Personal Blogs

Here's one that's really worth documenting!!

It all started on Friday afternoon, as any good weekend should.  We jumped on a train to Didcot, laden with backpacks, tent and various other items, including at that point, a suit bag.  Around six o'clock we were sitting on a train to Cholsey, when I leapt up and said 'where's the suit bag??'  Of course, panic ensued.  We jumped off the train and went to get help.  We were asked which carriage we were in.  We didn't know.  Al guessed.  To add to my stress they will apparently only search one carriage.  I will bear that in mind in future if I have more than one bag!  Our Wedding gear arrived safely in London Paddington around 7pm.  They would not bring it back.  So I went to the pub opposite Didcot Parkway to calmly (!) wait while Al caught a train to London, collected our things, and caught a train back.  2 hours equalled a bottle of wine.  Al got back at half past nine.  We forwent the Cholsey train and got a taxi from Didcot to the venue.  A vineyard.  With a cab driver who got us to programme his satnav for him and then took us to an elderly retirement home.  Eventually, sometime after ten, we arrived, in the dark, and put up our tent, somehow.  We then crossed back over a very fragile (and labelled as such) bridge, to the other side of the lake, where there were various marquee style tents with a few remaining family members, and a never ending supply of wine, stella and magners.  By the end of the evening I was apparently found carefully balancing my way across an imaginary bridge whilst believing that Al was walking through the lake.  And then when we reached the real bridge, I am told I very nearly fell off it.  In the morning we discovered, much to Al's elation, that I was in fact balancing on a large area of swan pooh covered grass, alongside a very large log.  The following morning, in the pouring rain, we waited for our lift to the service.  In wellies.  The nice Wedding shoes made an appearance for the service, and then wellies were resumed.  We had no breakfast.  We were returned to the Wedding festival site for the speeches, where lunch was running late, but champagne had been added to the never ending supply of alcohol.  After lunch, Pimm's was added.  Around about Pimm's o'clock, whenever that was, an icecream van pulled up, and for a good hour there was free access to real 99's.  Amazing.  By Saturday night it was not only me who struggled to get over the bridge.  I now have contact with five family members who I have not seen for a good ten years.  It feels really good.  I wish my mother could have come.  She would have been welcomed and would have discovered that she is not the black sheep she believes herself to be. 

The place was stunning.  I saw a kingfisher on an early morning stroll whilst in search of water.  There were two swans with two cygnets nesting alongside the lake.  When we arrived, they were quite near to the lake.  As the days went by they gradually extended their territory, and by Sunday they had clearly had enough, and had taken over nearly the entire grass area, making it quite difficult to pass them.  Particularly as if you walked anywhere close to them they would stand up and start to spread their wings.  Each time we passed them Al told me that they could break our arms.  He likes to repetitively divulge information like that.

Sunday morning we packed up the tent, pickled and exhausted.  Anxiety set in.  I coped so well with the Wedding, and even the temporary loss of a favourite jacket in the suit bag, and then when it was all over, I started to jitter.  I guess it was being over-tired too.  I spent the entire journey home having a mild but lengthy panic attack, which I tried to ignore by engrossing myself in a puzzle book.  Arriving home, my birthday celebrations started.  Sunday night I went out for a meal with my old work buddies.  I thought that I was too tired to go, but once we started talking I had a second wind.  They gave me sacks of presents, which I took home.  Monday morning I woke early and sat downstairs and opened presents.  My work friends gave me flip-flops (following Al's recycling bin blooper), all the necessary tools for making sushi, including bamboo mats and rice, many sweets and beautiful cards, with messages that made me feel very loved.  I also got a giant badge, but I didn't wear it.  Al woke up.  He gave me flip-flops (there is a theme emerging there!) and a cool bangle.  I'm a bangle addict.  When I was a teenager I had them all the way up my arm.  Now I try to be restrained, but there're always a few.  Right now I have two glo-bangles and my festival wristband from the Wedding.  I can't bring myself to take them off just yet.  Also my silver ones that my mother made me, the one from Al, one from a friend, one that I made, and one with lots of miniature licorice allsorts on it that I got from Beautiful Days.  On the other wrist is one chunky one, all by itself.  I asked for a flying lesson when I was drunk.  Once sober we established that one flying lesson won't do me much good.  So he is taking me zorbing in August instead.  Then my mother arrived.  She gave me a necklace, a book, some coasters, a keyring and a pretty bent glass square.  Then she took us for lunch to my favourite pub... the Weighbridge, where I had my favourite meal... a 2 in 1 pie.  Then of course, it was time to head to the pub where I met my friends and had copious amounts to drink.  I was given a cool necklace with a little welly hanging off it and a scarf.  I was given some earrings too but I can't find them.  I don't have pierced ears anyway, but still, it seems a little rude if I have lost them already, so I hope I haven't.  This morning, I have woken up feeling completely and utterly exhausted.  But even though I can hardly keep my eyes open, I can't sleep.  I was up at seven.  I'm still in a state of mild anxiety.  Much as I've had a lot of fun, it's also all been very stressful.  I think I hid it for the past four days, and now it's all leaking out of me.  Today should be nice and chilled though.  Tomorrow I will panic because I have still done no studying.  In fact, I'm slightly panicked about it today.  I'm not entirely sure that there is enough time to catch up.  I have until next Friday to read two text books, do an indeterminable number of multimedia activities, conduct what sounds like a lengthy experiment, and write an assignment.  On Friday belated birthday celebrations with one of my very best friends begin.  The study doesn't bear thinking about.  I need more sleep.  I dropped a sleeping tablet down under the floorboards on Sunday.  I was mortified.  They are invaluable to me. 

Anyway, I think that's me all updated.  It looks pretty rambly to me, but it can't be helped, not when I am this tired!