It took forever to light these sparklers, and had us debating which end we were actually supposed to light! Literally, the wrong end of the sparkler...
Thursday, 29 November 2012
Happy Birthday Alan!
It took forever to light these sparklers, and had us debating which end we were actually supposed to light! Literally, the wrong end of the sparkler...
Monday, 26 November 2012
The Perils of Bridesmaid Dresses
So here we are, less than six months to go and everything is slowly starting to come together. My dress has arrived and I've tried it on (twice - slight fit of bridal craziness but that's a whole other story!). We have just sent off designs for invitations and I can't wait to see the finished product. I badly want to post the samples on here but you'll just have to wait and see.
The one area where we have really struggled recently is how to dress the bridesmaids. Having narrowed ideas down to blue or green, and long, and not strapless, many hours seem to have been spent searching websites for dresses for the ladies in question.
Bridal magazines only ever seemed to suggest three or four sources of bridesmaid dresses. That in itself is nothing to criticise, I'd seen several pretty styles which I was interested to track down. However, what I soon found is that while these designers all have an extensive range of dresses on their websites, this doesn't seem to extend to actual shops where you can buy the darned things.
I have four lovely bridesmaids, none of whom live near me - one isn't in the country at all and may not be until a week before the wedding. While I love the notion of 'going bridesmaid dress shopping' with them all, they are busy people too and if I am going to demand that they take the time to travel to a particular place (bridal shops are never close together!) I wanted to make sure that there were several options for them to try on.
Whilst browsing the website of a bridal shop nearish our house, I noticed that the shop had "over 65 bridesmaid dresses in different styles and colours". 65? SIXTY-FIVE?! Having been a little disappointed by the limited range stocked by the shop where I'd bought my dress, 65 sounded like a dream come true. I had hazy notions of picking a handful of beautiful dresses to showcase to my bridesmaids.
Hopes faded upon being led to a small alcove where the dresses in question were kept. 65 was clearly a gross miscounting. A severe overcounting, if you will. There were perhaps 15 dresses, all of which were various degrees of hideous, either in colour, shape or material. Based on what was there, the bridesmaid industry seems to think that 1980s shiny American prom princess is a good look. We left feeling slightly desperate. Why so little choice?
I have considered getting dresses designed specially, but I am not sure it is really worth the money, even if they are dresses which might well be worn again.
And so we turn to the high street. Not often lauded by magazines, but mainstream shops nowadays have cottoned on to the fact that there's a whole market of budget and style savvy brides out there and have upped their game considerably. A slight lack of choice in colours notwithstanding (but then who needs a palette of sixty colours if the style is all wrong?), I've found a range of flattering styles and think this may be the solution; a real competitor against bridesmaidwear designers. To be honest, I'm not sure why I didn't realise this before - since when has John Lewis not had the answer to most problems?
Now, where to find pretty wedding day shoes?
The one area where we have really struggled recently is how to dress the bridesmaids. Having narrowed ideas down to blue or green, and long, and not strapless, many hours seem to have been spent searching websites for dresses for the ladies in question.
Bridal magazines only ever seemed to suggest three or four sources of bridesmaid dresses. That in itself is nothing to criticise, I'd seen several pretty styles which I was interested to track down. However, what I soon found is that while these designers all have an extensive range of dresses on their websites, this doesn't seem to extend to actual shops where you can buy the darned things.
I have four lovely bridesmaids, none of whom live near me - one isn't in the country at all and may not be until a week before the wedding. While I love the notion of 'going bridesmaid dress shopping' with them all, they are busy people too and if I am going to demand that they take the time to travel to a particular place (bridal shops are never close together!) I wanted to make sure that there were several options for them to try on.
Whilst browsing the website of a bridal shop nearish our house, I noticed that the shop had "over 65 bridesmaid dresses in different styles and colours". 65? SIXTY-FIVE?! Having been a little disappointed by the limited range stocked by the shop where I'd bought my dress, 65 sounded like a dream come true. I had hazy notions of picking a handful of beautiful dresses to showcase to my bridesmaids.
Hopes faded upon being led to a small alcove where the dresses in question were kept. 65 was clearly a gross miscounting. A severe overcounting, if you will. There were perhaps 15 dresses, all of which were various degrees of hideous, either in colour, shape or material. Based on what was there, the bridesmaid industry seems to think that 1980s shiny American prom princess is a good look. We left feeling slightly desperate. Why so little choice?
I have considered getting dresses designed specially, but I am not sure it is really worth the money, even if they are dresses which might well be worn again.
And so we turn to the high street. Not often lauded by magazines, but mainstream shops nowadays have cottoned on to the fact that there's a whole market of budget and style savvy brides out there and have upped their game considerably. A slight lack of choice in colours notwithstanding (but then who needs a palette of sixty colours if the style is all wrong?), I've found a range of flattering styles and think this may be the solution; a real competitor against bridesmaidwear designers. To be honest, I'm not sure why I didn't realise this before - since when has John Lewis not had the answer to most problems?
Now, where to find pretty wedding day shoes?
Thursday, 20 September 2012
Our Wedding - Finding the Venue
During the initial phase of excitement we skipped and flitted over all of the minutae and details that makes up a wedding. It soon became clear that until we had a venue there was little that could be done in earnest.
We live in Hertfordshire, on the border of North London, close to where I grew up. Our guests, however, live as far afield as the Alsace; and Frances grew up in Derbyshire. We toyed with the idea of getting married in the beautiful surroundings of Derbyshire or a location that suited where people would be travelling from - but quickly realised that to be able to organise the wedding that we wanted around our work commitments meant we needed somewhere close at hand.
This certainly helped narrow down the search (Try typing "Wedding Venues" into a mapping search engine of your choice and see if you can spot land underneath all of the resulting tags!). I dislike too much choice - it constantly leaves you feeling that you are missing out on something just around the corner.
We compiled a long-list of venues that caught our eye (My father was exceptionally useful at sending through additions to the list and seemed to do little else for a couple of days with e-mails arriving every few minutes - I swear he made a few of them up ...) and then spent time filling in a spreadsheet of all the costs. Every venue has its own methods of obfuscating the real costs involved and go out of their way to make sure that the headline figures are incomparable with other venues. It took hours of detailed investigation to get to a position to be able to compare apples with apples, but it was worth it as the results were often counter-intuitive.
We made appointments in priority order - so you can see why we were getting dispondent when we found ourselves getting to the end of the list without anywhere that had stood out.
All the venues were lovely, and any one of them would have been more than adequate - but somehow none of them really felt right.
We suspect that the venues around us cater for North Londoners wanting to get married in the countryside, rather than the suburbs, which explains the extraordinary prices that some places wanted to charge. We also found that the majority of venues were based in golf-clubs, spas and barns. The previous top venue in our list was a stunningly beautiful golf club set within acres of land, with picturesque landscaped water features. It was by far the best that we had seen, although the most expensive, so neither of us wanted to mention what we later both admitted to being concerned about - the fact that the wedding would take place with golf club members playing around us and ill-defined parts of the ground that our guests would be prevented from exploring. It didn't represent us - we don't play golf for a start!
There were certainly some that we walked away from with an instant no. We arranged proper viewings with the majority of venues, but for a few we either went along during a wedding fayre or just popped in for afternoon tea.
(The wedding fayre idea was a mistake. While we thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to see the venue's sales pitch it ended up being the opposite. The focus was on the suppliers and it made it impossible to actually see the venue underneath.)
During one of the afternoon tea visits we found out that that particular venue was ordinarily used as a spa. Every guest but us was wearing little other than a white cotton bathrobe ... It takes a lot to put me off my scones but that came close!
We also found a disappointing number that advertised gorgeously picturesque buildings - only to turn up to find that these were available for a 30 min photo shoot only, and that the actual wedding would take place in a small conference centre at the other end of the grounds.
The real struggle was just understanding what it was that we actually wanted. It was proving frustratingly difficult to articulate. Decision making should be such a straight-forward process. Gather requirements, look at options, choose best outcome - so why is it so hard? When we questioned recently married friends and family about how they chose their venues, the general response was "we just knew it when we saw it"!
So when we travelled to one of the last venues on our list and the rain came pouring down, we expected the worst. Imagine our joy at finding that, despite the rain we still found it beautiful. Every question that we asked the lady showing us around got the right answer, and every flaw that previous venues had had was absent. There was just something about it that matched what we had both been so unable to articulate that we wanted.
As soon as we left we both looked at each other and said 'I think this is the one'. We spent the drive home saying that we should sleep on it, look again at the spreadsheets and discuss in more detail - but by the time we had arrived home we had decided that it couldn't hurt to ask them what dates they had available, and by the time we picked up the phone we had already set our hearts on it.
The idea for starting this blog came after months of frustrated searching, with the decision looking like it would be led by necessity.
The morning that we set this up we were feeling low, and rather pessimistic, about the single viewing that we had for the day. We'd seen some dreadful places the day before and thought that sharing some of our experience might elicit useful advice from people, or at least assist others in similar future searches.
That one viewing changed everything.
Golf-clubs and Barns
We live in Hertfordshire, on the border of North London, close to where I grew up. Our guests, however, live as far afield as the Alsace; and Frances grew up in Derbyshire. We toyed with the idea of getting married in the beautiful surroundings of Derbyshire or a location that suited where people would be travelling from - but quickly realised that to be able to organise the wedding that we wanted around our work commitments meant we needed somewhere close at hand.
This certainly helped narrow down the search (Try typing "Wedding Venues" into a mapping search engine of your choice and see if you can spot land underneath all of the resulting tags!). I dislike too much choice - it constantly leaves you feeling that you are missing out on something just around the corner.
We compiled a long-list of venues that caught our eye (My father was exceptionally useful at sending through additions to the list and seemed to do little else for a couple of days with e-mails arriving every few minutes - I swear he made a few of them up ...) and then spent time filling in a spreadsheet of all the costs. Every venue has its own methods of obfuscating the real costs involved and go out of their way to make sure that the headline figures are incomparable with other venues. It took hours of detailed investigation to get to a position to be able to compare apples with apples, but it was worth it as the results were often counter-intuitive.
We made appointments in priority order - so you can see why we were getting dispondent when we found ourselves getting to the end of the list without anywhere that had stood out.
All the venues were lovely, and any one of them would have been more than adequate - but somehow none of them really felt right.
We suspect that the venues around us cater for North Londoners wanting to get married in the countryside, rather than the suburbs, which explains the extraordinary prices that some places wanted to charge. We also found that the majority of venues were based in golf-clubs, spas and barns. The previous top venue in our list was a stunningly beautiful golf club set within acres of land, with picturesque landscaped water features. It was by far the best that we had seen, although the most expensive, so neither of us wanted to mention what we later both admitted to being concerned about - the fact that the wedding would take place with golf club members playing around us and ill-defined parts of the ground that our guests would be prevented from exploring. It didn't represent us - we don't play golf for a start!
Definite No
There were certainly some that we walked away from with an instant no. We arranged proper viewings with the majority of venues, but for a few we either went along during a wedding fayre or just popped in for afternoon tea.
(The wedding fayre idea was a mistake. While we thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to see the venue's sales pitch it ended up being the opposite. The focus was on the suppliers and it made it impossible to actually see the venue underneath.)
During one of the afternoon tea visits we found out that that particular venue was ordinarily used as a spa. Every guest but us was wearing little other than a white cotton bathrobe ... It takes a lot to put me off my scones but that came close!
We also found a disappointing number that advertised gorgeously picturesque buildings - only to turn up to find that these were available for a 30 min photo shoot only, and that the actual wedding would take place in a small conference centre at the other end of the grounds.
Gut feeling for the rationalist
The real struggle was just understanding what it was that we actually wanted. It was proving frustratingly difficult to articulate. Decision making should be such a straight-forward process. Gather requirements, look at options, choose best outcome - so why is it so hard? When we questioned recently married friends and family about how they chose their venues, the general response was "we just knew it when we saw it"!
We'd recently noticed that the weather was also affecting our decision - probably coincidentally, but every venue that we had liked had been seen on a sunny day - and every definite no had been in the gloom or rain.
So when we travelled to one of the last venues on our list and the rain came pouring down, we expected the worst. Imagine our joy at finding that, despite the rain we still found it beautiful. Every question that we asked the lady showing us around got the right answer, and every flaw that previous venues had had was absent. There was just something about it that matched what we had both been so unable to articulate that we wanted.
As soon as we left we both looked at each other and said 'I think this is the one'. We spent the drive home saying that we should sleep on it, look again at the spreadsheets and discuss in more detail - but by the time we had arrived home we had decided that it couldn't hurt to ask them what dates they had available, and by the time we picked up the phone we had already set our hearts on it.
So when we found that they only had two dates left we had a tense few minutes shaking ourselves to make sure we really knew what we were doing before spending an agonising lifetime on the phone trying to get back through!
What made this the right venue? How did we work out that this was the one for us?
We just knew it when we saw it ...
What made this the right venue? How did we work out that this was the one for us?
We just knew it when we saw it ...
Monday, 27 August 2012
What I Did On My Holidays
For several reasons, we did not go on holiday this summer. Firstly, I was on secondment in our Paris office until the beginning of March – it turns out that 6 months' worth of Eurostar tickets is not particularly cheap. Secondly, as you'll know if you are reading this, we are getting married next year – again, not cheap. However, we also needed the time elsewhere. Weddings not only do not pay for themselves; they also don't plan themselves.
I will, at some point in the not-too-dim-and-distant future, be writing a post for the fabulous Any Other Woman's A-Z of Weddings on the subject of how to plan a wedding when you feel like you have no time day-to-day to do so. This post is therefore just a little place to say that although we haven't been exploring the exotic beaches of Ecuador, or toasting ourselves in the trattorias of Tuscany, we have had a lot of fun - having a wonderful summer really doesn't have to involve going to the airport or ferry terminal.
In August, we went to the Olympics (four times) and were glued to the tv whenever we weren't sunning ourselves in the garden. Synchronised Swimming? Dressage? Beach volleyball? We're experts:
We cooked:
And baked and bought ourselves a beautiful shiny KitchenAid mixer:
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| Lemon drizzle cake |
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| Orange drizzle cake with chocolate buttercream |
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| Never thought I would be in love with a piece of machinery - but look how pretty! |
We went to weddings of friends and family and made each one into a lovely weekend away - we went punting, ceilidh dancing and each has been a valuable chance to catch up with people we don't see often. Looking forward to the next wedding on 8 September.
And finally, we planned our own wedding. But that's for another post.
Sunday, 29 July 2012
Olympic Cooking
The Olympics are here! It's fair to say that so far this weekend I have been glued to the TV and have quickly become an 'expert' on road cycling, handball, gymnastics and weightlifting, amongst others. We're off to the dressage on Friday, and two synchronised swimming sessions next week (no prizes for guessing who suggested which tickets we apply for...), and I am very excited! I keep forgetting that in reality tomorrow is just another day at work and I can't spend the day flitting between different sports. Bah. Still, we have some time off next week (wedding planning/Olympic watching mission) so just the four days to get through.
Anyway, here's some cake to cheer us all up as we head into another Monday.
And, randomly, some onion bhajis. From sticky mess...
...to crispy oniony goodness.
Anyway, here's some cake to cheer us all up as we head into another Monday.
And, randomly, some onion bhajis. From sticky mess...
...to crispy oniony goodness.
Friday, 6 July 2012
View From The Pigeon Hole
I always knew that the stereotype existed. It's well known and often repeated on tv in some form or another. Post-engagement, and without forewarning, the bride-to-be immediately starts project managing delivery of the wedding that they have dreamed of for decades. Ideas and details, completely alien to everyday humanity, stream forth from hidden depths. The groom-to-be, completely overwhelmed in a sea of lace and ribbon, initially resembles a startled rabbit and rapidly accelerates to levels of apathy and resignation that prepares him for a life of post-marital gloom.
But, I thought to myself, surely this is a thing of the past. Held up for parody and mockery today for the general amusement of those who have made it through and to scare those about to embark.
It appears not.
Don't worry - I'm not referring directly to ourselves here. Frances hasn't yet produced a dog-eared table-center design drawn on the back cover of a school exercise book; and I haven't found myself fascinated by the patterns forming under my pint glass. Instead I'm referring to how others continue to reinforce this stereotype.
When Frances tells work colleagues that she is getting married they fuss over her, wanting to know in detail about how wedding planning is going and excitedly discussing every element. When I told work colleagues that we were taking a few days off work to organise wedding suppliers they offered their condolences ...
The most positive suggestions I've had so far from someone I work with is "best stay out of it - just nod and smile if asked for an opinion". One prides himself in telling me that he knew nothing about what was going to happen on the day and just waited to be told where to go!
At the very least (and I mean very least) surely you would take an interest in what your money is being spent on!
From a personal perspective it never crossed my mind not to be as involved in this as Frances is. We see this as our day, and have been working together to make it work. We each bring different skills to the table and have split up tasks at times, but the journey has always felt like a joint one. Travelling around the county interviewing photographers, and painting mental pictures with florists has been a lot of fun, and frankly there is no greater incentive for marriage out there than the cake tasting! ;)
The clearest demonstration of the maintained stereotype, and the reason I decided to write this post, came from the day we met two potential florists.
I was in charge of organising the meetings with all of the wedding suppliers. Not only do I enjoy this kind of task, but I am also blessed with the ability and time to check e-mails at work occasionally! We also felt that this was a good way of demonstrating to people that I wanted to be as involved in the process as the bride-to-be.
The first florist that we met was a dream. The meeting went incredibly well. She was able to take our half-formed ideas and make them into a complete picture. I didn't expect it to be an area I would be that interested in, but came away buzzing.
A couple of hours later we went to see the second appointment of the day. Despite having organised everything, including multiple back and forth emails, through myself the lady ignored me from the first word. Talking only to Frances she asked for our wedding details and then for our contact details. When I started to provide mine (being the only one of the two of us able to really field calls / emails Monday to Friday) she interrupted and said that she would need Frances's ...
I tried a few times to talk during our meeting and provide my opinion - and each time I was ignored and talked over. We left as quickly as we could.
When the quote was sent through the following day it was addressed to Frances only, and entitled "Quote for Frances". You may have heard the sound it made when it hit the bottom of the bin from where you are ...
This has been an isolated incident (so far!) and the vast majority have welcomed my inclusion with open arms. None more so that when we went to find Frances her wedding dress. This was one place where I felt I was sure to encounter resistance (and of all of the parts has been the most controversial with friends and family!), but not an eyelid was batted. I was treated royally and enjoyed a happy afternoon being served tea while Frances twirled and sparkled before my eyes. Why would anyone not want this?
But, I thought to myself, surely this is a thing of the past. Held up for parody and mockery today for the general amusement of those who have made it through and to scare those about to embark.
It appears not.
Don't worry - I'm not referring directly to ourselves here. Frances hasn't yet produced a dog-eared table-center design drawn on the back cover of a school exercise book; and I haven't found myself fascinated by the patterns forming under my pint glass. Instead I'm referring to how others continue to reinforce this stereotype.
When Frances tells work colleagues that she is getting married they fuss over her, wanting to know in detail about how wedding planning is going and excitedly discussing every element. When I told work colleagues that we were taking a few days off work to organise wedding suppliers they offered their condolences ...
The most positive suggestions I've had so far from someone I work with is "best stay out of it - just nod and smile if asked for an opinion". One prides himself in telling me that he knew nothing about what was going to happen on the day and just waited to be told where to go!
At the very least (and I mean very least) surely you would take an interest in what your money is being spent on!
From a personal perspective it never crossed my mind not to be as involved in this as Frances is. We see this as our day, and have been working together to make it work. We each bring different skills to the table and have split up tasks at times, but the journey has always felt like a joint one. Travelling around the county interviewing photographers, and painting mental pictures with florists has been a lot of fun, and frankly there is no greater incentive for marriage out there than the cake tasting! ;)
The clearest demonstration of the maintained stereotype, and the reason I decided to write this post, came from the day we met two potential florists.
I was in charge of organising the meetings with all of the wedding suppliers. Not only do I enjoy this kind of task, but I am also blessed with the ability and time to check e-mails at work occasionally! We also felt that this was a good way of demonstrating to people that I wanted to be as involved in the process as the bride-to-be.
The first florist that we met was a dream. The meeting went incredibly well. She was able to take our half-formed ideas and make them into a complete picture. I didn't expect it to be an area I would be that interested in, but came away buzzing.
A couple of hours later we went to see the second appointment of the day. Despite having organised everything, including multiple back and forth emails, through myself the lady ignored me from the first word. Talking only to Frances she asked for our wedding details and then for our contact details. When I started to provide mine (being the only one of the two of us able to really field calls / emails Monday to Friday) she interrupted and said that she would need Frances's ...
I tried a few times to talk during our meeting and provide my opinion - and each time I was ignored and talked over. We left as quickly as we could.
When the quote was sent through the following day it was addressed to Frances only, and entitled "Quote for Frances". You may have heard the sound it made when it hit the bottom of the bin from where you are ...
This has been an isolated incident (so far!) and the vast majority have welcomed my inclusion with open arms. None more so that when we went to find Frances her wedding dress. This was one place where I felt I was sure to encounter resistance (and of all of the parts has been the most controversial with friends and family!), but not an eyelid was batted. I was treated royally and enjoyed a happy afternoon being served tea while Frances twirled and sparkled before my eyes. Why would anyone not want this?
Sunday, 24 June 2012
The Weekend That Was: Home Cooking Come Rain or Shine
After 7 months of frustration, dreaming and asking ourselves a lot of questions, we think we have finally decided to take our house off the market. Oddly enough, this decision comes a few weeks after another couple made an offer. Sadly, it started off as an offer far far below the asking price - and has only just started to improve.
The fact is that because the offer has only just increased to what was our very bottom line, this has forced us to ask questions about whether now is actually the right time to move, where we would move to and how this would affect our lives in the near future.
There are several reasons why we wanted to move house - although it's ideal for a commute into the City, which is why Alan bought it (well before I turned up), I work in Canary Wharf and it takes me easily 80 minutes to get into work. I work long and sometimes unpredictable hours, and it can be tough sometimes getting home about half an hour before I want to go to bed (yes, yes, I know if I lived round the corner from the office this might still be the case, but at the moment I do this regularly)!
Secondly, our house is not walking distance from the station, and the bus service inexplicably finishes at 7pm and is non-existent on Sundays. I don't drive (a sad accident involving a driving test, failure, and moving to a city as a student where car use was far from necessary), and even if I did, the idea of driving separately to the station every morning seems ridiculous. So at the moment I find myself dependent on Alan being willing to pick me up from the station, or having to get a taxi, if I have a day or evening out without him. Fine for the short term (so he says!), but certainly not ideal for the long term.
Thirdly, the house is lovely but it isn't a family house. It isn't where we envisage setting up our family, and although that won't be for a while, it's certainly at the back of our minds.
But then against that are other issues we had to think about, and which seemed so clear when we first put the house on the market. I will find out in December whether I will be staying at my current firm, and although I love my job and want to stay there, I may not have a choice. This then has an onward impact on where we live - an easy commute to the City is not the same as an easy commute to Canary Wharf, and the former gives us far more options that we would be silly not to consider.
Secondly, we have booked our wedding on the basis of where we live now, and we are now keen to stay close to this area where possible.
We debated renting, but this is also not ideal. Reading Esme's recent post on Any Other Woman, and recalling the time my friend and I came home one day to a notice to quit from our landlord simply because he wanted to move back in, I realise how lucky Alan and I are to have a house. We have space, we have a garden and although it's taken time for me, it suddenly feels like our home. We can decorate, we have security, and paying the mortgage is not money down the drain. Yes, we want to move, but renting just anywhere as quickly as possible no longer works for us.
The odd thing is, that if this other couple had made an initial offer that was somewhat nearer the mark, we might not have had this conversation, we might not have asked these questions of ourselves and we might have rushed into something that wasn't quite right for us - and although we are not necessarily looking for a house for life, it needs to stand up to at least five years of family Godfrey-Iwaschkin.
This weekend's cooking:
The fact is that because the offer has only just increased to what was our very bottom line, this has forced us to ask questions about whether now is actually the right time to move, where we would move to and how this would affect our lives in the near future.
There are several reasons why we wanted to move house - although it's ideal for a commute into the City, which is why Alan bought it (well before I turned up), I work in Canary Wharf and it takes me easily 80 minutes to get into work. I work long and sometimes unpredictable hours, and it can be tough sometimes getting home about half an hour before I want to go to bed (yes, yes, I know if I lived round the corner from the office this might still be the case, but at the moment I do this regularly)!
Secondly, our house is not walking distance from the station, and the bus service inexplicably finishes at 7pm and is non-existent on Sundays. I don't drive (a sad accident involving a driving test, failure, and moving to a city as a student where car use was far from necessary), and even if I did, the idea of driving separately to the station every morning seems ridiculous. So at the moment I find myself dependent on Alan being willing to pick me up from the station, or having to get a taxi, if I have a day or evening out without him. Fine for the short term (so he says!), but certainly not ideal for the long term.
Thirdly, the house is lovely but it isn't a family house. It isn't where we envisage setting up our family, and although that won't be for a while, it's certainly at the back of our minds.
But then against that are other issues we had to think about, and which seemed so clear when we first put the house on the market. I will find out in December whether I will be staying at my current firm, and although I love my job and want to stay there, I may not have a choice. This then has an onward impact on where we live - an easy commute to the City is not the same as an easy commute to Canary Wharf, and the former gives us far more options that we would be silly not to consider.
Secondly, we have booked our wedding on the basis of where we live now, and we are now keen to stay close to this area where possible.
We debated renting, but this is also not ideal. Reading Esme's recent post on Any Other Woman, and recalling the time my friend and I came home one day to a notice to quit from our landlord simply because he wanted to move back in, I realise how lucky Alan and I are to have a house. We have space, we have a garden and although it's taken time for me, it suddenly feels like our home. We can decorate, we have security, and paying the mortgage is not money down the drain. Yes, we want to move, but renting just anywhere as quickly as possible no longer works for us.
The odd thing is, that if this other couple had made an initial offer that was somewhat nearer the mark, we might not have had this conversation, we might not have asked these questions of ourselves and we might have rushed into something that wasn't quite right for us - and although we are not necessarily looking for a house for life, it needs to stand up to at least five years of family Godfrey-Iwaschkin.
This weekend's cooking:
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| Fish pie |
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| Butternut squash and chilli soup |
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| Cardomom loaf (l); Chocolate and currant loaf (adapted from recipes by the Hummingbird Bakery) |
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| A quick snooze in the brief Sunday afternoon sunshine! |
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