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!

The thoroughly miserable truth about job hunting

Job interviews are like buses, you wait around for ages and then two turn up at once. I’m pretty sure that Monday was sent by someone not very nice to destroy me. I hate job interviews, I’m rubbish at them. I’m not one of these people who can talk for ages about how wonderful they are, I’m not very good when I’m put on the spot and I’m just about the most nervous wreck in the world when I have to meet strangers, especially a panel that want to catch you out and are sitting there judging you, what you’re wearing and your answers.

On Monday I had managed to line up two interviews one at a school in the north of the city and the second in a town about an hour and a half away by train. Frightening enough on their own, I wasn’t looking forward to having to go through two of the dreaded things. If I had known what a horrible day was waiting for me I would have climbed back under the duvet and ignored the alarm clock.

 I am a terminal insomniac at the best of times; there was no hope for a good night’s sleep before the day of doom! I woke up after about four hours sleep feeling groggy and wrong and that was just the beginning. Phase one of the day went pretty well, I got to the first interview in plenty of time so wandered up the high street to get some hayfever tablets as I had forgotten to take some. By this point after walking to the train station and then to the chemist my feet were starting to get sore in my interview heels.

The first interview was awful; I couldn’t seem to get my head together to answer the questions. It didn’t help that I couldn’t really work out what they were asking me half the time and the other half they seemed to be asking me the same questions but worded slightly differently. There’s only a certain number of times that you can say that you’re really organised, efficient and committed without starting to sound like you’re either trying to convince yourself or that you’re a bit mad! I wasn’t holding out much hope by the time they actually let me go.

I was a bit early for the train to Andover for interview two so I thought I might as well go and get some lunch from the bakery to eat on the train. By now my feet were severely protesting (considering they are happiest in flip flops or bare it wasn’t surprising!) so when I got on the train I plastered myself up. Turns out they were actually bleeding. Fun times! I get to Basingstoke where I am to change to the Andover train. By a cruel twist of fate the signals near London had broken down and no trains were getting through, the guard couldn’t really tell me what was going on and thought it would be at least 40 minutes before things got moving again. I had an hour to get to Andover and to the office. After a minor fit of indecision I decided that the best course of action would be to hop on a bus and just hope that it would get me there in time. I thought I had better call the office to explain that I might be a bit late and it wasn’t my fault but when I tried the number I couldn’t get through, I left a message on the voicemail and called the agency that set up the interview, no answer or voicemail there at all. The agency finally picked up but the woman dealing with the account was off that day, helpful! The poor woman that answered the phone must have sensed my utter distress because she went off to sort it out for me, turns out the woman taking the interviews had had a family bereavement in the night and wasn’t going to be there...great! In the meantime the office called me back so I could apologise. The bus took the phenomenally long touring route of North Hampshire villages before finally dropping me off by which point I was bursting for the loo (fun fact about the Travel Trollop:  she has a tiny tiny bladder!) I arrived at the office only about 20 minutes late (via the shopping centre toilets) and rang the doorbell. Nothing happened. I rang it for about 5 minutes and knocked on the door. Nothing happened. Resisting the urge to scream I pop downstairs and ring the bell for a different department and get them to let me in. I met the people taking the interview and they were so nice to me I could have cried. They gave me a glass of water and made me take five minutes to gather my thoughts before calling me in. This one went so much better than the other one, no curve ball questions, no repeating myself till I was blue in the face. They seemed genuinely pleased with my answers and I could see myself working there with them. All good then. The ordeal seemed to be over.

Feeling slightly giddy with relief I hobbled through the town centre back towards the train station. I decided to stop at a cafe and have a cup of tea and a breather before getting on the train. All things were fine until I got back to Basingstoke where chaos was reigning supreme. The trains were still not really getting through and there were massive massive delays. One train was over 2 hours and 40 minutes late! I was lucky; mine was only running 57 minutes behind schedule! The long and the short of it is that it took me over three and a half hours to get back to Portsmouth and I’d barely crossed the county border! Luckily I have a very kind sister who came to pick me up from the station and drop me home, handy because I could barely stand let alone walk the twenty minutes home, where I had an hour to get changed and eat before heading out to see some friends (Brides 2 and 5) for a glass of wine and a good natter, my saving grace. An excellent avoidance technique for the parents, who were just being supportive, wanted to dissect everything and make a decision about which I’d accept if I was offered both. I just wanted to curl up and not think about it for a very long time!

You can tell that you’ve had a bad day when you sleep like the dead until 11:30 the next morning without even rolling over!  I woke up on Tuesday feeling hung over (strange considering I’d had nothing but tea), jet lagged and fluey and more than a little sorry for myself.

It turns out that I didn’t get either of the jobs so the whole day was a waste of time and money. I heard from each of them within minutes of each other which made for a not very fun Wednesday morning. But after many cups of tea, lots of chocolate and some lovely messages from my dear friends I felt infinitely better. Apparently it just wasn’t meant to be and something much better is waiting around the corner for me...great. I wish it would bloody jump out and let me know so I can get on with it!