The weekend munch!

At last I have a minute to myself to catch up. Everything seems to be go-go-go round here at the moment and all I seem to have done is eat and rush around. At least with the rushing around I’ve still managed to lose weight!

Had a really fantastic and successful weekend with mum and Jo (and the weather was fab too). Picked mum up at the airport on time (can you believe parking for 40 minutes was £3.90!), but ended up stuck in traffic on the M25 for an hour or so. Arrived at Jo’s just in time for a nice meal and a few glasses of wine at one of her local pubs (The Black Horse – definitely recommended) – I had salmon & crab tagliatelle with garlic bread and salad, Jo had chicken with cheese & bacon with vegetables and mum had the lasagne with garlic bread and salad. Had an early night and was up with the lark on Friday all ready to do battle with the bridal shops.

Unfortunately the first shop that Jo had arranged an appointment with didn’t bother to turn up and didn’t bother to contact Jo (and we couldn’t get hold of her), so after 20 minutes of standing outside the closed shop we gave up. To be honest I don’t think Jo would have liked any of the dresses anyway, but obviously it wasn’t a great start to the day, and left us at a bit of a loose end. We did visit another couple of bridal shops but they too were closed – the one in Reading was about the only shop closed that day! Eventually in frustration we gave up with wedding dress shopping and instead started looking for something for mum. I bought some new trousers and a new top; mum also bought several items, but couldn’t see anything she fancied wearing for the wedding. At 4pm we had an appointment at the Wedding Centre in Marlow (we had already phoned to check they were definitely open). I think by that time Jo was convinced that we wouldn’t find anything but mum, I and the lovely lady who helped with the fitting were certain we would find “the dress”.

Jo had said all along that she wanted a very plain dress, with minimal train and just wearing a simple flower in her hair – the first dress she tried on was the exact specification and looked beautiful, soon she had been convinced that a veil was the way to go and teamed with a tiara and the dress I have to admit to having a little tear in my eye as did mum. The second dress wasn’t anything special, but dress 3 was absolutely amazing, especially once the veil was on. After trying on several more dresses in various other styles including the dreaded meringue, it became very obvious that dress 3 was “the one”. It was obvious from the first time she tried it on that it was Jo’s favourite as she held herself differently, and I have to say that she really does look like a princess in it. Not the plain dress she had said though, instead a beautiful mermaid dress in ivory taffeta, with a pearl beaded bodice and a lovely big train. This is teamed with a full length veil covered in diamante and a tiara (still to be chosen). Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take any pictures during the fitting and I’ve not been able to find the dress on the net, although in one way that is a good thing. No chance of people seeing it who shouldn’t and as I’ll have forgotten what it looked like by the wedding it will be a lovely surprise for all of us. Joyous at finding the dress we celebrated at Standlake’s other pub, The Bell with steak and chips all round and yet more wine.

On Saturday morning we visited Bicester Designer Village where we spent a few hours browsing round the shops, but not buying much (I managed to resist the £645 Jimmy Choo’s!) although I did get a bargain on L’Occitane hand cream. Eventually we’d finished there and decided that fed up with shopping we would go to Witney for a nice cream tea at one of the teashops there. It was another lovely meal (I ate so much nice food this weekend) so we decided to walk it off with a wander round the town. Mum had given up on the idea of finding an outfit for the wedding, so Jo and I lured her into Country Casuals where we proceeded to bombard her with dress ideas. Finally, we managed to get her to try some on and strangely yet again the 3rd dress she tried was the perfect one. The colour is a sort of turquoise and suited her perfectly. Shortly after, we had found matching shoes, handbag and hat and mum’s Mother of the Bride outfit was complete. Yet another successful mission and so once again we felt we ought to celebrate back at the Black Horse. The food was so nice that we had to have starters as well – I had a smoked salmon and crab parcel with salad, mum had wexford mushrooms and Jo had deep fried mushrooms. This was followed with fish pie for mum, lasagne for Jo and mushroom stroganoff for me.

Sunday morning and we were up and watching the Grand Prix before mum and I had to leave to get her back to the airport. It was amazing how quickly the weekend had gone and it was such a shame to have to come back. At least mum had the decency to leave the good weather here when she went home.

Yesterday was Andrea’s birthday – belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY matey! Last night we went for a meal at the Indian to celebrate – another excellent meal, although the service was diabolically slow. Tonight I am off to meet Mrs H3 for another meal (see I said I was doing nothing but eating) to celebrate belatedly her birthday from last week.