Vintage family

These are the wedding outfits, one dress suit made (by me) for a wedding in 2007 and one (by mother) for a wedding in the 1960s! (Luckily Youngest has no pre-conceived ideas about Crimplene.) A beautiful, intimate late afternoon and evening affair the wedding was a privilege to attend.

I have no pictures for the Church Fete. The weather, which had been promised to be fair all week, was in fact chilly and overcast, but luckily people turned out in goodly numbers and it remained dry such that we sold out of food and booze and a jolly good time was had by all. I maintain that this is a village party first and a church fund raiser second, but it was pleasing to make the second best grand total to date.

“I don’t realise how much I miss you guys until I see you,” said Eldest as we shared a picnic on Saturday evening. Husband and I travelled to Oxford to attend the last night of a play performed in the grounds of Worcester College – on their lake! – for which Eldest was Stage Manager. She is thoroughly engaged in life at university, but in Maths and backstage management – not parties and boys! She might be home in September, and will manage a few days of the family holiday in France, but is otherwise engaged over the summer with a university production that they are taking to the Edinburgh Fringe…

We are happy that she is happy, but, may I say to those of you who have yet to get to this stage, it comes as something of a shock that your offspring have other things to do and you are pretty much irrelevant! Make the most of the time you have with them because it flies by. As my mother remarked: “And…?!”

Twenty and happy

I have been married twenty years today. We met in April the year before and became pretty much inseparable (circumstances allowing). We had a couple of years living in different counties for work purposes so started up with a fairly even distribution of household chores and breadwinning. There is certainly an argument to be made for us both continuing to work. We’d probably have been materially richer, but we would have needed major childcare help and would have spent a greater part of our married life apart.

We lead a quiet, homey sort of life that suits us. We discovered early on that neither of us was good at a fight: we both sulk in a childish fashion. So while we have our disagreements we are usually able to see one another’s viewpoint and come to a compromise of some sort. (Our most famous row took place whilst driving down the M1 as to the pros and cons of Radio 1 versus Radio 3 – pop vs. classical for those of you without access – which resulted in us listening to Radio 4 (talk in many varieties). Husband still tunes into 3 when not listening to 5 Sport, but 4 is my permanent companion.)
When we met we earned similar salaries and had similar ambitions – I had intended to remain a career girl and had little interest in children. But I chose a guy in the Army, and I had picked an industry that was going to struggle to allow for the amount of movement we would have to tolerate for Husband’s career, and we both wanted children. As you know I am a hausfrau! It wasn’t what I planned, but both Mother and Grandmother set a fine example of supportive, fulfilled wife.
It can be a tough job! It can be lonely, you can feel unappreciated, particularly by your children, and the simple fact of the repetitive, never-endingness of housework can be tedious, BUT… I know that Husband could not get through life without me, that the girls are capable when necessary and present a polite and charming face to the world (and we love each other most of the time), and that housework can always wait - so long as there are clean clothes somewhere, and food in the fridge!


So, today I have flowers and a card, Husband will make scrambled eggs with smoked salmon for supper, there is a bottle of champagne in the fridge, the girls will eat pizza, and I’m off to find a recipe for some sort of puddingy chocolate cake that we can all enjoy. It might take me all day, or I might make some more marmalade, or play with my upholstery, or curl up with my wedding album; and I will do almost no chores!

Invitation

My brother says he won’t come to our cousin’s wedding because his children aren’t invited: isn’t part of the marriage service about the procreation of children, so why would you exclude them? (He was in full grumpy old man mode.)

Of course, they’re not excluded. Cousin’s nephew and niece are certainly attending, and there may well be others, but can he really be expected to include his six first cousins their 5 spouses and their 10 children? By not inviting the children, but inviting his uncles and aunts he has also removed the obvious child carers, Granny, and reduced at a stroke the number of guests needing entertaining. I am torn between the waste of an occasion when we can’t get the next generation together and my understanding of the need to keep the numbers down.
When we got married there were few children around (and some of them were my first cousins!) so they came, or didn’t, according to their parents. But I’m as guilty as the next woman of thinking hard who to invite to occasions… 'though I tend to include the children and restrict the invitations accordingly. More children mean fewer adults! I’d have been disappointed not to be asked at all, but when your parent is one of 4, and their mother was one of 5 you will understand that there is a large extended family out there!
So no outfits needed for my girls, and I’ve remodelled the dress I wore to the last wedding we went to (a very intimate affair that included the children of the people who attended), don’t know what to do about a hat. Now I like a hat but haven’t one to go with this outfit. Do I shop or go without? If it’s going to rain I’m better off without, and the high heels in a marquee may be a mistake.