Ethical fashion for me?

My favourite style blogs have the occasional round of ‘Ethical fashion’ – usually a mixture of small, independent labels and Etsy sellers and the better known brands like People Tree. Today I read Lori's post on ethical dresses. As per usual, I found the selection frustrating. As I clicked through to the gorgeous frocks, every single beautiful printed cotton skirt and draped silk dress comes in a tiny range of sizes from super skinny to just about average, i.e. UK8 – UK16, maybe a UK18 if you’re very very lucky. This frustrates me.

I am a UK size 22. I have been thinner. I have been fatter. I’m currently working on reducing that number, but as I’m also trying to get pregnant, I suspect it’s going to be a little while before I can hope to be in what most clothing manufacturers consider 'normal' sizes*. I'm not going to go naked or clothed in sackcloth and ashes until I'm 'normal sized'. I would prefer to wear clothes, ones that fit me and that I enjoy. And I would like to have the chance to think and make choices about the ethics of the processes and practices behind the clothing I buy.

When I'm slimmer, I shop mostly in charity shops and vintage stores. I always buy underwear and shoes new, but for everything else, second hand is fine. Buying pre-owned is one way to shop ethically. Reuse prevents useable items from being thrown away, saves on energy used in manufacturing and transporting goods and in the case of charity shops, provides useful income for charities. But, if you're a larger than average size, your options are reduced. There are fewer things to find in second hand shops and you can forget buying vintage!

So, what does that leave me if I want to be ethical about buying clothes? Well, ethical can mean different things. To me it means that I would like the people who made the clothes to be paid a living wage and to work in safe and fair conditions. It means that I would like to minimise the amount of pollution and waste produced in the process of making and transporting clothes. That might mean organically produced fibres, but I'm not completely convinced that organic is synonymous with ethical. I'd like not to contribute more than necessary to carbon emissions and global warming. There are different aspects to consider. Is it more ethical to minimise transport miles by buying from solely UK-based manufacturers, where the whole process from plant or sheep to garment is carried out with as little travel as possible? Or is it better to support garment workers in Bangladesh or another developing country by buying from a company who ensure that they are properly paid and work in safe conditions? And how do I find out the processes involved in making that awesome dress or fantastic pair of shoes?

I don't know the answers yet, but I want to find out. I have moaned to others for too long. Let's see what I can discover and do. What do you think? Where do you shop?

* I don’t like the phrase ‘plus-sized’ but it’s widely understood to mean anything above a size 16, so I’ll continue to use it. (I like zaftig, but it’s not a common word). 

can we have cake now?

These hopeful looking kiddiwinks were guests at a surprise baby shower for my sister HB last week. She's got about 3 weeks to go before her firstborn arrives. She lives in Exeter, but came to visit my parents in London last week and since she has lots of friends here too, our other sister Debs thought it would be fun have a baby shower for her.

And there were grown-ups and small children and cakes and scones. All good fun. :)

a cheering up dog

Today I am feeling in need of cheering up. Maybe this dog will help. He's a very sweet and bouncy puppy called Bailey. His coat is so soft. Amazingly, he sat still for 30 seconds while I took some pictures of him.

Anyone want to hire me to take pictures of their dog/cat/baby? I could do that all day long.

big feet, little feet

I love this picture from a recent walk I took with my friend E and her small daughter E minor.

The focus isn't sharp and the angle's a bit off and maybe the negative space should be on the right instead of the left, but I love the feel of it. E minor loves standing, though she can't do it without help yet. Her mother held her up and let her stand on mummy's feet to see the ducks she loves.

Love.

Things my Granddad knows

Photo by Rob

The breeds of dogs and cows
The names of plants
The names of butterflies
The taste of wild rabbit and pigeon
The habits of birds
What a buzzard looks like in flight
What a Spitfire looks like
What a German bomber looks like as it flies over your back garden
What a German machine gun sounds like as the gunner spends spare bullets on your neighbours
How to be right handed, though if you're really a left-hander
How to mend aeroplane engines in the heat in India
What happens when you gorge yourself on bananas
How to make lumps of wood into beautiful things, even if his hands shake too much to do so now
What it's like to be a rural policeman
What it's like to buy a house and know you've only got £100 in the bank until next payday
What it's like to wait a long time for a child
What it's like to see your children succeed and fail and get hurt and get up again
What it's like to lose your wife
How to cook dinner for one
What it's like to be gradually frailer and more shaky and realise your brain and body are letting you down
The names and concerns of his children
The names and concerns of his grandchildren and their partners
The names and smiles of his great-grandchildren
The love of his family

summer haze

Goodness, is it September already? Where did the summer go? Well, it's still here really, but somehow, even without kids it's hard to lose the feeling of a new school year beginning.

We're busy and happy and taking plenty of photographs. Yesterday we took over 4000, but that's a story for another day. Life this week feels a little like this photo - a bit blurred but full of colour and movement.

This is lavender in my parents' garden in Walthamstow. I went down to London on Wednesday and paid them a visit. My sister and her cute kids were there too and we had fun in the sunny garden. It's a very small patch (well, probably standard for London) but in the summer it's always full of plants growing crazily well, making it a mini jungle.

Late summer in my parents's garden is a green tangle of plants, the smell of lavender and rosemary and the taste of sun-warmed blackberries, straight off the bush. Sophia and JJ and I looked for frogs in the pond (I saw some but I couldn't get the littles to look hard enough). JJ threw things in the pond and ate too many blackberries until he had to be dragged away from the bushes. Then he had fun filling a toy jeep with grass and driving it into corners, getting covered in soil and blackberry juice in the process.

I like summer. Long may it continue.

babies babies babies

Babies are on my mind rather a lot at the moment. The one my little sister HB is having in November; the future king born on Monday; the one I'd like to have.

This was on the pavement in the middle of Champ de Mars, near the Eiffel Tower. No other context, but I imagine it came from a pro-life demonstration. Just a snap, but I like the graphic simplicity of the drawing.

dog tired

It's been pretty hot (ok, very hot) lately and this is how I feel on hot days.

Fortunately I can flop on a bed, not hard paving and I don't have to get dragged around the city by my human. 

We took a lot of dog photos in Paris. There are lots of dogs who live there (I only saw one cat) and they all need walks. No-one cleans up after them though. :(

on the pavement

This isn't a recent image and it predates our acquisition of 2 Nikon DSLRs and a huge number of lenses, but it's one of my favourite pictures of Sophia.

This was last summer at the Jubilee street party in my parents' road. The road was blocked off and filled with tables and chairs, music and people dancing. There were chalks and lots of kids (and grown-ups too) making pictures on the road. Sophia was about 2 and a half. About old enough to enjoy the bouncy castle and tentatively join in with the games of the other little girls. They made a den under under one of the tables and sat it in doing drawing with felt tips.

Here Sophia is carefully watching what the other girls and doing and getting up the courage to go and join in.

I like the chalk drawing background and the way the adult in the picture is just a pair of legs. I also like the blues - the paper, her dress, the chalk and the way they contrast with her skin. The three-quarters profile means you can see her gorgeous long eyelashes and her watchful expression.

I think there's a little too much space to the right hand side. It would be good to be a little lower so the picture is in Sophia's space rather than from above. Would also be good to have a sense in the photo of what it is she's looking at.



I think the angle in this one is a little more dynamic, though again it's from above and there's no sense of what she's looking at. It's more colourful (the rainbow she's sitting on, echoed in the felt tips).  I'm not sure which I prefer.

Neither image is perfect, but I think for what' are basically snaps on a compact camera, they're OK. What do you think?

a new way of seeing

I haven't been blogging much, but I have been doing a lot of this.




This is how I see Rob most of the time when we're out and about. We spent 11 days in Paris last month and he spent most of his time with a camera permanently attached to his eye. (When he wasn't having intense debates with his friend Mathieu, that is). And I have a camera too.

I have hundred of images, all taken in the last year or so, so I'm going to attempt to reboot the blog by showing you some of them and telling you a little about how each one came to be.

BEDM - fail

I am giving up on blogging every day in May. I know, only day 6, that's a bit pathetic. But I'm tired and not organised enough. Sorry.

BEDM - Fit and Healthy

Fit and healthy is something I am really not. :(

Which is a cop-out of a post to write at 10.15pm. I will elaborate tomorrow.

This is a post for Rosalilium's Blog Every Day in May.

BEDM - Five Favourite Blogs

I'm out for the day at the zoo, but here are five of my faves:

Cakies: Rubyellen blogs about her life with four small daughters in California. She has much beautiful taste and style. I like the fact she's honest about her life, trying to present the not-so presentable bits as well as gorgeous interiors and crafts.

The Yarn Harlot: One of the best known knit bloggers. Stephanie is funny and wise about knitting and life.

Light and Momentary: I've been reading Jaime's blog since before it was this blog. I'm in awe of how she does life with 4 sons, 1 daughter, 1 husband and an academic career.

Domestic Sluttery: Good fun, lifestyle blogging. My daily dose of pretty things to want. I appreciate their regular round ups of fashion for tall and plus size girls.

It's my Life: I couldn't make a list of favourites without my lovely sister Debs. (My other sister Hannah has a blog, but I can't remember when she last wrote on it, and neither can she, I think. Blog again, HB!). Go there for cute pictures and stories about my nephew and niece. They're awesome!

What are your favourite blogs?

This is a post for Rosalilium's Blog Every Day in May.

BEDM - A day in the life

This is an atypical Friday for me. Normally I'm at work, but it's been a tiring week and I had some spare flexi hours, so I decided to take Friday off to relax and recuperate.

I meant to sleep in, but ended up waking around 9. We've got black out curtains in the bedroom, making it every dark. That means we don't wake up too early, but it does mean I can't see what the weather's like without getting out of bed. I guess that's not a huge hardship. :) Breakfast was muesli with milk, yogurt and banana and a cup of freshly made coffee. I either make coffee with my espresso machine or an Aeropress. The expresso machine isn't working properly at the moment - the control for the steam wand stopped working and it's waiting for a new one. That means the Aeropress gets more use as there doesn't seem much point firing up the machine if there's no frothy milk. :(

This morning there was a big pile of washing up to do. Rob's been doing most of the washing up lately, but we were both tired last night so it didn't get done. I listened to the end of Woman's Hour and the serial and washed up. We've just had a new oven put in. The old one was noisy and didn't work well. It was a fan oven, but didn't heat evenly and the noise! Now we have a shiny new Bosch oven. We split the cost with our landlords. The new oven recommends you turn it on for an hour at full power before using it for the first time, so I did. It's so quiet! It smells of new metal and chemicals.

Our landlord came round to fix a new doorstop for the front door. The old one is positioned such that it doesn't stop the door banging into the fuse box which is mounted on the wall above the doorstop. Bad planning by someone. The flat's full of things like that - little details that the builders and fitters didn't do as well as they could have done.Still, it's a roof and walls and it's home. I decided to bake a cake to christen the new oven. This chocolate cake recipe looked good. So I mixed and scraped and into the oven it goes. I've been making dough for dumplings. Rob's been asking for Chinese dumplings since we watched this video of Matt Granger making dumplings. I intended to buy some dumpling wrappers from one of the Chinese food shops on Mill Road, but googling around, it looks pretty easy to make your own, if fiddly. So, dumpling wrappers, 20 of them, are waiting on a plate in the fridge for me to fill them with pork mince.

While the cake's in the oven, I went to the Co-op for more eggs, veg to stir fry with the dumplings, bananas and a few other bits and pieces. It's beautifully sunny. I wore sandals for the first time this year. I loved the feeling of cycling in the sunshine. The Co-op's not busy and I'm soon back again. The cake isn't quite done. I put some knitted socks and winter accessories that need washing in a bowl of water and Eucalan to soak. I eat rolls from the Co-op with Boursin.

Now lunch is done, the cake is cooked, the wet and clean socks and things are hanging on an airer. I need to wash up again, fill the dumplings. Shall I make a batch of cupcakes? It seems I'm having a very domestic day. Though perhaps what I really need to do is nap. Back to finish this off later I think.

Edited at 2030: So, I finished off my dumplings. The first few looked terrible, but they got better. I washed up again. Rob came home, I cooked the dumplings, and served them with stir-fried vegetables. The verdict? Well done for making them, but the wrappers are too thick, the ratio of meat to wrapper is wrong. So, more work needed. Maybe I'll go hunting for pre-made dumping wrappers and try again.

We're watching Lost together in the evenings. Rob watched it when it was first broadcast, but I haven't seen it before. We're about 8 episodes into Season 2. No spoilers please! Our Lost watching was interrupted by spotting a small bird picking shoots off the curry plant in our window box. It looks pretty. (I identified it as a goldfinch with some help from the internets). It flew off, but a few minutes later, it came back. There followed a time of Rob sitting on the sofa with his camera, waiting for it to come back and pose nicely for him. It did return, but alas, the camera settings were wrong and the pictures he got look like "an 80s webcam" according to him. Oh well. Maybe it will come back again.

Since then, I've been pottering at processing photos and Rob's been watching Youtube videos about computer games, from the sounds coming from the other room. A fairly typical evening. In a bit, I think I'll have a bath and go to bed early. We're going to the Zoo tomorrow and I'd like to be awake to enjoy it.

This is a post for Rosalilium's Blog Every Day in May.

BEDM - Spring is here!

At last! It's felt like a long winter. I always struggle in the darkness and cold of winter, but this last one seemed worse than I remember. Lights helped. I have a Philips sunrise alarm clock which gradually lights up the room with a warm sunrise glow. I also have a small bright light box which I used ever morning at breakfast. These two things made a difference, more difference than I expected, in enabling me to get up each day and get going.

But in truth, there's nothing like the real warmth and light of spring sunshine. Mornings and evenings are lighter now and it lifts my mood enormously. I love watching the flowers and trees bursting into life. Now is the time of magnolia, cherry blossom, daffodils and tulips. Of course, with the blossom comes hayfever for me. I'm allergic to tree pollen, I think and sneeze from March to May. It could be worse. The itchy eyes and streaming nose are easily treated with Loratadine and they're gone by the summer.

Spring is a time of hope and I'm trying to be hopeful in a few things right now. It's not easy, but Spring reminds me to hope.

This is a post for Rosalilium's Blog Every Day in May.

BEDM - 5 lines

Five lines makes me think of a musical stave. I learned to read music at school, learning to play the recorder and the cello; the treble and the bass clef. Later, I had piano lessons and attempted to read and play both at once. It's hard. The left hand and the right moving independently, producing sounds to complement one another.

The dots and sticks are so familiar to me, I forget I had to learn them. I still use them, now to sing from, though my sight-singing isn't great. I suspect I mostly learn tunes by ear, but the music in front of me is a good reminder when I can't remember the tune properly.

I don't know where this is going. My writing muscles are long unused and my blogging skills are rusty. Still, that's the point of using 31 days of prompts. Getting back in the habit.

This is a post for Rosalilium's Blog Every Day in May.

*poof*

All right then. I have not blogged in ages, but I'd like to get back to it. Elizabeth of Rosalilium set up a Blog every day in May thingy and I signed up. So let's see how it goes.

dust bunnies

Oh dear! It's been a very long time, hasn't it. What has happened?

• I have a job. Since May I have been working 4 (short) days a week. I started on a 5 month contract and about a month ago it was made permanent.
• I am feeling a lot better. Having a job and a routine and a reason to get out of the house each day clearly helps me keep my ME under control. The first couple of months of working were very hard. I'd come home from work and sleep for an hour and I'd be exhausted at the end of the week. But over time, that got better. I've found a working pattern that suits me (4 5.5 hour days, day off on Wednesday, a flexi time system that makes dealing with the odd bad day much easier) and it's sustainable. This is pretty huge, really.
• I am not enjoying winter much. We're getting a couple of light boxes (an alarm clock and a portable light box) to see if that will help me.

Otherwise, life continues to plod on. It's ok. Not dramatic, not terrible, just life. Actually, thinking of the drama (especially health drama) of the last two years, that's a very good thing.

two tiny triumphs and a footnote which threatens to overwhelm them

Two small things which are probably totally obvious to most people, but which I have only just realised today and which made me happy on a stressful¹ day:

* If I use waterproof mascara (this astoundingly good value one in brown/black), I can wear it all day and not get black smudges under my eyes.

* If I place a plate over the top of the bowl when microwaving frozen sweetcorn, I don't get sweetcorn all over the microwave.

1: Our flat is currently somewhat chaotic due to our discovering mould in our (lovely, tres expensive) mattress a week ago. This has meant the disposal of the old mattress, the purchase of a new mattress, lots and lots of cleaning things with bleach (mostly carried out by Rob as I am deemed too high risk to be playing with noxious chemicals (too high risk because of my health I mean, not too high risk because I'm clumsy (although he might have had that in mind too))), the repainting of a wall (to be carried out tomorrow) and a new bedroom carpet (due Saturday). Hence currently half the contents of the bedroom are in the living room (to be joined by the other half before the carpet man comes) and we're sleeping on the sofa. This is all a little bit stressful, but at least we know when it will end. Although I still need to buy a new mattress protector and a blackout blind. (Love this one, very tempted by this one. Of course neither is currently in stock in the size we need. Any thoughts?)

lost things

A list of things I once owned, which I have lost or got rid of and wish I still owned.

* Eyelash curlers
* Purple false eyelashes
* A blue t-shirt with a fierce toothy fish on
* A pair of wide-legged dark red cords
* Several lipsticks, including white, dark burgundy red and clover pink.
* A pair of black leather gloves
* Life, a User's Manuel by George Perec
* Imagine: A Christian Vision for the Arts by Steve Turner
* Silver mascara

New year, new thinking

Hey there! I said I was going to blog more and then I went quiet. Oops.
Without further apology, here are my resolutions for 2012.

Read more
OK, so last year did contain a fair amount of reading (you can't do an English Literature MA without reading a few books) but most of it was study reading rather than fun reading. I seem to have got out of the habit of reading novels for fun. I want to get back into that.

Write more
I like writing. Sometimes I think I might be OK at it. But I rarely do much. Also, when I do, I tend to just write and call it done. I rarely go back and edit. I noticed while writing my dissertation that although to get something done initially, I just had to write something, ANYTHING! just to get some words on paper. But if I then went back and refined and rewrote and generally buffed and primped up my sentences, the finished result was much better. My blogging is usually of the just-get-something-written variety. Maybe if I thought more about what I wanted to say, the result might be more thoughtful, better expressed and more worth reading. If I really do want to find a job that involves writing on a daily basis, I'd better actually develop some writing skills. Which brings me to...

Find a job
I need something to do on a day-to-day basis. Our family finances would benefit from a little more income. I don't seem yet to have settled on a career. Maybe I never will. But it would be good to have some goals to aim at in work. I'd like a job I can actually get my teeth into, one that will stretch me some and get me learning new things or digging out old skills and polishing them up again. What that is, I'm not completely sure yet. But I'm looking, my CV's up to date, I'm checking the job pages and trying to work out how to network. Anyone want to employ me?

And finally...

Get healthier
I've been pretty sedentary in my habits since I got married. And that means I've got much heavier. I need to get back on my bike and get some healthier eating habits. My GP keeps telling me to go swimming (good for my back and general fitness) and I should probably start listening.

So, my 2012 goals. How do I make them happen? Got any tips? What are your 2012 resolutions?

Why I am a bad blogger

"Twitter - it only works if you reply."

I can't remember who said it, but it's true. I'm not very good at the replying bit. The same goes for blogging. It's better if you actually interact with the bloggers you read and leave comments. I'm not very good at that. It doesn't help that I do most of my blog reading via Google Reader these days. That means an extra click at least to get to a point where you can comment. On most of the blogs I read, I'm a lurker who never comments. I suspect this is bad blogging etiquette.

My problem is, I'm shy and I don't like networking. Twitter particularly is like one big public networking event. To get anything out of it beyond shouting your witticisms (or more likely, that weird dream you had and what you ate for lunch) into the aether, you need to reply to other people's tweets and start an interaction. I find it intimidating to reply to people I haven't actually met. Even the people I've been following for years via their blogs and now Twitter. I'm too shy to say hello.

Of course, I should know by now that good things can happen when you interact on the internet. That's how I met my husband, after all. My sister started a blog, partly on my recommendation and it changed her life. She lost weight. She went to the US for 3 months to stay with someone she'd never met. Crazy! She still spends time interacting with other bloggers and etsy-ites on forums. I think she reads fewer blogs than I do, but she interacts more.

So, what I am to do? Learn from my sister and my past good experiences. After all, Rob was a random internet stranger when he made that first comment. Now he's my husband. I'm so glad he commented and even more glad I replied. Who knows what other good things might happen if I say hello to people I read and follow more often?

hello there!

I'm not dead! I've just been a bit busy. In the last er, 6 months since I last posted I have been mostly finishing my MA dissertation. It's done and I handed it in a month ago. Now I'm unemployed and should have a little more time on my hands for blogging and generally being sociable online.

Things I could blog about:

We've been married over 18 months and I still haven't finished blogging through our wedding pics. Anyone still interested?

Pretty pictures from our holiday in March, Portmeirion in April and my birthday trip to Colchester Zoo (where I met this gorgeous giraffe).

Spending time at L'Abri at the beginning of October.

Church ups and downs.

Knitting.

Auntie-dom (soon to be doubled).

Life, moods and reading.

Any requests?

Compare and contrast

contrast, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Here we are on holiday in Cornwall last month. This was a particularly foggy day towards the beginning of the week, when I made Rob drive all the way from our cottage near Helston to Penzance (which was less exciting than I thought it would be) then to Land's End in the fog, and back again and then go on a (short) muddy walk to find an ancient village. He was not impressed. But I enjoyed myself.

More pictures from our holiday here .

underwater

fish please? a video by the pig wot flies on Flickr.

Last week we were on holiday in Cornwall, celebrating our first wedding anniversary. (yay!). I have lots of pretty pictures and a few videos to show you. Here's a taster.

zesty

Today's good things include this plate of fruit. I made St Clements cupcakes (from Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache) and these were the oranges and lemons I used. Shown after I zested them for the cake mixture and before I juiced them (actually I only used half a lemon and half an orange) for the juice.

The cupcakes are coming with me tonight when I go out to meet up with knitters and spinners and spend the evening being knitty and friendly.

There's roast lamb roasting in the oven, along with roast potatoes, butternut squash and carrots.

Rob's been working at home and it's been good. We've not got in each other's way, but it was good to have lunch together.

The living room is a little cleaner than it was this morning. I bleached the sink (which I should clearly do more often).

I saw an image I liked - the fruit on a plate - and I took some photos. I like doing this.

good thursday

Today's good things:

The day started grey but ended sunny. Spring is coming!

I got some useful admin stuff done before lunch.

This afternoon's group therapy session went well. We had a new person in the group, which can sometimes be a bit unsettling, but I think the newbie will be OK. I had a wonder again about why I go to therapy and whether I still need it. I think I do. If nothing else it gets me out of the house and talking to people. :) I find it a good place to talk through things that are stressing me out or making me sad. There's also the rest of the group - I turn up for them as much as for myself. I'm going to keep going for the next while. It's good for me to think through whether it's still useful or whether it's time to stop. One day, it'll be time to stop.

Rob's working from home tomorrow. (This is a mixed thing. Sometimes I find it hard when he's here during the day when I'm used to being on my own. But sometimes I spend the day looking forward to him coming home so I can have some meaningful human contact.)

I started reading A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker. It's a typical Baker book - little vignettes in one life. I think I like it. I like the duck, Greta. Rob's talked in the past about wanting a duck. It might be fun to have one, one day when we have a garden.

ETA: I'm getting my lost hat back! I lost my favourite handknit hat (this one) a few months ago. Someone at church thought she'd seen it. (In fact, I did't realised I'd lost it until she asked if I'd lost a hat. I knew I couldn't find it, but assumed it was at home somewhere). I finally followed it up with an email today (with the pic) and she has my hat and I'm going to get it back on Sunday. :)

good stuff

I've been a bit down in the dumps recently. When that happens, it's easy for me to view everything negatively and forget all the good things in my life. I'm much better at remembering negative things than good things. Rob keeps pointing this out to me and suggested I blog about what happened today, so that I remember it. I then thought it would be good if I did that _every_ day so I remember the good things. We'll see how long that lasts, but it's a good idea.

So. Today I had a meeting with my supervisor. Beforehand I was nervous and felt braindead and stupid. Actually, it was a very useful meeting, she was really pleased with what I'd written and gave me loads of ideas for how to extend and improve on what I had written. My supervisor is in fact lovely, always encouraging and really interested in my dissertation topic and in what I have to say about it.

So, yeah, good things. :)

time flies like a banana

My mac screen saver is set up to show me pictures from iPhoto from the last twelve months. It seems to do this in order, starting twelve months ago, which means I get a reminder of what I was doing this time last year (right now, lots of pictures from my hen night and our wedding :) ).

Today I noticed this one:



Taken 28 February 2010 and titled "We love you!". I assume Debs took it on her phone and then messaged it to me. It reminded me of this, posted ten days ago. Compare and contrast! Same grin on Debs' lovely mug, even bigger in the more recent one. But Sophia's gone from cute gormless baby stares to big cheeky toddler grin.

I love my (not quite as squeaky but still sooo cute!) cheeky niece!

I think I've forgotten how to blog

I can manage serious pre-planned posting like the wedding story (albeit intermittently) but I've not done regular off the top of my head blogging and thoughts for ages. Little things that occur to me go usually turn into tweets. Big philosophical/anxiety/depressed thoughts go into emails to my husband (mostly) and are too painful to share publicly. (Mostly they're momentary panics which I don't necessarily want to be on the interwebs for the rest of time. :) So that leaves, er, not sure.

I do have things to say sometimes. I think I could do with the discipline of writing more. If only to get in practice for the dissertation writing that IS GOING TO HAPPEN this year. So I thought I'd try.

It occurs to me that different places/means of writing have different psychological weight or depth of meaning to me. I'm supposed to be writing a list of things I want to talk about at a meeting with my supervisor on Friday (hence the procrastination of blogging). I could write this however I want. However. Typing into a Word document (well, the Open Office equivalent, I am a Mac person, after all) is too definite for notes. I have to mean what I say on a properly laid out page. Writing on paper is less scary, especially in biro. It's a scribbled note, noone expects it to look finished and the words are therefore less final, more tentative. I can be tentative in biro. Probably more so in pencil. The computerised equivalent is TextEdit. I find myself using TextEdit a lot to make notes on papers I'm reading, or to-do lists, or notes to myself. My desktop is littered with them. They're the computer equivalent of the reams of scribbled notes that are the precursor to a first draft - some complete sentences, mostly scraps, nagging questions, instructions to myself. It intrigues me that I find the scribbled note, in hard or soft form, easier to write than the finished paragraph, or at least anything that gives the appearance of a finished piece.

I think it's about confidence. If I don't have confidence it what I'm writing, I'm reluctant to commit it to something that looks finished. So, if you find me writing on newspaper in wax crayon, then I've lost it completely and have no confidence in my work. Although, at least I'd be writing. So maybe, even if it's a displacement activity, blogging is a good sign.

The pig wot got married - the entrance

When you attend a wedding, you seem to be waiting around ages for the bride to arrive and things to start. When you are the bride, it all happens very quickly. You stand around outside for a while, then in the entrance waiting for the music to begin. Then suddenly, you're walking up the aisle, trying not to go too fast but also wanting to get to the end where your very-soon-to-be husband is waiting for you.



This bit of our wedding is definitely a blur to me. I remember waiting, I remember suddenly realising the music had started and it was time to go.



I remember standing next to Rob and him whispering in my ear "You look wonderful!". I whispered back "So do you!" and he did - a tailcoat, waistcoat and cravat suits him. :) I barely remember the walk in between. This isn't the best photo technically of our walk, but it best captures the feeling - smiling so hard with happiness, looking forward to catch my Rob's eye, my Dad smiling beside me, everything else a blur.



This photo is from during the first song, I think. Barney said some opening words and then we sang. My bouquet was handed over to my bridesmaids, my Daddy flipped back my veil and we praised God together singing Come People of the Risen King.

Photos by Dave Routledge.

The pig wot got married - arriving

It's been a while since I wrote any wedding recaps! We've now been married for just over ten months and I'd like to get the story of our wedding day blogged before our anniversary. When I last blogged about the wedding, we'd just set off from home in a lovely white bug called Billy. We had plenty of time! I was keen to get going and get married. We took a good leisurely route from home, detouring a little (by accident) and still managed to hit town much earlier than we needed to. I didn't intend to be late (in fact Rob had threatened not to marry me if I turned up late!) but in this case, I didn't have much choice. The party of bridesmaids, brothers-in-law, small niece and mother of the bride took longer to get to the church than expected. My dad and I in the bug waited in a layby outside Trinity, fielding phoned updates as to where they were and being photographed by passing tourists. We also met My Granddad, aunt and cousins who were a bit lost and directed them to the church.

At last, they were there. It was time! We had the roof down by then and drove slowly along Trinity Street, round the corner and slowly down the shopping street leading to the church, with smiles and waves and the odd camera lens click all the way. It's so much fun being a bride and arriving in style!



Hayley helped us out of the car and said she'd see us later. I think I was too busy grinning and wanting to get things going to remember much of what was going on.



Dave lined us up outside the church for a few shots of with me and the maids. We're all grinning, even Barney, waiting in the porch to lead us in and get us married!



We lined up outside the church porch (a couple of really late-comers had to squeeze past us - you know who you are!) and Barney led us in a quick prayer. I took my Daddy's arm and waited for the music (the Prelude from Bach's 1st Cello Suite) to begin.

Photos by Dave Routledge.

The end of 2010

Its the last day of the year. How did that happen? Before it's gone and another year begins, I want to capture some good thoughts from this year and some things I'd like to leave behind.

Good things

We got married! Probably the most exciting thing that happened this year. I will finish the story of the day soon, promise.

I got my reading back. That was pretty huge. It means I feel a little more like myself and I have some hope that my MA will get done.

I came off my anti-depressants. That was huge too!

I picked up my MA again, with the determination to finish it this time. I still have bumps and panics. The last few months haven't been as productive as I wanted them to be, due to colds knocking me back and shaking my confidence. I want to get back on it and finish it, properly and well.

Things I'd like to leave behind

I've been quite ill several times - pre-wedding concussion, a post-wedding crash (apparently un-blogged), the blood clot I had in August, the excruciating sciatic back pain I've had over Christmas, my ongoing CFS. I'd like to be healthier in 2011. I know I'm unlikely to return to my pre-post-viral fatigue state. CFS is for most people a lifelong condition, but I'm learning to live with it. I'd like the lows to be less low, even though that may mean the highs being less high. I'd like to learn to manage my health, rather than be subject to it.

I've put on a fair amount of weight since we got married, mostly as a consequence of the above. I've not been able to do much exercise and I've been stuck inside feeling sorry for myself a lot. This led to lots of comfort eating and the feeling that I didn't care about myself and didn't deserve to be healthy. I want to change that, take back control, get a healthier attitude to food and lose some weight. This should also help me to be healthier in other ways too.

Things I'd like to do

Learn more about loving my Rob. These first 9 months or so have been good ones and hard ones. I like being married. I love that Rob looks after me and I couldn't have got through some of the things that happened without him. I know there's so much more I can do to learn about him as a person and to love him more. I think that'll be a goal for the rest of my life.

Learn more about loving God. We couldn't have got this far without God and without the support of our church family. I'd like to know God better, to spend more time in prayer and reading the Bible and to let God change me more. Sometimes it's easy to look good and be able to give 'right answers' in difficult circumstances but underneath, I'm lost and drowning. I want to know God better and have a closer relationship with him.

Blog more. I now have three blogs - this one, Pigwotknits and a LiveJournal blog which so far is a copy of this one plus some silly memes. I'd like to blog more on all of them, and work out whether to use this and my LJ blog differently. I can make the LJ one more private, so I may end up using it for the things I don't want to broadcast to the world, but write only for myself, or myself and Rob. We'll see. Pigwotknits definitely needs some love. I still knit, but less stuff seems to make it to the blog. Possibly because I'm more likely to use Ravelry.

Return to paid work. I need to get the MA out of the way first. I may or may not be able to handle full time work, we'll see. But it would help our collective finances if I were earning too. I'm trying not to put myself under too much pressure, but I do need a little pressure to get on with and finish my dissertation and work out what the next thing to do is. (Not a PhD, that's for sure. Maybe children, but earning some money before that happens sounds like a good idea to me).

I think that's enough planning to be going on with. Enjoy the last day of 2010. May 2011 bring you wonderful things!

Merry Christmas

It's early Christmas morning. Rob's not awake yet, but he will be soon, as we're off to spend the day with his family. Just time for me to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and to post the verse that keeps coming back to me this year.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 (ESV)

May you know Jesus, the Word become flesh, and see his glory this Christmas.

off my meds

I've been on anti-depressants (fluoxetine) since May 2008. They helped a lot. When I was initially ill with post-viral fatigue, they took the edge off. That summer when I was properly depressed, they helped me feel a bit more alive. I stayed on them because I needed them. Of course, not everything about being on fluoxetine is great. I wanted to come off it before I got married because my main side effect was super-vivid dreams and being very restless in my sleep. I wanted to avoid subjecting Rob to that, if possible. But about a year ago, it was clear I was depressed again, I think due to all the changes that were happening in my life, and rather than decreasing my dosage in the run-up to our wedding, I increased it.

In the months since we got married, I initially crashed in mood and energy levels, leading to a referral to an ME clinic and the realisation that I most probably do have ME/CFS. But in the last few months, I've been feeling much better, in mood if not always in energy, and so I decided it was time to come off fluoxetine for good.

On Sunday 28 November, I took my last dose. It's been over a week now and I'm ok. I'm not depressed or blank or weepy as I was this time last year. I'm still easily tired and a little frustrated with getting so tired, but I'm not depressed. As for the side effects, well, you'll have to ask Rob if I'm any less restless. I still dream, sometimes they're vivid, but I seem to be losing my least favourite dreams - the ones that come just before I wake up, where I'm endlessly trying to break out of dreams into reality.

Fluoxetine was a useful drug when I needed it. I don't think it in itself solved anything, but it lifted me enough to take the edge off depression, to make the lows less dark and help me cope. I hope I won't need it again in the future, but I won't be a failure if I need its help again.

silly

In the absence of anything sensible to blog, here's a silly video.



Made on Channel 4's Twist Our Words site.

excuses

The reason I didn't blog on Monday was mostly that we spent all evening at Addenbrooke's A&E. :S

Don't worry, I'm actually fine. I've had a cold since Friday and was feeling pretty grotty. By Monday night I had chest pains and was breathing fairly heavily. The last straw was coughing up mucus with blood in it (TMI? Sorry!) at which point I got a bit panicked, as it was all a bit too much like what happened back in August when I went into hospital and they found blood clots. So I decided it was probably wise to get checked over and Rob took me in.

The doctors I saw agreed I done the right thing, given my history, did some blood tests and gave me a chest X-ray. Fortunately, all was as it should be, no evidence of blood clots, nothing wrong except an upper respiratory viral infection (i.e. a cold). They sent me home again with instructions to rest, take paracetamol and see my GP if things got any worse. All of which took around 5 hours, from leaving home at 5.30 to getting back again about 10.30pm.

So, that was Monday evening gone. I'm grateful to Rob who took it all in his stride and didn't moan at me for wanting to go to hospital, yet again or panic. I don't feel too silly for getting things checked out as the staff did take me seriously. But I do hope that, apart from a couple of scheduled clinic appointments in the next few weeks, I won't be seeing too much of Addenbrooke's in the near future.

let me read it to you!

let me read it to you!, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Trying to make up for a few days of bloglessness by showing you a cute photo of my niece. :)

This was just over a week ago when I went to visit Debs and Sophia in London. Sophia's just walking so we had fun with her showing off her new skillz and enjoying some books. She likes lift-the-flap books and she's good at finding the things hidden underneath.This is a board book about babies.

trees

carpet, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Cheating slightly by back-dating this to Sunday, but I did promise pictures from Saturday. Here's one and there are more on flickr if you click through.

Saturday productivity

Once again, I get to the end of the day and realise I've not blogged. I should keep a list of blog prompts so I can write more interesting posts.

Happy Saturday!

ETA: I was going to tell you what I did today, before I got (pleasantly) interrupted.

I came home from Grandma's house with a bag full of apples from her tree, so I made caramel apple jam and Autumn Apple and Cider Cake (with perry instead of cider) from Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache.

I went for a walk in the woods and took photographs (will share some at some point). I don't think I'd ever been to Beechwoods at the end of an autumn day before. The light was amazing, making long shadows across the leafy floor.

I cooked sausages with onion and apple and we ate them with mashed potatoes, sweetcorn and gravy. Yum!

urgh

Yesterday's tiredness has turned into today's achiness and general grogginess. Yuck.

It's Bonfire Night, but I suspect I shall not be going out to see fireworks. Instead, I'll be curled up in bed and going to sleep early.

Today I...

...am quite tired. A few days of travelling about and seeing family does that to me.

...am enjoying the warmth of the sun, when it shines.

...experienced the chaos that is the Cambridge bus system when disturbed by sewage works in the town centre. Not pretty. No-one seems to know what's going on.

...cooked pasta with beef sausages and tomato sauce. It was yummy.

...couldn't think of anything very enlightening to blog about.

on becoming domesticated

Once upon a time, I found kitchen shops boring, though occasionally necessary. Once upon a time I had very little interest in gardening and had never managed to keep a plant alive for longer than a few days.

Then, I got married and and we moved into our first home together. Now I find a new kitchen shop recently opened in Cambridge is somewhere in which I can browse and covet shiny things for hours. I have a window box in which I'm growing herbs and look forward to one day having a proper patch of earth to cultivate. Admittedly, I'm not much better at house plants (Rob has bought me 3 so far and I've killed 2) but my orchid is surviving and looks as if it's growing a new flower spike. What happened?

I think I grew up a little more. Most importantly I had my own space for the first time. Our space, though Rob doesn't have much of an opinion on kitchen things, beyond the colour of the plates and the quality of the food that comes out of it. My domestic housewifely side has space to flourish and express itself and I'm enjoying it.

positive data

One of the things that's happened in the last few months is that I've been having some sessions of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). I've found it really helpful for thinking about how I think and changing things, little by little.

The biggest thing it's helped me with is reading. I virtually lost my ability to read when I was depressed in 2008 and though the depression has gone and my concentration had come back a bit, I still found it hard to read anything longer or more involved than a magazine article or blog post. I wanted to return to my MA, but for an English student, not being able to read properly makes studying impossible. I was pretty sure the main blockage was psychological rather than physical. I got my eyes tested in March, just to make sure and all was fine (though I discovered I needed glasses for distance). That left the non-physical barriers - partly I didn't have the stamina for reading that I used to, but more than that reading, especially reading related to studying, made me panic. I avoided books and then was sad because they used to make me happy.

It didn't actually take many sessions of CBT to make that change. My therapist encouraged me to start by sitting down with a book, to look at it, feel it, explore the feeling of holding a book, maybe read it if I felt like it. Somehow, it didn't take long before I was reading again. Small bites at first, then longer chunks, until now I can read at something approaching my old pace and appetite again. It feels good!

The reading problem is cracked and we've moved onto to a few other things now, like tackling how I think about myself as a failure and jump to panic and disaster too quickly. We're coming to the end of our sessions together and we've been working on a toolkit for the future. One of things I've been exploring is a positive data log. I seem to have no trouble remembering the bad things that happen to me, but the good things can get lost. I've been trying to remember them better. I have a book to record good things in, though mostly I forget, but it helps me just to get to the end of the day and go through all the good things in my head, just before I go to sleep. Even if I don't remember them too well the next day (which makes me think I should use the book and write things down more), it relaxes me at the end of the day and helps make a positive feeling when I remember that day. Try it!

normal service will be resumed shortly

Hello there! Sorry, I didn't mean to leave such a dramatic post at the top of my blog for so long.

I am feeling much better. I have to be on Warfarin for 6 months, which means blood tests to check my blood clotting levels every couple of weeks. I still have occasional pain in my right lung when breathing deeply, but it's getting less and less. I have a heart scan scheduled for later November, but I'm not anticipating any problems. I think it's just to check that everything's fine with my heart and the clots didn't make their way there.

CFS/ME is continuing. Well, I don't actually have an official diagnosis, but as far as I can tell, I fit the symptoms for moderate CFS. Basically that means I get tired easily and need lots of sleep (should have been in bed about 1.5 hours ago. Oops). With not enough sleep or not enough rest from doing active things, I get very very tired and physically drained. But most of the time I can manage it by keeping to a schedule and not trying to fit too many things in. Well, in theory. In practice I am prone to do too much and get bored by always having to be in bed early, but I'm getting better at it.

Should go to sleep, but I'm posting this as a reminder to myself that I plan to do NaBloPoMo this year. That means blogging every day in November. I'm hoping it gets me back into the blogging habit. No promises on what I'll write about. Inevitably my health will get a mention, I might blog about books (I'm reading again, yay!) or MA progress, or I might juts post pictures, if I take any good ones. If you've got any suggestions or things you'd like to hear about, leave me a suggestion in the comments.

Right, I'm going to set this to post in the morning, so that's my first post of the month. Happy November!

hospital drama

The last few days have been more dramatic than I expected.

I had some pain in my rib cage last week, which although pretty excruciating, I assumed was just a muscle strain. (I'd had similar pains a couple of weeks before that I'd put down to an awkward bike skid). However, on Thursday morning, I was coughing up blood and thought maybe we'd better get it checked out. Rob drove me to Addenbrooke's A&E and by lunchtime I'd been admitted with what was either a chest infection or a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in my lungs). An initial x-ray didn't show up any clots, but a CT scan later that night showed definite clots. Thursday night was pretty painful and I didn't get much sleep, in between the pain and the worry.

Friday morning I was put on a heart monitor, just in case. I wasn't allowed to walk anywhere and had to be wheeled to the bathroom, which made me feel pretty helpless. Although the first day's events had been pretty scary, things quickly improved. I was put on anti-clotting drugs as soon as the possibility of a clot was raised and continued to have injections over the weekend. I had plenty of pain killers to help me be more comfortable. The last couple of days have mostly been about starting me on Warfarin and getting the dose right. I've got to go back for more blood tests over the next few days and weeks, but these will get less frequent as things settle down.

I'm home again, as of this afternoon. I'm very tired and looking forward to getting some good sleep in my own bed. Rob's done a very good job of looking after me, keeping everyone informed and making sure I have everything I need in hospital. We've had lots of support from friends and particularly from Eden (our church) and feel very loved and looked after.

It all felt pretty scary for a bit, but it was very reassuring to know I was in the right place, being looked after by people who know what they're doing. I suspect it'll take me a while to get back to full strength, but I'm going to take it easy and not rush anything. I'm still achey, though it's not the terrible pain I had last week. I'm very thankful to God for all the support we've had from friends and for modern medicine and the easy access I have to it.

chrysalis

chrysalis, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

A few days ago I noticed one of the caterpillars had climbed up into the eaves and wasn't moving. Today I looked up there and saw (s)he'd transformed into a chrysalis. I'm very excited. I shall keep checking on his /her progress.

very hungry caterpillars

flower munch, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I've been growing nasturtiums between the herbs in my window box for colour. I discovered a few days ago that they've been infested with caterpillars. The gardening websites I looked at told me they were pests and I should get rid of them, but I decided I actually preferred growing butterflies (Large White in this case) to growing nasturtiums (too fluorescent), so I would leave them alone and hope to see them pupate and hatch. This morning I've taken a few pictures so you can appreciate them too. I'll keep watching and snapping and see if I can document their development into adults.

The pig wot got married - off we go

I was soo ready to get married! My mum, the bridesmaids and their various hangers on left in their cars. (I was too cheap/disorganised to ever sort them a car - sorry guys!) My Dad and I waited for our transport to arrive.

Now, if you know me IRL or have read this blog for a while, you'll know I'm a big fan of VW Beetles. I've owned 2 and while I don't think I'm likely to do so again unless I somehow become rich and leisured (hah!), I still like to think of myself as a bug person. So, when it came to hiring a wedding car, it pretty much had to be a bug.



This is Billy, seen here waiting outside the church later in the day. He belongs to Hayley of V Dub Rides who was our awesome chauffeur for the day (and took these pictures). (She's lovely and also made the whole process of hiring a wedding car really easy and efficient. If you're looking for a wedding bug in the Essex/Hertfordshire/Cambridgeshire area, I'd definitely recommend her).

See how smiley we are, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

My dad had sent his camera on with my mum, so we were left to Hayley's devices for photos at this point, but she did a lovely job. I love how happy we both are in this picture and it's also one of the few in which I'm wearing my veil down. We settled ourselves in Billy, put the roof up to protect us for the journey and set off for the church.

The pig wot got married - nearly there

The thing about weddings is they can turn into an endless series of photo opportunities. I'm not a huge fan of posed pictures and I wanted people to be having fun, not standing around waiting all the time. Even so, I wanted a record of who was there, what happened, who wore what. So, some posed portraits were inevitable.

The first set was my and my bridesmaids.



We had fun, squished onto my bed, with just about enough room for Dave to take pictures. The original plan was to go outside for pictures, but with not much time and not much sunshine, it was easier to cram us into the bedroom. These are my lovely bridesmaids: Liz, in red, who being local, did most of the running around and organising things; Debs, in purple, my middle sister, mother of Sophia; Hannah, in pink, my little sister, now the furthest away, living in Exeter. Both my sisters were married last year and I was a bridesmaid for both of them. Now it was time to repay the favour.

Of course, with four girls bouncing around on a bed, it was bound to get silly.



I can't remember who said what, but it must have been funny. I made this face a lot over the course of the day. It's my roaring with laughter, don't care how unattractive I look, I'm happy face. :)

I'd hired a car to take my Daddy and me to the church, but the bridesmaids, my Mummy and brothers-in-law had to make their own way. That meant they set off around 12, leaving the two of us alone to wait for the car which would take me on my less journey as an unmarried woman.



Photos by Dave Routledge.

The pig wot got married - getting ready

Our wedding day dawned. Finally! After years of wondering whether it would ever happen, months of anticipation, weeks of stress, it was here.

Having gone to bed a little stressed and tired, I woke up calm, refreshed and excited. I remained that way, even as our flat began to look like this.



My parents were there already, my mum fetched Liz soon after she woke up, Hannah and Steve arrived next, then Debs, Menard and Sophia and finally our photographer, Dave and his wife Nicky. It was a pretty full and chaotic place to be. People spread themselves and their belongings around our living room and began to get ready. Steve had marking to do and set himself with a pile of books in the corner. The girls fussed around with dresses, hair and makeup and the men entertained the baby.

In the middle of the chaos, I sat on my chair by the window and calmly went through the process of doing my hair and make-up.



I remember other people's last minute panics, but I was calm. The caterer couldn't work out how to open the gate to the venue. I think Liz talked her through it. One bridesmaid's dress, which had been altered at the last minute, needed emergency repairs, which I did, in my dressing gown. Other people had my phones, my keys. All I needed to do was put on my dress and show up at the church. Eventually, it was time.



Liz laced me in. I was ready!

Photos by Dave Routledge.

The pig wot got married - the lead up

It's all beginning to feel like a dream, but I want to record my memories of our wedding day and the lead up to it while I still remember it. We'll start with the few days beforehand.

The weeks leading up to our wedding were made even more stressful by my having a fight with a green bin and giving myself concussion with about a month to go. I spent a week with horrible headaches doing very little and a further week with less pain, but feeling very tired. I couldn't ride my bike, as when I did, I made myself sea sick. This is not ideal when you're preparing a wedding. Fortunately, I had help. The big things were done. My hen night turned into a mellow afternoon and evening of silly games and a take away and friends pitched in to help make decorations. Rob ended up having lots of time off, in theory to work on his dissertation, but in practice, to look after me. I don't remember much of the last week, apart from lots of naps and early nights and a few last minute panics.

My mum arrived on Thursday and starting baking the top three chocolate tiers of our wedding cake. This was pretty last minute! I think it was still being iced on the morning of our wedding and the final decorations didn't get added until the reception. The knitted elements of our decorations weren't quite finished either - the knitting was done, but running things through the washing machine only happened on Thursday morning and I spent Thursday afternoon smoothing out little scrunched up felted hearts. In the evening, we picked up glasses from Sainsbury's and I had a last minute rehearsal of the songs I planned to sing at the reception.

Friday, was mostly spent decorating the hall for our reception. Liz and I spent most of the day draping pillars with purple and white fabric and making table decorations. Our fabulous caterers turned up in the afternoon to lay tables, as did Rob. That afternoon is a blur of vases, sticks, fish tank gravel and little knitted hearts. I was really pleased with the results. The hall sparkled with glasses and colour and looked smarter than I've ever seen Brickfields (which is essentially a large shed) looking. Various essentials were delegated at the last minute: Alex made maps and directions from the church to the reception; HB prepared the cards for printing by my dad; Liz's fiance Andrew helped my dad get the orders of service into a printable state.

Friday night was our rehearsal. I was feeling pretty tired and unreal by this point. It was good to get everyone (bar my sisters and the best man) together to practice what we were going to do for real the next day. My dad arrived, together with orders or service and name cards. We delivered bubbles and noisemakers to the church and hung up our aisle decorations. We practiced walking and down the aisle and saying our vows. The rain was pouring down outside and I feared the worst for the next day's weather.

The night ended with lots of people back at our flat for fish and chips and champagne. That felt sane and special and informal and relaxed all at once. I was a bit dazed though, with things still to do. I spent most of the evening fiddling with name cards to produce a table plan. Wonderful Liz took my piles of cards, wrote all the names on a large piece of card, decorated it and made table numbers and suddenly we had a table plan. I think I got sent to bed about 1am. I was still feeling stressed at that point and wondered if I would sleep, but I think I dropped off pretty quickly.

married!

I want to blog all about our wedding, because I want to remember as much as I can about it and having spent large portions of my pre-wedding time reading wedding re-caps on Wedding Bee and the like, I want to join in too! This might get a little tedious, so I'll try to break it up with pretty pictures (of which there are many). Here's a little taster.

will blog soon

Hi there! Well, I've emerged from wedding-land and honeymooning and New Word Alive (an evangelical Christian conference held in Pwllheli, North Wales). Rob and I are trying to work out what our new normal is as we settle into married life. I'm job-hunting (again) and gradually getting on with post-wedding tasks like incorporating new stuff into our flat and writing thank you notes. Our wedding photos have now arrived, so soon I shall start blogging about the wedding day.

In the mean time, Rob and I went to a bloggers meet up at New Word Alive, organised by Adrian Warnock. Adrian collected a list of the blogs and twitter feeds of the people who came, so if you want to read some New Word Alive bloggers go and have a look at the list. I'm going to go and read some myself.

honeymoon

I'm on honeymoon with my Rob! We're tired and happy and having fun.

You can follow what we get up to (well, some of it) here: http://community.livejournal.com/robandbekkiwed/

Wedding!

Today I am marrying my Rob! I'm so happy and excited. It's been a hectic couple of weeks and I'm pretty tired. But today I shall float on a cloud of happiness and adrenalin!

Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!

good things

I've been feeling a little sorry for myself for the last week or two, thanks to concussion and backache and general tiredness. I thought I'd remind myself of the good things in my life right now.

The state of being a bride-to-be. It won't last much longer and it's rather lovely. :)

Sleeping alone in a king-size bed with a super-king-sized goose down duvet. I'm looking forward to when Rob will join me, obviously ;), but I'm enjoying the luxury of space right now.

Winter turning into spring. The cold and snow is going away and being replaced by sunshine. There are snow drops and crocuses and even daffodils popping up.

My lovely fiance, who's doing a very good job of looking after me, making sure I get enough sleep and don't wear myself out.

Lovely family and friends who are doing and making things for the wedding.

Babies! All over the place my friends and family are producing babies, who are all adorable and a pleasure to knit for and cuddle.

After years of being single and wondering if I would ever get married, there are now 16 days to go until I marry my Rob. :)

eventful

Lots of things happened this week. The first of which was that last Sunday morning, I managed to bang my forehead with the lid of a wheelie bin. It was very painful. I didn't pass out, but several hours later I was still in pain and feeling wobbly, so I got Rob to take me to Addenbrookes to get checked out, where they diagnosed mild concussion. Ever since then, I've had a constant headache with feelings of nausea that come and go and a general feeling of tiredness and wobbliness. I'm even more tired than usual and I can feel that my brain doesn't work quite the way I want it to - my short term memory's a bit dodgy and I can't concentrate for long. :(

Rob's been doing a good job of looking after me and, headache aside, it's been a good week.

OK, I can't remember Monday much, apart from somehow getting into work, typing up minutes and then coming home and collapsing in a heap.

Tuesday was better. I rested at home and didn't try to do much. Rob's church small group came round in the evening for pancakes (yes, a week after Shrove Tuesday. Lots of people weren't there last week and missed pancakes, so they decided to have a repeat performance) and Bible study. Many pancakes were consumed. :)

Wednesday I wasn't feeling great and was a little worried that I was still feeling the effects of concussion. I rang NHS direct and was advised to see a doctor. In the afternoon, one terrifying cycle ride later, I got checked over and told all my reflexes and responses were normal, I just needed to rest and give it time. Reassuring on one level, but a little frustrating that was nothing much I could do. I felt far too wobbly to cycle home, so abandoned the bike and called a taxi. We retrieved the bike later and went out for burgers at GBK.

Thursday Rob had the day off work, so we hung out for the day, went out for lunch with some friends and distracted each other. In the evening we had an amazing meal out at Alimentum which was probably one of the most wonderful meals I've ever eaten. I had a starter of pork belly, fillet and black pudding terrine, served with slivers of apple, apple sauce and a small ball of apple sorbet. The main course was slow-cooked sirloin of beef, served with snails and mushrooms and some delicious mash. For dessert I had chocolate and carrot gateaux with carrot sorbet. The starter and main course were both utterly delectable. The dessert was good, though a bit disconcerting: you expect an orange-coloured sorbet to taste of orange, but to taste carrot instead subverts your expectations. The thin slice of dried carrot garnishing the sorbet was gorgeous though: it had a gorgeous carroty sweetness. I'd love to eat there again, though I suspect that's only going to happen if, as this time, someone else is paying. :)

Friday we had a house warming party in our new flat. I was amused that the party started off with mostly my friends and finished with mostly Rob's friends. It was a fun time, sitting on our new sofa, chatting with friends and eating cupcakes and pigs-in-blankets. It felt good to have the flat full of people, as it had been on Tuesday.

Yesterday was my hen party. Originally this was going to end up with karaoke at a local Japanese restaurant, but since I was still feeling the effects of concussion, we decided to cancel that and have a chilled out afternoon and evening with silly games, cake and Chinese take away. Bridesmaid Liz did most of the organising, with help with Debs and Hannah. The main game involved me guessing what Rob's answers had been to a series of questions about the two of us and then putting on knitted items to create a woolly wedding dress. If I guessed right, I could chose what to put on; if I guessed wrong, the questioner decided. I ended up swathed in blankets and scarves, with a long train of blankets behind me. I was stylish, but very warm! It was a lovely day. Debs brought Sophia, who was very well-behaved and charmed everyone with her smiles.

It's been a busy week. I've also been plugging away at my wedding to-do list and knitting a couple of things. I'm still not feeling very well though. I wish this concussion would hurry up and go away as I've plenty to do in the next few weeks. Still, I know that firstly, most of the important things for the wedding are sorted and secondly I had lots of lovely friends and family who are happy to help me. I suspect I'm going to need them!

a year ago

A year ago, a comment on my blog changed my life. I didn't know it at the time, but the man who left that comment is the man I'm going to marry in 50 days time.

Thank you Rob for a year of wonderful things. You have changed my life utterly and forever in ways I never thought possible. I'm so happy to be your Bekki, to be the woman you're going to marry, to love and serve you for the rest of my life. I'm looking forward to our bright future together and I thank God for bringing us together.

I love you, my Rob. :-*

looking back

Last year was a crazy year. Let's see what I can remember of it.

January

I moved house on New Year's Eve and saw the New Year in at a party with friends from church. I can't remember much of the month, apart from a fun Gaudy at Corpus, until that momentous week when my life got turned upside down. On Sunday 25th January I wrote this post, bemoaning my lack of a man and wanting to know what I should do about it. A few days later I found a comment from this character, RobHu. Hmm, I thought, he sounds friendly. After a few days of enchanging thousands of words by email, we met at the City Church Ceilidh and the rest is history! The other thing that happened that week was that I found out Debs was pregnant. She wasn't married, or even engaged to M then, so this came as something of a shock. Those first few days of realising there was going to be a baby, of Debs trying to work out what to do, were somewhat surreal.

February

On 1st February Rob and I officially started going out. The rest of that month is a blur of happiness and sleepness nights - I often couldn't sleep because I was so excited about seeing Rob the next day. We first kissed on the 13th, managed to upset each other horribly on the 14th and sorted it out over the next few days. At the end of the month, I met Rob's family for the first time. I was nervous, but it went well. So well, that Rob's mother (while I was out of the room) offered to find Rob her mother's rings so he could propose. :) Which was probably a little premature, but not much.

March

Also a blur of happy things. Rob met my family en masse for the first time when he came down to Exeter to see Hannah in 'The Yeoman of the Guard'. I think he survived :). He certainly enjoyed the songs and spent the next few weeks playing them repeatedly on spotify. At the end of the month, we went to New Word Alive. I didn't expect it to be as good as it was. We both loved the teaching and the worship. We went with a group from Eden, which was the first time I'd actually spent time with Eden folks. They were a friendly bunch, which made me better disposed to the place than I had been.

April

The weddings began. Debs and M on the 5th and Ben and Jude on the 25th. Debs's wedding was organised in rather a hurry! We had about 2.5 weeks notice, but everything came together in time. Ben and Jude's wedding was rather more organised, but no less fun.

May

May started and ended with not very successful weekends away. On the first bank holiday, Rob and I went camping with a bunch of his friends near Hay-on-Wye. It was one of those weekends where we were both tired and grumpy and fell out over silly things. Hay itself is beautiful and ordinarily one of my favourite places, but with my brain still not functioning properly, I wasn't reading much, making visiting a town full of books either a pointless exercise or a cruel joke.
On the second bank holiday, we went walking with some of my friends in Wales. Rob, it transpires, really doesn't like walking, even with the accompaniment of sermons on his iPod. The combination of wild weather, rocky paths, borrowed boots and steep slopes made him miserable and the fact that I knew people and he didn't probably didn't help. I love walking, but I suspect I may be better off walking without Rob, especially if I'm going up anything steep.
These weekends may have been a factor in my sudden attack of getting married panic. Rob had been saying 'Marry me!' for ages. I had just come round to the idea that a) he was serious and b) I might actually want to. Then, all of a sudden, I wasn't ready. I'm not really sure what happened. Perhaps realising the seriousness of the decision I was making made me draw up short. Poor Rob. I went from maybe, to yes definitely, to argh, not not yet, in a very short space of time. Thankfully, he had patience (well, some) to wait until I was ready. It was only a few weeks between that panic and my being so sure that I was asking him 'When are you going to propose then?'.

June

We got engaged! First we went ring shopping in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham (this was on 6th June, according to the progamme for the final event of that day, Rob's first opera: The Magic Flute (in English), a fun student production at St John's). Then, in a memorable weekend spent mostly cleaning Rob's flat, he asked and I said yes! I wrote about that here, so I won't repeat it.

July

I think this month mostly passed in a whirl of newly-engaged happiness. I moved house, we started to plan timescales and maybe even book wedding-related things. We went to Keswick, which was a tough week. It rained, I didn't sleep well, we argued a few times, I cried a lot. The teaching sessions were good, but I didn't really enjoy camping, or the rain. There were good times though, meeting up with Hannah P, the sun when it decided to shine, a trip in a Viking long boat. We're going again next year (please God, can we have better weather?) so it can't have been too terrible. I think we learnt a lot about each other and how differently we function. I also spent lots of my time sewing bridesmaids' dresses for Hannah's wedding.

August

More weddings - Pete and Stacey (although we managed to miss their wedding and only make the reception) and, a week later, Hannah and Steve. I stayed in London for the week in between, helping with last minute wedding prep, making garlands, attaching pom poms to name cards and icing the cake. The wedding was wonderful! A gorgeous hot day, Hannah was beautiful, Steve was suitably love-struck, the dresses fitted and a good time was had by all.

September

September was full of unbloggable drama which is probably why I've forgotten it. I had a wisdom tooth extracted, which also dramatic - I nearly swallowed the tooth when it finally came out! Wedding planning began in earnest and I went to my first wedding fair. I didn't get much sleep, according to my blog, probably due to said drama and tooth. I officially went back to my MA course, planning to have my dissertation done in time to hand in by the end of April 2010. Rob resumed his degree course, also working on a dissertation to be handed in around the same time. Rob's dissertation is progressing and is likely to be done on time. Mine is not. :(

October

Debs' and M's baby, Tiny aka Squeaky aka Sophia was born. I remember intermittant updates from Debs during the day before she gave birth as contractions started and got more regular and more painful. By the time I went to bed, she was in hospital and labouring away on the birthing ball. At 3.33am, Sophia was born, announced to me by text message a few minutes later. I went to see Debs and her, then-unnamed, new baby in Chase Farm Hospital and took lots of lots of pictures of the new arrival and her tired but happy parents.
This was also the month I turned 30. I had a lovely birthday, traipsing round St Ives with Rob, eating at what seems to be our favourite pub (The Bridge in Waterbeach) and hanging out, just being us. A few days later, I had a birthday party, with lots of people and lots and lots and lots of food - chocolates and cheese, mostly. Happy times!

November

A mixed month. I went to a CLSG conference in Oxford, which also meant I caught up with Chris and Caroline and as Rob came too, he got to meet them. At that time I was still feeling like my MA might be do-able and left the conference with some useful leads. This was also the month of the Saturday School of Theology session which left me in tears and very confused. I was just totally lost and befuddled by the idea of truth. I felt stuck in post-modernity, unable to find a rock to stand on. I still feel like that in regard to my MA work - I have things to say, but it feels like there's no solid place from which to start. I don't know enough literary theory to be of use and I'm lost when it comes to finding a Christian approach to literature. Add to that post-viral fatigue and depression and you have a recipe for a sad Bekki and a dissertation that feels impossible. One good thing was that we made some contacts with interesting people connected to Christian Heritage, and started going to a group on Friday nights which was watching a series of documentaries by Francis Schaeffer. I'm still not sure how I feel about Schaeffer. I think he was right in that the church has neglected tackling the big ideas of philosophy and the arts, however I also find his analysis too glib and too tidy. However, I suspect that's a topic for another post.

December

This wasn't a great month for me. I was feeling pretty depressed, partly the time of year, I suspect, partly needing a break, partly just being overwhelmed by life. Rob looked after me, in between working hard on his dissertation. I decided to increase my medication and put my MA on hold again. Not quite what I wanted, but probably a good idea in the long run. Rob, as ever, is loving and supportive. We didn't see each other over Christmas much, but he did join my family for our family Christmas: my parents, their daughters and their respective partners, the attention-stealing baby. We ended the year together, eating steak, talking about mortgages and seeing the New Year in with cake and champagne at the ToothyCats.

9 weeks to go

Goodness, I haven't posted on here in ages! I am well, happy and busy. I have several posts I plan to write, just haven't got round to it yet.

The short version is I'm feeling much better than I did before Christmas, I'm excited about getting married, and a little bit daunted by all the things we need to do in the next 63 days, but mostly happy and looking forward to all the wonderful things 2010 will hold for me and my Rob.