gothams3rdrobin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gothams3rdrobin) wrote2006-10-07 10:25 pm
gothams3rdrobin) wrote2006-10-07 10:25 pm
I hate shoes with heels!!!
Today my cousin Claire got married, in a very lovely country house half an hour up the road called Tredegar House. This required us all to be outfitted appropriately, giving Munchkin a second chance to wear his spiffy suit. I also needed to go get some new shoes since I'm wearing trainers pretty much exclusively at the moment (I love the casual dress code at my office...)
However, since I can no longer go running around the shops before I go get Rowan in the evenings, I completely forgot. And the times I've dragged him into town after school for other errands it has again completely slipped my mind.
Luckily, Mam and I are the same shoe size these days (that rumour about your shoe size increasing after pregnancy? True in my case, sadly) so I was able to borrow hers. But Mam can cope with small heels, whereas I favour completely flat shoes, so it was a little uncomfortable. But that's entirely my own fault, so I put up with it.
The wedding went pretty well - Claire looked absolutely beautiful! She's a very pretty girl anyway, but wow did she look stunning. Tredegar House is lovely too.
However, it wasn't the perfect event - since I can be a miserable cow at family events. See, the wedding was at five o'clock this evening and the ceremony took about forty minutes. My inner-cynic kicked in pretty quickly when the woman officiating opened the proceeding by giving us a little promotional spiel about Tredegar House - for goodness sake, we were there to see someone get married! There was no need for the history lesson!
We then had to sit around in the hall while the photographer took pictures of the bride and groom - and various of the immediate family - in various locations around the house. That took a good half an hour, during which time Rowan was figdeting and running around in boredom, and we were having to try to keep him from irritating the other guests too much. Then we all lined up on the steps outside for the big photo before we were led into the reception area.
We all crowded into this tiny bar to wait for the actual reception to start. This wasn't out of the ordinary since we waited in a side bar during my own wedding, before they were ready for us to go sit down and eat. But it was seven thirty before we got out of that little room, by which time we were tired, hungry and getting extremely ratty with Rowan. I'm not entirely sure what the exact reason for the delay was, but I think it was due to the photographer still.
So anyway, finally it was time to eat. There was two tables lined up in the room next door, and you queued for the staff to fill your plates with the food on offer. But then you had to carry your plate back through the courtyard and up a flight of stairs to the small hall where the party was! Absolute insanity! Dad didn't bother to eat anything, since nothing interested him - and he's not an especially picky eater.
We ended up sharing a table with Mam's sister Helen and my paternal grandfather's widow Carol - which is not fun. Aunty Helen's been a pain in the ass the last few years, and Carol's... man, I can't really describe her that well. She's very upper-class and likes to show off. She spent most of the evening talking about her recent cruise, visiting Alaska, Japan and China.
Anyway, Rowan had a great time, despite having been awake since just after five thirty this morning, and only started to really flag at about ten thirty. We said our farewells to the bride and groom, and Mam dropped us home. This was when we ran into a bit of trouble.
Dad carried Rowan out of the car, so that I could unlock the security door and get him safely down to our basement flat. Unfortunately, there was a bloke completely smashed on vodka sitting against the door. He moved enough that I could open the door, then stuck his arm out so that Dad couldn't close the door behind him. We tried to reason with him to move, but he started getting insistant that he wanted to come in too - I think he mumbled something about his kid living upstairs. At one point he was drapped right across Dad's back as we tried to block his entrance. We threatened to phone the police on him, which started him crying and saying something about "She's gonna hang herself!" but in his state you couldn't take anything he said seriously. Thankfully we did eventually get him to move away so we could close the door.
One of the good things about my block, which is not true of most of the others in this area, is that not only do I have patio-door access to my flat, but there's also another security door down in the basement for fire-safety reasons. My patio door key was in my bag at Mam's house, but Dad was able to get out the other door and walk around the building, completely bypassing the wanker upstairs. I think someone came down to the ground floor after we got downstairs, 'cause we heard raised voices, but I just threw as many of the locks on my door as I could and ignored it.
Still, home now. Rowan went straight to bed and went right off to sleep, and I think I'll probably be going to bed fairly soon myself.
Before I go, though, I naturally have photos of the event to share with my poor f-list! *laughs* Yet again I was behind the camera pretty much constantly, so there are no photos of my new shorter haircut, which I have not yet decided doesn't suit me. It's been forever since I'd been to the hairdressers, so there was a suprising amount of hair cut off today.
The bride and groom, Claire and Matt
My little guy in his suit
The bride and groom's first dance - aww!
However, since I can no longer go running around the shops before I go get Rowan in the evenings, I completely forgot. And the times I've dragged him into town after school for other errands it has again completely slipped my mind.
Luckily, Mam and I are the same shoe size these days (that rumour about your shoe size increasing after pregnancy? True in my case, sadly) so I was able to borrow hers. But Mam can cope with small heels, whereas I favour completely flat shoes, so it was a little uncomfortable. But that's entirely my own fault, so I put up with it.
The wedding went pretty well - Claire looked absolutely beautiful! She's a very pretty girl anyway, but wow did she look stunning. Tredegar House is lovely too.
However, it wasn't the perfect event - since I can be a miserable cow at family events. See, the wedding was at five o'clock this evening and the ceremony took about forty minutes. My inner-cynic kicked in pretty quickly when the woman officiating opened the proceeding by giving us a little promotional spiel about Tredegar House - for goodness sake, we were there to see someone get married! There was no need for the history lesson!
We then had to sit around in the hall while the photographer took pictures of the bride and groom - and various of the immediate family - in various locations around the house. That took a good half an hour, during which time Rowan was figdeting and running around in boredom, and we were having to try to keep him from irritating the other guests too much. Then we all lined up on the steps outside for the big photo before we were led into the reception area.
We all crowded into this tiny bar to wait for the actual reception to start. This wasn't out of the ordinary since we waited in a side bar during my own wedding, before they were ready for us to go sit down and eat. But it was seven thirty before we got out of that little room, by which time we were tired, hungry and getting extremely ratty with Rowan. I'm not entirely sure what the exact reason for the delay was, but I think it was due to the photographer still.
So anyway, finally it was time to eat. There was two tables lined up in the room next door, and you queued for the staff to fill your plates with the food on offer. But then you had to carry your plate back through the courtyard and up a flight of stairs to the small hall where the party was! Absolute insanity! Dad didn't bother to eat anything, since nothing interested him - and he's not an especially picky eater.
We ended up sharing a table with Mam's sister Helen and my paternal grandfather's widow Carol - which is not fun. Aunty Helen's been a pain in the ass the last few years, and Carol's... man, I can't really describe her that well. She's very upper-class and likes to show off. She spent most of the evening talking about her recent cruise, visiting Alaska, Japan and China.
Anyway, Rowan had a great time, despite having been awake since just after five thirty this morning, and only started to really flag at about ten thirty. We said our farewells to the bride and groom, and Mam dropped us home. This was when we ran into a bit of trouble.
Dad carried Rowan out of the car, so that I could unlock the security door and get him safely down to our basement flat. Unfortunately, there was a bloke completely smashed on vodka sitting against the door. He moved enough that I could open the door, then stuck his arm out so that Dad couldn't close the door behind him. We tried to reason with him to move, but he started getting insistant that he wanted to come in too - I think he mumbled something about his kid living upstairs. At one point he was drapped right across Dad's back as we tried to block his entrance. We threatened to phone the police on him, which started him crying and saying something about "She's gonna hang herself!" but in his state you couldn't take anything he said seriously. Thankfully we did eventually get him to move away so we could close the door.
One of the good things about my block, which is not true of most of the others in this area, is that not only do I have patio-door access to my flat, but there's also another security door down in the basement for fire-safety reasons. My patio door key was in my bag at Mam's house, but Dad was able to get out the other door and walk around the building, completely bypassing the wanker upstairs. I think someone came down to the ground floor after we got downstairs, 'cause we heard raised voices, but I just threw as many of the locks on my door as I could and ignored it.
Still, home now. Rowan went straight to bed and went right off to sleep, and I think I'll probably be going to bed fairly soon myself.
Before I go, though, I naturally have photos of the event to share with my poor f-list! *laughs* Yet again I was behind the camera pretty much constantly, so there are no photos of my new shorter haircut, which I have not yet decided doesn't suit me. It's been forever since I'd been to the hairdressers, so there was a suprising amount of hair cut off today.
The bride and groom, Claire and Matt
My little guy in his suit
The bride and groom's first dance - aww!
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