Gratitude

Sara has very kindly given me this award. Thank you Sara!

This award comes with a few rules:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which show GREAT ATTITUDE and/or GRATITUDE!
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

I would like to give this award to:

Gwen

Courtney

Molly

Littlesack

Pink Pearls & Muddy Sneakers

Kate

Lulu

Mrs Cup

Whitney

Newlywed Central

Blogging is fantastic - it creates connections and builds friendships. I feel really grateful for having found the blogs of these wonderful ladies!

23rd and counting

Only 10 more hours of work left for me in 2008

2 more days until big celebrations with loved ones

1 more day until Mr B opens his first 'to my husband' card from me on our first married Christmas!!

I can't wait for lunchtime tomorrow when I'm on my way home to Mr B.

Just look at our advent calendar now! Surrounded by good wishes from our friends and family (and a giraffe from Bali...)

Just in case I don't get the chance to post over Christmas I would like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas filled with life, laughter and love.

Almost there...

With Christmas almost here I proudly finished off the last bits of wrapping this weekend. What a lovely feeling to have everyone's pretty parcels all finished, gleaming under our tree. This weekend saw
us celebrate with our great friends B & A who have just purchased their first house. We drank wine, ate pizza and laughed lots
us relax with a delicious MrB-cooked Sunday roast while watching Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist - it's superb
me ride for 2 hours in the pale winter countryside yesterday.

I found out that the horse I normally ride, Murphy, has semi-retired as he can't cope with walk/trot/canter hacks any longer. I feel sad about not being able to ride him again, he's the most lovely gentle giant who I really bonded with. Hopefully next year I'll find another horse who I share such a bond with.

I hope you all enjoyed your weekends and have got everything prepared for this exciting week coming up!

Advent Bird

Thank goodness today is Friday! I've only got 2 and a bit days left at work (on Christmas eve the MD brings in mince pies, champagne and other goodies and we get to leave at lunchtime, yay)!

Tomorrow Mr B is working, so I'll be relaxing with a good book and getting the house ship-shape in time for Christmas. The rest of the weekend will be spent seeing friends and horseriding... I can't wait!

Today brought a tiny bird onto our advent calendar. I wanted to show you our tiny garden-visitor (Mr Robin Redbreast) but he's too tiny and illusive to capture on film. Instead you can have this sparkly winged friend from our tree.

Have a fantastic Friday night!

Guest Blogger - MEISHA

I'm so excited as Jennifer's cat Sugar has tagged me! My mum has let me use the computer to share some of my habits & quirks!

1. I am a Bengal & therefore I am a little bit different to other cats. One reason is I have a massive range of different mieows, calls and noises. Sometimes my mum & dad laugh at me when I do a more unusual noise which isn't very nice of them. I don't laugh when my mum speaks Dutch to me... these humans have a lot to learn about etiquette don't they?


2. I love sitting as close to the strange, hot, metal attachments on the walls. Wow they're hot at this time of the year! Sometimes my fur gets to almost the same temperature as the metal thing... sigh. It's heavenly to be so warm.


3. I go crazy when I play and I love to wiiggggle like Beyonce!!!
4. My favourite food is ham. Oh wait... I love chicken too, the roasted one that my parents cook in the oven. Oh no, forget that, I love beef... as raw as possible. Oh, and fish from the chippie - haddock or cod, I don't mind... oh and whiskas treats... I'll admit it, I'm greedy and not very fussy.


5. I've recently started to do this weird thing when I get stroked on the sofa... I sit with my front paws up on the arm. My mum thinks it's hysterically funny and says I look like a bear when I do this. Do any other cats do this? I'm sure there must be a few of you out there! I've attached another video for you to see



6. I like to wash anywhere, anytime, especially right in the middle of playing... you can get in a quick lick on your paw or side, or while I'm walking along I'll spot a little bit that's not clean enough and lick. You can never be too clean!
   

Cheer

Things making me cheery today

• Mr B getting better
• My office receiving delicious Thorntons chocolates from a company we work with
• My new sonic toothbrush arriving in time for all the chocolate eating... my teeth will feel like I've had a deep clean at the dentist!
• I've done this using Picnik

• The last gift from our wedding gift list arrived last night... some beautiful crystal tumblers
• Receiving a christmas card from "your Milkman"

But best of all I'm off home in a minute to spend the whole evening with Mr B!

Advent Present

My advent calendar entry for today, 18th, was a present.

Mr B and I have given ourselves a little present... we're staying here

on Christmas Eve! It's a hotel near our house... won't it be a treat waking up there on Christmas morning?

Advent Flowers

Today's advent calendar entry was a beautiful bunch of flowers, so here is my gorgeous lily of the valley wedding bouquet. Hurrah, I'm finally back up to speed!!



Let's hope Mr B is not poorly for much longer - he's still at home recovering and seems to be getting better slowly. So no dry-slope skiing lesson for us tomorrow, unfortunately, I've had to cancel as Mr B does not feel up to it.

Christmas feels very close now... little lights twinkle on the houses all along my journey to and from work, mince pies are being devoured, lots of cards are arriving through our letterbox each morning and tonight I'm starting the celebrations with some lovely ladies who I used to work with - we're going out for a curry and catch-up :)

A...

... few of my favourite things beginning with A, thanks Mrs Stilettos!

Animals

I love animals... anything and everything, but I especially love cats (big and small) and elephants. Here I am with my childhood pet Tabitha, wasn't she adorable?

"Apples & Pears"

I love cockney rhyming slang and I think it's great that new rhyming slang is invented - it keeps the tradition alive!

Now I'm the trouble & strife of Mr B, I do what he says. He wanted to go for a ruby murray the other week and even though I didn't want one, I let him have his way. Well, that night all went Pete Tong... you'll never adam & eve it, but I found a barnet fair in my ruby murray!! Won't be going back there again.


Do you have any idea what I'm saying?!


Art


Aristocats
When I was little I wanted to be Duchess with her sapphire eyes... hmm, that's a bit embarassing!!! But really, how cool would it be, not only to be a cat, but a beautiful, silky-voiced, princess cat? Even now I don't think I'd mind...





Automobile
My car at the moment is one of these.... (but not this exact one... I don't have a picture saved of it on this computer)




I. LOVE. IT. A LOT. It's small, fast and fun (well, fun except in rain, snow, ice & high winds!!)

Aniseed

I love the taste of aniseed. In Holland there is a food called 'muisjes' - little tiny sugar coated aniseed hundreds and thousands. You eat them on a buttered rusk biscuit... does this sound weird enough yet?! It's really delicious (if you like aniseed). Muisjes come in blue&white and pink&white... and tradtionally when a new baby is born muisjes (blue for a boy, pink for a girl) will be eaten.


Al Green
Our first dance at our wedding was Al Green's Let's Stay Together... perfect!



A Town Like Alice

Annie Leibovich

Africa

Mr B and I were lucky enough to travel to South Africa in 2006 and see these amazing creatures in the wild...

Advent Birds

Advent Boat

Yesterday's Advent Calendar door opened to show a boat (I'm still catching up, I promise I'll be back up to speed by tonight!!) I thought about sharing some of my boat-memories, but to be honest none of them are all that exciting and I am all about visuals so here are some boat/water photos that hopefully will brighten up your day. I don't know about you, but it's grey and cold here so I definately need some nice bright photos to remember what the other seasons are like!

The top photo is of the beach at Seminyak, Bali, where we spent our honeymoon. Kite sellers walked up and down the beach each day flying the coolest boat kites... I will try and find a photo for you tonight. Below is another one of my favourite places, Amsterdam, from October this year.

*Sigh*

Weekend Catchup

This weekend did not go as planned. Mr B came home poorly from work on Friday and did not get better. He spent the whole weekend in bed with a sky-high fever (among other, very nasty, symptoms). Mr B never gets ill and he's never taken a day off sick in his life, but today, unfortunately, broke that tradition. I've never seen him as sick... I really really hope he gets better soon.

I spent my time doing nursely-housewifey duties and though I did get a lot done I would have much rather have had a healthy Mr B and a fun-filled weekend and not a tidy home.

Mr B said to me last night "we never realise how good it is to feel healthy until we're ill".

Please please please Mr Doctor give Mr B something that will help him get better (he's at the doctor's as I type).

This weekend brought some new and very sweet advent calendar entries...

On Saturday it was a tiny dog. One day, when Mr B and I live in a big house in the countryside with chickens and a vegetable patch, we would like a dog like this...

Isn't he just the cutest?! Those blue eyes.... awwww!

Yesterday's entry was a book and it got me thinking... what are your favourite books and why? My favourite childhood books are all 3 Faraway Tree books by Enid Blyton... so magical. Now my favourties are 1984 by George Orwell, The Pianist by Władysław Szpilman and If This is a Man/The Truce by Primo Levi.

This time next week and Christmas will almost be here!! I can't wait. Have a good day everyone!

Advent Hedgehog

Happy Friday!! Today's a wonderful day, even though it's rainy and grey and dark at 14:30... because it's the weekend in half an hour, woohoo!! Today my advent calendar had a cute picture of a little hedgehog in today's window, so here is a little story for you to enjoy.

I've only ever seen a hedgehog once in the wild, toddling down my driveway in the middle of the night, which is strange as I've seen much more unusual animals regularly in the garden like slow-worms, badgers and a deer!

So instead of a toddling hedgehog here is a rather larger, less spiky, but definately more cheeky animal! She's called Dewi and we met her at the amazing Elephant Park at Taro, Bali where rescued elephants find a safe, permanent home. This is my favourite photo that I've taken this year.

This weekend, for the first time in ages Mr B is not working and so we're going to go Christmas shopping in Windsor to celebrate.This weekend also brings the X-Factor final *go JLS*, Strictly Come Dancing, present wrapping, house cleaning, and lazysundaymorningreading... I can't wait! Ooh, and on Monday night Mr B and I are dry-slope skiing... getting some practice for our ski holiday to Austria in February. We've not skied since we were growing up so it could be an interesting night!

Have a fabulous weekend!

Advent Cat #2

The guys who made my advent calendar obviously spent more time drinking mulled wine and getting high on mince pies than they did pooling ideas for the pictures in the calendar. Today was the second turn of the cat, but to be honest I don't mind at all... I love showing off my gorgeous moggie :)

Today I feel like I'm living in a parallel world, where nothing's quite right and I wonder if someone 'up there' is playing a big joke on me.

I'm not sure what's caused it - but it could be any one of these reasons

~All the interviewees at my workplace today arriving over 50 minutes early for their interviews. Seriously, wouldn't you just walk and get a coffee for half an hour?
~ One of the said interviewees being an older version of Justin from Ugly Betty. He exclamed when he entered the office 'oooh, this is just like a little house!!!!!' in the most over-the-top excited voice he could muster.
~Calling my mum on my lunchbreak only for her to tell me she's pretending to be Britney Spears in her school's Christmas assembly tomorrow (she's a primary school teacher) and can I suggest dance moves she can do...
~Eating far too many fizzy cola bottles, bananas, shrimps etc. from the Woolies closing down sale. I feel sick. I feel hyper. RIP Woolworths, I'll miss your penny-sweets.
~The weasel in the office next door to me clicking his pen constantly, incessantly, all day.
~The fact that at 6:30am I wrapped presents, cleaned out Meisha's litter tray and washed up.

It is dangerously apparant that I'm in need of my yoga class tonight. I hope I calm down by then, otherwise I might just ruin the quiet, balanced atmosphere with a giggle-fit. Haha!

Advent Angel #2

This little girl is a miracle. She was born prematurely weighing less than a bag of sugar. She spent the first part of her life in an incubator and wasn't able to go home until she was a few months old.

Now look at her...

She came third in her judo competition!! She rocks!!

There was definately an angel looking over her in those fragile first few months of her life.

We can all be angels...

We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another ~Luciano de Crescenzo

Santa Baby

Santa baby, just slip a pressie under the tree, for me
Been an awful good girl
Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight.

I'd love it if my pressie was a gorgeous clutch from Red Ruby Rose


Or some quirky jewellery from Luxe Deluxe

Or a fun camera strap from *Shey*[B]

Go on Mr B, you know how you love to spoil me...

No?

Please learn, I'm sure you'll love it almost as much as me ;-)

What are you all hoping for this Christmas?

Fear

Today’s window opened up to show a parajumper… exciting!! I don’t know that Mr B and I can tell a parajump-worthy story, but I’ll give it a go. I’ve been thinking all morning of the most scary or adrenalin-filled activity that Mr B and I have done. One story stood out among the others – the story of Table Mountain.



Mr B and I were in South Africa in 2004. We had planned a mega-trip around the wedding of some of our best friends who were marrying in Port Elizabeth. We spent the first few days of our holiday in Cape Town. One of the first things we did in Cape Town was to take the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain. I was thrilled to be doing this but Mr B was not so enthralled… he has vertigo and so he spent the entire cable car ride looking at the floor while grasping onto the handrail as tightly as he could. Once we got to the top he was ok, until I walked to the edge and leaned over the safety rail to get some photos!




We decided to take a walk and explore the top of the mountain. Table Mountain is so unusual – the top is really flat, just like a table, so we chose the longest, circular walk as it wasn’t going to be too challenging. The first half of our walk was great – the views were simply spectacular and the sun was shining. We reached the halfway point in good time and so we rested in the shade for a few minutes before starting the route back to the cable car.



Our route was deserted and took us round towards the front of the mountain. The views were am-aze-zing. The path became more narrow, flanked either side by rocks and scrub bushes and started taking us further and further towards the edge of the mountain. I was worried we’d somehow lost the main path. Then, suddenly, a marker appeared on the path, reassuring us that we were indeed following the correct track. The reassured feeling didn’t last too long when, soon after, the path took us right to the edge, the very edge, of the mountain. The path had no safety barrier, there was a sheer drop from the path right down into Cape Town . Mr B saw this and stopped. His vertigo meant there was no way he was able to walk the path. He refused to go any further. There was no other way to go – the rocks flanking the path were too steep to climb, and to turn and go back would take us hours.

I didn’t know what to do – Mr B really wasn’t budging. I told him I’d go and get someone to come back for him but he didn’t want me going next to the edge either. He was feeling so unwell from the fear and the height and I felt completely powerless.

I tried my best to convince him to carry on and slowly Mr B realized that we couldn’t just stay there, perched on the top of Table Mountain, alone. So Mr B and I crawled on our hands and knees in the dust along the path, right to the edge, and kept crawling until the path was a safe distance away from oblivion.

Up until that day I was fearless… but crawling on the path next to that death-drop made me feel frightened – we were so high up with nothing to prevent us falling over the brink (believe me, no amount of skiing in the Alps could prepare you for this!!) When we made it back to the cable-car point we turned back to see the last part of our fateful journey. We saw this


You say???

Dangerous???

*Never*!!!

Advent Angel

Today, the 8th day of advent, my calendar had a picture of an angel.

Here's a photo of my angel on her wedding day in Deil, Holland, 1933.

This is my Oma & Opa.

Going Bare

Do any of you use Bare Minerals makeup? I finally took the plunge this weekend and bought the start-up box set (with dvd)! Mr B thought I was a complete loon as I sat at the computer watching a dvd telling me how to put on my new makeup with my new brushes. I tried it out for the first time yesterday and oh my goodness it's divine! The Bare Minerals makeup doesn't feel like there's anything on your face at all, but it is really effective and gives a lovely glowing, even complexion. I'm completely converted.

As I was in the bathroom putting into practice the dvd tutorial I'd just watched Mr B kept shouting "are you using the kabuki brush yet" and "remember to tap off the excess"!! :)

The Train

I've already got behind on my entries!! Sorry guys, I had a busy day yesterday and didn't have time to write a post. Yesterday's advent picture was a train. It made me think of when Mr B and I were first dating, when we were students, and we used to go on the train into London a lot. After our first date going to the cinema (which we never got round to going to as we were talking so much!) our next date was a Mr B surprise. Mr B surprises me a lot with special nights out and will not give me any clues or any ideas what he's planned. Our second date was so special. We went on the train into London. ~ Believe it or not, the trains here up until 3 or 4 years ago were 'slam door trains' and they really used to scare me. Where my parents live and where I grew up the trains had normal automatic doors, but when I moved to Surrey the trains were from a different era! The doors were manual, just like normal doors at home, except there was only one handle on the outside of the train, so when you were inside you had to lower the window so you could reach outside to open the door! A lot of people would lean out of the train and open the door while the train was still chugging into the station which would completely freak me out!! I hated those trains. ~ So one cold night almost 5 years ago I was sat on one of these ancient trains with Mr B going into London. I kept pestering him to tell me where we were going and what we were doing, but he wouldn't tell me. When we arrived in London he took me for dinner here


Clos Maggiore is such a lovely restaurant in Covent Garden. There is a conservatory room with beautiful branches hanging indoors and tiny sparkling white lights everywhere - it's really romantic. After the meal Mr B took me here





To the Lyceum to watch the Lion King. Wow, I loved it!! If you ever get the chance to see it.... GO! It's so spectacular.

What a special night.

My first Blog Award!

Littlesack from Navigating the Quarterlife has given me my first award!!! So a big thank you to you.

Here are the rules: Copy and paste the rule instructions in your post. When posting on receiving the award, make sure you include who gave you the award and link it back to them. Post five winners and link it back to them as well. Post five of your addictions. Add the award image. Let the winners know you gave them an award by leaving them a comment on their blog.

So here are 5 of my addictions:
1. Painting my nails... I do this far too often and get far too stressed about doing them perfectly. I'm afraid this is one of my addictions that bothers Mr B a lot.
2. Tea! I drink far too much tea, especially at work. There's no best time for a cuppa... I can drink it first thing in the morning and last thing at night! I love it and it truly does help me to wake up and feel more human first thing in the morning.
3. Sun-dried tomatoes. I could eat them with or in every meal - delicious!! Try a salami sandwich with a little bit of mozzarella and a few sun-dried tomatoes... it's heavenly.
4. My husband :)
5. Yoga - I only started this year, but I absolutely love it and I'm hoping to start a new class as well as continuing with my old class in the new year.

I'd like to award the following ladies:
Sara from The View From The New Year's Baby
Lulu from The Dirty Martini Diaries
Kate from Elefantitas Alegres
Mrs. Cup from My Cup Overflows
Gwen from Confessions of a Control Freak

I'm looking forward to hearing your answers!

Stockings!

Yay it's the weekend!! Has this week felt unbearably long to everyone else?




This is my advent calendar (thanks to my Dad for pointing out my previous poor spelling!) Today's window opened to show a Christmas stocking. This fits in perfectly with how I've spent my Saturday afternoon - making Christmas cards.






These are a few of my favourites. How adorable are these little stockings?

What do you think?

I finally caught the culprit in semi-action... just look at that face - she's definately planning tree sabotage!!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Quirky me

I've been tagged by the lovely Kate from Elefantitas Alegres!! It's my first tag so extra-special thanks to Kate :)

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you

2. Post the rules on your blog

3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself

4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs

5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

So here are some quirks about me:

1. I get really really worried about our rabbits in the winter. On truly freezing cold nights I am afraid they might get ill from the cold so I make them a hot water bottle and pop it in amongst their hay!

2. I have cried every time I have put Meisha the cat in her travel basket. She is a rescue cat - I've never seen a cat behave the way she did for the first few months. She was so sad and not like a cat at all. She didn't mieow, purr, wash, sit up - she sprinted from safe-spot to safe-spot, hiding where possible, avoiding us and our feet especially. We mostly ignored her at first and let her come to us... it worked a treat! She is now the most loving, affectionate and talkative cat and Mr B and I love her dearly, but we still do not pick her up - it's too stressful for her and she hates it. Having to pick her up and put her in the basket is awful, but it's getting better.

3. Spinach is my favourite food, no contest. I love it and swear I could eat it on its own, constantly and never tire of it. Saag Aloo (spinach potatoes) from our favourite Indian restaurant is especially divine.

4. I am bi-lingual and speak Dutch and English. My Dutch is not practised enough at all and it takes me a few days in Holland to get my vocabulary back. After spending time in Holland and coming back to England my brain get very confused about what language I'm speaking... I've spoken to Mr B in Dutch before without realising he had no idea what I was on about!

5. My favourite job ever was my first job, working on the local supermarket's Deli counter when I was 16, complete with sexy, aproned, hair-netted uniform. I loved it, I loved my colleagues, I even loved (most of) the customers. One gentleman would come in every Saturday night and buy all the ready-cooked chickens we had left at a discount. He always wanted to be served by me and called me Princess. I often wonder how he is now.

6. My dream house is old, stone, in the country (possibly in Yorkshire) with not much else around it except beautiful scenery. When we live in my dream house I will keep chickens (ex-battery) and I will have a vegetable patch.

There you go! I hope you enjoyed my random facts.

Right, I'm going to tag:

Mrs Cupcake at ...just a thought
Jennifer at Not Just Another Jennifer

Holly at In My Overactive Head

Ashley at Polka Dots and Paisley

Sinterklaas... Sint Klaas.... Santa Claus

My advent calender has come up trumps today and has actually given me a christmassy picture of Sinterklaas.



Today, 5th December, is the day when St. Nicolaas or Sinterklaas visits children in Holland. I have such good memories of this magical and exciting time! Sinterklaas is Santa Claus' predecessor... he rides on a white horse and has helpers called Zwarte Pieten (black Petes) who wear colourful chimney sweep outfits and carry sacks of presents for the children. The Zwarte Pieten are mischevious and cheeky and throw sweets and little biscuits around.



In December 2007 Mr B and I visited my family inHaarlem, Holland over 5th December and it was so fun! Zwarte Pieten were everywhere in the town and my little cousins were so excited. The evening of the 5th of December was really lovely - we had a delicious meal and then we gave and received presents. All of a sudden there was a knock on the door and guess who walked in?



It was Sinterklaas! How honoured we were!! He brought 2 lady Zwarte Pieten and he carried a big golden book. Mr B and I were as surprised and excited as the children!!! Sinterklaas knew all our names and knew that Mr B and I came from the UK, that we'd met at university, everything... he even spoke English to Mr B, who doesn't speak Dutch....



yet...



I'm working on it!

Sinterklaas is a very wise man... I can vouch for that.

Advent - Day 4

Today is 'Advent Badminton' day!! There is a tiny picture of 2 badminton rackets and a shuttlecock behind window number 4. I must surely have the world's weirdest advent calender, don't you think? As I opened up the little window at 7:30am this cold, dark and very wet morning I thought that I might have to scrap my idea only 4 days in! I don't like badminton, at all. I like tennis and so when I play badminton I use my entire arm and whack the shuttlecock too hard. I just can't get the hang of it! So I have no badminton-related photos at all.

Instead I thought I'd share a photo of a 'sport' (I'm using the term loosely!) that is even more unusual... Orange Rolling

Orange rolling happened each Easter at my first school. We all used to think it was so fun! Some children would go to the top of the hill behind our classrooms and roll and the rest of the children would have to try to catch the oranges. After the orange rolling we would all do country dancing in the playground, dressed in our best country-dancing outfits. That's me, in the middle of the photo, wearing a portugese apron and neckscarf (I love my friend's Kylie t-shirt next to me... so 1989!)


Click here for more information, and to see that I'm not making this up!



Do you think the British are even stranger now?

Reminiscing

2008 has been the biggest, best and most eventful year of my life. On 23rd May Mr B and I began our life together. Our wedding day was truly the best day of my life - it was filled with family, friends and love in the air like I've never experienced before. It was indescribably special. I thought I would share some memories and photos here, I hope you like them.



We tried to keep things as intimate and small as possible, and tried not to get carried away with everything. I didn't want the organising of our wedding to take over our lives to the point which it became the be-all and end-all. It was to be just the start of our exciting journey and I tried not to loose sight of that. I really didn't want to start off our marriage depressed that our big day was all over. I wasn't depressed... I was, and still am, elated and so excited to be married!



Getting ready was a bit strange. I only had one bridesmaid, my little cousin H, and though my mother and sister in law (to be!), J, were around, I was alone with my photographer and hairdresser for quite a lot of the morning. I wouldn't have changed a thing though as whatever the reason I was so chilled out, calm and happy. My makeup artist was over an hour late, but I really wasn't very bothered at all (what was wrong with me?!). My hairdresser was stressed on my behalf!




Finally the moment came to put on my dress. I love my dress and am so pleased I decided on something a bit different. I have no idea when or if I'll use or wear it again but I can't bring myself to part with it. It's kept in a beautiful box at my parents house.




Mr B and I, keeping with tradition, decided not to see each other until the ceremony. It was really difficult to say goodbye to him the night before our wedding knowing that the next time we'd see each other I'd be walking down the aisle! In our local church, just 5 minutes away from the university where we met and our little house, our best man and Mr B were waiting for me to arrive...

Waiting outside the church and walking down the aisle all my earlier laid-back feelings vanished. I felt incredibly nervous. This was it! I clung onto my dad and concentrated on trying not to trip up (I succeeded, woohoo!) and on Mr B who had turned to watch me. My legs were like jelly and one of the first things I said to Mr B was "do you think everyone can tell I'm shaking?" Not so romantic!

After the ceremony our guests headed to the reception venue, a beautiful hotel nearby...



While Mr B and I took 10 minutes to pose for photos at the 'Long Walk' looking towards Windsor Castle.

The rest of our day was a blur of fun, laughter and togetherness. One of the best parts of our day was the fact that everyone we love was there celebrating with us - from all over the UK and Holland. Every one of our guests knew us well, every one of our guests was so happy for us, every one of our guests contributed to an atmosphere filled with love and support for Mr B and I. Truly something special.

This is me with my family, the Dutch ladies

It might sound silly but Mr B and I made a real effort not to leave each other's side. Time flew by and we wanted to savour every moment of the day together.

I hope you don't mind me reminiscing. It's so nice to have an excuse to look through our photos again and write down a few little bits about our special day.