Story Spark at the Ark

Yesterday we had a wonderful afternoon at Story Spark (what a great title), a children’s books event at the Ark in Temple Bar. It was my first time going to a CBI event as a parent instead of as an author or general children’s books person, and it made a very pleasant change to be looking at it from the other side of the fence! My two little bookworms have of course been to lots of library readings and so on but at 5 they are just old enough now for proper ‘meet the author’ type events and we plan to make the most of it.

First up was author/illustrator Niamh Sharkey, the creator of The Hugglewugs, The Ravenous Beast and the illustrator of one of Two’s favourite books, the Max Eilenburg version of Cinderella. I saw Niamh speak at a previous CBI event, a seminar for new and aspiring children’s writers, where she spoke about the publishing process. Niamh is a lovely warm person and a real natural as a public speaker so I was very much looking forward to seeing her doing a children’s event. She was fabulous – really entertaining and so relaxed – even the noisiest of audience interruptions left her totally unfazed. I was hoping to pick up some ideas from her for my next reading but she was the type of person who is so good you just know you are never going to be able to hope to emulate them!

As well as reading from three of her books she showed us how she draws some of her characters – she really made it look easy, though I’m sadly aware that it isn’t. Mind you, with her encouragement Tom from CBI, who swears he can’t draw, produced a very convincing shark. The hour just flew by even for the smaller members of the audience. I was delighted to buy a copy of her latest book, On the Road with Mavis and Marge, and to get it signed – Niamh even drew Marge on the title page along with her autograph! I’m looking forward to adding Mavis the cow and Marge the chicken to our bedtime reading.

We just had time for a cup of tea and two babycinos before the next event, which featured three of the O’Brien Press Panda authors – Sarah Webb, Brianóg Brady Dawson and Gillian Perdue. Brianóg’s Danny and Gillian’s Conor were two of the characters who were just in the early stages of development when I started working for O’Brien Press, so it was great to see how far they’ve come and to see my own children enjoying their antics. And I knew Sarah’s new creation ‘Emma the Penguin’ would appeal to One, who is penguin-mad, but Two was equally enthralled.

Sarah read from Emma the Penguin, complete with penguin costume and dancing demo. She was then joined by ‘Granny’ aka Brianóg, hunting for her naughty grandson Danny. Granny told us the tale of Danny’s Crazy Christmas, where the level of mayhem was unprecedented even by Danny’s standards. Gillian then took over and told us all about Conor, the creative little boy who does his own thing and doesn’t care if people think he’s mad.

It was then time for the mammies and daddies to take a back seat and all the children got to their feet and paraded around the room, joining in a story which involved Emma, Danny and Conor trying to rescue Keeno the dog from Mr Stinky’s Pet Emporium. The children acted out sneaking into the shop, opening the cage and rescuing various different animals – the room was soon filled with baby elephants, penguins and dogs. They had so much fun – my own two were beaming from ear to ear.

The session finished up with question time, and it was great to hear the type of questions children ask – very different from adult readers of children’s books it must be said!

The girls had an absolute ball and the first thing they asked as we left the Ark was ‘Can we go back again tomorrow?’

Snowbound

It’s now a week since I left the house. I probably sound like a total wuss but it’s just not worth the risk of slipping and setting my knee back (not that it takes much to do that!). And I’m lucky that I don’t have to, with my intrepid Arctic explorer husband heading out into the blizzard to forage food for us all. School closed Thursday and today so no more worries about getting the girls there and back.

I was feeling a bit sorry for myself though until I mentioned it to my mother and she revealed that she was housebound for SIX WEEKS with me when I was a baby. They were in Sheffield at the time and it was one of the worst winters on record. My dad, who would still go to work if a nuclear bomb went off (well he’d have to, he’s a doctor), trekked the mile to and from the hospital every day, leaving home early and returning late. So for all that time my mum saw no one but her six-month-old baby, who, let’s face it, advanced and all as I was for my age, can’t have been much of a conversationalist. No facebook. No email. Using the phone very sparingly as they hadn’t much money (I think she phoned her mother in Galway once a week and that was about it). She must have gone stir crazy. (Actually, that could explain a lot of things … hee hee … only joking Mom). She says at the end of the six weeks she went to Mass just to get out of the house, and the snow was coming in over the tops of her wellies.

So I’m grateful for my husband who can work from home, my little girls who are being surprisingly good (touch wood) and haven’t succumbed to cabin fever just yet, my friend who came over for lunch the other day, my mobile phone which allows me to have actual and text conversations with my mum, sister and friends, and of course my laptop. Ah beloved laptop, where would I be without you?

To my daughters on your fifth birthday

My darling little girls,

It’s five years today since you came into the world. All new babies are precious, but you were doubly precious, not just because there were two of you, but because we had thought so many times during the pregnancy that there couldn’t possibly be a happy ending.

But there was. From the first moment we held you in our arms you have been an absolute joy and a blessing. You have brought us so much happiness – and not just us – it is just wonderful to see how much you are adored by your grandparents and aunts and uncles. There are layers and depths to this happiness that I could never have imagined.

Some very dear friends of ours are expecting their first baby in the new year. I can’t tell them how much their lives will change because it’s something that you can’t possibly understand until you’ve done it yourself. I want to tell them to savour every moment because the time just goes so fast and before they know it they will be making school lunches and putting five candles on a birthday cake.

Sometimes when I think of the future and the terrifying things I can’t protect you from it’s almost enough to make me want to wrap you up in cotton wool and lock the door and never let you leave the house again. But of course I won’t because watching you discover the world is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. And because I have no right to stop you going out into it and making it your own. You are mine and you are not mine: you are your own wonderful little people, with your own happy little lives to live.

It is lovely to see you so excited about your birthday, but you couldn’t love this day any more than I do, because it’s the day that gave me you.

Love you always darling girls xxx

The Scary Man

Two years ago some time around Hallowe’en my parents and sister took the girls to The Orchard in Celbridge. The Orchard is a fab garden centre and homeware shop with a pet shop and lovely restaurant too. Still a favourite day out for three out of the four members in my family (you can guess who’s the odd man out).

On that occasion, however, the centre was decorated for Hallowe’en and there was an extremely scary model of Uncle Fester from the Addams Family. Pinstripe suit, dead-looking skin and sunken eyes which actually moved from side to side when you pressed a button. Grandad, in his wisdom, called the girls (who were just coming up to three at the time) over to see The Scary Man. (I always think of him in capital letters. You’ll see why.)

Well they were TERRIFIED. All attempts by their aunt to rename him The Funny Man failed miserably. They had to be carried past him with hands over their eyes each time they needed to go to the toilet.

They came home full of the tale of The Scary Man and he has never really left us since. They were still so frightened of him that we had to pretend we had rung up The Orchard and told them to get rid of The Scary Man as he was too scary for children. The Orchard were most helpful. They immediately took him down, chopped him up into little pieces and threw him into a skip. Then he was taken off to a dump far far away.

But while his corporeal form was gone his spirit remained. Over the years he morphed into a general bogeyman who got the blame for every wrong and then, thankfully, into a figure of fun who they would have great fun thinking up new tortures for. There were endless tales of the things he did and the bloodthirsty and gratuitously violent ways they had got their revenge. One of their weird twin things is they can come up with stories together which flow so well you would think they had come out of one imagination and not two.

One conversation went like this:
Daughter no. 2: We threw The Scary Man out the window
Daughter no. 1: And he bumped very hard on the road and he was very hurt
Daughter no. 2: And he couldn’t tell anyone he was hurt because he was dead

Occasionally he is joined by a partner in crime known as The Silly Girl. Like the time we were on our way north for my friend’s wedding, and One made up a beautifully romantic fairy tale which went as follows:
The Scary Man and Silly Girl got married and all their friends came. Then they got killed and they lived happily never again.

You get the gist.

Fast forward to this September. The girls had a day off school due to teacher training. We needed a few plants and various bits and pieces for the garden, so we decided to head off to the Orchard. We went to see the animals in the pet shop section and were happily wandering in the direction of the cafe when I suddenly spotted a Hallowe’en display. Oh no … THE SCARY MAN!!! I couldn’t see him but I had no doubt he was somewhere around, the villainous rogue, just waiting to pounce. I ushered the girls into the cafe, muttering under my breath to my husband, ‘Look out for The Scary Man!’

Phew. We made it into the cafe unscathed. Now I had time to come up with a plan of action. Letting them see The Scary Man was unthinkable. At nearly five they were less likely to be afraid of him. But they would know we had lied to them about him being chopped up into tiny pieces and thrown into the skip and taken off to the dump far far away. Their faith in us would be shattered. And not only that but it might mean an end to the brilliant stories they made up about him.

We had our lunch (delicious as always – oh how I love the Orchard – Scary Man excepted). Then we headed outside to the garden centre, reckoning we were safe from The Scary Man out there. But we could only hide outside for so long, and we had to go through the indoor section to get back to the car park. I did the only sensible thing. I sent my husband on ahead on a reconnaissance mission.

Bear in mind of course that neither of us had ever seen The Scary Man. We felt like we knew him intimately having heard so much about him over the past two years, but we had never actually come face to face with this terrifying creature. But he was easily identified (and was truthfully just as scary in real life as I had feared) and my knight in shining armour had soon plotted out the part of the store we needed to avoid at all costs. Only problem was that he was just behind the tills which we had to go through to get out of the shop.

Resisting the urge to run for the emergency exit, I manouvred the girls in the direction of the tills, exclaiming with delight at the fabulous display of umbrellas located there. I soon had them engaged in a heated debate about the merits of ladybird umbrellas versus bee umbrellas, and if they looked at me a little strangely wondering why I felt so passionately about this issue, that was a small price to pay to keep their eyes from wandering in the wrong direction.

Phew! We made it! Out the door and far far away from The Scary Man. I felt like we had survived a major battle.

Lesson learned. Never again shall we venture in the direction of The Orchard between the months of September and November. At least not without first sending a party ahead to identify and annihilate threats to childhood innocence and imagination. It’s just not worth the risk.

A rose by any other name …

Good morning faithful readers. I need your help. I am still searching for a more interesting title for my blog. About time I hear you say. In my defence though, it is really difficult to find a title that hasn’t been registered yet. I lost track of how many I tried that were already taken. And the really annoying thing is that most of them aren’t being used. Who are these people who come along and register all the cool names and then don’t write a word? Why would you do that? It’s very dog in the mangerish if you ask me.

There was also the issue that I’m not entirely sure what this blog is about. I’ve blogged about writing (or the lack thereof). I’ve blogged about children’s books. I’ve blogged about my own little darlings. I’ve blogged about weddings, real and pretend. I plan to branch out shortly and have a good old rant about how undervalued is the role of the stay at home mum. I’ve blogged quite a lot about knees recently, but I’ve never heard of a knee blog before, nor would I want to quite frankly … But the point is that I didn’t want a title that focused on just one of those things.

I thought I had come up with a nice and suitably vague title this week. I was going to call it kindredspirit . wordpress . com. Kindred spirit is a reference to one of my favourite ever children’s books – actually just one of my favourite ever books – Anne of Green Gables. Anne’s perpetual search for kindred spirits and her faith that there are always more to be discovered is one of the loveliest things about her.

But, you guessed it, it’s gone. And not being used. How annoying is that? And then I looked up akindredspirit . wordpress .com and discovered it is being used and is a mind/body/spirit/spirituality extravaganza. Not exactly my thing, so the thinking cap goes back on.

Titles have never been my strong point really. Well I did come up with The Irish Bride’s Survival Guide myself, which I still think is quite cool. I did have a bit of a job to convince some of the staff at my publishers – some were afraid it sounded a bit negative and too focused on the stressful side of weddings, others thought it was wrong to assume the groom wouldn’t be playing an equal role in the wedding plans. Clearly none of them had got married recently. We compromised by adding on the saccharine sweet subtitle Plan Your Perfect Wedding. It’s all about yin and yang.

Olanna’s Big Day, though, probably still wouldn’t have a title if it was left up to me. I had given it the working title The St Patrick’s Day Parade. Does what it says on the tin, but hardly inspiring. Thankfully I am blessed with an editor who is much better at that sort of thing and she saved the day (much like Olanna’s granny back in Nigeria, in fact).

I’d love a title that didn’t pin me down too much. If it was a reference from a children’s book that would be fab (tried secondstartotheright – gone; tried lots of others which I can’t even remember now) but it’s not essential. Or else a title that would somehow incorporate motherhood, twinness, writing, children’s books, writing children’s books, and dodgy knees – if such a thing were possible. I’m open to suggestions. But if you do come up with a fabulous title, check it out before you set your heart on it. Chances are some idiot has registered it and then disappeared into cyberspace never to be seen again.

Baking success

I made a pleasing discovery today. Baking with almost-five-year-olds is fun. Not only that, they are a help rather than a hindrance. No really.

Up until now baking with the girls has, I’m afraid, been something I’ve endured rather than enjoyed. They just didn’t have the patience for it, and I don’t exactly have bucketloads of that myself. (Tablespoons, maybe …) They would both be shouting at me to help them with something at the same time and would constantly nag me while I was measuring or mixing, wanting to know what they could do next. But they loved it so I did make the effort, even if it was only very occasionally …

Actually you really need to read an article I wrote for the IMBA newsletter last year to fully appreciate just how stressful I used to find the whole baking/painting/crafts extravaganza. I’m posting it below. Haven’t I come a long way since then?!

We had already reached the stage where doing arty stuff is fun. I think their patience level in that department must have developed faster or something. (Or mine did …)

But today it was a real pleasure baking with them. They actually HELPED. Yes I know I said that already, but I’m still in awe. It was a most unexpected development. They got things out of presses, took it in turns to pour in ingredients and stir, tidied things away and brought dirty dishes to the sink (saving me endless trips back and forth across the kitchen). The three of us had a lovely time, getting our monkey aprons and Jamie Oliver ‘Girls Cook Better’ aprons (I’ll let you guess which is which) covered in flour and gunk.

And our strawberry and rhubarb muffins were delicious.

Arts and crafts mum?

Written for the IMBA newsletter, summer 2009 – had to post it here to explain next blog post 😉

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just not one of those art and craft type mums. You know the kind I mean. The ones who save their egg cartons for their children to turn into Christmas decorations, whose magazines are barely flicked through before they’re sacrificed for cutting out pictures, and who don’t bat an eyelid if their kitchen floors are covered in glitter, glue and the odd stray feather.

Actually, I think I realised early on that all that palaver just wasn’t for me. When my twins were a year old many of my ‘internet friends’ with children the same age were launching discussions about what types of paint were easiest to wash out of clothes and how to teach their little ones to hold the paintbrush. At that point I was rubbing my bleary eyes and congratulating myself on surviving my first year as a twin mum. Setting my children on the path to becoming future Picassos was pretty much the last thing on my mind. And given that neither of them had an attention span longer than that of a gnat, painting seemed like a pretty pointless project – all that setting up, and cleaning up afterwards, just for five minutes’ entertainment. So I buried my head in the sand and thought ‘time enough for that when they’re two’.

Two came and went, and as they approached the end of their third year they started playschool. Fantastic! A purpose-built space for all kinds of messy activity, where I could drop them off and collect them a few hours later, complete with splodgy pictures and proud smiles on their little faces. At last I could assuage my guilt at not being one of ‘those’ mums – at least they were getting to exercise their creative side in playschool, where those sainted beings known as teachers would clean up the mess and, quite miraculously, not get impatient when they were tired of painting after sixty seconds.

Then my friend threw a spanner in the works by giving the girls ‘Paint your own Raincoat’ kits for Christmas. ‘Drive your Mother Demented While Redecorating your Kitchen’, they may as well have been called. The pestering started almost instantly. When can we paint our raincoats? Can we do it now? Why do we need to buy painting aprons first? When are you going to buy them? Did you buy them yet? Is it time to paint our raincoats? After trying several different shops my husband eventually tracked down two painting aprons (which I suspect cost more than the original kits).

I had run out of excuses to put off the project any longer, and so the fun began. The kits were lovely, but had clearly been designed for children several years older than mine (or perhaps children the same age as mine whose art training had begun a lot earlier – see above). I had to show them how to squeeze out each colour and paint with their fingers, and comply with various requests to draw shapes and letters for them. (The stress of trying to do this with two three-year-olds at once is better imagined than described). An hour later, despite the painting aprons, an old cloth on the kitchen table and newspapers on the floor, the girls had succeeded in getting paint on the table, the chairs, their hair, the floor and a cardigan which neither of them was even wearing at the time – oh, and the raincoats. And as the paint was designed to be permanent, there really wasn’t any point in even trying to remove it. It is safe to say that we won’t be repeating the experiment in a hurry. And any future presents from the above-mentioned friend will be carefully vetted.

Despite my painting phobia, I don’t mind drawing and even sticking, so I decided to embrace my creative side this Father’s Day by encouraging the girls to make their own cards. I gathered together old magazines and catalogues and got them to look through them for the letters we needed to spell out ‘Happy Father’s Day’. I thought this would be a good way to keep them entertained while their dad had a well-earned lie in and I got started on the pancakes he was getting for a special Father’s Day breakfast. And it did entertain them for a while, though the pancakes had to be temporarily abandoned as they needed a lot more help than anticipated. Nevertheless, we soldiered on, cutting and arranging and sticking, and finally assembled two cards which ended up looking more like ransom notes than anything else.

Baking is another thing mothers are supposed to enjoy doing with their children. And yet again it was something my internet friends seemed to be doing from somewhere around the first birthday. I just didn’t get it. Baking was something I enjoyed doing on my own while the girls had a nap. Why on earth would I want to turn something nice and relaxing into something crazy involving two toddlers spilling a bag of flour over themselves and the floor, then getting bored and whining at me to do something else just when I reach a crucial point in the recipe?

Now that they’re three and can actually get involved properly, we’ve reached a compromise. I do all the boring bits like measuring and mixing and rubbing in the butter, and they do the fun bits like cutting out the biscuit shapes. Perfect solution. However since I have to make use of a DVD to occupy them before and after their starring role, I’m not sure it really passes the ‘quality time’ test.

All in all, I think I’m a bit of a failure at this side of motherhood. But I can read dozens of books in a row without getting bored, can help with jigsaws till the cows come home, and can and do take them on all sorts of fun outings. So maybe I should just stick to what I’m good at, and leave the other stuff to the experts. Thank God for playschool.

The sorry saga of my knee

Some days I think the worst thing about this knee injury is the loss of independence. Other days I think it is the pain. Unsurprisingly, this depends on how bad the pain is on any given day. Sometimes it’s just the sheer frustration of not being able to plan to do things, or drive myself into town, or make an arrangement to meet someone without worrying about how I’m going to get there. Other days all that stuff fades into insignificance and I’d gladly put up with all of that irritation and inconvenience if only I could stop being in pain for a while.

I am trying so hard not to let it get me down – to focus on the things I can do to make it better and not on wondering why this had to happen. “The serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can” and so on. But some days it is very hard to do that. Waking up in pain every single morning and knowing I’m going to be in pain all day long is starting to take its toll.

I went to see the consultant again last week. First we had the requisite one and a half hour wait in a stuffy overcrowded waiting room (why they can’t give people an actual appointment time that means something is beyond me). Then I saw the registrar, who I hadn’t met before and who clearly hadn’t even glanced through my notes. So I had the pleasure of going through the whole sorry tale again, starting in the middle with the operation, jumping to now and the lack of any improvement nine months on, then back to the beginning and that bloody aerobics session that has taken me longer to recover from than a Caesarean section. He poked and prodded the knee, said the surgeon would most likely want to scope it again (over my dead body!), then, as he was about to disappear out the door, asked, ‘Is it stopping you from doing aerobics?’

I must have looked at him as if he had two heads as I replied, ‘I can’t do anything. I can’t even walk or drive.’

He asked, ‘How bad is the pain on a scale of one to ten …’ and my heart sank because I hate that question, it makes no sense to me, how can I possibly know how bad other people’s pain is or how a 6 would feel to him or anyone else? But thankfully he finished it off  with ‘if ten is the worst pain you’ve ever had?’ Well that was easy, because this is a ten. If eight is a really bad toothache and nine is the first few days after my Caesarean then this is a ten. Not all the time thank God but certainly when it’s at its worst. I honestly could never have imagined that a knee could hurt so much.

The consultant came in then, asked the same questions, looked at it and said, ‘I’m afraid you’re just going to have to wait for this to get better.’ Which didn’t surprise me, because I know there’s nothing they can do surgically for this type of thing. But what did make me want to scream was when he added, ‘You should try to get back doing the aerobics again.’

Aerobics! Well, it might be nice to be able to walk for longer than ten minutes first, or to drive further than the school run. But even if (when. Please when.) I make a complete recovery from this I can safely say that I am never, ever in my life going to do aerobics again. I was never that into it anyway, it was very much an occasional thing for me and I only did it that day because I didn’t want to go running in the rain. I was afraid I’d fall. The irony.

I am longing to get back running – I get tears in my eyes every time I go through a particular part of the Phoenix Park where I used to run – I miss it so much. I would be devastated if I thought I’d never be able to run again. I’d love to get back to swimming too. But that’s the height of my athletic ambition.

Right now though I’d just like to be able to live my life in a normal way. To get up in the morning and know I’d be able to walk the girls to school, fly around the house doing the housework, drive into town to do some shopping, meet someone for lunch. To not have to depend on my poor overworked husband to bring me places and get me things in the shops and take on the brunt of the housework as he has done for the last nine months without a word of complaint.

I find it hard to explain to people just how much this has affected my life. You wouldn’t think it would stop me from being able to sit at the computer doing some work, or go for a night out where I’d mostly be sitting down, but the truth is that when the pain is particularly bad I can hardly think about anything else, it is utterly overwhelming. And I never really know when it’s going to be like that so it’s hard to commit to anything.

Bloody aerobics.

Leon and the Place Between

Today the girls, my mum and I went to see Leon and the Place Between in An Grianan Theatre in Letterkenny (http://www.angrianan.com/list/2010/leonandtheplacebetween.html).  The play is based on the children’s book written by Angela McAllister and illustrated by Graham Baker-Smith (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Leon-Place-Between-Grahame-Baker-Smith/dp/1840118016) which I haven’t read, but will be asking Santa for after this.

The theatre was transformed into a wonderland filled with magic and whimsy – the magician’s slogan ‘Trust Nothing – Believe Everything’ drawing the audience in. The show has a circus-like feel, with acrobats and juggling as well as magic tricks. The acrobats were amazing, hanging from swings and ropes, balancing on each other’s heads and shoulders and generally causing the adult members of the audience to grip the edge of their seats.

Abdul Kazam, the magician, makes his daughter Poppy disappear after placing her in a box which he folds down to much smaller than human size and then sticks swords through for added effect. I’d love to know how this is done (actually no don’t tell me – I don’t want to shatter the illusion!). Although the children were entranced by this, they took the magic element very much in their stride – when I asked daughter number 2 where Poppy had gone she simply replied, ‘It’s magic!’. I suppose when you have grown up in an age where you can talk to someone on the other side of the world on a computer and listen to your dad on the radio while he’s in the next room then it is much easier to accept the concept of making someone disappear.

The eponymous Leon longs to be part of the magic – and he gets his chance when Abdul selects him to join in the disappearing box trick. Leon is transported to ‘The Place Between’ – where people and objects go when they disappear during a magic show. He sees a white rabbit which Abdul made disappear and never called back. When Leon returns to the real world, he begs Abdul to make the rabbit reappear again. Abdul does so, much to the delight of my small companions, who said this was their favourite part of the show.

It’s ideal for 4-8-year-olds – a little bit scary, with loud music and special effects including dry ice, so possibly too much for younger ones – and at just an hour long doesn’t tax their attention spans too much. I’m not sure where the show is going to next but if it’s anywhere near you I highly recommend it.

The Wedding

Just back from the wedding of the year. I’m glad to report it all went off smoothly.

The original afternoon kick-off for the ceremony was postponed due to a family trip to Glenveagh, then some very important colouring which had to be done. It was eventually rescheduled for after dinner. The celebrant was delayed due to an important phone call, but this gave the bride and groom the chance to decorate the venue in their own original way.

The musicians were assembled in good time – Granny on the piano, Daddy on the wind-up music box and me on the drum. Grandad, the celebrant, was waiting at the altar. The groom was even scruffier than predicted, wearing jeans and pink princess slippers. However the bride, when she appeared (a vision of loveliness in a red top, brown skirt and stripy tights) didn’t seem to mind, though she did pause on her journey down the aisle to remonstrate with the musicians who weren’t living up to her expectations.

Grandad was instructed to mention ‘the symbol of life’ as he married ‘Belle’ and ‘Simba’. They exchanged their vows to heartfelt applause from the small but enthusiastic congregation. The musicians attempted to make up for their earlier shortcomings with a rousing rendition of ‘Once Upon a Dream’ from Sleeping Beauty, and Grandad, his duties as celebrant out of the way, joined in on an inflatable guitar. The moving ceremony concluded with a noisy version of ‘I Wanna Be Like You’ from The Jungle Book, and the bride and groom danced around the coffee table.

This couple could certainly give prospective brides and grooms some excellent money-saving tips. The wedding banquet, as well as being inexpensive, was both colourful and appealing as I’m sure you’ll agree

The wedding banquet

 

Original decorative style

The decorations were certainly unique – a Nemo book, some Hello Kitty purses, a toy farm and a wooden giraffe made for a very attractive backdrop.

Keeping the guest list to a minimum is also a sensible approach. You can further cut down on your drink and food bills by careful selection of what type of guest you invite. Some of ours ate very little, but certainly contributed to the style and atmosphere of the occasion.

The guests

Using family contacts to provide the music can also cut down on costs, and give the ceremony a truly personal touch. Plus they are unlikely to require much in the way of refreshment.

Refreshments for the pianist

The wedding cake was made by Mr Kipling, and very nice it was too, fulfilling the groom’s request that it be ‘a little bit fancy, but not very fancy’. And there’s really no need for expensive wedding bands or DJs. We rounded off the celebrations with a game of ‘Flippin’ Penguins’, which seemed to go down well.

It was then time for the bride and groom to depart for their honeymoon, sorry bath, and they were soon tucked up in bed after a bedtime story read by their faithful bridesmaid, sorry Granny.

All in all, it was a wonderful day which we will remember for many years to come.