Mission to Magdalene

Well you've heard of Christ on a Bike, this is Christine on a Quad Bike, how history repeats itself. We have had a long weekend starting for me on Friday lunchtime and Toby Friday morning. Him and Stef met up to go suit shopping and I met Kari and Allie for my first fitting for the dress. It was a hot and humid day and the dressing room at Berketex was like a sauna. When I stood there in my dress while they pinned my bust in and took up some legnth, I was dripping sweat. God knows what it will be like on the day. I think that as the buildings will be cool cos they are thick stone walls and I wont have walked swifly all the way down Regents street, that I'll be OK. Alle brought the veil and I tried it with the tiara and wrap too. I'm happy with it, looking forward to trying it on with my bust fitting it too. 

Forgot to mention, I came home through the countryside rather than along the A10, and decided, on a whim, to pull over and watch some cricket.
Cricket on a blissfull sunny eve... "How English!", I thought... Lovely...

*twack*

howzaaat!

My, what a day.
We have to rewire our kitchen. We've got the worktop guy coming on Sunday and the tiler starting on Monday, so we've got to get it done this week.
Had a quote to rewire our kitchen two days ago, but wanted a second quote as it was rather expensive and left room for the work to expand... Now, the guy who's wiring up our boiler (the gas fitter's son-in-law) was supposed to have given us a quote over the weekend, but the message got scrambled and although he went round to the house, he didn't do a quote.
Anyway, caught up with him, and he went round this morning. OK, lower quote, just. But although he says he's a member of the Electrical Contractors Association, he doesn't show up on the ECA web site search (panic). OK, get hold of him again and he gives me his number, I find the right part of the organisation to ring and yes, he's a member. But he's not "part p" qualified (panic).
This is new legislation that came in this year, meaning that electrical work now falls under building regulations. Someone who's "part p" can self-certify their own work, but what if they're not?
Well, after a lot of worry and hassle, and several explinations from lovely ladies at the council, I find that if I submit a planning application tonight, 48h later (ie Friday) I can ring up before 10am and they'll come that day and certify his work. Costs me an extra £58, but it means I've got all the documentation (phew).
Simple when you know how, but it took a lot of slewthing to find out just which form I had to use, whether it could be done in the timescale, not to mention whether it was possible at all!
So, I've done my 2 copies of the form, filled in the cheque, let my dinner go down, and now I'm off to post my first building application through the council's letterbox :)

The popies have now been acompanied by a red jasmine, a white jasmine, another lavender plant and my lovely pots - a fig tree, some herbs, an acer tree, some alpine flowers and an olive tree. I was very chuffed, earlier today, this bit looked like a builders yard. (see boot of car shot) 

This is our very own poppy patch. I was tickled pink when I found it! 

Look at my lovely digging along the side, I dug it all over and planted lavender, a sunflower, a foxglove, a thornless blackberry and a pretty flowering bush I can't remembe the name of that is exactly behind toby's jumper. He did a lovely job of the lawn. 

Ahhh 

This is my favorite one. I've submitted this picture in the picture of britain thing on the bbc website. 

It was nice to see the some yellow bits too. 

He was quite awestruck 

Toby went for a paddle 

I was happier than this photo suggests. 

Our poppy pond

It was quite amazing. 

2 trips to the dump, our little car did us proud, bath and all. 

Had a fantastic day yesterday. I'd ordered a wheat free loaf from a stand on the market last week, so we went to pick it up. Unfortunately his flour had been recalled, so he'd had to bin all the wheat free stuff, so I'll try again in a couple of weeks. However, as we wandered round the market, we found some lovely stuff, much better value than in London. Christine bought a couple of plants for the garden, and I got some glutin free saussages. We had an ostridge burger, and got some to freeze.
We then popped into the library and took out all their books on Ireland - we think that's going to be our honeymoon destination :)
After that, round to the house. We cleared up the back garden - two runs to the dump to get rid of bath, sink, toilet, boiler and piles of cardboard and other junk. The boiler was funny - as we were carrying it to the car, we both got splashed. We both assumed it was rain water, but when we put it down next to the car to open the boot, water started gurggling out of somewhere. It was the inbuilt water reserve - a couple of lites at least! It was certainly lighter when we came to lift it into the car!
So, after a nice microwave-steamed lunch, we set about the gardening. Christine dug out some nasty bush things, put in the plants she'd bought and covered the beds in fertiliser (that we got from the dump). I borrowed the mower from James down the road, and did front and back, weeded the paving and tidied up the borders.
Then we had a beer in our lovely garden - looks great!
Came home for a chinese (which wasn't that good unfortunately) and a slob infront of Lock Stock, which is a fab film :)

This week at work, I saved Tushar's life again and didn't murder him. I don't know how much longer he has to live. It's purely out of the kindness of my heart. He is very clever and at least I can count on him to be thorough and do a good job, he's just crap at the project management side of the bids. At least it makes me look good.
Apart from that life is good there, went to the pub with different people twice this week, the work is varied and the people are a laugh.

I've got a honeymoon to decide apon with Toby - Today we want to look at Ireland. I forgot to ring the florist who still hasn't sent us a quote. I have to ring my hairdresser tonight to find out if he's up for coming up from London on the day to do my hair and my 3 wonderful sister's hair. I'll pay him and feed him but he's a trendy gay Camden/Islington boy, he might not do weddings. He's been my Hairdresser for 3-4 years in London, dyed my hair every colour imaginable but I feel really self conscious about asking him now that we have moved up to the middle of nowhere - well to a Londoner like him it might just as well be.

Toby is ringing electricians - So everything is on hold until Mr I Chivers (brrr really!) the electrician re-wires the cooker etc. We are postponing Brian the tiler another week so the electrics can be done properly.

Another week gone.I feel better now, interview with sexy dave grohl on the radio.

Chantal sent me an email this morning saying she saw Duran Duran on Monday night! Jammy thing, I'm very gelous.
June is already here. We aren't in our house yet and it will still be a couple of weeks. When the work top guy came round on bank holiday monday, he pointed out that the wiring to the cooker, fridge, washing machine and dishwasher is all wrong - he's used lighting wire, which isn't thick enough. We are haveing a proper electrician round to do it properly and deduct a couple of days from Brians money as he shouldn't have said he could do it when he wasn't qualified. Glad someone saw it before it was too late.
Very frustrating.
We are busy preparing for the wedding too. I have my dress fitting the end of June, I have the multiway bra on now - I'm wearing it in so it's nice and comfy on the day, the rest of the underwear and tiara is neatly stashed on top of my wardrobe. The shoes I bought on ebay are too small so I'm going to re-ebay them. That's the 2nd pair I've bought on line that don't fit. No more on line shoes. It doesn't work, my feet are too weird.
I did manage to find two pairs of summer shoes yesterday in Clarkes, I have a terrible time finding summer shoes, so when I was faced with the choice of two pairs that worked, I did the smart thing and bought both. I don't think I'll regret it.
It was too cold to wear them today though, and the air conditioning at work is being very efficient!
On Saturday I'm off to London to do my Landmark aggreement in the morning and go to Covent garden in the afternoon to find my wedding shoes, if I don't find anything on Covent Garden, I'm off to Oxford Street. I hope that nine west have somthing I like - they do wide fittings, my pair that Dad got me for Christmas are fab, I'm so glad I got them.
We've had one flower consultation in Feltwell, and we have another tomorrow in Cambridge.
Next will be to have a tasting at Magdalene end of June, beggining of July to sort out the food. We will then have to start rehearsing for the ceremony. Tobe will need to get his suit sorted with Stef.
The cake is ordered.
Then there's the entertainment. Mum is MC'ing the dancing, we have hired a PA and lights. Howie will be sort of DJ. It would be good to get a hard drive of just the MP3's we want for the party, that way, what ever people choose, it won't be agadoo or the birdy song (not that we have access to either of them).
I think we are doing OK really. Just a shame that the house isn't finished yet. Toby's Parents are going to China next week for a fortnight so they are glad we haven't moved out yet so we can house sit. We better be ready to go the week after their return though!

Claiming the head of the villain VanCleef (I'm the short one in front) 

Blayse 

I've discovered a new on-line game: World of Warcraft. It's fab. And since all my friends from London are playing, we've formed a guild and get together to go on quests... Here's a toungue-in-cheek account I wrote of one of our adventures:

The Deadmines Quest - Blayse's account

Blayse, Mhyrel, Ashilandra, Leafshine and Jimlad braved the deadmines last night. We swept through the caves, unstoppable. Jimlad, our hardened and experienced rogue, was out front, scouting and pulling, while Ash and Myrel kept watch for patrols. Jimlad would cripple the enemies we came across, then Mhyrel, our hunter, would empty a few rounds from her gun and charge in for the kill. Ash, at one with nature, would cover us with protective thorns, and call forth searing light while Blayse sent arcing missiles of magical energy into the frey. Leafshine, our druid, was there fighting, but also blessing us with healing. We were a great team.

The upper levels posed no problems as the Defias didn't work together - we managed to pick them off one by one. Even a patrol of mages were dealt with swiftly. We met some resistance from goblins deeper into the cave, but, with teamwork, these were defeated. Even the goblin's mighty machines were no match for our firepower. Swiftly we drew near to our target. Blayse, an engineer as well as a mage, set off the giant cannon we found, blasting through the iron doors separating us from Van Cleef. We swept into the underground bay and dispatched the waiting pirates there.

We fought our way through the ship hidden there, battling a giant who knocked us all senseless and dozens of corrupt pirates to get to our target. Finally we faced the boss. He just laughed and set his shaddowy assassins upon us. It was a hard fight, yet none of the team died and, in the end, we claimed the head of that scoundrel Van Cleef!

I was trying to think 'what did we do this bank holiday weekend?' and it suddenly hit me: we've been to goth film night, gone shopping for wedding flowers, driven to Ikea for extra bits for the kitchen, ventured off the motorway to find lunch in a little pub where we were the only customers, seen star wars III in Cambridge, cleaned up the cardboard and tiles in the garden, walked round to one of Christine's workmate's housewarming, watched Dr Who, had the builder round to fit the worktop, sorted out the crisis when he cut it too short, had fish & chips on a little table outside the fish shop so I could go get beer from a no-so-nearby pub, taken a friend up the cathedral's octagon tower & out for a pizza, played a music quiz game and late Monday eve, I completed two quests in my online game!

Back to the house! Toby changing the fridge door round. 

Monastic buildings, the largest anywhere still in daily use (the head mistress of the kings school lives in one of them) 

The lantern, up close and personal. 

A pinicle. 

Me on the other side of the stain glass! amazing! 

Whats through the roundy thing? 

On top of the Lantern, listening to the tour. Richard asked lots of questions and was very attentive! 

Hello! we look like tourists! 

Heavenly Ceiling - this was made to look like heaven, they sang up to this ceiling since the 14th century! 

the lantern up close and personal