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.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my family, friends, lurkers and random passers by.

I can do no better than copy my beloved and direct you to this film about the meaning of Christmas, made by St Helen's Bishopsgate.

That's Christmas (Short Film) HD from St Helen’s Church on Vimeo.

May your Christmas be full of love and blessings and the presence of Jesus.

this weekend by the numbers

Christmas present induced panics: 1
Christmas presents bought: 6
Wedding dress related clouds of despair: 1
Baby nieces snuggled: 1
Cats stroked: 3
Curries eaten: 1
Sunday morning related panics: 1
Floods of tears: 1
Hours spent fiddling with invitation design: eleventy million (estimated)
Hot chocolates drunk: 2
Pieces of cake eaten: 2
Fiances kissed: 1
Hugs and kisses received: Too many to count

on tears

Thanks for all the lovely comments, thoughts, virtual hugs and prayers. I'm doing OK. The dissertation's going a little better (I actually wrote something yesterday). I'm still feeling a bit mixed up and confused over stuff, but I'm plodding through it.

I've noticed in the last year or so I cry more than I used to. I didn't use to cry much. Maybe once a year, at most, if I got really upset or angry about something. When I was depressed, last year, I couldn't cry for months and months. I wanted to, but the tears wouldn't come. There was one weekend that broke that. I want away with my church for a regional weekend away over the August Bank Holiday. There was one seminar on that weekend (on singleness) which had me bawling by the end and I then spent rather a lot of the worship times of the next few meetings howling with sobs. Somehow lots of dammed up emotions and tears came out that weekend and I felt much better, if exhausted at the end of it. That made some difference to my ability to cry, but not as much it seems, as Rob.

I've noticed since I've been going out with Rob that I'm much more likely to cry when I'm upset than I was before. That's not as negative as it sounds. Yes, I have cried about him a few times, but more often I'm crying on his shoulder rather than at him. The former is because he's so important to me that something going wrong between us makes me very upset and the latter is because I can be vulnerable with him. I feel safe to cry in front of him and know that he'll comfort me. I know he doesn't like it when I cry and he doesn't always understand why I'm crying about something. (Sometimes, neither do I). But he'll always hug me and tell me he loves me and that it's going to be all right, and I feel comforted and safe and loved.

I love you, my Rob. Even, or perhaps especially, through my tears.

should be happy. Am not.

In so many ways, life is great at the moment. I'm getting ready to marry the man I love. My family are mostly all well and happy, my sisters are newly married, one's just had a lovely baby. But I'm not really happy.

I'm panicking about finishing my MA. I'm not sure I want to do it anymore. My dissertation seems irrelevant and too hard. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. The plan I had of a PhD and research seems impossible now. If I can't do the MA, how can I do anything else? I lost the habit of reading while I was depressed and so far it's not really come back. Reading makes me anxious. I read faster and faster until I get to the point where I can't read any faster and it's too stressful and I give up. For someone who used to read constantly and have several novels on the go at any one time, this is weird and uncharacteristic. It feels like I've lost a large part of my identity.

Identity is probably the biggest thing that's making me feel unsettled. Everything is changing. I'm not sure who I am now, or who I'm going to be. I just turned 30. I'm working part time in a job that pays the bills, but isn't something I want to do long term. What job should I be doing? My potential academic career seems to be over before it started. I'm going to be a wife soon. I want to be a mother. Will that be satisfying? What will I do?

I'm seeing a counsellor again, which is useful in helping me tease some of these things apart, but oh so painful. Everything gets stirred up and I feel so much worse after our sessions. I don't want to confront all this stuff. I just want to curl up in bed with knitting and chocolate and stay warm and safe and away from the scary world. I thought this was just a simple problem of getting over the psychological barrier of panic I get when I try to read. I thought I'd dealt with this stuff in getting over my depression last year. It seems not. There's more to be sorted and more to understand. I know these things take time, I know I shouldn't be so hard on myself and expect everything to get sorted overnight. But oh mouse, I am so tired of swimming in this pool of tears.

I am being looked after. Rob's love and acceptance and hugs are wonderful. I just want to feel sorted and not confused anymore.

Prayers, kind words and hugs much appreciated.

Autumn contrast

Autumn contrast, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I love the colours of autumn.

I am 30!

It's my birthday today! And so far it's lovely. Rob came round and brought me yummy breakfast in bed. In a bit we're heading out to St Ives for the day.

Thank you my darling monster for making me so happy! I'm looking forward to being your wife in 158 days. :)

I am an aunt!

Tiny was born this morning at 3.33am. She weighed 8lb 2 oz. She doesn't have a name yet. Debs and Tiny are both very sleepy and at the moment still in hospital, but my mum thinks they're likely to send her home later today as everything's fine.

Yay! Well done my Debbie-sister! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!

wedding fair

I went to a wedding fair a couple of weeks ago. It was much as I expected - lots of pretty things I couldn't afford (dresses, flowers, hats, cars) and some I wasn't really interested in (chair covers, make-up artists, John Cleese impersonations). I went with some friends: J, who's recently married, E, who's getting married in December and L, my bridesmaid, mostly for the fun of it and to look for ideas we could use. What I didn't expect was to be slightly freaked out by the experience. All the people I spoke to were lovely, very friendly and obviously keen to promote their particular product. That's fine by me, that's what they're there for. It was more the pressure to create a perfect day, but not my idea of perfect - someone else's. It's like there's this identikit wedding template which everyone has to fit into. Expensive dress, perfect flowers, big car, everything covered in bows and flowers and tulle. I felt a bit lost.

Rob and I are semi-side-stepping the wedding industry. We chose our venues (our respective church buildings) without doing the trawling round halls and houses some of my friends have done. I was going to make my own dress, but actually have bought one from eBay, along with my bridesmaids' dresses. I intended to go dress shopping anyway, but having been to a wedding fair, I don't think I want to do that. I'm quite happy with the dress I've got and don't want to spend any more time being told what I ought to be wearing. I suspect we will end up with a wedding that fits most of the cliches and conventions of people of our age and class and that's OK. I just want to be in control of the cliches, rather than having them control me.

I suppose I'm probably falling for my own set of cliches. The wedding ideas I love have mostly come from US-based wedding blogs - OffBeatBride, Wedding Bee. Some of the things I want have come directly from things I've seen on blogs. There are very few new ideas in weddings! Still, finding an idea on a blog and turning it into reality ourselves seems far more fun than paying for someone else to package it up for us.

can I have some sleep please?

I've not slept very well this week. I'm not entirely sure why. OK, a little of it might be to do with late night eBay hunting for bridesmaid dresses, but I also keep waking up far too early. I also seem to be unable to sleep in, or at least sleep as long as I want and be relaxed. If I try to stay asleep as long as I can, I sleep lightly with vivid dreams which take a long while for me to break out of. This means I wake up disoriented and not very rested. I blame fluoxetine. I've reduced the dose I'm on, but still get vivid dreams sometimes, especially in the morning.

The solution is probably to go to bed earlier and not spend any time online when I'm winding down to go to sleep. Trouble is, I don't like this solution! I see Rob most evenings and want to make the most of our time together, so I'm often not home til gone 10. Maybe I should make a point of trying to get home by 9.30 for a while and see if it makes a difference.

Oh dear. I don't like having to go to bed early. What happened to the teenager who used to be the last to bed, got up at 6.30 for school and caught up by sleeping in on Saturdays? Or the student who often missed Book at Bedtime and was regularly lulled to sleep by Sailing By and the 12.30am shipping forecast? :( Sometimes, I don't like growing up.

countdown

Days until I become an aunt: ~35*

Days until I turn 30: 42

Days until Christmas: 115

Days until Rob turns 30: 199

Days until I marry Rob: 200

*Debs' due date is 6th October, but you never can tell with babies.

my engagement ring

my engagement ring, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Here is my beautiful engagement ring. It's made of palladium, with a swirling engraved line all the way round. The stones are white and pink diamonds and blue sapphires, three of each. We went ring shopping in Birmingham a few weeks before we got engaged. I had some idea of what I wanted (palladium, engraving, small stones) but I would never have thought of this on my own. We saw this design in white gold, a little thicker (6mm, rather than 4mm) with 9 coloured diamonds - white, pink, a turquoise blue, yellows. I loved the line, but wanted a different metal and no yellow stones, so we had this one made.

I've never really been a fan of traditional one big rock engagement rings. This is much more my style. It's beautiful, and even more so because it was given to me by the man I love as a symbol of love and commitment.