Sunday - The morning suit debate is still in the air but I am leaving it to himself to decide. I am having enough trouble with my son asking me to tell his girlfriend she can’t wear pink! ‘Why not?’ I ask. Because she wants him to match i.e. to wear a pink shirt and tie as well. Apparently my son hates pink. I have to admit that I never dressed him in pink as a child. I see now that I have failed to put him in touch with his feminine side – mea culpa!
I continue to do my best to resist becoming absorbed in the wedding stuff. It’s hard because everyone else is so excited about it. Good grief – we are two aging baby boomers not a couple of twenty somethings. But still the whole thing gathers momentum at a remorseless pace.
There is the whole issue of the hen party. My sister-in-law-to-be has taken this one over along with a close friend from my old golf club. I am staying out of it. It became more complicated yesterday when friends at my new golf club started to plot their own event. I can see the headlines… “Lady golfers arrested in hen night gang warfare battle for custody of bride”.
The other big issue has been finding the fabric for the wedding outfit. An elegant, slightly retro suit in red. The initial samples I found were dismissed out of hand by the dressmaker as being too lightweight. She gave me the names of various emporia to visit/contact for something a bit more substantial.
So I left work early last week and took a taxi to a part of London I had never ventured into before. Somewhere north of Marylebone Road, bordering the Edgeware Road there is a mixed community that specialises in fabric shops. Amazing places full of fantastic material. Everything from sari fabrics to good strong tartan that would grace the plus-four clad thighs of Clarissa Dickson Wright. The first one I visited was Joel & Sons – purveyors of fine fabrics to HM the Queen. Thousands of rolls stacked to the ceiling. I asked for, and was shown, the heavy-duty fabrics they had in red silk. All wonderful – all nearly £100 per metre. Next to me a girl was fingering the most beautiful black lace material. The price? “£398 per metre madam”. I am out of touch. I retreated with some samples and smiling lies that I would get back to them.
Fortunately, I had also contacted another recommendation from the dressmaker – with a request for samples and prices. Hallelujah – they came through with the perfect taffeta silk in the right colour and just over £23 per metre – Something else to tick off the list.
Next week I am going to Rigby and Peller in Mayfair – to get a ‘foundation garment’ that will disguise all the wobbly bits and convince the partially sighted that I have a waist. Then I have the first fitting of the calico version of the outfit on Friday.
The week after I visit the hairdresser for the first time in 8 months – the new hair will be coloured and shaped (cut is too strong a word).
Needless to say the wig is getting a bit dejected.
I’ll keep you posted.
Sunday 21 February 2010
Monday 1 February 2010
1 February - Past tenses and future plans
Monday - January has been frantic work wise so it has been a while since I updated this blog. This is also partly because I have moved on a long way.
In January I had follow-up consultations with both my Surgeon and Oncologist. Basically they ticked all the boxes and I am now into several years of regular monitoring but I can say that ‘it’ is over. Significantly I asked my surgeon when I could say I ‘had’ rather than ‘I have’ breast cancer. His response was “now”.
It goes a long way to making you feel like a person rather than a patient.
The hair continues to grow…very grey and it sort of sticks out all over the place but it is quite thick. I will have it cut in about five weeks to start to give it some shape. I don’t wear the wig at home anymore and this weekend even went out to drinks at neighbors without it – they thought I looked like Judy Dench as ‘M’ in the Bond films. I still wear the wig to work and golf – partly because it keeps my head warm and it is still freezing here.
So now we look ahead.
On with the wedding preparations – when C and I decided last year that we would get married it seemed ages until 14 May 2010. Now it is racing towards us like a runaway train.
It is a long time since I last got married – nearly 35 years in fact. Back then in mists of time arranging a wedding was largely a do-it-yourself affair. You or your mum made the dress and the bridesmaids made theirs. A family member supplied a suitable car. And the local photographer took a few posed photos while your friends took lots of slightly wonky ones. There were no sky lanterns, table favours, dresses costing thousands of pounds, or photographers taking pictures of your wobbly bits and gummed up eyes first thing in the morning.
Now it seems that there is a multi million pound industry in supplying bridezillas with stuff that turns them into clone ‘princesses’ of one another and lines the pockets of photographers, caterers, florists and the weird suppliers of wedding junk. Quite apart from the ‘Wedding fair’ phenomenon -what is that all about? Somebody shoot me if I ever suggest going to one.
So the challenge is to avoid all of this as much as possible.
We’ve designed our own invitations and had them printed by a local commercial firm, agreed with a photographer that we only want pictures at the Register Office and up to the time we sit down to eat – so halved the price, found a dressmaker whose prices don’t start at £2000 and who understands that this is not a ‘meringue’ job. Ordered simple flowers…etc.
Then my partner starts talking about whether he and his best man should wear morning suits….mmmmmm.
In January I had follow-up consultations with both my Surgeon and Oncologist. Basically they ticked all the boxes and I am now into several years of regular monitoring but I can say that ‘it’ is over. Significantly I asked my surgeon when I could say I ‘had’ rather than ‘I have’ breast cancer. His response was “now”.
It goes a long way to making you feel like a person rather than a patient.
The hair continues to grow…very grey and it sort of sticks out all over the place but it is quite thick. I will have it cut in about five weeks to start to give it some shape. I don’t wear the wig at home anymore and this weekend even went out to drinks at neighbors without it – they thought I looked like Judy Dench as ‘M’ in the Bond films. I still wear the wig to work and golf – partly because it keeps my head warm and it is still freezing here.
So now we look ahead.
On with the wedding preparations – when C and I decided last year that we would get married it seemed ages until 14 May 2010. Now it is racing towards us like a runaway train.
It is a long time since I last got married – nearly 35 years in fact. Back then in mists of time arranging a wedding was largely a do-it-yourself affair. You or your mum made the dress and the bridesmaids made theirs. A family member supplied a suitable car. And the local photographer took a few posed photos while your friends took lots of slightly wonky ones. There were no sky lanterns, table favours, dresses costing thousands of pounds, or photographers taking pictures of your wobbly bits and gummed up eyes first thing in the morning.
Now it seems that there is a multi million pound industry in supplying bridezillas with stuff that turns them into clone ‘princesses’ of one another and lines the pockets of photographers, caterers, florists and the weird suppliers of wedding junk. Quite apart from the ‘Wedding fair’ phenomenon -what is that all about? Somebody shoot me if I ever suggest going to one.
So the challenge is to avoid all of this as much as possible.
We’ve designed our own invitations and had them printed by a local commercial firm, agreed with a photographer that we only want pictures at the Register Office and up to the time we sit down to eat – so halved the price, found a dressmaker whose prices don’t start at £2000 and who understands that this is not a ‘meringue’ job. Ordered simple flowers…etc.
Then my partner starts talking about whether he and his best man should wear morning suits….mmmmmm.
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