Of Odd Dreams and Wedding Dresses

Well, let's be fair.  Every single bride-to-be (yes!  That's me!  Look Ma, no hands!) must have the odd wobble as it comes up to The Big Day.  Now, this does not mean I have wobbles about the marriage itself, not in the slightest.  I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Wonderful Man and I will be blissfully, stupidly, unimaginably, ridiculously, wonderfully, incredibly and amazingly happy for the rest of both of our lives. 

But.

And there is a but.

Weddings, while enormous fun to organise, are complicated blighters.

Being sans Mum, I have enlisted the help of trusted friends, Mum-substitutes (yes, you know who you are) and Everyone Else On The Planet Who Has Ever Got Married and ploughed the depths of their brains for any hints, tips and advice.   And am still doing so. 

I think we're actually doing rather well.  For I have a secret weapon.  I have The Spreadsheet.  Wonderful Man shudders every time I drag this behemoth out but it is my lifeline - it's as long as I am tall (nearly) and packed with all sorts of different columns, rows, reminders and other bits.....and all nicely colour coded.  Ish.  It is certainly helping me enormously.  And is now helping my wedding planner enormously.

Wedding Planner, I hear you say?  Wedding PLANNER???

Okay, okay, I confess.  I have a Wedding Planner.  And she is so utterly wonderful that I might actually end up marrying her.  She whisked my spreadsheet away from me and has been sending concise, detailed little e mails on all subjects from the lighting (who knew?), whether I want avalanche roses or Akito roses (avalanche, since you ask.  Bigger, and blousier) and who will be drinking the NON-alcoholic wine at the wedding.  She is supremely organised, and very good at calming fluttering brides.  And she is Wonderful Man's present to me after I had a, shall we say, minor meltdown and sobbed that I was convinced that I would naff up the whole day and I couldn't get married with my pants showing. 

Pants showing?

'fraid so.  For I have started having Wedding Dreams.  Not the lovely super dreams where you're drifting down the aisle in a sea of Amanda Wakeley, holding a sweetly scented bouquet, make up perfect and everything in place, no.

My first dream actually started beautifully.  I drifted happily down the stairs of the venue, ready to take Pa's arm and head up the aisle, all dressed up and with my girls in their emerald green silk behind me.  All was perfect.  Until Pa said "umm, where are the guests?" and I remembered I had forgotten to send the invitations.  Cue us borrowing every mobile phone in the place and ringing friends to scream at them to get to Buckinghamshire FAST, we were getting married in fifteen minutes with the registrar tapping her watch and saying "I've got another wedding you know, and that couple are ORGANISED."

Needless to say I woke up in a muck sweat after that one.  But it gets worse.

I dreamed that Hedsor House, our venue, had burned down and was being rebuilt so when I walked into the glorious main hall, supposedly bedecked with flowers and with a string quartet playing, it was a building site with a damp concrete floor, rain pouring in the skylight (which had lost its glass) and instead of chairs the guests were all perching on those oil barrels filled with concrete that they stick signs in.   GAAAAAAH!

I saved the best for last though. 

In I drift, serene on my father's arm, floating up the aisle.  But on the end of each row of chairs, instead of crisp, white flowers, there are bouquets of barbed wire.  And those bouquets catch on my dress, pulling me back and snagging me so I'm having to struggle up the aisle, until finally and inevitably they pull the back of my dress off and I have to stand at the front and get married with a huge hole in the back of my dress and my pants showing. 

And they don't go with the colour scheme.

I am sure that there will be plenty more to come (and I promise to report on them!) but for now a selection of my greatest fears to entertain my dear readers. 

But one thing's for sure.  I'm getting up that aisle and marrying my Wonderful Man.  And it will be WONDERFUL.  Pants or no pants. 

Pip pip. 

Of Anorexic Spiders and Gardening

Eclectic title for a post, I know.  But it does kind of give you an idea what's been happening at our homely hidey-hole, Fortress Balham. 

Perhaps I ought to explain.  Wonderful Man and I are the proud parents of a rather splendid Chilean Rose hair tarantula.  Now, when I say "proud parents" I mean that I gaze at her in adoration, noticing all the little bits such as the peachy coloured fuzz which covers her, her delicate little feet and her habit of trying to climb the glass in her aquarium.  Wonderful Man, by contrast, watches from afar, carefully making sure that Rosie Posie, as she is known, is not developing any Houdini-like skills.  It's fair to say that our "spider-rearing" techniques are at opposite ends of the spectrum.  But recently, we have hit a snag.

I am forced to conclude that we have an anorexic spider.

For weeks now, Rosie has refused even the most juicy of morsels, turning her nose up at crickets, locusts and even red runners when they are offered to her.  Whereas previously she would leap on any unsuspecting insect which was dropped into her tank, dispatching it with surgical precision and then leisurely nomming down, she now acts like Gillian McKeith faced with a Mars Bar, waving her little palps in the air and backing away post haste.  The red runner, having been reprieved, then scrambles up Rosie's log and stands there like a little victor.  It's really most frustrating. 

We would not worry if this had only been the case for a few weeks.  But it's been months now since Rosie has eaten anything at all, although she empties her water bowl nearly every day.  Is our spider having feelings of low self-esteem, wishing to transform herself into Victoria Beckham-like skinniness?  Or is she just being a contrary little madam?  Only time will tell.  But watch this space.

Now, onto gardening.  Ahhhh, gardening.  Never did I think we would ever become so enthralled (=obsessed) with compost, seeds and cultivation.  But enthralled we are, and our little plot has become something of a talking point amongst our neighbours, stuffed to the gunnels as it is with all manner of juicily cropping, er, crops.  Witness the runner beans, now seven or eight feet high, which I grew from tiny, shiny, speckled seeds.  I grew them from seed!  Tiny little seeds!  A little further along, the thick green stalks of sweetcorn stand sturdily, grown from inch-high little seedlings.  Next to them, our first beetroots are beginning to form.  On the opposite side, our potatoes, brussels sprouts and peas are flourishing - although with the recent downpours, our potato bags are now covered in an assortment of brightly coloured umbrellas.  Potatoes do not like too much water!

We must confess, however, to a slight gardening....setback.  Not a disaster as we did learn from it but just a little bit disappointing, however.  We had decided to grow purple sprouting broccoli in a corner of our raised bed, under the elder tree.  Teeny little seedlings were duly implanted in the compost, and we watched their progress each day.  Slowly they grew, a few inches each week, stronger each day.  We waited with bated breath for our harvest of richly purple sprouts.  Dutifully we sprinkled them with plant feed and seaweed.

And what did we end up with?

Towering triffid-like plants with leaves the size of dustbin lids - and.....wait for it.......TWO sprouts.  Yup, you heard right.  Two sprouts.  From ten plants.  In the end, in frustration, we decided to get rid and plant something a bit more friendly.  But they didn't go easy.  Scissors and secateurs failed at the job and we ended up sawing through the tough, woody trunk, and then heaving at the roots to get them free.  Finally we cracked it and sat back, surveying the carnage we had left.  Ten enormous holes.  But there was an upside.  The next morning the bed was being thoroughly foraged by our robin, clearly delighted that those messy big old plants had gone and he could go back to pulling worms from the soil. 

But overall our garden has been and continues to be a source of joy.  Little victories spring up each day - the discovery of tiny, hard green tomatoes on the plants I grew from seed elicits a shivery thrill.  And when our bright yellow patty-pans started appearing, peeking through the prickly stems, each garnished with a greeny-orange flower, I could hardly contain my excitement.  My work colleagues have got used to my arriving in the office saying "you'll never believe what's come up now!" before excitedly showing them photos on my phone. 

Ahhhh...the bliss, the sheer bliss.  More muddy-fingered news soon. 

Different shades of white

A few dreamy Antarctica shots.  I'm enjoying memories today.  

Two teeny birds atop an iceberg.

Paulet Island, where we encountered three million Adelie penguins.  Three million!!!

And the prow of the Plancius, heading into an Antarctic dawn. 

Breakfast time in Laikipia

Yes, it is a kudu.  At the breakfast table.  

And not forgetting the squirrel.

They do things differently in Laikipia.

More small things

I'm finding lots of small things today. 

The best chicken pie in the world.  Decorated with stars so it knows how important it is.

Gooey pear cake, made with those long thin pears which are ripe for about half an hour before turning all grainy and mushy.

Our first silkmoth.  I couldn't even feel her on my finger.

And not forgetting the garden.  Ecclesiastical purple and pagan green.

Small things

Pussy willows in our office.  I was once told that if you put them in water then they blossom and die.  So we keep them away from the smallest drop.

And my favourite photograph of my mother, as a toddler.

Lunchtime schmunchtime

What do we usually do at lunchtime on a typical day's work?  Grab a slightly damp sandwich from the sandwich delivery boy and eat at the desk, typing with one hand?  Or maybe take five or ten minutes in the "break out" (I emulate the vernacular but always tongue in cheek) area to flick through the two-month-old Hello magazines found there?  Perhaps no time for lunch at all?

I know it's something of which we are all guilty.  Heavens, we spend nine hours a day there, shouldn't we have just a little break?

So, I did. 

A few weeks ago, I got in my car at lunchtime and drove to the far side of Putney, to a place I've seen as I drive past but never stopped to go in.  This time, I did stop.  Pulled on my winter coat and went for a walk. 

I walked through vast wrought-iron gates and along paths which petered out to grass.  Feet brushing against dewy dampness, not yet touched by the sun, I took a long, meandering walk.  But I wasn't alone.  On the left, a Laura Emma Wylie joined me.  On the right, a Mr George Brooks and his beloved wife Tabitha.  A little further along, partially concealed, I met Fanny Butts, formerly of Coldharbour Lane.  I was surrounded by hundreds of people.  

I find walking through a cemetery really quite comforting.  They are always quiet, contemplative.  Just a few birds and really not much more to disturb your thoughts.  I like looking at the gravestones, seeing who was here before, finding a common link.  For example, Laura Emma Wylie was married to John Wylie.  The same name as my great-uncle who has just passed away after a long illness.  I find myself imagining their lives, how they might have been, what they might have done.  I like standing in the middle of them and picturing who could be standing right next to me.  I like the peace and quiet, the colours of the moss on the old gravestones, the overgrown-ness of it all.  A dash of yew here, a clamber of ivy there.

Maybe it's just the getting out of the office for an hour, into the fresh air.  Perhaps I'd feel exactly the same had I headed to Richmond Park and taken a walk there, trodden in the footprints of the deer.  But I think I'll keep coming back here.  I'd like to see how it looks in spring, perhaps with a carpet of crocuses.  Maybe a dog rose or two. 

Certainly beats reading Hello magazine...

Antarctica Dreaming

I’d always thought I was an Africa girl, through-and-through. I loved the warmth, the wildlife, the people, so much so that I decamped to Zambia for two years, running a tiny little bush camp. But this was until we spent three weeks on an expedition ship, visiting the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the unimaginably beautiful Antarctic peninsular.

Wonderful Man had been twice before. Each time he had been entranced, utterly captivated, and was determined that I should see it. And so it was that we found ourselves, aboard the MV Plancius and heading down the Beagle channel and into open sea, first stop Falkland Islands.

Did you know that the Falkland Islands are made up of 778 individual islands? No, nor did I – but they are, and each has its own character. Obviously we didn’t visit them all but our first stop was on Carcass Island. Here, in bright sunshine, we saw our first penguins – smart little Gentoos, nesting high up on the slopes and occasionally waddling down to the sea for a splash around. Our visit to Stanley the next day was a revelation. Barely larger than Burford, with brightly coloured houses, this was like walking into an English village in the 1950’s. Apart from it had a Waitrose. We learned about the Falklands Conflict, visited the memorial and the museum, tiny yet extremely moving. We saw handwritten notes from teenage Argentinian conscripts, pleading with the Falkland Islanders for food. They were never refused. Walking along the litter-free streets in the sunshine, bright yellow gorse bushes on each side, it was hard to believe what happened here for 74 days back in 1982.

Our next stop was South Georgia. Made famous by Ernest Shackleton who, when his ship became ice-bound and eventually crushed by the merciless Antarctic ice, he and three companions, leaving the rest of their party on Elephant Island, sailed across the notorious Drake Passage to find help. His words on reaching the Grytviken Whaling station (after trekking for 36 straight hours across South Georgia’s ice-capped mountains) are legendary; “Do you not know me, Sir? My name is Shackleton. Ernest Shackleton.” Here we walked amongst fur seals, enormous elephant seals, and landed on a beach with 750,000 breeding pairs of King penguins. Not to mention the chicks, little fluffy brown balls scampering everywhere. There were penguins as far as the eye could see, and it was a joy to just sit and watch as they interacted, gave their ecstatic displays, fed their chicks and waddled down the beach to surf into the waves and go hunting.

From South Georgia we had three days at sea, followed by, amongst others, albatross, Antarctic terns, skuas and giant petrels. The wandering albatross is the largest, with a three-metre wingspan, and has a delicate technique of dipping a wing tip into the water to turn. We were lucky enough to have three humpback whales come and investigate the ship, breaching, fluking and blowing mere metres from us.

We started to see icebergs on the third day, enormous blue-white floating palaces, dotted with penguins or seals taking a break from the water. A stop at Paulet Island gave us the mind-blowing sight of 1.5 million pairs of breeding Adelie penguins. If Kings are the most stylish penguin, then Adelies must be the most comical. They make their nests on bare rock (on snow the eggs would freeze) and, using stones, create a little mound on which to incubate. Problem is, Adelies are kleptomaniacs. Time and again we would watch as an Adelie would sidle up slowly to another nest, reach down, take a stone in its beak and then run like fury back to its own nest, being pursued by the furious theftee. Once said stone was deposited, it would start again, with some nests being burgled from both sides.

The highlight of the trip for me was our zodiac cruise in Neko Bay. In the brightest sunlight, we embarked on our ten-man zodiacs and cruised amongst the bergs. The light was impossibly bright, the snow radiating from the surrounding mountains, and we drifted up close to icebergs, four-fifths of their body below the surface and coloured the brightest blue from the water. Penguins darted under the boats as we glided through, porpoising to check their surroundings before disappearing again below the water. Each side of us, the Antarctic mountains stretched into the sky, and occasionally a crack and a thunderous roar signalled that more ice had “calved” and fallen into the water, creating brand new icebergs. We cruised past a happy Weddell seal, fat and replete on his iceberg, and, unbelievably, singing. Not dissimilar to whalesong, these clicks, trills and chirps carry far across the water, communicating both presence and territory.

Leaving Antarctica, we travelled first through the Neumayer Channel, flanked on both sides by mountains blanketed in the whitest snow, dodging icebergs and at times forging a path through brash ice, the ship echoing with the crashes and bangs on the hull. From there the Gerlache Strait guided us to open sea, accompanied by a pod of orcas and a fin whale, the second largest after the blue whale.

There’s something about the bottom of the world that really gets under your skin. Maybe it’s the utter silence as the ship glides through mountains that shine in the sun. Maybe it’s the fact that it is utterly, utterly pristine. Or it could be that the animals found there really do have no fear of humans…because they have nothing to fear from them. There can’t be many better experiences than having an Adelie penguin come up and peck at your boot, or a juvenile elephant seal snuggle up against your thigh, relishing the warmth. It’s a land of contrasts, of staggering beauty, incomparable wildness. Long may it remain that way.

I do

Ooh now isn't that a lovely title for a post!  All those of you whose ears pricked up (metaphorically of course), well you'd be right.  Above is a photograph of me and my betrothed. 

Now, I have occasionally commented about Wonderful Man on this blog.  But I feel the need here to do more than comment - I feel the need to give him the biggest, most ginormousest compliment ever.  Boy has this chap lived up to his moniker....

So, we're on the MV Plancius, heading down towards Antarctica (quite the most incredible place I have ever been but more on that in subsequent posts).  We have just left the Falkland Islands, having spent a gorgeous day wandering around Stanley, which is reminiscent of a tiny English town in the 1950's.  It's the most beautiful sunset.  The seas are calm and milky blue.  There is a wandering albatross circling above.  But oh no!  My Wonderful Man has fallen over! 

Or has he.....?

Well, actually not.

He's down on one knee.  With a huge smile.  And a beautiful ring. 

You know that feeling that you get when you think that not only have all your Christmases come at once, but that you have also found that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, won ten million pounds, have learned to fly and are standing on the tippity tip top of the world?

Well, multiply that by a BILLION!

More to come soon.  For now I will sign off...as the future Mrs H!

And with wishes of sparkles and happiness to all.

Back home and movin' on

You know, you can tell it's been a good weekend when Sunday night rolls around and your cheeks are pink and tingly-stingy from freezing air, your legs are feeling deliciously tired from ice skating in your shoes, your head is full of Swedish hunter stories, told high up on a wooden platform above the trees, looking at the stars and the planets, and your voice is a little husky from too much talking, laughing and whisky. Then, you know it’s been a good weekend.

Y'see I'm feeling a bit nostalgic tonight. I'm remembering our trip to Sweden back in March – from where we returned, laden down with sild and memories, and with thoughts of return not far from our minds. Sweden's got it all. I'm blessed with the luckiness of having a friend who lives just north of Stockholm. Still fairly close to Uppsala but far enough into the countryside to still take seriously the rumours of a bear being seen in the local wood.

We slid around on a frozen lake, so solid that it can be walked across with no fear.  The ice was white and crackly (it crackled loudly as we skated over, eliciting loud squeals) and, as I discovered, the perfect palette for soppy declarations. 

Later on that night we took a walk into the woods.  By firelight, we drank hot glogg with almonds, and listened to the sounds of the forest.  I was convinced we were surrounded by wolves and snuggled up close to Per Anders' dog, burying my hand in his thick fur.  He was magnificent, a Swedish hunting dog, a Jamthund, bred for hunting elk.  He sat bolt upright, ears pointy, eyes glistening, every now and then deigning to give my hand a comforting lick.  The firelight cast brilliant colours on the trees above us. 

And then our jamthund led us home.