The happiest day of your life

I got married once, as this blog suggests. And I remember spending months and months obsessively planning for it. Bridal magazines were pored through, colour schemes chosen and important decisions taken on menus and discos and table decorations. At the time the endless chatter about napkins frustrated my (male) colleague so much that he unguardedly said 'fucking weddings!' in the week I wrote the invitations and promptly got himself left off the list.

The day dawned and it was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. And it wasn't. I was nervy and difficult with my bridesmaids. And I remember waiting for the meal thinking 'is this it?'. Something was missing in that day and, whilst it was fun, it wasn't the transcendental experience promised. It was just another wedding. Big dress. Bridemaids. Ceremony. Eat. Cut cake. Dance. Eat. Dance. All activities I enjoy but not the life changing experience ushering one into a whole new world that I was promised. The worst thing is, I felt like that at my own wedding.

Now, I'm a total snob and refuse to watch soaps or Big Brother and sometimes (shamingly) respond to other people's statuses on Facebook in Latin. So you wouldn't think I'd watch 'Four Weddings' on Living, but I do. I like the predictability of the show which usually has four very different weddings but which usually follow the same formula:

Wedding 1 will be phenomenally expensive. The bride will be gorgeous and bitchy in the extreme. Her dress will be practically transparent in the boob region and the size of Rutland in the skirt area. It will sparkle a lot.The wedding will include loads of guests in very bright dresses and a groom who is tanned to a deep mahogany table colour, and insists on taking his top off during the dancing to show his pecs. The other brides will look around in fear because they can't afford to compete. However, they are intrinsically nice girls and score fairly meaning this wedding will win. Despite costing £50,000. And then the horrendous bride and groom will get a free holiday that they blatantly could have afforded themselves.

Wedding 2 will be a Nice but Poor couple from The North. The dress will be cheap, their toddlers will be bridesmaids and the do will be in a pub. The other brides will try hard to say positive things without actually allowing the words 'she deserves a free holiday a lot more than any of the rest of us' out if their mouth. They will, instead, complain about lumpy gravy. As the wedding will be inexpensive it will score lowly for food and overall experience and thus the people who deserve a free holiday won't get one.

Wedding 3 will be the comedy Goth wedding. The voiceover will be extremely satirical and never in the least bit patronising i.e. 'hahaha, she got dressed in black and had pumpkins as table decorations. Loser.' This one is doomed. Particularly if the groom looks like a zombie. The other brides will complain that it wasn't 'weddingy' enough even though it was a wedding.

Wedding 4 gets squeezed in at the end and is usually the traditional British wedding. Small service in church. Middle class and faintly mousy bride. Meal somewhere nice. Dancing. This one often scores poorly for 'overall experience' as Bitch with Cash Bride thinks it's too predictable and Goth Bride bemoans the lack of inventiveness as there's no fake blood and the vicar wasn't dressed like a character from Rocky Horror.

In the end it's invariably the person I liked least who will win and the sweet, penniless couple never do. But in their final piece to camera every bride says that she believed her wedding was the best and that it was the happiest day of her life.

Well, my wedding wasn't. The best day of my life wasn't even the day my son was born because motherhood ain't all it's cracked up to be either. No, it was 5th December 2009 when I took my son to Lapland for the day to see Santa. It was perfect in every way.

Having been married once I know the excitement of planning a wedding and being a bride. Some of the people I love best on the planet are doing it next year and I'm really excited for them. I suppose for many people it is the happiest day of their life but I can't believe it would be for me. I've done it once and it wasnt so much that I married the wrong person, more that it was the wrong ceremony for me. This doesn't however stop me considering in idle moments what would happen if I were to go on 'Four Weddings'. My daydream would be to a contestant simply so I could sabotage the scoring and thereby ensure the lovely people who actually deserve a free holiday win it. And then say in my final piece to camera: 'yeah it was ok I suppose, but Lapland was better'.

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I'm not your friend anymore

My main motivation in life is knowing that, at most, I only have to work eight weeks in a row before I can go on holiday. Most people I know look forward to spending huge chunks of their free time painting their homes a different colour and matching soft furnishings. I march to a different beat and believe it doesn't really matter that my house hasn't been repainted in a decade because I'm basically only ever in it to sleep or to pack for my next trip. This addiction to travel is well served by my parents who live in a stunningly beautiful part of the Algarve and whose views from their balcony are:




And



It makes a bit of a change from my house in Leeds, where my front room looks on to a wall of leilandi and from my attic eyrie I have an unparalleled view of a gas holder.

I also love coming here as it gives me a yardstick to measure my son's life by. Last summer he was just starting to swim and in deep dread of the deep end. This year he can snorkel and throws himself in the deep end with wild abandon. Last year he was too shy to play with other kids, now he has spent the afternoon splashing and screaming with other boys.

Well, until a new 'friend' turned around and informed him 'I don't want to be your friend anymore'. He was just devastated as I think this might be his first experience of those poisonous words. He was very tearful and wanted to leave the pool for the sanctuary of Nana's sofa and CBBC. He's very sad because he doesn't think he's done anything wrong. We've all told him that tomorrow it'll all be forgotten and they'll play together happily. But right now he's feeling rejected and dejected.

As the days tick forward to my decree absolute and my divorce becoming final I can understand his feelings only too well. I remember the astounding rejection of being dumped and then the tears. For a while I sat in resentful silence and then was vociferously angry on this blog. But the silence which fell over this blog for months was because I'd stopped feeling hurt and my ex and I are on really good terms. When he came over last week to get me to sign the consent order for the divorce he said "this doesn't mean anything to you, does it?" and I honestly answered that it doesn't. I feel nothing: no relief, no resentment, nothing. It carries no more emotional weight than changing my gas provider.

Over two years ago my ex said he didn't want to be my friend anymore. At the time it hurt like hell. But time passed and oddly now we are more friendly than we were for much of our marriage. My son will feel a bit sad tonight until he's eaten a big Sunday roast and had a sleep. And tomorrow he'll be friends again. And I might buy him a huge and fantastic inflatable toy to make him irresistible to other kids at the pool. I think the past few years have taught me you make your own luck.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone