wedding

This much I know about marriage, five years in

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This much I know about marriage, five years onI know that being married to you is just like being in a long term relationship with you, except people don’t ask when we’re planning to get married any more, because we’ve already done it.

I know that choosing a lawyer for a husband is, on a practical level, the most useful selection I have ever made.

I know that when you told me that there’s no situation you can’t physically carry me away from, it’s the safest I have ever felt.

I know that you were lying when you said it was still true when I was heavily pregnant with our daughter, and it meant just as much.

I know that when they told us that the first year of marriage would be the hardest, they weren’t chuffing joking.

I know that we survived that year and all it threw at us – my panic disorder, our collective career-related nightmares – because we tackled it together.

I know that Japan will always hold a special place in our hearts because we went there during that time. We listened to Life’s a Happy Song from The Muppets soundtrack over and over again as we travelled around, because we’re super cool people, and because it gave us hope.

I know that marriage is about helping each other be the best we can be.

I know that you’re never going to be someone who puts a finished toilet roll straight into the recycling bin, and I accept that about you.

I know that I’m never going to be someone who lets a simple domestic foible go without writing about it on the Internet, and it’s good of you to accept that about me, too.

I know that having a baby has made me need you so much that it scares me.

I know we’ve been together for 13 years, but I still get excited when I receive a text from you.

I know that your idea of watching a film is pressing play and sitting still for two hours.

I know that my idea of watching a film is pressing play and then walking from room to room completing 897 domestic activities, and then sitting down and falling asleep.

I know that no matter what I’m going through, if I talk to you about it, I’ll feel better.

I know that marriage means knowing when to step up. When I had a panic attack at Heathrow airport on our way to Australia, you told me I could go home if I wanted to – even though you really didn’t want me to. And when, 12 hours later, we were stranded at Hong Kong airport and you were worried you wouldn’t make it to Sydney in time for work, I got us onto a flight. Because your feelings are valid, and so are mine.

I know that the love we feel for our daughter is unconditional and that our love for each other is not.

I know that realising this, and the shift we felt when this small human being took pole position in our lives, will only make us work harder at the marriage that brought her to us.

I know we’ve realised that it’s best for everyone that the period of time when a couple plans a wedding doesn’t go on forever.

I know that it’s not healthy for my entire sense of self-worth to come from the fact that you love me.

I know that I owe myself a lot more credit than that.

I know that, now that we have a baby, we have to help each other make time to be ourselves. To go to the gym, to see our friends, to write – making space in our lives to be who we are, is a two person job now.

I know that it was a privilege to crumble alongside you beneath the weight of responsibility we’d not quite prepared for on the day our daughter was born.

I know that we’re doing all we can to become the parents she deserves.

I know that if we believed in ourselves as much as we believe in each other, we wouldn’t have a single thing in this world to fear.

I know that during my speech on our wedding day I said that as long as we’re together everything will be OK.

I know that I was right about that.

Want to restore your faith in humanity? Go to a wedding

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20160625_132441I didn’t think I was going to write anything today.

Ever since the news came on Friday morning that Britain had voted to leave the EU, I’ve been wandering around my house like a lost soul. I’ve been behaving like I’ve just been dumped – stress-eating chocolate, staring at the wall whilst hot water runs over my head in the shower, and feeling like every song I hear on the radio is about it, in some way. The world seemed so topsy-turvy that I thought “Sod it” and bought a punnet of ripen-at-home nectarines, despite the practically built-in assumption that they won’t ripen, they’ll just stay rock hard for two weeks, soften for an hour, and then turn green. As luck would have it, they’ve actually come up lovely and now sit on my kitchen unit as a little symbol of hope.

I didn’t think I’d blog today because I was worried that my usual subject matter – relationships, confidence, and generally trying to get around without falling over – would seem too trivial at a time of such uncertainty. And then I went to a wedding and realised that just isn’t true.

I sat in a church yesterday and watched two lovely people get married. I went to their reception and listened as the people they love said wonderful things about them. I heard about guests who had travelled to be there, I saw people who didn’t know each other making friends, and I cried – like I always do – as the groom told a room full of people how much he loves his wife.

It’s hard not to feel optimistic in this kind of setting. Because relationships are everything. They’re how we learn to care about other people. They teach us how much luck is involved with how somebody comes to be the person that they are. And they help us realise that without compassion, love and understanding, we’re going to end up alone.

Everybody you see at a wedding wants the best for the bride and groom. That’s why they’re there. It’s why they’ve given up a whole day for it, why they’ve got dressed up smartly, and why, in many cases, they’ve decided to wear heels for 12 hours straight. You don’t do something like that lightly.

We’re all capable of doing amazing things for the people we love. We don’t think twice about it – they’re part of us so we give them our time, our ears, and, if we’re feeling particularly generous, perhaps even one of our Percy Pigs.

And in my view, the world works best when we want the best for other people too – even if they’re not on our Christmas card list, or from around here. When we’re able to look beyond the people in our immediate lives and see human faces that deserve just as much safety and joy as everybody else.

I’m deeply concerned that such a huge amount of the propaganda and rhetoric being shared of late has positioned certain people and areas of society as ‘other’, as a problem to be removed. No good has ever come of such a viewpoint and I’m startled to see it spreading so far and wide.

I’ve always said that I don’t use this blog to talk about politics but, really, politics is just about people – together we decide what kind of world we want to live in. I consider myself to be an observer of people. I notice stuff and I write it down. And what I’m seeing horrifies me. Usually there’s a bit of humour in it but I’m struggling to find any of this funny, except in its absurdity.

So maybe talking about relationships isn’t so trivial after all. Because without them, what are we? Just individual people, living our lives and not giving a damn about anybody else? I’m no expert but I don’t think that is going to work.

I’m nervous about what is to come, what the future has in store. But for now I will hold on tight to the optimism I felt at yesterday’s wedding, and to the knowledge that love and unity will always win over division.

Marriage, sometimes

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Sometimes he’ll accidentally throw a loo roll down the toilet and she won’t understand what…how did you… they’re so expens…just pop it in the bin.

Sometimes, a couple of days later, she’ll hurl a sock in the toilet instead of the laundry basket, and they’ll call it even.

Sometimes she’ll break her ‘no food in the bedroom’ rule and devour a whole bag of Maltesers on top of the duvet.

Sometimes he’ll find the empty red packet on the floor and resist the temptation to start a discussion about double standards.

Sometimes he’ll go out drinking so much ahead of her 30th birthday that he has to leave her party early to go home and nurse his aching throat.

Sometimes she’ll keep partying, force him out of bed at 3am to let her in the house, and they’ll call that even too.

Sometimes he’ll buy her a new fancy laptop to prove how much he believes in her writing (and to make her weekly exclamations of MY F***ING LAPTOP IS RUINING MY LIFE stop).

Sometimes she’ll cry when she remembers that he did that.

Sometimes she’ll fall asleep on the sofa until 4 o’clock in the morning, after promising she would go to bed in a minute.

Sometimes he’ll come downstairs to get her, and decide not to let the tirade of abuse that comes when he disturbs her hurt his feelings.

Sometimes she’ll get sunstroke, or food poisoning, or eat something that’s too ‘wheaty’ and turn into a quivering, vomiting, moany mess.

Sometimes he’ll use a VERY FIRM tone to tell her that if she doesn’t drink all of the water she needs to rehydrate then she’ll have to go to hospital (and then explain later that that’s just what he sounds like when he’s scared).

Sometimes he’ll show her a clip of a big kick or some good running that a rugby person did.

Sometimes she’ll make the right face to make him believe that she knows why she should be impressed.

Sometimes she’ll manage to figure out the answer to the 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown numbers game within the assigned 30 second period.

Sometimes he’ll look at her like she’s the cleverest person in the world.

Sometimes he’ll suggest going out for sushi instead of cooking food at home.

Sometimes she’ll think – this right here is exactly why I married you.

Sometimes he’ll look at her, panicked and say “I am in no way prepared for our anniversary tomorrow. I’m going into town and may be gone for some time.”

Sometimes she’ll look at him and think – it doesn’t matter. I’d still choose you.

Every single time.

Anniversaries: The more the merrier

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Anniversaries are good for you. I’m pretty sure any doctor would back me up.

Remembering the date on which nice things happened and taking the time to look back and say “Well, wasn’t that a good day” and having a cake or a pork pie to celebrate doesn’t do anybody any harm.

The only problem is that for those of us whose brains are unnecessarily good at remembering the exact date on which things take place, the anniversary calendar can get a little over populated.

I get that celebrating nine years since my husband and I first discovered that we both enjoy Jaffa Cakes does seem a little unnecessary but who doesn’t love an excuse to binge on a box of those? And why is it that Clinton Cards doesn’t sell “Happy first trip to IKEA together-aversary” cards? Now I come to think of it, it’s probably because most couples don’t make it past that point…

On Monday of last week, it was nine years since my husband said “Erm, so are you my girlfriend then?” and I – unaware that this would be the very (first and) last time that these words would ever be said to me replied “I guess I am”. A momentous occasion, I’m sure you’ll agree.

But now that we’re married and have a grown up wedding anniversary to celebrate (which was only a few weeks ago) this date has been removed from the ‘important dates on which we must leave the house and say nice things to each other’ calendar. I feel robbed.

But I get why it’s gone. Two anniversaries in a month is a lot of admin for one couple to take on, a lot of restaurants to book, a lot of cards to write, a lot of champagne infused burps to hold back. So we’ve agreed to go all out each year for the wedding one, and just to high five to mark the other. (And if I want to open a bottle of bubbles just for me then that’s my decision *stumbles*).

People’s memories work in different ways. Some remember things by smell or by taste or by the music that was playing, and I remember things according to the precise date and time at which they happened. It’s just unfortunate that my way makes me sound like a stalker.

And it’s not just limited to relationship stuff either. I happen to know that this week marks ten years since my now best friend and I became chums. I can’t send her a card for that because she will think that I am insane. Similarly, it is a fact that on my birthday it was 29 years since I first met my mum. Why am I the only one who gets a present? She really did put all the effort into the occasion.

And let’s not forget that the more anniversaries you celebrate the more excuses you have to eat and drink whatever you like. Fancy throwing down a full bag of Percy Pigs? Well, why not, it is two years since you and your boyfriend realised that they are far superior to Fizzy Pig Tails. Feel the need to consume an entire block of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut? Well, with it being six months since you had to explain to your other half that although, yes, the sofa is brown leather, melted chocolate does still show up on it, I’d say you deserve it.

Life is tiring and complicated and involves far too few holidays for my liking, so we’ve got to find fun wherever we can. So if there happens to be a date in the diary that gives you an excuse to send a card or an email or affectionate thumbs up to somebody you’re pleased to know then I say take it.

You’re basically giving another human being an excuse to go out and buy themselves a cake and how could that ever be a bad thing?

How’s married life? Exactly the same.

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Charlotte and Leon 2013_ Ceremony Photograph _68Aside from “When are you going to have a baby?”, “Are you pregnant yet?” and “Will you name your firstborn after me?”, “How’s married life?” is the question I get asked most frequently.

I don’t know what people think will happen when you get married but, in my case at least, it hasn’t changed anything at all. Sure, I got a new surname and now spend most of the day trying to remember what I’m called, and I had a ring put on my finger that has to stay there forever or the world with explode (or something like that) but otherwise things are just as they were before.

But that’s a good thing. And here’s why:

1. That’s why you got married in the first place
Getting married means: I want to be with you as I know you for the rest of my life. It doesn’t mean: marry me and then immediately change into somebody else to help keep things interesting. The fact that you get to spend your life with somebody exactly as you find them (with perhaps just a few small wardrobe improvements) is one of the main reasons marriage is so popular. There’s that, the fact that you no longer have to pretend to like nightclubs, and knowing that there will always be someone there to help you take the bin out.

2. You’ll face enough change together as it is 
Life is full of surprises – some of them good, such as the release of Cadbury’s Pebbles (have you tried them? They’re delicious) and some of them bad, like when Coronation Street gets cancelled because of sport. But that’s OK because whatever comes up, you’ll take it on as a duo, so the least you can do is remain the one consistent thing in each other’s lives. If you got married, changed into different people and then ITV altered its television schedule, do you really think you could handle it?

3. If you were going to change you’d have done it by now  
Remember all those hours you put in at the start of the relationship? The showers, the shaving, the pretending to be up for watching Transformers when you’d have preferred to just stare at the cinema ticket for two hours instead? Couldn’t keep that up for too long, could you? No, after a few months you settled into being real people – with opinions that differ! And bad habits you refuse to change! Like his inexplicable love for leaving boxer shorts in the middle of the bathroom floor Every. Single. Morning! And if you thought marriage was going to change any of that, I’m afraid that you were mistaken. Marriage changes nothing, it just means there will be somebody there to comment on all of your faults for the rest of your life.

4. It’s OK that you don‘t have any news 
You have to accept that from the moment you said ‘I do’, you became the least interesting people in the world. Whilst the engagement is all “Oh my god!” and “How did he do it?!” and “How many strippers do you want on your hen do?”, your marriage will only spark a reaction if you co-create a human or start asking your friends to put their keys in a bowl when they arrive at your house for a dinner party. So it’s best to just take advantage of those first few months – sit back, relax and enjoy being out of the limelight. And if the only news you have to share is that you’ve started watching Modern Family or that you’ve discovered that ten is the optimum number of marshmallows to have with a hot chocolate, then so be it.

So if you want to have an interesting conversation with a newly-wed, don’t ask them what married life’s like, ask them what’s good on telly at the moment or what snacks they can recommend – they’ll have so much more to say. And if you think you can see a bump forming around her middle, I recommend checking the bin for sweet wrappers before putting yourself forward as a namesake.

10 things that should not happen during your first three months of marriage

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10 things that should not happen during your first three months of marriage1. You get a sore throat that makes your voice deeper than his.

2. You get new blinds. Because when people ask what’s new with you, the answer is that you got new blinds. Nobody cares about your blinds.

3. You discover that one of the walls in your flat is riddled with damp and that you’re going to have to rip out your entire kitchen to fix it. Some of the dust might get on the blinds.

4. You find a wall of mould behind your wardrobe, that all your clothes are covered in mould and that if you’d just opened the chuffing window every once in a while this never would have happened.

5. You discuss the damp and mould situation over email and text message. I understand some people are into sexting; the only photographs we’ve sent each other recently are of dehumidifiers.

6. You spend more time speaking to British Gas about your temperamental boiler than to each other.

7. You fail to notice that your prescription for The Pill is running out, have to spend a week without it, and turn into an, albeit short-term, psychopath.

8. You develop a daily craving for boiled eggs and soldiers and start every post-work conversation with an update on the gooey-ness of that morning’s breakfast. He is not interested.

9. You get a water bill. Nobody deserves a water bill.

10. You’re forced to say “Well, thank goodness the wedding is over!” when you discover how much cash you have to spend on all of the above. Eggs don’t come cheap, you know.

What a bride is really thinking two weeks before her wedding

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IMG_27461. Is it ok to watch TV when you get back to your hotel room on your wedding night?

2. I wonder if I can get away with putting a label that says ‘Don’t eat any of the red ones’ on the sweets table.

3. Will I have time to watch the Coronation Street omnibus while I’m getting ready?

4. The honeymoon will be the perfect opportunity to grow my over-plucked eyebrows back.

5. If only you could legitimately put DVD box sets on a wedding list.

6. I’m so glad I didn’t get a wedding dress that meant I had to reduce my cheese consumption.

7. I can’t wait to let the power that comes with wearing a wedding dress go straight to my head.

8. I hope nobody tries to make friends with us on our honeymoon.

9. Bank balance-wise, eloping would have been a much better choice.

10. The plus-side to the wedding being over is that I’ll have more ambitious things on my to-do list than ‘Find tongs small enough to pick a marshmallow out of a jar’.

11. Having so much time off emptying the dishwasher should not be the most exciting thing about going on a honeymoon. And yet it is.

Honeymoon booking: The curse of the online review

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IMG_2897We’re planning our honeymoon.

With the trials and tribulations of deciding how many sausages to allocate each guest at the wedding day barbecue, and which hairdresser is resilient enough to take on my mane, the promise of a massive holiday is doing wonders for morale.

We’re going to Bali. It’s very far away, so any unpaid wedding suppliers will have to really want their cash to travel for 17 hours to get it; it promises to be sunny, otherwise I’ll demand my money back; and, as far as I know, the Northern Line doesn’t run that far, and I could really do with a break from it.

Now that we’ve booked the flights, we need to choose where to stay. And, thanks to the internet, we can peruse every hotel, beach and bathroom Bali has to offer from the comfort of our lounge. But, like it or not, we can also see what every joker with an internet connection has to say about it.

Most of the time, reviews are very useful. I want to hear from real people whether a hotel’s sheets were clean and the doors were on their hinges, or if they would sooner sleep under a bridge than stay there again, but there are some details that should be left on the plane.

And so, I’ve put together a list of questions wannabe reviewers should ask themselves before they start typing, to save future holidaymakers some time…

1) Have you actually stayed at the hotel in question?
Now, one would assume this was an obvious requirement but apparently not. When investigating why a hotel we were considering was deemed ‘terrible’ by a reviewer, we discovered it was because they had ‘popped in for an evening drink and been very disappointed with the fruit cocktails which did not contain anywhere near enough tequila!’ Firstly, unless you checked in and spent a night there, I don’t want to hear from you. And secondly, maybe just ask for a bit more Tequila…?

2) Did you check a map before you booked?
You have nobody but yourself to blame if you are disappointed at the proximity of your hotel to the sights. Yes, I know you should be able to trust the words the hotel (whose main aim in life is to get your cash) wrote on their website, but if you didn’t take a millisecond to google the place and do a bit of measuring, then you deserve to be a 15 minute walk from the beach (instead of the advertised seven).

3) Would you have preferred to spend your holiday at home?
It seems that some people just go on holiday to be frustrated at how much harder it is to live their lives exactly as they do at home, abroad.
“The selection of TV channels was ludicrous! There was only news and foreign programmes I couldn’t understand!”
“It took 10 MINUTES to log onto the hotel Wi-Fi. Margaret and I were spitting feathers!”
One would hope that having paid to fly to the other side of the world, you could find something better to do than tweet your disappointment at not being able to watch QI repeats on Dave, but if not, I’m not sure it’s grounds for a one star rating.
If you’re on a business trip then I understand – you need your screens – but otherwise a couple of weeks without the internet will be good for you. Especially if you’re just going to use it to write a review about how long it took you to log on.

4) Did you converse with any human beings?
I appreciate that if the mattress was made of glass, the food saw you bedridden for three days, or the receptionist told you to bugger off on arrival, then a bad review is justified. But if you just didn’t bother to speak up when simple things that could have been resolved annoyed you, just so that you could write a bitchin’ review when you got home, I don’t want to hear about it. Yes, it is frustrating when hotels don’t telepathically work out that you’d like a second towel for your sun lounger, or that your toilet roll has run out in the middle of the night, but if they’ve got a nice pool, are near the sea, and have a healthy approach to cleanliness, I’m probably still going to consider staying there.

And so, after we’d filtered through the good, the bad and the shouldn’t-ever-be-allowed-near-a-computer-again of the online review world, we made a selection. For the first five nights of our trip, we will be staying in a hotel that, according to TripAdvisor, 664 people think is Excellent/Very good, and that 39 people think is Terrible/Poor.

I can only hope that the majority is right. Otherwise, the internet will be hearing from me.