Not flooded

Thankfully we didn't get flooded at work, but we are leaving a lot of boxes on tables until the water subsides a bit.

I am still waiting for the new Library system to let me on. There have been various emails between our IT dept and the system suppliers about tunnels, firewalls, ports etc, but as of 5pm tonight we still don't have access - sigh.

It is very frustrating.

A week later

The wedding went extremely well, and the only not perfect thing was the flowers as it happens. Here is the table with candles, little champagne bottles with bubbles to blow, gems and pearls scattered on the table, plus of course, wine and great food.
Here is the cake of cheese, which lots of people though was a weird idea, but was brilliant. It had Caerphilly on the bottom, Picos blue in the middle, and a light whipped creamy cheese on top, with heart shaped little bries and black little cheddars. Fantastic. We also had cup cakes - 120 of them, 5 different types, but although I made them all, I neglected to take a picture of them which was a bit daft, and they went well too.
This is what the flowers should have looked like. Brilliant orange lilies. However I have flowers all over the house now which is beautiful.

The speed with which everyday life takes over again is a bit disconcerting. We are getting a new management system for the library where I work, and I am the main project manager. We had our first training day this week so I feel like I am at the top of a slide and about to go whizzing down it. Unfortunately the actual system wasn't online on Thursday so we can't actually do anything on the system until it is, so I hope it works on Monday.

The floods in Cumbria last week were awful, and it is making us very nervous. We were flooded at work last year and were out of the office from September till May while they did all the repairs and a fair amount of building work. The field where the floods spread from last year are looking like a lake at the moment with lots of seagulls swimming around on them, the stream at the other end of the site is full up to the top, the roads have ponds all over the place, the drains are blocked - it is not looking good. We receive all the new stock in our office, so on Friday afternoon we put all the boxes of new books onto desks, tables, chairs etc, in case of flooding. Fingers crossed it won't be wet on Monday. Today has been fine and dry so maybe we will be lucky this time..

Poor Nicky is having car problems. She drove through a big patch of water which went up to the doors yesterday, and today when she set off to go to the christening of the baby of a friend the car started making odd noises. So she turned round to come home, very upset. We hope that if we leave the car to dry out for another day it will be ok. In the meantime I have put her on my insurance and she has headed off to Devon for the christening tomorrow.

The choir is singing at a ecuminical event in Monmouth tomorrow. Fingers crossed that the weather isn't too awful for that too.

WEDDING FLOWERS

It is 5am on the day of Kate and Carl's wedding, and so far there are a couple of disappointments One of Carl's friends can't get here because of the flooding in Cumbria, where they are under feet of water, and a policeman died yesterday when he was swept off a bridge as it collapsed. Dreadful.

By comparison my disappointment with the flowers is minor, but nevertheless I am really disappointed. We spent£150 on flowers and (apart from the gypsophilia) they are all still tight shut and showing no signs of opening out at all. I am going to give them some warm water and a blast with the hair drier (2 tips found on the internet) when it is a more reasonable hour of the day to see if I can get them to open. Luckily that company couldn't supply the flowers Kate wanted for her bouquet so we got those from a local florist and they are fine. The calla lillies where also supposed to be for the buttonholes but are a bit too big, however the local supermarket had some nice orange roses which look lovely as the buttonholes. But I spent hours yesterday arranging flowers which were all green and all closed - virtual flower arranging!

Imagine what the arrangements will look like when the flowers open!

Why have actual flowers to arrange when all you need are bits of greenery!

What really pisses me off is that I could have done better getting the flowers from Tescos and the greenery from the back garden. At a fraction of the cost. I am really cheesed off.

I think that is why I have been awake since 3.30am, as it is one of those little niggly things which you can't do anything about, but your mind goes over and over in the hopes that it can figure a way out. So irritating.

Hence blogging at this hour of the morning.

However if that is the worst of our mislaid plans it isn't much to worry about.

We had a minor dress hiccup Friday morning because it is satin and wasn't sitting right, so I took the boning out of the bust and took it in about half and inch so it sits better and fits Kate better. So I was up in the bedroom and Carl had to give notice when he was coming upstairs which was amusing.

10 hours to go!

Cake making day

I have been making cakes all day.

I have made 120 cupcakes (or fairy cakes), evenly split between chocolate with chocolate butter icing, plain with butter icing, coconut, lemon and plain with mascarpone and raspberries (though they don't get the topping till Saturday).

Tomorrow I do flowers

Today I also got my first postal delivery from the Oxfam shop - masses of things at bargain prices, and most of which I will probably keep. Excellent!!

4 Days to go

There are 4 days to go till Kate and Carl's wedding, which is exciting. I am making 110 cupcakes (or fairy cakes depending on what you call them - Brian and I got into a very serious discussion about it on the weekend) on Thursday, and I need to buy all the ingredients tomorrow. The flowers are arriving on Thursday and I am arranging them on Friday. Family arrive on Friday evening and I am looking forward to a very good evening.

I am not dieting this weekend. Although I don't intend to gorge I do intend to enjoy my food, after all what is the point of having an award winning restaurant provide the food if you don't eat any of it?

Saturday morning we are taking the flowers to the hotel and arranging them there, then I will go and join Kate and Nicky to get ready at the hotel, and then we have the wedding.

It should be lovely and I will put some pictures up next week.

Friday (13th)

Today is Friday and although it is Friday 13th today has been a good day. I have now lost 2 stone 4 lbs and am thrilled with it. I am sitting with my (naughty) glass of wine and have a weekend ahead. Good.

It is 1 week to the wedding. This weekend I am getting my hair done and need to clean the house, draw up a shopping list and make sure I know what I am doing.

Very sadly the owner of the hotel, Court Colman, died last week. He was a charming man and was one of the reasons for chosing the hotel. It is very sad. He had been at an awards ceremony the night before where the restaurant won the best Indian restaurant award for the second year in a row, and died in his sleep. Very sad.

We are having rain, more rain, wind and more wind this weekend, so I hope it doesn't last till next weekend - we would really like it to be dry!! Here are crossed fingers.

Brian gave me a tripod for my birthday which I have yet to use, so I need to think about going out and using it to take some pictures. Possibly one of next year's resolutions. This blog was one of this year's and I have kept it up, not every day, but it is still going.

Things I love

Chris was writing things she loved - though she gave up as she is in a bad mood - so here are some of mine

- family (of course)
- being thinner
- Strictly come dancing
- Terry Pratchett
-the glass of wine on Friday night to welcome the weekend
- singing, especially when the voice is really working and the top notes soar
- sunshine and warmth
- chocolate
- a nice walk on a nice day with lovely scenery
- reading in bed with a nice cup of tea in the morning
- tea
- clean sheets on the bed after a shower so that I am clean, my hair is clean, the sheets are fresh, it's lovely

These are in no order.

I have also finally decided on my desert island luxury. It has varied for years between tea, paper and pencils or a hot bath. Now I have decided that I want Ray Mears because he would feed me, light fires and build a boat to take us away and back to civilisation.

Catch up

I haven't written this for a bit because of being busy, but being busy with boring things so have had nothing really to write about.

Last week I was in Swindon for a user group meeting. we are getting a new computer system for the library and I am project manager for it, so I went off to a user group meeting last week. Swindon is where Kate lives, so I stayed with her and Carl instead of the hotel which was very nice. There were large parts of the meeting that made sense, and other parts that didn't we have yet to start using the system, so people discussing details went over my head rather. However meeting people was useful and I made some good contacts. There are 6 other Welsh library authorities using this system, and 4 of them had people there, and there was a tendency for the Welsh to get together, though a break time discussion of Welsh language was pretty exclusive anyway.

It is a small world though. The village where Brian's cottage is is tiny. There are about 30-35 houses. However Sue who was at the user group meeting from Pembrokeshire also lives in that village. I mentioned the village at lunchtime and Sue said - but I live there!! So we discovered a neighbour while in a meeting in Swindon - go figure!

The wedding preparations are all falling into place, although most of the falling is because Kate has pushed them there. Things are ordered, things are in line to do, so with only 12 days left we are counting down.