Biscuits

From those lovely Younger boys. I think they had help with the icing.

I know. I am a bad blogger.

Soo what does one do in the final run-up to a wedding?

Um, go a bit mental, it would seem. And ignore one's fledgling blog. Oopsy. 

We are having the BUSIEST TIME OF OUR LIVES. However, somewhere in amongst all of this, I read Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman. Behold. Here is she of skunk-haired fame:

Looking a bit self-satisfied. Do you think they said to her "This is a book about feminism. Arch that eyebrow, and arch it good"?

So, yes, I read it. Devoured it, in fact - didn't really have a choice. I enjoyed it. I didn't agree with everything she said, like. But it was challenging in parts, and made me think and, of course, it was bloody hilarious.

One of the bits that made me think was, unsurprisingly, the one about weddings. It was a chapter that narked me a bit definitely challenged me. There I was feeling that I had just about made my peace with my ginormous nuptial celebrations. I mean, all those bloody Irish Catholics, no television aye aye? Ha ha YES WE'VE ALL HEARD THE BLOODY JOKES. I have thirty-odd FIRST cousins and all of their partners to contend with for a start, not to mention second cousins (a number of whom are actually closer in age to me). And I didn't want to compromise on friends, either. It really was a case of all or nothing. So we went with all. 

Cue much anxiety. Are we comfortable with spending this? We would quite like to live in North Yorkshire and play at semi-rural life...we are basically spending a house deposit on this bash, yer narr?

But it was never really an option. We wanted a bash. We wanted a sheBANG. We wanted people there.

But you see, Moran doesn't like that. Ooooh no no no. Moran got married in a (frankly awful could-only-happen-in-the-90s) red velvet dress with vine leaves in her hair. It was a 'so-crap-it's-cool' affair. Now she is probably one of my idols, but that should be said. Of the traditional wedding frippery and customs she is fairly scathing. Of big weddings she is fairly critical. About traditional weddings she doesn't have many kind words.  

And I'm paraphrasing here because I lent the book to a friend as soon as I finished it (I really DID enjoy it!), but there's a sentence that's something along the lines of: (deeply sarcastic tone) "And, you know, as a woman you don't have anything to do for a wedding, except turn up and look pretty. Heck, you don't even have to speak if you don't want to."

Now, this troubled me. I felt like I was doing everything wrong. Caitlin Moran is mint, right? Yeah? And she says that traditional weddings are lame. We should re-write the bloody rule book. I consider myself a bit of a feminist - why the HELL aren't I standing up there on my wedding day thanking my nearest and dearest and declaring my love for Bedford? Why aren't I up there screaming, "GUESS WHAT? ME! MEMEMEMEMEME!"

And I thought and I thought and I thought.

And then I realised something. I'm not standing up on Saturday (fook) in front of a room full of people to shout my joy from the rooftops because I feel I can't. I'm not doing it because I'm a woman.

I'm not doing it because in reality I'm actually a Little Bit Shy. And I would be reallyreallynervous about it.

And Bedford is Gob On A Stick and relishes things like this (even though he'll be nervous beforehand. He'll actually enjoy it. Afterwards).

(Do I sound like I'm justifying this to myself? Mebbes I am. But I can't having Caitlin Moran pulling the rug from under me at this late stage.)

So what else have I been doing? Wrapping things. Writing lists. Sticking fancy tape on every item you can imagine.

Oh, and eating biscuits. From the Younger boys. Aww. I shall pop a picture on.

Booky Wook.

"I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live."

from 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' by Jonathan Safran Foer.

This quote just about sums up why this is one of my favourite books of all time. Haven't read it? Do it now. I command you. In a non-Hitler-esque way.

(the image is from here)

Dress Update

Oh dear.

I drank too much Pimms last night, and sat out in the sun for a little too long today.

My shoulder is RED, man. Mm mmm. I lobstered it good and proper, I did.

But this is the Real News: my mother brought the dress down.

I tried it on.

I closed my eyes.

My mum took a load of photos of me from various angles.

I scrutinised them.

Some of them were not nice. But then I realised I was STARING at a picture of my BACKSIDE where I was posing by deliberately STICKING MY BUM OUT in order to get a 'realistic impression'. Not so realistic, methinks.

Most of them, though, were fairly objectively lovely pictures.

And I think it looks glamorous and elegant and I'm happy with it.

Now I just need to EAT FEWER MCFLURRIES and START POUNDING THE STREETS LIKE IN 80S EDUCATIONAL TV PROGRAMME GEORDIE RACER.

Job's a good 'un.

Gretna Green in a T-shirt?

Buggery buggery bollocks bollocks BALLS. BALLS BALLS BALLS.

Dress wobble of epic proportions.

Gaaaaaaah.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

To be fair, it isn't finished. Or wasn't. The wee sashy bit around the middle hadn't been stitched on. The lace needs tacking to the satin under-layer bit to stop it flapping around.

Also, it was a hot day. That might sound a bit random, but hot days make me stressed.

And she kept touching me as she was pinning bits here and there. I get stressed out when people are too close/flap around me/stand too close to me on buses. We weren't on a bus, like, but you know what I mean. It makes me want to scream.

And she was talking a lot. Too much. She was trying to tell me the life story of the cat as she scrabbled around my hemline on her hands and knees ("...and then our Daniel and Fiona had a baby and one day I saw the cat in the baby's cot and they wouldn't have him any more so then...." I don't even LIKE cats! I HATE them! And the thought of a fat black and white one rubbing up against my dress makes me feel a bit like what touching cotton wool does to me!) and I had to resist the urge to scream 'Shut up!' or kick her.

I am talking about kicking an elderly lady. I am a BAD PERSON.

And now I'm looking at Totally Utterly Plain dresses on the internet and wondering whether I should be buying one. Argh.

I've just rang Adam who is shearing a sheep somewhere in West Riding. He finds it very difficult to comment having seen neither the Mrs Doubtfire dress nor the Utterly Plain ones I'm currently perusing. He does, however, think I've gone mad, clearly.

Maybe I have. Maybe I'll just wear a t-shirt. Why the buggery can one not wear a t-shirt to get married in? And skinny jeans. Favourite outfit. Why the bloody hell not?

I feel a bit like I've been conned by this whole bloody industry. I would NEVER in a million years buy an ivory/cream/white dress in a High Street shop for the simple reason that I am Of Paddy Descent, and therefore am pale and freckly and wholly unsuited to colours more or less the same shade as my skin. Why on earth am I buying one now?

OK. Less hysteria. I need to check my work emails, write a new assessment policy, plan two year 10 smartboard poetry lessons, dry my hair and make paella. Then I need to Sort My Bloody Head Out and work out what a girl is to do.

Oh Jesus. What to do?!

Help.

Poems on the Underground

I was looking for poems on the Underground to add to my pinterest unashamed 'BUY ME' board (to be fair, it's more of an instruction for myself than for anyone else). And I found the above.

Oo, Hopkins. Oo, The Windhover.

Almost ten years ago (HOLY MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON!) I was given this poem at a University interview. I had ten minutes to read it and think about it sitting on a plastic chair in a draughty corridor and then had to speak to a Professor (Doctor? Surely they wouldn't waste the Professors' precious time interviewing the likes of us?) about it.

They were careful, mind. They didn't say 'Tell us what it means.' Poems don't MEAN stuff, you see. I didn't know that at the time, though. I was paralysed by the fact that I hadn't 'done' the poem. At that point in my education, I didn't realise it was wrong to say I'd 'done' a particular text.

If I''m honest, I still cringe a little when I think of the clangers I must have dropped at that interview. "Oh no, we didn't DO Jude the Obscure. We DID Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I reallly liked DOING Tess of the D'Urbervilles."

Y'see, I was still in that 'All-Literature-is-good-and-I-must-like-it-or-I'll-sound-thick' stage, too. Truth be told, I hated Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Thomas Hardy's pervy-wholesome-milkmaid prose made me want to vom.

Darlings, we don't 'do' Literature. That's what I tell my 6th formers now. In a wanky, uber-sarcastic posho accent. Then I tell them they'll meet a couple of Crispins and Lovedays at University and won't know what's hit them; and, more importantly, Crispin and Loveday won't know what's hit them. Then I tell them my story about the girl in my first seminar at Durham who started banging on about the 'dichotomy within the text' and how I thought she meant some sort of medical procedure that I'd clearly totally missed.

Oh, the shame. 

Mind you, on the whole, my 6th formers are largely more concerned with how totally rad their emo fringe looks than their University prospects, so perhaps my adolescent pain is lost on them a little.  

Anyhoo. I saw this and was reminded by how ridiculous the text choice was. And of my 18-year-old-angst. And about the fact that I barely got it was about a bird, never mind about Christ.

I shall find a much better Poem on the Underground and post it over here.  

Thought for the Day

"A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely." 

 - Roald Dahl, The Twits.