A few more little details

My bouquet was a beautiful mix of hydrangea (my favourite) and vintage roses - none of which I know the name of - but ask Miss Pickering she'll be able to tell you. The bridesmaids carried big pink hydrangea heads.



The aisle of our outside ceremony was lined with Bonne Maman jars filled with flowers and herbs. A big thanks to freecycle, the ladies of Rutland, Miss Simkins and anyone else who forced themselves to eat Bonne Maman for the cause. We'd planned for them to be tied to the chairs with pink ribbon - a la the photograph - but unfortunately the gale force winds meant that they sat elegantly on the grass instead, looking equally as beautiful.



The tea and cake stall was covered in vintage tea cups sourced by the Mother of the Bride from the local charity shop. There is now a similar picture adorning the walls of the shop and the ladies who run it are beside themselves with excitement. Everyone seems to have their favourite tea set and the Mother of the Bride is willing to barter. The cakes were all homemade by the Mother of the Bride, the maid of honour, myself, Miss Jones and Mrs Medd. People are still talking about the brownies and the carrot cake.



I arrived in style in a Morris Minor convertible - driven by my Daddy because we both get awfully car sick and couldn't bear the thought of being driven by anyone else. It's a good job really because I was so nervous that I was very nearly sick twice on the way there anyway. We drove over the field right up the the ceremony site.....

The details

I will resume with the honeymoon tales at some point - once I've had time to sift through the pics of lions, giraffes and Kudu. But I thought I might share a few wedding details with those of you who sadly couldn't make it. These pictures are courtesy of the lovely Miss P - we are still awaiting for the proper professional ones - but I have to say that I think these are rather fabulous.

I wanted our wedding to be very personal, not just a generic "wedding" the same as everyone else's. It was a lot of work, but it was completely worth it. I couldn't have done it without the help of my family and the patience and indulgence of Mr Jones - who was happy to let me run with my dreams - so thank you all.


The theme was country village fete - the bunting was hand made by the mother of the bride and the maid of honour.


The table cloths were made by me. The sweetie jar table centres were Mr Jones'idea.


The gallery of pictures was the work of me and Mr Jones.


The scones were baked on the morning of the wedding and served with jam I made myself - there were fresh strawberries too.





There were fete games to keep our guests entertained - some made by Mr Jones (I was very impressed by the pink ladder he made for the bean bag toss - not pictured. I made the bean bags - all different weights which apparently made it extra tricky - ooops). The signs were handmade by me and the very skilled maid of honour (based on her design for my hen do sash) - you should see her with an iron and some wonderweb!





It was all topped off with flowers by Miss Pickering.

Interrupted by daily life

Our reminiscences of the warm hazy days of the honeymoon have been rudely interrupted by the reality of everyday life. You see Miss Penny has broken two of her toes.

It is quite her own fault - apt as she is to nosiness, she was sat on the front doormat watching Mr Jones tinker about with his new Prius. Please note - it's a company car - I know we shop in Waitrose and live in Stamford, have a Dualit toaster (four slices Mr Swift), a Kitchenaid Mixer, buy organic veg and have a weakness for all things Boden - but even we aren't soooooo "wanky" that we'd actually buy a prius for ourselves - especially in white.

Anyway - she was watching Mr Jones trying to workout how to actually drive the thing, when a gust of wing caught the front door and slammed it shut on her paw. She disappeared for about 30 minutes and then came hobbling home.

Had it been Mr Jeremy's paw in the door there would have been scenes of dramatic proportions, an ambulance would have had to be called and the attention of the neighbours alerted by a cacophony of pained yowling. Miss Penny (being a girl) was dignified in her pain and said she'd rather "see how it was in the morning" rather than put anyone out.

On Friday, after a general anaesthetic, an xray and some pain killers she was returned to me with a pink bandaged leg and strict instructions that she should be caged for six whole weeks. Neither of us are amused.

By Saturday morning she was out of the cage but under room arrest. She'd learnt far too quickly to smack her pink club foot on the bars to make her demands for freedom all the more pressing. She sleeps a lot but in her waking hours likes to vocally and visually remind us that it really isn't on to shut her in one room - evil eyes, manacing scowls and piercing, screeching yowls.

Today we've been back to the vets. The bandage on her leg is now blue and room arrest has been approved. So far the bill stands at £203 - we do not have pet insurance and we have to take her back every three days for a bandage change. The boiler is also having issues and a plumber needs to be called. The honeymoon is most definitely over.

The Honeymoon - Day 4 - Bye Bye Cape Town

We spend the day wondering the streets of Cape Town. There have been a lot of warnings about walking about,and perhaps we're naive, but we feel pretty safe and don't feel at all threatened on the main streets. The people are really friendly - telling Mr Jones he should take pictures of me instead of trees and advising us to visit various museums (which we don't do out of sheer laziness).



We walk through the city gardens and visit the castle. Mr Jones tells me off for constantly paparazzi-ing everything - including him. We annoy market stall holders by looking and not buying and then have lunch.



As it's our honeymoon we decide that it's perfectly permissible to take an afternoon nap and read books until dinner time - so we do. Dinner (always my favourite part of the day) is at Beismillah a Cape Malay restaurant that specialises in Malay curries.

It's in all the guidebooks so when we arrive we're slightly surprised at the decor. This is not your usual touristy restaurant. The carpet on the floor looks like it came from someones lounge in 1968 and the ceiling is clad in some kind of shiny corrugated metal-look plastic. The seats are covered in the fabric you find on coaches and there are plastic mats on the tables. It smells good though and there are a few tables reassuringly full of locals.

Trevor - again our driver (today he is buying a new flat from which to run a new business and house his grandchildren) had recommended the Chicken Curry - so I have that and Mr Jones has a mutton version (I thought it smelt like wet dog - but he said it was tasty). The menu invited us to eat with our hands and I was all for it, but much to the delight of Mr Jones they gave us knives and forks - clearly thinking we'd make too much mess. So we stuffed down our curries and knocked back a mango lassi each. We ordered pudding - some kind of cakey thing with custard which was lovely, until I reached the tapioca at the bottom and the frog spawn texture put me off.

The Honeymoon - Day 3 - Wine Tour

When on holiday in general (and honeymoon in particular)I try my very hardest not to speak to other holiday makers. I live in constant fear of being hunted down by "that" couple who find their own company so dull that they need to seek out yours at every possible opportunity. As a very strict rule I like to avoid any situation in which I might bump into these types - so we opt for a private wine tour. Instead of being herded into a bus load of tourists at 8am we're picked up by our guide Nicolette at a very civilised 10 o'clock and driven to Stellenbosch.



We spend the day sipping white wines and feeling guilty about not really liking any of them. We have a delicious lunch at Le Petite Ferme a vineyard in Franschhoek (a Malay curry for Mr Jones and a local Blue Cheese Risotto for me - washed down with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc). We spend the meal mocking the pathetic American couple who look like a dark haired version of Barbie and Ken, but whinge about it being cold and order Spag Bol off the kids menu and glass of coke (why fly to Africa if you're going to eat Spag Bol?????)



On our way to and from Cape Town we drive past the Townships. Where the majority of the black and coloured people of Cape Town live. You can go on organised trips to see these towns, but personally I don't think much of poverty tourism. If you want to see that sort of place I think you should see it while volunteering to help rather than gorping through a mini bus window as if you're at the zoo.

I ask Nicolette if unemployment is high in these areas and what the government is doing to help. She explains that actually the majority of the people in the townships have jobs and many earn decent money. A lot of them could afford to move out of the shanty towns and into a nicer area, but they choose not to.

They prefer to live in their shacks which (unlike in other areas of Africa) have electricity supplies and fresh water. They hook their flat screen tvs up to pirate sky, have the latest mobile phones and drive fancy cars. They see little point in moving to a so called "nicer area" because then they'd have to pay taxes and leave all their friends behind.

I'd been wrestling with my conscience about the townships. Trying to decide whether to feel guilty or not. I decide not. I have yet to see a miserable looking black or coloured person. I'm sure there are many exceptions to the rule - but the majority of the people we meet have jobs and seem to enjoy their life. They don't seem to care about fancy houses in nice areas surrounded by white folk - they want to be in their communities and to not pay their taxes. Fair enough (or not fair - if you're paying for their electicity supply!)

The Honeymoon - Day 2 - The Best Day

You'll remember that I mentioned that I had a hankering for horse riding on the beach. Well the maid of honour kindly donated a romantic beach ride to us as a wedding present - much to my delight and Mr Jones' consternation.

We chose to ride in Noordhoek - a rural(ish) area of Cape Town just down the coast. On the map it looked a short ride along a coast road and up a twisty bit in the mountains. But unfortunately the "twisty" bit has been open for just six months in the last 10 years because the local government is worried about being sued for falling rocks. So it took us an hour to drive round the base of Table Mountain instead.

Our taxi driver for the day was Trevor. He was Cape Malay and practically incomprehensible unless you concentrated really hard. He was chatty though and as well as being a taxi driver has in past lives been a wine delivery man, an undertaker, a wedding photographer (self taught and very scathing of our digital camera), grandfather and future entreprenuer.

Mr Jones asked him if being a taxi driver kept him busy. Not bad he replied. Especially last week when one of his colleagues was off sick and the other one got hijacked.

Mr Jones and I share a swift wide eyed glance and I ask if hijacking is common in Cape Town. Every now and again - but I've never been - is the answer. I lock my door and add "never been hijacked" to his list of accomplishments.

We arrive at Imhoff Farm at 11am - our ride is at 4pm but the hotel have assured us that there his plenty to do. The majority of the plenty is a Reptile Park - which clearly didn't go down well with me. After looking round the deli, craft shops and sussing out the stables it's 11.50am.

We decide to have lunch and settle ourselves down on the veranda of the restaurant - where we stay gazing at the view and chatting for the next four hours. We decide that we want to live right here forever in one of the massive houses with moutains in the back yard and a beach out the front.



Wrapped up in jumpers (It's winter in Cape Town) we head for the stables and Mr Jones tells me off when I sign the insurance form with "Speechley". I realise that I don't have a "Jones" signature. We saddle up and head out - just us and the two stable girls.



I immediately ask if we can go faster. Mr Jones says he's up for it so once we hit the beach we trot. Mr Jones bounces around a lot with a weird wincing expression on his face. We stop and the girls assure him that if he feels brave enough to canter it'll be far more comfortable. I nod in agreement and we set off. I turn back to see Mr Jones' eyes bulging out of the sockets and he begs to stop - citing a possible cessation of the Jones family tree if he's forced to continue.



Kindly he tells me to go for it - so I do - for two glorious kilometres of white sandy shoreline. All thoughts of psycho thoroughbreds and nasty falls clear from my mind as I canter along in the sunset, a huge grin plastered across my face.



I trot back to Mr Jones who points out a whale swimming just off the coast. "You don't get that in Skeggy," he says.

That evening - after another informative ride with our friend Trevor and a close call with a baboon on the road (apparently not an unusual sight and not normally met with squeals of delight from passengers - me!), we head out for dinner at The Codfather in Camps Bay for sushi, the freshest caught-today fish and the hugest prawns either of us have ever seen. A perfect end to a perfect day.

The Honeymoon - Day 1 - Cape Town

BA have gone all technical so unless you have the power to hack into their computer systems getting an upgrade to first class because it's your honeymoon is nigh on impossible. Mr Jones assures me that his computer skills don't including hacking so I make do with economy.

However we clearly look like we're on honeymoon (perhaps it's my haggard 'I've been planning a wedding and haven't slept for a week' look - or the fact that Mr Jones keeps calling me 'wife'.), because the air hostess asks us if we're going on holiday (why else would we be on the plane?) and when we grin inanely at her and say we're on our honeymoon she reappears about five minutes later with two glasses of champagne. I chase this down with a G&T and two sleeping pills and the next thing I know we're landing in Cape Town - marvellous.

We're picked up by Kurt - who is Cape Dutch - he looks just like you'd imagine someone called Kurt to look. His South African accent has a very Dutch twang and I feel almost put out by the fact that he isn't wearing clogs.

Now, I will confess to a pretty hefty preoccupation with the weather, but I have nothing, absolutely nothing, on the Capetonians. Kurt immediately insists that today is the day we should go up Table Mountain because it's cool, clear and sunny with very few clouds.

When we reach the lovely Cape Cagoden Hotel the receptionist tells us that we should go up Table Mountain because it's cool, clear and sunny with very few clouds and because yesterday it was misty. We warm ourselves by the open fire (it's winter in South Africa at the moment) and then check into our room (all very nice).

We decide that we will indeed go up the mountain and we call a cab. When we tell the cabby where we're going he tells us that it's a brilliant idea because the weather is cool, clear and sunny with very few clouds, that it was misty yesterday and they had to close the cable car and because he hears there is a 60 per cent chance that it may rain tomorrow.



I'm all for walking up the mountain but Mr Jones (who doesn't believe in Gin with sleeping pill chasers) says he's too tired and flatly refuses. I feel we're missing out on part of the experience - until half way up in the cable car I see two tiny, weeny looking people, staggering up what looks like a giant staircase - I realise that actually the mountain is probably bigger than it looks.



At the top we indulge ourselves in a burger with wedges each - the wedding is over let the eating begin. Mr Jones then spends the next 30 minutes naval gazing and asking me if he looks fat. I begin to worry that the pre-wedding diet might have gone too far and point out that if we'd have walked up he could have had two burgers without gaining an ounce! We stare at the views, tut at people letting their children get too close to the edge and get a bit snap happy with the camera.



I'm on snake watch thanks to a helpful "Beware of Snakes" sign and my over active imagination and pathological reptile phobia combine into immense paranoia. Every twig, root, leaf suddenly develops scales and a forked tongue and Mr Jones gives me withering looks everytime I leap behind him on the path. I see two real lizards, no real snakes and about 25 imaginary ones.



We head back down and get a cab to the V&A Waterfront. It's pretty, but we're unimpressed - just a few boats, beggars and big shopping mall. We could take pirate ship out for a spin in the harbour but decide against it. We eat Tapas for dinner and drink a few too many cocktails.