The Adventures of Tallulah Bloom and Reginald Perrin

I missed you when you were gone, it reminded me how much you are part of my everyday and I know there will always be times when we are apart but it is a nice warm feeling to know that you will always come home to me. I am always sorry when I have been grumpy with you but I know that too is a part of everyday, of sharing a life together. On Saturday I walked down the Prinsegracht and I pottered through that antique shop we like and at one point I found a plate and picked it up to show you, so much is that activity a part of us that I thought you were there. Thank you, I never realised it could be like this.

The Talented Mr. Rigby is off on his stag do this weekend,he is going to Lowlands to camp, get muddy, watch bands and probably get very very drunk!! And to be honest I am a little jealous, a bride to be should not be jealous of the stag do should they? I foolishly offered to make curried vegetable pasties for their train ride well I say foolishly it was really a ploy to make sure Mr. Rigby thinks of me quite a bit, every bite should say “isn’t she lovely” “such a good cook” I’m not sure I can work being sexy into a pasty but I will try, I will try.

I hate having my picture taken. I hate posing for pictures but most importantly I hate them because in my head I look great and the photos just don’t seem to reflect this. The talented one however loves having his picture taken and will grab a camera seconds after the photo has been taken to check himself out. He is also only really interested in pictures that he appears in and will flick through hundreds just to find one he is in. He isn’t particularly vain so I have no idea what the fascination is.

Hating having your photo taken is not a particularly good trait when you are about to get married as nobody will let you get away with not posing for a picture and will consider you a miserable old wench for not wanting to pose with every aunt,uncle, long lost cousin, waiter and once horribly when I was bridesmaid with my head gently resting on my bouquet.

But after some thought I figured if it was really going to upset me then it had to be the controversial “NO PHOTOGRAPHER”. However every time I said this people looked horrified, in fact the general impression seemed to be why bother getting married if you don’t take pictures. People also said things like how will you remember it (in my head the way I remember everything?!) and also what about when your kids want to look at the photos. This is a personal favourite of mine as the first thing I seemed to have done on discovering my parents wedding album is draw all over it in purple felt pen.

I relented a little when the talented one looked like he might cry and asked some good friends to take few pictures but somewhere along the line I ended up with a photographer. I realise that other people desperately want the formal line up shots of friends and family and it would seem I am the only one who doesn’t want it. Family and friends probably think I am over reacting but I am dreading it, it will be the longest 45 minutes of my life and worse still all those people who don’t have to stand around posing will be drinking. I would really much rather be with them.

Tomorrow is The Talented Mr. Rigby’s 30th birthday, he finally joins my decade.

How will you celebrate you ask well pretty much the same as last year with a picnic at the parade, the only difference being I will not be the only girl! Well I am hoping this is the only difference as last year I got a gift from the talented one as he knew I would feel left out having nothing to open. Yes I am that childish!

After watching the flamboyant boats and drinking way too much bubbles we will head to Mr. Rigby’s local, it is his night after all. I suppose.

Oh god I have broken some kind of seal and now I can’t stop!

The earrings are waiting to clear customs - thanks Mr. Talented one!

They are from Veronica Willingham Jewelry she was so helpful!!

I had a bash at a seating plan for the wedding last night and it was a horrible experience I can tell you. Now there is nobody in my family who have fallen out but my folks got divorced 10 years ago so the two sides of the family have not met since then. Actually my mum has made an effort to keep in touch with them but my dad hasn’t. It will be odd as he is my cousins only uncle but he hasn’t spoken to them for over 10 years and I don’t think my youngest cousin can have seen him since she was about 8. However I think as they all profess to love me they will be on their best behaviour.

We will see though as best behaviour is often hard to keep up after a gallon of free wine!

But the real problem was the rest of them. The masses of singles, sitting them so they didn’t think they were being set up, the other singles we have created because of our no kids allowed rule and the friends from different stages in our life. The talented one and myself have our school friends, university friends, old work friends and Amsterdam friends and family plus a few current colleagues thrown in. I want people to sit near people they know and will have fun with but inevitably amongst such groups of friends there are ex lovers and new partners and usually there are three of one group and eight of another to sit on tables of 10!

Then you need to work out who should sit close the star table (that’s us) and which noisy drunks should be tucked away at the back.

Which is particularly hard as I fear that I am the noisy drunk.

“So, what will you be doing when the job finishes in 2009″

“Oh! I’m getting married”

Yes I even shocked myself with this statement, apparently I have started to view getting married as a career choice and he is not even rich. To be fair I have always lacked ambition, my boss even told me that during one of my performance reviews. I am one of life’s plodders who wakes up one day and realises that at 33 I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. I always swore I wouldn’t end up like my dad who never knew what he wanted to do with his life so stayed in the army for 24 years only to bumble around in jobs he hated for the last 20 years since he left, he wears his air of disappointment well but will tell anyone who cares to ask that what he really wanted to be was a PE teacher, hardly glamorous but apparently the chance to be one escaped him.

So come end of 2009 I am really hoping someone just offers me a new job, a bit like how I got this one and then off I can plod again.

P.S Picture is my Mum and stepdad who got married nearly two years ago incidentally she gave up work about then but in her defence she had worked nearly 70 hours a week for the last 30 years so I guess she had an excuse.