Best Friends

The last company I worked at in the UK was part of a massive US conglomerate, and periodically we would have to fill out a survey on our working conditions which management used to determine the morale or something... There was always one question which had to be clearly explained before we could begin: "Do you have a best friend at work?"

In the UK a best friend is someone you'd walk through fire for, spend holidays with and ask to your wedding. Not many of us work with someone like that! So we'd all answer "No" and our company morale would look bad! It seems the definition of best friend in the US is just someone you can gossip with and maybe vent about your boyfriend from time to time... once this was explained our stats looked much better!

I am lucky enough to have a few best friends (UK version). One has known me forever (hi Mom!). One transitioned from "friend of boyfriend" to "my friend" as we both moved from Cape Town to London in the same week (hi Tara!). One bought a house around the corner and travelled Europe with me (hi Kat). And one is simply my best friend in all the world (hi Shane). I also have a number of very good friends who I'm not going to list here (if you got a wedding invite you know who you are!).

Shane was here last weekend. Sadly a very flying visit as she and her husband are not so much on holiday as a on a fact finding mission to see if they want to emigrate to Australia. I had her for a day and a half - and you'd swear we'd been apart a week not however long it's been! It's so nice being around someone who has so much history with you. Shane's known me since I was 17... and she knows the good and the bad and doesn't judge me.

When I left school I wanted to be a graphic designer, so I went to the local technikon to study art. My class had about 30 people and I remember noticing this tall, beautiful, glamorous and perfectly groomed girl among us. I hated her on sight. A day or so later I ended up next to her in pottery class - and by the end of the lesson I had made a friend for life! These days Shane runs her own graphic design company from home, has two little girls and a lovely husband, and is still tall, beautiful, glamorous and perfectly groomed. I'd probably hate her on sight if I met her today! Dunno why she's hanging with the short, scruffy rude girl... lol.

I ended up dropping out of the course, leaving her city a year later, then her country 5 years after that, and her timezone a couple of years ago, but we've never lost touch and we see each other when we can. Shane knows I'm a cat person, she tells stories about the sandwiches I used to make for us after class, she remembers weeding my mom's lawn in the winter sun, and having frozen jelly tots on ice cream cones... I took her on a London open-top bus in freezing weather, I held her baby when she had her ears pierced for the first time at 32, and we used a picnic blanket as a makeshift rain umbrella in a park last year - sitting under it drinking champagne and gossiping.

God I miss my best friends.

Spinster?

While I was on BlogHer I came across this article too about modern spinsters...

Just a quick note from my perspective - when I was filling out a questionaire for my wedding planner there was an entry marked "Divorced/Spinster?". I looked at it for a long time then wrote "never married"...

Quote Me Happy

Hey I'm famous!

I've just noticed that a BlogHer blogger has quoted me in an article called "What Draws People to You". It's kind of about how we learn to accept ourselves as we grow up into our own skin... I had been wondering why I had a couple of search hits on "comfortable with myself" ;-).

I have a good friend who makes me happy to be myself... that came out wrong. What I mean is that the other day she was complaining about herself and I said "Ok, name me one thing about yourself that you like!". She had nothing. Nothing! This is someone I consider highly intelligent, educated, travelled, adventurous, loving, fit and sexy. She's doing well in her career and is in a solid relationship... this is not that poor fat woman on Australia's Biggest Loser the other day who had nothing nice to say about herself, but rather someone you'd cross the road to meet. How is it possible that she doesn't like one single thing? I started listing her assets for her and she shot each one down, refusing to accept a single compliment. Gawd, how sad to be so uncomfortable in your own skin - it must be like being 13 every day of your life.

I was reading a post the other day on my blogroll - I'm not sure who but it might have been Ms Grumpy - where the blogger dismissed every compliment about her home until her guest stopped giving them. Why is it so hard sometimes to just say "Thanks" when somebody has good things to say about us and our achievements?

Boy Logic

A bit of a slow start today... Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and Milord and I celebrated by cooking each other dinner. I made the starter of Scallops with Pancetta and Sage on salad leaves, and Milord made the main of Beef Wellington with Horseradish Potato Cakes. It all turned out lovely and we had fun watching each other cook.

We shared a bottle of champagne while cooking, then moved on to red and white wine with the meal (I don't handle red well so avoid it). Milord started on white wine when he finished the red of course... We ended up having one of those deep and meaningful conversations, finally resolved at 1 in the morning after a bit of a rollercoaster. Ugh, first one of those this year and I hadn't missed it, but I suppose it was good to clear the air!

You know what sparked it? Milord had put a floating candle in the centre of the dining table and mentioned that he'd looked for a flower or two to float with it but we don't have any right now. I answered that this was because he doesn't "do" flowers since I dumped a bouquet on the floor 2 years ago after a fight, and that the way he carries a grudge was a bit wierd, and when was he going to let the damn thing go anyway...

What flummoxed me then was that he said he wished I'd asked him for flowers yesterday, because he'd seen all the other men carrying home bunches of roses and he wanted to bring me some, but he couldn't unless I asked for them... Now why on earth would I ask for flowers when for 2 years he has absolutely refused to bring me so much as a daisy?! Boys! I don't understand how they think.

(He ended up raiding the neighbour's garden at midnight drunk as a lord to get me a flower - I guess we're over the grudge!)

Un-Simplification

Latest wedding update:

Pretty much everything is organised now. I've found a lovely sparkly pair of earrings (studs) to wear. They're cubic zirconia in a subtle gold clasp - they should hopefully work with both my gold and platinum rings. That's all the jewelery I'll be wearing - I'm not really into bling.

My invitations turned up this week and I've posted most of them - just need a few more stamps and that's done. I'm very pleased with how they turned out (I ordered them online). Our colours are red and white, so the invitation is white card with a red rose decoration. There are matching RSVP cards, place names and thank you cards - very nice. I bought a caligraphy pen for the names, and although my handwriting is abysmal, between slowing down and printing the names with the special pen they look alright!

I'm now finalising sightseeing plans for before the wedding when several guests will be with us in Cape Town. Today I booked 15 of us onto a wine tour for the day before the wedding. It's not that easy organising people in 3 different countries and time zones for a destination in another country and time zone... there's a day's lag at best! Milord's favourite phrase "herding cats" springs to mind from time to time, but we're getting there. Just a few additional boring details to iron out like travel insurance and car hire and I'm finished...

This wedding has been the easiest thing in the world to organise... therefore I've decided to complicate things further!

So few of Milord's chosen guests can make it that our numbers have fallen to about 25 (from an anticipated 40 out of 55 invited). I did the seating plan this week and ended up with the bridal table and 2 others - it looked silly!

What I may not have told you is that apart from my immediate family (mum, dad, stepmum and sister) I hadn't invited any of my family. This is because my family is enormous! My dad has 5 brothers that we talk to, my mum has 2 sisters, they all have partners and between them I have around 15 cousins, several of whom have partners too. That's around 30 people, 25 of whom are in South Africa and can most likely make it. I had decided that that was just too many Saffa crew and to keep the guestlist to close friends, but now Milord has convinced me to throw our wedding open. I hope he realises what he is in for! Mwahahaha!

Actually, I'm glad. As the 3rd eldest cousin/niece in my family everyone knows me well and I was sad not to have them there. Yay ;-)

7 Weeks

69kg. grump grump grump

What that number doesn't tell you is that I gained weight over the weekend and lost it again! Milord and I were in a complete funk over the weekend, it rained and rained and we sat on the couch and ate too much and drank too much and watched too much tv and annoyed each other. On Sunday the sun came out for a while and we went out for a long walk around the Bay, then did a bit of gardening - but apart from that I did no exercise whatsoever.

On Monday I initiated a state of emergency at Chez Saffa. No booze, lots of exercise and lots of salad! I've knocked off the weekend's excess but I am still off target to make my wedding goal. Bugger. I'm going to continue to be extra good until Valentine's dinner (tomorrow night) and maybe I can hit my required weight of 68.5 this week. My best mate and bridesmaid Shane arrives on Friday for a couple of nights so that's not going to help - maybe I'll dash out for a run or two when she's sleeping!

Boring

I feel boring and bleah.

I can't think of anything to post about that doesn't involve weddings, weight or the fact that it hasn't stopped raining all week. How dull is that?

Today was looOoong. Milord and I went out for our montheversary last night to a local Lebanese restaurant which was not good. I've had great Lebanese before so it's not the style, this place was just blah. We got out of there as fast as we could then blobbed on the couch drinking another bottle of wine before lumping off to bed, and both woke up cranky and hungover.

Ugh. So of course I ate junk food and now I have the guilts. I skipped the gym, I'm not walking home and I am utterly uninspired about dinner. And it's going to rain all weekend.

sigh

8 Weeks

Weekly weigh-in... 69kg. Whoohoo!

I have a confession: I bought a new scale yesterday as our old one had gone erratic, measuring a fluctuation of up to a kilo when you hopped on and off. I'd started taking the average of the highest and lowest readings! I'm tired of rubbish scales so I went to a top electronics store and got an expensive all-singing-all-dancing model. It not only weighs you, it also calculates your body fat % and water hydration based on the resistance of a small current it puts through your body. Um... ok.

Well, this new scale is already very popular in my house, because it says Milord and I are a kilo lighter than we thought we were! Woohoo! I love losing a kilo overnight. With the new reading I am back on target to hit my goal weight in time for the wedding - fabulous ;-).

I have also lost 1cm off my hips in the last month so I am definitely shrinking. Excellent. I'd been concerned because my hips are where I carry my... main storage... and they'd been the same for ages. I guess other bits were shrinking lately instead. Next time I need to lose lots of weight I will measure arms and legs too for comparison (next time? what next time? I'll never get fat again lol!).

I'm very chuffed.

Wedding Dress

It hasn't stopped raining for about 4 days now. Parts of Sydney are flooded, homes ruined, roads closed. Bloody ridiculous... it's the wettest city I have ever lived in. It has been mild and damp ever since I moved over two years ago - London has better summers than this! The shoes in my closet are mouldy and the house smells of damp... I can't wait to get to South Africa for the wedding and have some dry heat for a change.

On the subject of which, things are coming together nicely.

Venue, check.
Accommodation, check.
Food, flowers, photographer, music, check.
Rings, check (yay).
Flights, honeymoon etc, check.
And finally (drum roll)... dress and shoes, check!

Last weekend a good mate and I went wedding dress shopping. I think you need some back-story here though...

Gillian got married in early January this year after an 18 month engagement - it took that long to organise her people to get here from Ireland. She started shopping for her wedding dress with about a year to go. She went to every bridal salon in and around Sydney over several months but couldn't find what she wanted, so she looked online. Apparently if you find a dress from the USA that you like then you can order it from the source online and get around a lot of international mark-up or something... sounds dodgey but there is a thriving industry out there.

Gillian saw a photo of a dress online that she decided was the one and she ordered it. A dress that she'd only seen two small photos of and that she'd not tried on. Yeah.... anyway... months go by. She's allowed herself plenty of leeway and so expected delivery in August in time for damage control if it was late. August same and went, as did September, October and November... she was climbing the walls as you can imagine! She revisited all the bridal salons, and also began trawling department stores and boutiques for cream evening gowns just in case.

Her dress arrived 2 weeks before Christmas... barely 4 weeks before the wedding. She had it delivered to work and half the girls in the department scurried into the ladies loo's with her to try it on... and... she hated it! Oh no! It was too tight, and too shiny, and too long, and too much train, and too creamy... She stuffed it into her bag and tried not to cry.

All turned out well though. Gillian managed to find a replacement evening gown within a couple of days which was lovely, and on the day nobody was the wiser.

Which brings us back to me... with all her dress shopping experience I figured Gillian was the perfect shopping buddy for my hunt!

We met up in the centre of Sydney, and after a quick Macca's to settle our respective hangovers we dived into the closest department store: Myers. This is a huge posh department store over 6 floors - ladies wear takes up a whole floor. Every designer has a patch, so you have to really hunt for things because they are not grouped by type. We drifted from one designer to another, examining evening gowns and picking up the occasional one to try, going quite fast because I knew this was going to take all day...

It took half an hour. I tried on two dresses and fell in love with the second!

Gillian and I looked at each other in disbelief - it couldn't possibly be this easy! But it was... then we went down a couple of levels and looked at shoes, and I bought the first pair I tried on as they were perfect.

10 minutes later we were sharing a bottle of wine over lunch laughing... now that's what I call a successful shopping trip!

Graph - January

Weight Graph January:

You can totally see when I set my wedding date on this graph! The blip at the end is Australia day long weekend...
-1kg for January, bring on February!

Weight Graph to Date:

I'm not sure I can call that a downward trend at the moment...