honeymoon

image: weheartit

We have now pretty much finished booking our honeymoon. Earlier in the year, when we were going round in ever decreasing circles on where to go, we were offered a friends house in the south of France, so that formed the basis of the trip. we really wanted to do a honeymoon from a couple of bases, so we also booked a tiny flat in Paris for 5 nights at the end of the trip, and because the ash cloud happened soon after, we also decided to do ALL the travelling by train.

This next bit isn't intended as a boast, I just found out quite a bit about train travel while booking all of this, found some useful links and whatnot, and thought someone else might benefit from it too. If you have no interest, or have done this before, I suggest you turn off now.

We've managed to get tickets to London (from Carlisle) for £14 each. This is super cheap, believe me. We are a long way away from you Londonites, and has really made me think about overnight trips down to the big smoke as a reality rather than a dream. Anyway, I knew you could get cheap trail travel in advance, but I didn't realise it was that cheap. All train tickets are released at 3 months out from the travel date (except Eurostar, which is 4 months) and at 2 months out, UK travel prices suddenly drop enormously, and build up again as people buy them. so buy at 8 weeks out, and you can apparently travel most of the length of the country for a pittance.

I used thetrainline for this.

We are staying overnight in the premier inn next to Euston, and then leaving early the next morning on Eurostar, changing in Lille, and getting the TGV down the country to Montpellier. I have no idea when I booked them, but I got tickets for about £68 each all the way from London to Montpellier. the Eurostar website will book through journeys for you, even on into other countries, and I would heartily recommend their call centre, I have spoken to them several times and they have been nothing but helpful to me (especially Gary, but that's another story!)

For the return leg, we've booked the TGV up to Paris, which you can book on Raileurope it was only an extra £10 per person to go 1st class, so we booked that!

I think I left the return Eurostars a little late, as they were £60 each, but we are also travelling back on a Saturday, s that may have something to do with it. It was cheaper in the afternoon, and I thought we would have to stay over again in Londres, but there was a connecting train again for £14 each, which gets us home by 8pm.

With Eurostar you can even choose what seat you have, which is a really great option I think, although mine did get cancelled on the 3rd phone call to them about the return Journey, but its my fault really for not knowing my own age, and booking myself as a youth in the first place. ho, hum. That's where Gary came in, he was, as R called him, a hero.

If you are thinking about a holiday involving trains, I would really recommend going here, its a bit convoluted at times, but extremely thorough information on rail travel throughout Europe.

And no, we are not train spotters, just 6' foot tall people who think that planes should have more legroom, and we rather like the idea of being able to see landscape rushing past us all the way through France. Now I have to just limit what I take enough that I can bring tons back!

absence.

Sorry I've been away lovelies, life got in the way for a while. In fact, it still is really, but I wanted to tell you that I'm still alive. Huzzah, I hear you cry!


We are now split between two houses, with the i- laws spare room taken over by boxes of our things, and the flat we are still currently in is well, awful. There are piles of things everywhere, more sofas than I care to imagine, and I can only comfort myself with the fact that many of the cupboards are actually empty, so there isn't too much hidden stuff to pack.


I'm not sure that I've done much wedding stuff recently, since the invitations went out its been rather quiet on the western front, which has given me some time to pack and sort the house out without feeling too pressured by the impending nuptials. I have however, felt slightly concerned by the wedding playlists, which until now, have not been started.Please, if you did this, and it took ages, don't tell me. I have two months, and as we speak, songs are going into my itunes. We were held up by the fact that although we have 3 computers in the house, I didn't have one I could start making them on.

1 is ancient, and although its what I currently run our ipods from, it takes about half an hour to import a CD into itunes on there.
2 is actually James business computer, so I didn't want to put our entire music collection onto that,
and 3, the laptop which I use most of the time was in computer hospital with the best man until the other day. it is now, very much alive and kicking, upgraded to windows 7, and some extra ram is on its way, so I'm importing every CD we own. I may yet regret it.


I did however, have quite an eventful dress appt the other week, which resulted in a quick cancellation of the original order (quite within the rules if it hasn't been started, and no deposit lost because lovely dress lady kept refusing to take one off me) and she's selling me the sample one instead. at a rather nicely reduced cost :) I am aware that in ethical terms this probably makes me somewhat hypocritical, since I was dead set on having a dress made from organic silk, but given the saving, I think I would be possibly the MOST awful daughter ever to walk the earth if I had still asked my Mum to pay the original amount. (to her credit, she did not try to sway me one way or the other, she just kept playing with the dress ladies 5month old daughter who was sitting on her lap.) Fine, if I was paying it myself, I would feel free to choose which I wanted the most, but for one day, I think I would still be hard pressed to choose to have a new dress made, when I can in some way, recycle the ready made one.


She's also making a toile of the jacket shes making me, and I'm going back soon to try that on, its going to be 3 quarter length sleeves, with a slight pouf at the ends, a crumply sort of collar and an inverted pleat at the back so that I have plenty extra material to hug with!


I've got nearly all the bridesmaids jewellery presents now, so I'll pop all of that up when I have enough money to buy the last piece,and my Mum gets her fascinator tomorrow which was being made for her by the lovely Sara Gadd. The jam jar collection is going well, I'm into the 20's now, and I discovered the other day that the person we got all those plums from last year has been hoarding 5 bags for me in her freezer for a year now, which I apparently knew about, so I won't hardly need to buy any plums to make the jam either, which is a bonus!


I still need to make the bridesmaids clutch bags (procrastination, much?) clean the slate, cut the corks so that they will hold place names, wait til the vicars back to confirm readings and hymns and then make orders of service, and go to the venue and choose a menu and then print said menus. oh, and make pocket squares for the men, a cake topper, sort out the church flowers (all change since health and safety said nothing on the frigging windowledges, and we can't get in the church to look around on a weekday since all the people are on holiday)I'm sure there's plenty else I haven't yet done, but I won't dwell on that!


Surprisingly I feel quite calm, even after writing that massive list, presumably because
a) the house move is more pressing
and
b) if I don't do any of those, no-one will care, or probably even notice.
Its only me that will know, and that's why I'm still intending to do them, because I know I will be really satisfied with myself if I do. Because while getting married really has nothing to do with what your bouquet is tied up with, and where the flowers are, I know that completing a set of tasks, and learning new skills gives me a sense of accomplishment that I will carry with me, and will give me more confidence with other tasks in the future. And to me that's worth something.