Random Things ...

Gaynor, a fellow Bride to Be and writer of a lovely blog called Our Day by Design has tagged me with a very sweet award and a neme where I have to relate 10 random things about myself and then pass it on. I'm trying not to think about this too hard and just go with it....

1) I'm the eldest of three girls. We are each born exactly three years and two weeks apart each (an organised German mother!)

2) I have weekend newspaper obsession. I get a bit antsy if I fail to get at least The Saturday Guardian and The Sunday Times. We take all week to read them cover to cover and always recycle.

3) I'm a Newcastle United supporter. (yes, really! can't you tell?)
4) I'm dyslexic (you may have noticed).

5) I hoard books. I just can't throw anything I have read away so I drag shelves and shelves of dog eared paperbacks from one home to the next. I should really have a cull - it's getting out of hand.

6) My shelves also contain several large files full of recipes cut out of magazines. These recipes are recorded in a very geeky and complicated cross-referencing card-file system. It makes me seem totally crazy OCD.

7) We collect vintage film posters. My favourites are Polish or Cuban silk screen prints but the best one we own is a rare Japanese poster for Bullit.
8) I knew N was the man I'd marry within a few weeks of meeting him. I was quite surprised by how obvious it was to me - until then I didn't really think I was the marrying kind.

9) I'm a totally undiscerning music lover. My i-phone plays it all - from 90s rock to Northern Soul; funk; folk; house; hip hop; chart pop; samba; blues; electronic; classical and much to my DJing hubby-to-be's despair - country.
This is just really my preamble to admitting that most of all I love love love Dolly Parton. Oh I so do.
10) I'm a Godmother! My beautiful perfect little godson was born last month to my lovely bestest friends and I am so looking forward to watching him grow-up.


And now I'm tagging a few lovely blogs I found recently:

Gaia from Alice's Advenures in Wonderland
Laura from Cider & Sass
Lana Kenney from lanalou
Mo from Pink Argyle
and Artimis from tales of a jUnkaholic

M.I.A.

I've been a bad blogger I know. I don't know how people do it - write lucid, amusing regular blog posts and have a full time job and social life. If anyone out there has the secret, please do divulge.

In my defence I'm exhausted and pretty brain dead at the moment. Much as I'd love to share all I've been doing and seeing I simply haven't the time and energy to metaphorically lift pen to paper. N and I have been communicating largely through laconic text messages or monosyllabic grunts and my evenings are spent desperately not trying to fall asleep in front of the telly. Yup, this is the current state of our West London dinky life. Sad, I know.

I have a new job you see. Not that my old job didn't keep me busy but I had been at it for five years and as a result most of what I did was fairly instinctive and the challenges therein had lost their novelty. In short, I felt stuck in a rut. So an opportunity came up and it took me just a second to realise the terror I felt at doing something new and unknown was actually very exciting. You have to scare yourself sometimes otherwise you stagnate, right? And I am loving it. I'm feeling challenged and appreciated and fired up - but, phew-eee, I barley have time to breath! And on top of that, through a baptism of fire I am learning new technologies and pretty much a completely new language. So my head is spinning and thoughts of the wedding are scarcely registering.

But nine months - only nine little months to go! 303 days! 7272 hours! 436,320 minutes!

Can it be true? It some ways it seems like just yesterday that N asked me to marry him. And yet I've also grown rather used to being engaged and sometimes forget that it is not an end in itself but leading up to something else - something bigger and more special.

So before too many more of those minutes, hours and months flit past, N and I are going to have to stop and use a few of those moments to chill out, think about what we're doing and enjoy each other's undivided attention. We just need to cross paths long enough to try and decide where and when!

Leave it to the master ...

Just read the wisest words From A Practical Wedding

I might just print this off poster size and hang it on the wall - or just keep it folded up in my wallet in case of emergencies!

Meg - you rock. Yeah you do!
I love your wonderful blog and your uncanny ability to put into lucid words exactly what's been on my mind.

Also today a certain someone reminded me what I'm getting myself into. Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I don't know - it's how I feel right now. Via Work is not a Job

What comes after? (a bit of a ramble)

My parents have been happily married for thirty-four years. (N’s have too). They have a great partnership that was unquestionably solid as a rock for us girls as we grew up despite my father often having to be in far-away and dangerous places. I don’t think I ever really heard an argument between them, not ever. They have their little niggles and irritations (usually based around Papa getting deaf and Mama getting blind!) but they don’t shout at each other or bitch about each other. Really not ever.

Yet, although they couldn’t have set a better example to me, I don’t hold them as a blueprint for my own relationship with N. They are them and we are us. Likewise for N; he’s proud of how in-love his parents still are but he doesn’t want to be them. Every relationship is as unique as its individual parts. What is right for them might not make sense to us, with our own particular upbringing, baggage and, let’s not forget, era.

One thing I do think N and I have, for which we certainly have our parents to thank, is a lack of cynicism regarding the institution of marriage. Relationships can last forever; they need hard work, a solid base, support and room to breath but they do work – we have the proof! I feel this belief, especially in this day and age, is a great lesson and a precious gift. I know there are a million different reasons why a couple split up and often it may be for the best, but I also think sometimes it’s the easy route. No that’s wrong, sorry. Not the easy route, but that we’re taught it is the next step when things get hard rather than being taught that true life-long-love is worth fighting for and working hard for.

These ponderings have been prompted by a link posted by one of A Cup of Jo’s guest bloggers in her "Secrets to a Happy Marriage" series. I was so moved by the author’s strength and honesty. It’s easy to look at long and happy marriages with rose tinted glasses but I’m sure every success story has a lot of hard work, individually and as a team, behind it. It’s not sexy and it’s not conventionally romantic but the rewards are so great and that’s what I want to model our marriage on.

No source for these pics as I've had them saved for ages. And yes the last one may be a bit gratuitous but Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were known as having the longest marriage in Hollywood. Bogard and Bacall is just such a romantic story although I don't doubt they had to work very hard. And as for Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn - well they may never have married but they're my favourites; they just radiate love, respect and fun.