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!

Another worrying realisation...

Last night I fulfilled my grand-daughterly duties and stayed in for dinner with my beloved grandparents. Dinner with them can be a bit of a minefield at the best of times (best of times = having siblings plus their other halves as backup), trying to dodge the jellyfish comments takes an awful lot of energy or an awful lot of wine (particular favourite, Grandma circa 2001: "you don't really have the complexion to pull off dark hair" not so much jelly fish as electric eel!) Anyway last night we got round to talking about next year and what a big one it is; the schedule of celebrations goes like this:

• Mum and Dad's 35th wedding anniversary
• Grandma and Grandad's 60th wedding anniversary (quite how they've put up with each other for that long I'll never know!)
• Sister's wedding
• Great Aunt and Uncle's 40th wedding anniversary
• My 30th birthday

Wait a minute...did I say my 30th birthday?!?!?! I'M GOING TO BE 30 NEXT YEAR. Cue severe depression. Now, I have never been very good at dealing with my birthday, the awkward moments of opening presents in front of people and having to feign sheer delight at the contents, the cringingly embarrassing singing of happy birthday whilst everyone looks at you, the endless photos that you have to be centre of....etc etc. All in all I'm just not very good at being the centre of attention and I hate it! Also there's the awful knowledge that for another year, no progress has been made whatsoever in my sad pathetic life. 

Last year, for my 28th, I decided that the only way to deal with the impending doom of being another year older and no further on with becoming a grown up was to run away to the middle of the desert with Kirsti and to watch sunrise over Uluru. This was a desperate attempt to feel insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe, my birthday wouldn't matter compared to such ancient history and cultural wonderment. Hmmmmm can't say it worked really. I still turned 28, I just had to get up at 4:30 after sleeping in a freezing cold tent and then tramp around the surprisingly humid desert (stupid La Nina ruining the weather!) without having washed my hair. With the power of hindsight I can perhaps say that it wasn't my most brilliant plan. Still I got to see Uluru, which was fairly spectacular, I wasn't at work, I had a birthday curry and I didn't get homesick because I couldn't ring home with no signal in the middle of the desert. Result! I actually had a really good time and it's certainly one to tell the grandchildren that I'll never have (no jellyfishing from this imaginary Granny!) 

So my plan for dealing with the big Three O...well I reckon there are three options:

1. Pretend that it's not happening and hope that it'll go away by perhaps staying in with a bottle of wine and some chocolate in my pyjamas singing "All By Myself" Bridget stylee; or
2. Run off on holiday to somewhere fantastic, drink pina coladas on the beach and flirt with inappropriate backpackers and/or diving instructors; or
3. Stick two fingers up to 30 by throwing a massive party, insisting everyone brings a single man with them and having a wonderful drunken time singing along to "I need a Hero" at the top of my voice with all the people I love most in the world

I'm kind of liking option number 3, if I start planning it now with 16 months to go I might be over it by the time  it arrives. It's certainly overshadowing the impending doom of turning 29 in three and a half months (who's counting?!) which in it's self is excellent news! And how will I be celebrating this year? I'm going to someone else's hen weekend of course *rolls eyes*

The Travel Trollop did a bad/good* thing!

*delete as appropriate

The problem with being unemployed and terminally bored is that it inevitably leads to mischief; those itchy feet start itching away and grand plans start forming in my mushy brain. I’ve been home for nearly four months now and with no job in sight predictably my thoughts turn to other ways to keep myself amused. So when an opportunity presented itself, a germ of an idea took root and I had to go for it...

So the bad/good thing? I just booked flights to New York for September. Eeeeek. I’m guilty of spending money and time on something that is totally un-wedding related...bad Sara! It’s bad because I have no way of paying off the credit card and I have a millionty other things that I need to spend that money on; good because, well it’s New York and I’ve never been. Bad because I told my family that I couldn’t afford to go on holiday with them so I’ll be in the bad books; good because I get to see Kirsti (major amount of squeeeeeeeeing involved!).

Turns out that I don’t really care that I can’t afford to go. I need something to look forward to that isn’t a hen party or wedding, it’s cheaper than flying to Australia to see Kirsti and I really really want to go. Bit of a no brainer really and I completely blame Miss "I'm going to the USA in Sept, shame you can't come too" Kirsti. I was going to turn up at Grand Central Station and surprise her but it seems that I’m keeping enough secrets already and it was impossible not to blab. 

So now I have something else to be organising but at least it's something for me and will be AMAZING!

The movie of my life - Bridesmaids

On Saturday Brides 4 and 5, two fellow bridesmaids and I trundled off to the cinema to see Bridesmaids, for research purposes of course. I had heard many good things from everyone who had seen it and was naturally very excited! I wasn’t disappointed.

I have a new hero in Kirsten Wiig. She is, quite frankly, a genius. Not only is she gorgeous and her acting wonderfully funny and touching in all the right places but she co-wrote the thing so she’s really clever too! If you’ve not seen her in Whip It, I really recommend renting it, although be warned, it’ll lead you to dust off your pink Barbie roller skates and fishnet tights!

When I grow up I want to be just like  Kirsten Wiig!

Poor old Annie, it didn’t take much for me to drum up empathy for her. We seem to be in a frighteningly similar situation; single, broke, living with our mums, unemployed and with a crappy love life. We even share that Bridget Jones-esque feeling of inadequacy when faced with smug marrieds and people with careers. Luckily I don’t have to go through anywhere near the level of crap that she has to with my bridal parties. None of my fellow bridesmaids will go out of their ways to ensure the train wreckage that Rose Burn’s character Helen does and my sister would never dream of demoting me to an ordinary bridesmaid. Mind you, it ends up ok for her, she gets the girl (well girly-man Irish cop) and makes up with her BFF and totally makes bitchface Helen shrivel HOORAH! 

Perhaps there’s hope for me after all...

Anyway go and see it if you fancy a lot of laughs, some cringingly gross bits and a musical finale! 

Well durr!

Yesterday I went into the health food shop to see if I could find anything that might help me to get to sleep. I found this:

Much to my delight, last night when I went to make up a brew and read the instructions, I discovered this helpful health warning:

I genuinely laughed out loud, what use is sleepy tea if it doesn’t make you drowsy?!

Incidentally, it didn’t cause drowsiness hence why I’m writing this post at 12:23am *rolls eyes in despair*

Take That and Party (we don't need Robbie Williams)

Thursday will go down as one of my favourite days ever for it was the day that I got to revisit the early 90s, the time that fashion forgot, and do what I was never allowed to do when I was 12. I got to go and scream at Take That!

Now, I was never a huge fan of Gary, Mark, Howard, Jason and Robbie when I was in primary school. I just wasn’t one of those girls who was devastated when Robbie quit or threatened suicide when they split up (although I do remember the day it happened, weird!), I didn’t own their tapes or the dolls or have a TT lunch box nor did I have their posters on my wall. No, I was  a Boyzone fan, there was no room in my heart for anyone other than Ronan Keating. They may have featured on the odd mix tape or two recorded off the radio top 40 countdown on a Sunday evening but that was as far as it went. Well a part from making up a dance to Could it be Magic at my friend Catherine Taylor’s house one rainy afternoon, her brother had it on vinyl and we had a terrible argument because we couldn’t agree on the lyrics!

Love the fact that Nobbie was
photoshopped in as an afterthought!

Nostalgia, it turns out, does strange things to women in their late 20s, 30s, 40s......When the first tour was announced I wasn’t bothered at all about spending a lot of money on seeing a band that I never really liked who were missing a member. By the time the hype got to me it was too late. Everyone but me had a ticket and it turned out to be the most amazing night of their lives, bar none! Suddenly Take That were everywhere, all over the radio and TV, they’d released new CDs and they were doing it all without Robbie and more to the point, doing it brilliantly without Robbie. So I got sucked in and swore that next time they toured I would be there.

I was in Australia when the announced their Progress Tour, it was the middle of the night when the tickets went on sale. I was powerless in the fight to get hold of the small pieces of card that meant the difference between total bliss and crushing misery. I had arranged with Bride 3 that she and a small army of minions would try to get tickets for us, Groom 3, Chief Bridesmaid 3 and her boyfriend and that we’d go as a merry band of five. I put my trust in them and tried to sleep...

Imagine my delight when I switched on my lap top the following morning to find an email in my inbox with the subject line I GOT THEM!!!!!!!! and nothing else.  Of course when I explained to the Aussies in my office what the stupid grin on my face was for, they didn’t have a clue, but I didn’t care if they thought I was nuts, or more nuts than normal, I was very very excited!

More precious than gold dust

Nine months later we found ourselves sat on the floor of Wembley stadium with 85,116 other people that had managed to get tickets, two hours early. The sense of excitement and oestrogen levels were through the roof (not that Wembley has a roof) and it felt totally different to the last time I was there jetlagged after getting straight off a 24 hour nightmare journey from Costa Rica to watch my beloved Pompey lost on penalties to Man Utd in the FA Community Shield match 2008.

I’d never been to a big stadium gig before so I didn’t really know what to expect. It pretty much blew me away. The supporting act was The Pet Shop Boys, who I thought were a strange choice for what was essentially a grown up teenybopper party, but it worked. They were pretty fabulous and electropopped their way through 45 minutes of hits with their strange cuboid dancers!

Pet Shop Boys

By this point Wembley was nearly full, I tried in vain to hunt for some other friends that were there, that was pointless! More and more people piled in. We were squashed and couldn’t see much but we were right in the thick of it! There was a two minute countdown on the screen and then it began...

I was hooked from the beginning when they opened with Rule the World, one of my favourite new ones, sans Robbie. It was a bit touch and go when they made us sing the national anthem (at a concert, seriously?!) but I screamed, I shouted along, I waved my arms like a mad thing and I jumped up and down all with that mad grin on my face until...they brought out Robbie...

My heart sank, I was rather hoping that he had pulled out and buggered off to space, or prison, but no here he was arsing about on stage as if to all the world he wasn’t the most annoying and ridiculous smug git on the planet. This was all much to the screaming delight of all the mad women and some of the poor trampled on, dragged along men too. He shall be hereafter unaffectionately known as Dobbie or perhaps Nobbie for he is a giant walking penis. He swore profusely, he sweated even more profusely and he danced around with his hand down the front of his trousers. Add to the mix a sprinkling of insincere patriotism, looking old, wheezing through the routines and forgetting the words to his own songs along with lying on some moving scaffolding over the crowd so that we could touch his precious fingers and he lost me. I thought he came across as a total arsehole but perhaps that was just me, everyone else seemed to love it, and him. Luckily, after a vomit inducing rendition of Angels dedicated to those that had 'passed on' or simply weren't with us because they hadn't gotten tickets, he wheezed his way offstage and we could go back to the real reason we were there – the other four non-nobhead members of the band. Hoorah!

Look at me, I'm god! No you're
just a big nobhead with no nob!

Oh Nobbie, you're too old to
behave like a douche!

Jump, jump, jump!
Wishful thinking...

They then did some of their newer stuff which, as I hadn't done my homework since coming back from Oz, I didn't really know. But they did have some phenomenally mental dancers on ropes doing gymnastics in a wall of water though – that was pretty clever!

Weeeeeeeeee!

Then came the bit I was waiting for...a grand piano appeared and the 90s were cranked up to the max. The deep recesses of my brain where I keep useless information and song lyrics didn’t let me down and it was AWESOME! They even resurrected some of their classic retro dance moves and flung some shapes 90s style – hats off to them I say!

Watch those necks boys!
You don't want to pull something!

Really though we were all waiting for Never Forget. Pray was good, A Million Love Songs happened, Back for Good predictably went off, the snippets of Take That and Party and Could it be Magic offered some comic relief but everyone loves Never Forget, so we waited with baited breath, knowing that with each song it got closer. The giant robot made its way along the sticking out bit of stage carrying the boys until it got to the end and they started singing the choir bit a capella and everyone went nuts. Six and a half minutes of utter pleasure, 85,121 people united with their arms in the air clapping and singing at the top of their voices. It was almost worth the £60 just for that on its own, almost!

By the end of Never Forget the robot was
standing with his arms out - very clever!

Well 85,120 actually because this guy had his earplugs in...odd place to find yourself if you're not a fan!

Pink and blue shirt man is wearing earplugs
I didn't think my singing was that bad!

I've had some pretty spectacular days in my capacity as a Travel Trollop, I've been diving with Manta Rays and sharks, held a wild anaconda, seen sunrise over Uluru and Angkor Wat, abseiled down waterfalls, seen jaguars in the wild, been to Rio, hugged a 1300 year old tree, climbed Sydney Harbour Bridge but I have to say that this was right up there with all of them!

Gush over, back to reality....

Domestic goddess-ing

So today I took a leaf out of Kirsti’s book and decided to do a bit of baking. I’ve been helping out the lovely folks at my old office (for my sins) mostly as a way of catching up and having a good gossip. Ever since I got back, my ex-colleague Jordane has been bugging me to bake her cupcakes. Tomorrow I’m going in to deal with a massive mailout and taking these with me: 

Hopefully yumptious marshmallow cupcakes

From the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, they are ordinary vanilla sponge fairy cakes but you melt some marshmallows in a bowl over some hot water, pink ones of course, scoop out a bit of the cake fill it with the melted marshmallow and then ice with buttercream icing mixed with mini-marshmallows. Turns out that it’s easier said than done to get melted marshmallow to behave itself in any way, shape or form. I ended up covered in sticky pink mess along with every item of cutlery in the kitchen and there wasn’t much marshmallow inside the cakes at all! 

Melted marshmallow

Big sticky spidery marshmallow mess!

The long and short of it is that I was planning on making these for Bride 1’s hen party but considering the mess they made, I may have to come up with another wee plan! Suggestions on a postcard please....