncles who won't travel, just elope. Elope and spend the day being the two of you. Just have a party when you get back, if people don't understand then they never will.

I know, I know, this post is a little disheartening but this blog is about life, as it really is. Not like a glossy magazine but like a well loved book, very interested but battered around the edges. 

To try and balance it all here is a happy picture of us leaving the church and being met with a barrage of lavender  (see smiles everywhere and glorious blue skies).

 

Taken by the amazingly talented and very charming Alex Brenner

 Cheerier talk to follow...

Reading of the Future

Recently I got a Kindle DX. Now I love to read and nothing feels better than holding a great book in your hands with a lovely weight and smooth pages but with traveling all over for uni I needed something that would allow me to carry 3000 books but without breaking my back, in steps the answer to my prayers:

I never ever, ever thought I could be pulled away from traditional paper versions but as our tiny flat is now overwhelmingly full of books, and I can not bear to sell or give away a book, this digital wonder is now my new best friend and has converted the Boy and his sister and a colleague and is the increasing envy of many of my friends with shared travel vs reading issues.

I have increasingly seen people reading Kindles on the bus or as they walk to work and it made me start to think what happens if we ALL buy Kindles? Will the trusted paperback die out? And what if there was a world wide disaster Dark Angel stylie and there was no power?

I don't regret my new treasure but I definitely think I will not be forgoing a read of an original old fashioned paperback any time soon, Am I stuck in my ways? Probably.

One can never be too stylish or have too many candelabras at one's wedding

So it turns out I am in fact the proud owner of a gazillion new silver candelabras, rose bowls and vases but it should all look lovely at the wedding with the right flowers, and silver accessories are always stylish

I LOVE this wedding

The wedding planning has been a bit of  nightmare actually, I won't go into the nitty gritty just to say that if there was a programme 'Weddings from Hell' I'd be the first one on there. So focusing on the sugar and spice for the wedding has helped me from going insane and cancelling the wedding entirely.

In this vain I have been trying to choose my makeup and hairstyle. 

Now until my last dress fitting I was adamant that I was having my hair down, loosely curled bit of a braid around the front to keep it out of my eyes, very much like Ms Aniston here 

But then at my dress fitting I had my hair up because it was warm and I realised it transformed the way both myself and the dress looked which left me with the dilemma what the hell do I do with my hair?! Now as we are on a small (read tiny) budget I am cutting costs where I can, so there will be no hair dresser, just me, a set of GHDs and a will of iron. My 'lovely' celtic (read thick, and curly) hair is unruly so it takes hard work and strong muscles to tame it into any form of style.

I would love something like this

but I think that in reality I would just love her skin and that if I attempted this hair style it would look like a bird was nesting in there. 

I then saw a few hair tutorials on A Cup of Jo which I really liked, particularly the Heidi with a slight twist but I am not sure they will work for a wedding which is requires something more formal.

So now I am thinking along the lines of a relaxed 1940's kind of up do, like these

I have found that I like may of Miss Swift's dos.

Basically I've still not a clue about my hair, so swiftly moving on (excuse the pun) I am thinking about the makeup.

I wear makeup, the basics that make me look remotely human, but don't really go beyond blushers and concealer, so the thought of having to do makeup that would A. make me look beautiful B. be long lasting and C. photograph well was slightly overwhelming.

Well for all those out there like me there is a makeup angel in the form of Lisa Eldridge who is a British makeup artist and has an awesome blog with video tutorials.

The items she uses can be pricey and I tend to try to mix and match but she really helps with techniques and colours so I am feeling much happier with my war paint now. My sister has also offered to do it and she is great with makeup, God gave her all the girly genes!

So I know what I am going to wear (I have in fact ended up with two pairs of shoes), how I am going to paint my face (well how my sister will) but have no idea whether birds will be nesting in my hair, who is catering the wedding and whether my nerves will survive long enough to make it down the alter! Ah wedding bliss...

Being in love with stuff

I am currently bidding on Ebay items for the wedding. I stupidly bid on multiples of the same items hoping it would ensure I was successful on one, FIVE silver candelabras, TWO rose bowls and TWO tall vases later I am sickenly looking at the other five candelabras and four rose bowls that I also appear to be fated to own. This is a warning to the wise, do not make this mistake.

So whilst I am in online shopping mode I thought I would share with you a few gems that I am in love with at the moment both to buy and just to admire. The first being this beautiful dick egg blue case on Etsy from GRSG

www.etsy.com/shop/getreadysetgo 

(I love most of the things in this shop)

I can think of so many uses for this case: I don't own a lot of makeup but if I did it would live here; if I had a wonderful collection of cotton gloves and hankerchiefs they would live here; if I owned beautiful ballet shoes they would live here and if I had lovely vintage snaps they would live here.

And this lovely, delicate, lace necklace from White Owl, again on Etsy, would look amazing with the right outfit; I'm thinking a lovely tea dress on a summers evening whilst sipping Pimms with a handsome gentleman

www.etsy.com/shop/whiteowl

and in a modern contrast I am in love with the colours and shapes of the work of Rie Tsuruta such as these little beauties

http://www.rietsuruta.co.uk/gallery

Don't they just look so clean and fresh? Spring and summer all wrapped up in lovely ceramic.

Finally, as I am in desperate need of a life overhaul (I have put on many many pounds and am getting very very little sleep) I have been thinking of getting a bike and in the midst of my searching I fell in love with this Batavus Old Dutch bike oh how I wish I had money and didn't live somewhere with seven LARGE hills

http://flyingpigeon-la.com/2010/03/custom-batavus-old-dutch-5-speed/

What are you loving at the moment?

Now to see if I am the lucky owner of a gazillion silver plated candelabras, wish me luck...

Happy World Diggers Day- What it is that I do

Hello and happy, what is known among us shovel monkeys as, 'World Diggers Day'. A day, primarily facebook based, which celebrates all those who are out in a muddy hole in all weathers, scrutinizing bits of dirt and old rubbish, in order to understand the human condition.

It being such a momentous day, I thought this might be a good opportunity to explain what it is I do and that whilst you will see that I come to Greece several times a year, it is never a holiday, more's the pity because I could ruddy do with one!

I am actually doing a Ph.D in archaeology, in 5000 year old Greek archaeology to be more precise. Before this I worked for just over two years as a commercial archaeologist digging on a variety of construction sites around the country.

In that time I have worked on all manner of sites from quarries where I had to stop twice a day whilst another section of the site was literally blown up, to city center car parks uncovering Roman bathrooms and industrial crucible furnaces. I have often been mistaken for a boy, despite wearing pigtails and being quite slender (I blame the hard hat, hi-vis clothing and the manical shoveling); I have been genuinely offered work as a labourer and have been stopped in the street to be told 'you look reet sexy in them boots'; It has been so cold my hair has literally frozen, so windy I have been blown off my feet and so wet that the water has been up to my thighs. All this because none of us have really grown out of the 'playing in the mud' phase of our childhoods - the pay is terrible, three years of university education, £30,000 worth of debt for the princely sum of...(drum-roll please)... £7.50 an hour, but the reward of the job can be fantastic. You are standing there, in a field, having seen the sun rise, knowing you are the probably the first person in 1000 years to hold the ceramic bowl you are holding or to walk on the road you have just uncovered.

So in honour of the day and to show you the marvelous sites I have seen so far here in Greece here's a glimpse of how people lived 3000 years ago - they really don't build the way they used to:

 

The Lion's Gate, Mikines (Mycenae) I should add that these cyclopean walls are huge, I mean some of the stones are literally (guestimated you understand) 5 x 1.5 x 1 meters, that's like 200 tonnes, 1 stone, 1 flipping stone out of a wall of, well, lots of flipping stones!

 Down towards the cistern - it got too dark and I didn't have a torch, how very un-Indiana Jones of me!

The Treasury of Atreus, tholos tomb with a mahooosive Greek cohort all nattering away at a million miles an hour!

 

You can kinda see why they came here, them Mycenaeans weren't daft.

Happy World Diggers Day!

So Where Am I Now?

OK firstly, I stupidly tried to change my blog header and now it loads blurry. Apparently this is problem blogger are having and I can't get around it, I've tried loading the JPEG to host websites like photobucket but nothing is working so for now my title will have to look a bit lame.

So where am I now? Nafplion, yep that's right Greece! I am here for research and it is so, so lovely, therefore, I thought I would share some pics of the loveliness that currently surrounds me, colonial architecture and views...

 

I'm working, honestly...

So where the devil have I been?!

Indeed where have I been? I start a blog and then disappear...well where do I begin?

Christmas was manic, I mean really manic. The boy and I had the genius idea to invite any of our friends who couldn't get home for Christmas for dinner at our insey, teeny, weeny flat. So with us, 8 people needed to be crammed in to our living room which was already being largely taken up by a humongous, yet twinkley, Christmas tree.

On top of this we also had to visit all our family in both Wales and Birmingham in the snow

I cooked for two days! TWO whole days. The meal included a large turkey, a ham (bought from Joe's, the best butchers in the world and based in Bala, North Wales), a mushroom wellington for the vegetarian, a wide variety of veg, stuffing, home made cranberry sauce, and then all the usual things like mince pies, cakes and cheeses. In the end I was so exhausted (little did I know the full reason for this at the time) I didn't take any pics of the sumptuous meal that we made.

Then I got ill.

To cheer me up whilst I was poorly sick the Boy surprised me with a bunch of sweet pink carnations!

New year came and went in a fevered state. We watched the original Star Wars trilogy and pretty much went to bed.

On New Years day I woke up feeling more human and the Boy, being the sweetie that he is, made me fresh bread for breakfast mmmm. 

As I was feeling more like my old self I decided it was time to take up some knitting and began making the obligatory scarf, which is currently laid to one side with the suspicion that I have messed it up and may need to start again. I just don't think I have enough patience...

Other lovely things we managed to do over the holiday period were to go to see Swan Lake which was looovely (and has inspired me to look for adult ballet classes) and spent a day thrifting and bunting making in an attempt to look like we are proactively planning the wedding (due to take place in just over 6 months!).

I found some lovely fabrics, plates and some clothes (not for really for the wedding but clearly a necessary purchase!)

And for some it the entire holiday season was all too much...