Well what a lot has happened since I last wrote! Our weekend in Wales went phenomenally well, though it feels like a very long time ago now. The visit overlapped with Giddy Great Aunt Maureen’s stay as well as Bruno & Julia’s week in Wales so we thought well what the hell, we’ll invite Will up too and make it a party! We ended up with a house-full of absurd proportions, it was bound to be jolly with FOURTEEN of us there but was made doubly so by the success of our visit to Fronfraith Hall..
The whole aim of our trip to Wales had been to check it out as a potential Wedding venue for Jess & Ben; they had high hopes and so we were a little nervous that it should all go well, though of course we needn’t have been. The House is incredibly beautiful and John & Laura went down a storm too – what a wonderful Wedding it will be! If ever you fancy a trip to Wales you can book their West Wing as a Holiday let here, it is just magical. We spent the evening celebrating in the sunshine with Pimms and prosecco, a very merry evening indeed. On top of all that fun mum has a very sweet duckling at the moment named Standidge who is partial to a little toe nibbling as you can see.
Almost immediately after returning from Wales I managed to poison myself! I had delicious salmon cooked very rare which should be perfectly safe but for some reason it wasn’t. I woke up the next morning shivering uncontrollably with terrible stomach cramps and a fever, the fever wore off pretty quickly but I was really quite ill and it lasted ALL WEEK! Really deeply unpleasant, I couldn’t eat without an immediate trip to the toilet, not that I had any inclination to eat most of the time. That Thursday was the day I was due to go help with preparations for Hannah’s Wedding and ill or no I was not going to miss it! By that stage I felt fine just so long as I only drank water and ate crackers so that is what I did for the most part. Every time I was tempted to try something else there were serious repercussions! Right up to waking up at 2am on the morning of the Wedding! However it was such an incredibly fun couple of days that I couldn’t care less and miraculously Hannah’s mum and our friend Beth produced some sort of magic drugs at the final hour so that throughout the actual Wedding day itself so I was able to eat and drink and be merry to my hearts content! Good thing too because IT WAS AMAZING! I’ve never cried so much for all the right reasons, I can quite honestly say that other than my own Wedding day it was the most wonderful day of my life, I still get a little emotional thinking about it. Don’t they look gorgeous.
The next weekend we finally made the trip down to see Paul and Johanna! We’ve wanted to for ages and managed to pick the best day – the sun was shining, Etchingham was at it’s most beautiful and Sara came too which was a lovely surprise! We bought a picnic and feasted until we were stuffed before going for a walk to the next village for a pint. Nick and Paul (as I may have mentioned previously) share an enthusiasm for war planes and so it was a fantastic coincidence when half an hour after talking planes we heard a distant roaring and along came a Dakota DC3 right over our heads!
This weekend just gone we had a masquerade engagement party to go to for our wonderful friends Phil & Judith so we spent the week making and painting two animal masks using templates design by the brilliant Steve Wintercroft, so easy and so beautiful.
The masks went down a storm and the party itself was phenomenal – in fact it was so good that we didn’t leave until the next afternoon! even then it was hard to tear ourselves away.
Flora Nancy Paterson 