Elderflower and wedding rings

I've just tasted my latest batch of Elderflower ale and it's delicious. I must make sure I save them for the wedding and not drink them before the wedding.

Heidi and I have now got our rings from the friendly local jewellers, and done the formal thing with the registrar office (on Friday 13h of Feb!) :-) . It was quite daunting having the interview at the registrar office, it felt like we were kids giving our details. After 5mins it became more relaxed and we both felt at ease. We both celebrated at the Beltane bar with a coffee and a hot chocolate.

We are both very excited about the wedding and can't wait. We also feel abit nervous about the organisation of it, so far everything seems to be going smoothly and coming together (cross my fingers).

I'll end this post with finishing my pint of Elderflower ale! :-)

Bob

Snowdrop hunting

Heidi and I went for a walk on Saturday (30th Jan) looking for snowdrops. While walking we saw some King Alfreds Cakes, I was very excited as I could use it for my bushcraft. It was on a dead branch and underneath there were loads of very thorny bushes but I managed to clamber on the thorny bushes and while trying to get hold of them with one hand and balancing myself on another branch, I told Heidi to take a picture of me getting the fungus. She scrambled into the bag, found the camera (after 2mins) then had to find the batteries (after 5mins) and when she manage to get them one of them fell back into the rucksack amongst other stuff. At this point she got fed up and told me to just get the fungus. Grumpy points (grumpy P) for Heidi! She was forgiven later when I found some more of the fungus and she did take some pictures of me getting them :-)

It was a lovely walk to Butterton, we walked by the river and saw loads of birds in the hedgerow, a Jay, a deep burrow underneath a large Ash tree and I saw a small mammal burrow into the drystone wall. We had a pint at the Greyhound pub before making our way to the car and back home for some delicious homemade lasagne...yum.

Bob :-)

Hidden Talents & Lavish Spectacles

We've had some lovely offers so far: Elderflower champagne from Alison, a silver mercedes from John (!) handmade ceramics and baking, including a wedding cake, which Anne has kindly offered to design and make...We are really looking forward to sampling things made and shared by friends. It really will be a ''bring what you'd like to find'' kind of day. Which is always good.

I'm going round muttering things under my breath 'two hundred wine glasses, and bread, we need bread, and labels, and fairy lights'

Agghh! Somebody sedate me, before I turn into Bridezilla. But hey, maybe I'd be like this even if I was just organising any big party. It is funny the effect weddings have though, its hard to keep your head when there's so much hype and consumerism around. So many things that are part and parcel, the perfect bride (false nails, me?), the lavish spectacle. Weddings: old fashioned, romantic, spiritual, patriarchal, a symbol of hope? Seems to elicit all these conflicting responses.

Have steered clear of those glossy magazines on the shelves of WHS Smiths, but reading blogs like Indiebride makes me realise there is some sanity out there.

Heidi x

Music - Please post here!

Ok, if you've got your invite and letter information, you'll know that we would like people to recommend music they would like to dance to. At the bottom of this post is 'comments' if you could put down your music selection. :-)

Hectic Times

This weekend Heidi and I have been busy trying to do as many of the wedding invites as we can. We have also started buying some of the wine for the wedding. I also aim to brew about 250 bottles, I have about 150 so far, I better get cracking!

Vegan caught in action!

Heidi and I spent Christmas Eve at my sister's we had a fantastic time. Here is Heidi caught in the act of going for some 'foie grais'. I'll have to send this one to the Vegan society! We had roast beef, and it was funny hearing the discussing about the proper way to cook beef, as the French say, "English people don't know how to cook beef" and vice versa. Lots of wine, champagne, delicious food, Jenga and Jules (Fred's brother [my sister's boyfriend]) favourite game 'The really nasty horse racing game".

We also had Fondu on Christmas day. All in all a fantastic Christmas eve & Christmas before travelling up to Buxton for Heidi's mum Boxing day family do (more delicious food).

*Note: Heidi did not eat the Foie Gras...(Heidi hit Bob's head)...ouch!

Christmas Deco

We decorated the flat before going down to my sister's on Tue 23rd Jan. We put greenery around the flat and hung the Christmas cards. We also manage to make the wreath, please see the slide show on the left 'Christmas Deco' for the beautiful wreath.