Hen Party 1: 4 days to go

The preparations for Bride 1's hen party have hit fever pitch. With the Chief Bridesmaid en route from New Zealand the majority of the work has fallen to us lesser mortal bridesmaids. My week is shaping up to look like this:

Monday

• Job interview for really good job that I'd love

Tuesday

• Get up early to buy tax for car which ran out two days previously
• Pick up parcels from Post Office (for hen party 3)
• Go to two different supermarkets to buy ingredients for baking for hen party
• Get bridesmaid dress fitted 
• Go to different shopping centre to try on potential dress for Wedding 2
• Learn how to make meringue
• Practice baking for the hen party

Wednesday

• Make up mix CDs of cheerful songs to play at the hen party
• Finish sorting out my room and do laundry

Thursday

• Bake butterfly cookie lollies for the hen party bags
• Bake mini chocolate cupcakes
• Fill party bag with goodies for the hens

Friday

• Prepare mini lemon meringue and strawberry cheesecake pies
• Decorate butterfly cookies
• Ice cupcakes
• Buy helium balloons
• Drive to Rugby with baked goods and balloons safely in the boot
• Distract Bride whilst we sneak surprise mystery guest into her house (her sister who is chief bridesmaid and supposed to be travelling in Asia on her way home from living in New Zealand for the last two years)
• Bridesmaid sleepover
• Freak out because I haven't heard about the perfect job yet

Saturday

• Get up at the crack of dawn
• Drive 4 complete strangers to the canal
• Have a lesson in driving a narrowboat
• Decorate said narrowboat with balloons and banners
• Drive narrowboat for 3 hours to the nearest pub for lunch whilst the hens drink pink fizz and eat cupcakes
• Drive narrowboat back again
• Drive 4 not-so-strangers back to Bride's house
• Cook BBQ and mix cocktails for the hens
• Be a gracious hostess (ie try not to get drunk and embarrass self in front of new friends or fall asleep in the corner)
• Wrap Bride in toilet paper wedding dress
• Play other cringingly embarrassing hen party games that I am yet to research
• Wash up and generally clean up
• Collapse into bed (hopefully!)

Sunday

• Bridesmaid day of fun (yet to be determined fun)
• Drive home again

Shouldn't be too hard or much work, right?! What could possibly go wrong?? Well I was thinking about this in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep before the job interview and wrote a little list:

1. Bride thinks it's all a lame idea, hates it and is disappointed
2. Mystery guest surprise goes all wrong or someone lets the cat out of the bag
3. Hens don't get on and are stuck on a very small boat for six hours of awkwardness
4. Boat crashes or sinks or refuses to move
5. We balls up the locks and have to get rescued, and end up looking ridiculous
6. Canal is ugly, boat is horrid and pub is non-existent
7. All the baking gets destroyed in the car or is just generally vile
8. Being unable to drink all day because of driving duties will make me very in need of a drink by the time we get back to the Bride's house and I get sloshed whilst cooking the BBQ and embarrass the Bride who promptly disowns me
9. So tired from all mad preparations, sleepless nights of worrying, getting up early and rushing around like a blue arse fly that there will be no energy left for small talk - will be miserable antisocial cow with eyebags the size of shopping trolleys and will probably cry
10. We give all the guests food poisoning with the BBQ food

Surprisingly enough writing this list didn't cure the insomnia, I expect it made it worse! To top it off I had a chat with my bridesmaid counterpart who will be joining me in this list of joy, she has chewed off all her fingernails. We make quite a pair but at least we're in it together! 

If I survive this weekend I will be giving a full report next week!

A little ray of sunshine...

So it turns out that blog posts are also like job interviews and buses, so here is a second for today.  My lovely friend Kirsti (A Quick Succession of Busy Nothings) presented me with my first Blog Award today, this Sunshine Award, being new to this I was pretty chuffed! Thanks poppet! 

 

So, apparently there are rules to these things and they are to tell you all a little bit about myself and then pass the award on to 10 other bloggers. As the only bloggers I know have already had it, I’ve decided to mush together the rules and tell you 10 things about me instead.

1.       I love lists – I write them about anything and everything and find it immensely satisfying to cross things off

2.      Trees are my favourite things, the older, knobblier and twistier the better. Forests make me happy. I once found a tree that was over 8m around and therefore about 1300 years old, just imagine what it’s seen!

3.       I own over 30 pairs of flipflops, and yes I mean flipflops not thongs or jandals weirdos!

4.       I wish Julie Andrews was my extra Granny, I have an unnatural love for singing nuns

5.       Tea runs through my veins instead of blood

6.       I love cake but mostly for the icing

7.       I was born and raised by the sea, I get off kilter if I haven’t seen it or smelled it for a while

8.       There is nothing more joyous on earth than popping bubble wrap

9.       I have been in love with the lovely Oscar winning Colin Firth for over half of my life *swoons*

10.   I am the Queen of Procrastination-ville, why do something now when you can leave it to the last minute?!? 

Fascinating insight huh!? 

Two worrying realisations...

1. I quite enjoyed watching the Royal Wedding - I thought it was going to be an horrendous tribute to everything I dislike about Britain and the monarchy but it turns out that it was a tasteful, romantic betrothal of two people that clearly love each other. Everyone looked lovely (ignoring of course Princess Beatrice's tapeworm hat) and happy and London looked wonderful in the sunshine in all it's Union Jack-ed glory (or is it Flag-ed? I can never remember which way round it goes). All in all a good excuse for a party and nice to have something less miserable in the news.

2. I'm not finding being involved in 5 weddings all that painful. I thought it would be a never ending misery-fest but so far I'm actually quite enjoying myself. I love planning things and writing lists so it's not surprising really that hen party organisation is turning out to be quite good fun. Although that might all change as the blessed events draw closer...

Clearly I'm broken and need to find a job as soon as possible in order to reawaken my jelly-like brain and get some sensible perspective!