We set off to do a little shopping in the West End, bargain hunting in the sale, then onto meet Paul & Suze for a celebratory double-engagement drink.
**Detail To Follow**
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Our First Little Engagement Party !
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Todays the big day.....
I wake this morning, realising that never before have I known weeks in advance that I would be asking a certain question of a certain person, being so nervous about it, but at the same time being fairly sure of getting a positive answer. Today was going to be the day that I asked Pippa to marry me. This wasn't asking if I could turn the TV over to 'Judge John Deed' for an hour or to borrow a book for a week, or if we should go on holiday together for a fortnight. This was asking another person to spend every breathing minute of the rest of my life with me.
As I got dressed I managed to stop my head spinning as it attempted to come to terms with the concepts of 'forever', 'eternity' and 'as long as I live'. I managed to move the ring from my suitcase into my coat pocket, whilst Pippa was blow-drying her hair whilst singing an unmemorable tune from Mary Poppins. The ring was all I needed, well my wallet would be handy for a swift drink afterwards, oh....and a skip-load of courage wouldn't go a miss either. I had this day planned for weeks, I would ask her to marry me at the top of the Empire State building. As we looked over downtown Manhattan, as far as the Statue of Liberty (an epitaph to freedom) I would hold her hand and in the bracing New York breeze utter those immortal words.
The hair-dryer in the bathroom came to a sudden stop followed by a enquiring female voice, "Not sure I want to go up the Empire State building today, looks a bit cloudy and we went up the Rockefeller Tower yesterday. That’s enough big buildings for me, is that alright with you honey?" Pippa quizzed, as she popped her head round the bedroom door. "Sure whatever you want sweetness, I've been up the Empire before, we'll do something else today", I replied through gritted teeth and a grimace whilst inside a Homer Simpson style 'DOH!' echoed though by body and reverberated around my ribs at 110 decibels. That's the thing with secret plans; they can be scuppered at any moment by anyone, even if their intentions are good. Pippa had known since the 6pm on the 12th November that I planned to ask her to marry me and I was sure that I had even told her that it was going to be on Saturday 17th December. Don't get me wrong, I can be impulsive and romantic, but back in November I had been forced into a corner and had to divulge my big secret of wedding plans, for fear of being flooded by tears.
So maybe Pip had remembered that it was today that I was going to ask her, but maybe she had her own secret scheme afoot to make life as difficult as possible for me to ask her, or maybe she really didn't want me to ask her at all. I was now at a stage one panic situation, which probably translates to 'mildly concerned'. After breakfast we left the hotel and hailed a cab to take us to Saks on 5th Avenue. My mind started to race off as to where in the great metropolis should I pop the question, but after sitting in silence for about 5 minutes whilst thinking, I became very aware that I had been very quiet, noticeably so.
I turned to Pip in an attempt to start a conversation to break the Sahara like silence that I felt I had just laid between us, but as I looked at her my brain ground to a halt like a diesel transit van just filled up with premium unleaded. My head had been filled with nothing else but wedding proposal and when it came to do something else, like talking, it spluttered, probably puffed white smoke from my ears and came to a standstill with a very embarrassed driver. Pippa looked at me and said "What", the way women do when you are about to talk to them and maybe you hesitate for a nano-second too long before parting your lips and emitting a sound. All I could muster as a reply was 'on its nothing'. Now those three words are probably worse than remaining silent, by uttering those words, I had now told Pippa that I did have something to say but now for one of four reasons I can't bring myself to say it (1) It was to do with another woman (2) It will sound derogatory (3) It's a secret and I'm going to keep it that way or (4) I can't be arsed to talk to you anymore.
Luckily in the 14 months we had been together, Pippa had come to realise that I was prone to momentary lapses of being as mad as a bag of squirrels, so I sort of got away with it. It also helped that I pulled the ear flaps down on my hat and did a 'Deputy Dog' impression, I find impersonating 30 year old cartoon characters always relieves the tension when in a tight corner.
On arrival at Saks, I knew that this was going to be another trek around yet another department store, just looking at 'stuff', I sighed a secret sigh, yet smiled on the outside. We took the escalators right to the top floor, surveying the merchandise as we ascended. Upon reaching the Saks summit, I calmly informed Pip that I thought the store was a bit 'pony' and that it was all 'girls stuff', so 5 down escalators an 194 seconds later we were back out on 5th Avenue.
We walked a good mile down 5th Avenue until we came to Tiffany's, which was on the list of 'would like to see for Pippa'. Now for me window shopping has always been a bit of a mystery, if I have a bit of time to kill I don't pop to the local BP garage and peruse the pumps to see how much they sell premium unleaded for. When I need something I go there and buy it. The closest I get to window shopping is flicking through the Argos catalogue when I'm stuck for Christmas present ideas. But women like to look at stuff, shoes, handbags, jewellery, bedding, towels, baby clothes and sometimes they seem generally happy to just look.
We joined the 3 person queue on the sidewalk outside of Tiffany’s and slowly filtered into the store, with rope partitions and direction arrows around the store, it was more like queuing for a ride at Alton Towers than it was browsing one of the most prestigious jewellery shops in the world. Luckily Pippa agreed and we deviated from the designated route, made a crafty left at pearl earrings and shot back out the front door. Well you can tick that off your 'must do' list darling, I quipped.
From outside of Tiffany's you can almost smell Central Park, its probably horses and hot-dogs (was that a Stereophonics B-side?). So unfolded the next part of my plan, Central Park would be the place where I would loose my singul-inity. Before that would happen we would of course have to perform our SAS style reconnaissance mission of FAO Schwarz, the world’s most crowded toy store.
We casually strolled the last hundred yards toward the corner of Central Park and Pippa started to get excited at the site of the horse drawn carriages parading around the park. This was something she wanted to do and I could easily propose in the back of a carriage. It may have been $45 to go round the park, but it would be worth every cent. I now had a new plan, a purpose, a goal. Marching over to join one of the several random queues that seemed to snake toward the side of the road, I noticed that I had misplaced Pippa somewhere between the pedestrian crossing and the queue. Of course I was concerned, but at the same time I was not prepared to give up my well-earned place in the queue and two tourists from Yorkshire had joined behind me. Much to my relief, just like the shop-keeper in Mr Ben, Pippa simply appeared from the crowd. To my disappointment however, Pippa declared in a fairly loud voice that “these bloody queues will take an hour before anyone gets in a carriage and anyway there’s no system in place the queues are all over the place and it’s freezing out here”. A few people looked round at me, it was obvious what was happening, Pippa may had well raised a loud-haler to her mouth and shouted ‘Step away form the queue, move slowly toward my voice and we will not shoot you, step away form the queue !” I knew my place and it wasn’t in this queue (according to Pippa).
We were clearly in panic stage 2 (lip biting, nausea and light perspiration), two possible proposal plans pulled form under me lug a cheap Ikea rug. I needed to compose my thoughts, think of another plan another angle. We sat for a while on a bench at watched the skating ducks sliding on the frozen lake. Grey squirrels with ginger swashes of colour down the backs scurried around the fallen leaves. I looked at my watch and checked my surroundings, it was 5 minutes after midday and we were two minutes walk away from the Wallman ice rink. I’m sure the rink featured in ‘Love Story’ or ‘Kramer vs Kramer’ or something romantic, so I had venue number three in my sights, but this time with a twist. I would ask Pippa to marry me at 12:17 on the 17/12 just as a little reminder to myself that I would remember the actual time that I proposed and I would do all this overlooking the Woolman ice rink.
We strolled toward the rink, had in hand, my panic had dropped back down to one, all I had to do was not loose the ring between here and over there. As we approached the rink, we took a couple of pictures and watched the skaters spin, twirl and fall over. I checked my watch, 12:15, sod it !, I’ll ask her now then pretend it was actually 12:17, like who’s going to know anyway. In the few seconds that I lowered my head to place my camera in its case and reach for my inside pocket for the ring, Pippa had gone, she was now standing what I estimate to be a good fifty meters away. Now if I had my head dipped for two seconds and she managed to get that far away, she must have travelled at an average speed of 90kmph !!! – something wasn’t right here. I had spent thousands on a ring we had chosen together, now I couldn’t get to stand still long enough to ask her if she wanted to wear it forever! Obviously I shot straight up to panic stage 3, skipping stage two altogether, light headed, impending bowel movement and severely moist armpits.
By the time I caught up with Pippa, after mopping my brow, we were just on a path, nothing memorable just a path in a park. I wanted more than this for the setting for my proposal; I wanted to remember images for the rest of my life, not just of Pippa but of the whole moment. I’d made such a pig’s ear of my last engagement six years ago, that this one was going to be special and forever. Maybe I should just leave it until later in the day, maybe we could go out for a nice meal tonight, that’s what I’d do…probably.
The path meandered then turned a corner with a slight incline, then all of a sudden the park looked different, a red and gold carpet of leaves lined both sides of the path, trees on either side like soldiers saluting as we walked down the aisle and there was no one around, all of a sudden the park seemed to go silent, this was the moment, I didn’t realise that it would hit me like this but it did, right - grab the ring and assume the position.
A shrill whistle echoed across the park toward me, I looked up, about a football pitch away stood my brother, arm aloft and waving. I had left him over an hour ago to ‘do his own thing’ in the park whilst I proposed marriage to my girlfriend. But in 843 acres of parkland, my brother found me and the moment was gone.
The three of us strolled down one of the main paths in the park called the mall, skaters and cyclists buzzed passed and I felt like all of them knew that I had bottled it again for the umpteenth time today. I wasn’t panicking now, just disappointed and just a little pissed off. The mall leads into the band-shell where even more inline skaters twirl & gyrate to their MP3 players. Just passed this we came to a wall which overlooks a fountain and the lake. Maybe just maybe, I still have a chance to pop the question in central park.
We walked down the steps toward Bethesda fountain, my brother Andy, had popped off again to take some more park photos. We sat on the wall of the fountain and I looked up at the inscription on the statue that dominated the centre of the fountain. The ten foot tall ‘Angel of Waters’ surrounded by four cherubs symbolising temperance, purity, health and peace, I never knew four words come sum me up so succinctly, this was the time this was the place.
“I want to go and sit over there, by the edge of the lake”, Pippa informed me as she released my hand and marched forth like a woman approaching the doors of the Next sale. I sat next to Pippa once more, looking over the frozen lake toward the Loeb Boathouse restaurant. Surrounded by tourists from across the globe, babbling on about god knows what and taking pictures of almost anything. Then the silence came again and the people seemed to disappear, a busking saxophonist started to play a non-descript melody in the background. I took Pippa’s hand and held it tight, she was not moving this time, with my free hand I reached for the ring box. This moment I had thought about a thousand times and almost rehearsed word perfect what I was about to say. My bottom lip began to quiver, I could feel my eyes become moist and stingy, I looked Pippa in the eye and said “Pippa there’s a million things I could say, will you marry me ?”. I didn’t want a pause a hesitation or a wise-crack, there was only one thing I wanted to hear and it was spontaneous “Of course I will darling”. My whole body deflated in that one moment in a sigh of relief, contentment and excitement. My life proper started at this moment, I was glad I found the right spot, the right time and the right everything. This was the first chapter of everything to come, it had to be right and it is was so right.
Even though I had been desperately trying to ask Pippa to marry me for the last few hours, I was still in a state of shock and so was she. We were numb, in love, engaged, but numb. As we walked away from ‘our little wall’ at Bethesda fountain, I dropped a couple of dollars into the sax case of the busker, just as a little thank you for providing the background music whilst I popped the biggest question of my life and waited for the most important answer in the history of man.
As I got dressed I managed to stop my head spinning as it attempted to come to terms with the concepts of 'forever', 'eternity' and 'as long as I live'. I managed to move the ring from my suitcase into my coat pocket, whilst Pippa was blow-drying her hair whilst singing an unmemorable tune from Mary Poppins. The ring was all I needed, well my wallet would be handy for a swift drink afterwards, oh....and a skip-load of courage wouldn't go a miss either. I had this day planned for weeks, I would ask her to marry me at the top of the Empire State building. As we looked over downtown Manhattan, as far as the Statue of Liberty (an epitaph to freedom) I would hold her hand and in the bracing New York breeze utter those immortal words.
The hair-dryer in the bathroom came to a sudden stop followed by a enquiring female voice, "Not sure I want to go up the Empire State building today, looks a bit cloudy and we went up the Rockefeller Tower yesterday. That’s enough big buildings for me, is that alright with you honey?" Pippa quizzed, as she popped her head round the bedroom door. "Sure whatever you want sweetness, I've been up the Empire before, we'll do something else today", I replied through gritted teeth and a grimace whilst inside a Homer Simpson style 'DOH!' echoed though by body and reverberated around my ribs at 110 decibels. That's the thing with secret plans; they can be scuppered at any moment by anyone, even if their intentions are good. Pippa had known since the 6pm on the 12th November that I planned to ask her to marry me and I was sure that I had even told her that it was going to be on Saturday 17th December. Don't get me wrong, I can be impulsive and romantic, but back in November I had been forced into a corner and had to divulge my big secret of wedding plans, for fear of being flooded by tears.
So maybe Pip had remembered that it was today that I was going to ask her, but maybe she had her own secret scheme afoot to make life as difficult as possible for me to ask her, or maybe she really didn't want me to ask her at all. I was now at a stage one panic situation, which probably translates to 'mildly concerned'. After breakfast we left the hotel and hailed a cab to take us to Saks on 5th Avenue. My mind started to race off as to where in the great metropolis should I pop the question, but after sitting in silence for about 5 minutes whilst thinking, I became very aware that I had been very quiet, noticeably so.
I turned to Pip in an attempt to start a conversation to break the Sahara like silence that I felt I had just laid between us, but as I looked at her my brain ground to a halt like a diesel transit van just filled up with premium unleaded. My head had been filled with nothing else but wedding proposal and when it came to do something else, like talking, it spluttered, probably puffed white smoke from my ears and came to a standstill with a very embarrassed driver. Pippa looked at me and said "What", the way women do when you are about to talk to them and maybe you hesitate for a nano-second too long before parting your lips and emitting a sound. All I could muster as a reply was 'on its nothing'. Now those three words are probably worse than remaining silent, by uttering those words, I had now told Pippa that I did have something to say but now for one of four reasons I can't bring myself to say it (1) It was to do with another woman (2) It will sound derogatory (3) It's a secret and I'm going to keep it that way or (4) I can't be arsed to talk to you anymore.
Luckily in the 14 months we had been together, Pippa had come to realise that I was prone to momentary lapses of being as mad as a bag of squirrels, so I sort of got away with it. It also helped that I pulled the ear flaps down on my hat and did a 'Deputy Dog' impression, I find impersonating 30 year old cartoon characters always relieves the tension when in a tight corner.
On arrival at Saks, I knew that this was going to be another trek around yet another department store, just looking at 'stuff', I sighed a secret sigh, yet smiled on the outside. We took the escalators right to the top floor, surveying the merchandise as we ascended. Upon reaching the Saks summit, I calmly informed Pip that I thought the store was a bit 'pony' and that it was all 'girls stuff', so 5 down escalators an 194 seconds later we were back out on 5th Avenue.
We walked a good mile down 5th Avenue until we came to Tiffany's, which was on the list of 'would like to see for Pippa'. Now for me window shopping has always been a bit of a mystery, if I have a bit of time to kill I don't pop to the local BP garage and peruse the pumps to see how much they sell premium unleaded for. When I need something I go there and buy it. The closest I get to window shopping is flicking through the Argos catalogue when I'm stuck for Christmas present ideas. But women like to look at stuff, shoes, handbags, jewellery, bedding, towels, baby clothes and sometimes they seem generally happy to just look.
We joined the 3 person queue on the sidewalk outside of Tiffany’s and slowly filtered into the store, with rope partitions and direction arrows around the store, it was more like queuing for a ride at Alton Towers than it was browsing one of the most prestigious jewellery shops in the world. Luckily Pippa agreed and we deviated from the designated route, made a crafty left at pearl earrings and shot back out the front door. Well you can tick that off your 'must do' list darling, I quipped.
From outside of Tiffany's you can almost smell Central Park, its probably horses and hot-dogs (was that a Stereophonics B-side?). So unfolded the next part of my plan, Central Park would be the place where I would loose my singul-inity. Before that would happen we would of course have to perform our SAS style reconnaissance mission of FAO Schwarz, the world’s most crowded toy store.
We casually strolled the last hundred yards toward the corner of Central Park and Pippa started to get excited at the site of the horse drawn carriages parading around the park. This was something she wanted to do and I could easily propose in the back of a carriage. It may have been $45 to go round the park, but it would be worth every cent. I now had a new plan, a purpose, a goal. Marching over to join one of the several random queues that seemed to snake toward the side of the road, I noticed that I had misplaced Pippa somewhere between the pedestrian crossing and the queue. Of course I was concerned, but at the same time I was not prepared to give up my well-earned place in the queue and two tourists from Yorkshire had joined behind me. Much to my relief, just like the shop-keeper in Mr Ben, Pippa simply appeared from the crowd. To my disappointment however, Pippa declared in a fairly loud voice that “these bloody queues will take an hour before anyone gets in a carriage and anyway there’s no system in place the queues are all over the place and it’s freezing out here”. A few people looked round at me, it was obvious what was happening, Pippa may had well raised a loud-haler to her mouth and shouted ‘Step away form the queue, move slowly toward my voice and we will not shoot you, step away form the queue !” I knew my place and it wasn’t in this queue (according to Pippa).
We were clearly in panic stage 2 (lip biting, nausea and light perspiration), two possible proposal plans pulled form under me lug a cheap Ikea rug. I needed to compose my thoughts, think of another plan another angle. We sat for a while on a bench at watched the skating ducks sliding on the frozen lake. Grey squirrels with ginger swashes of colour down the backs scurried around the fallen leaves. I looked at my watch and checked my surroundings, it was 5 minutes after midday and we were two minutes walk away from the Wallman ice rink. I’m sure the rink featured in ‘Love Story’ or ‘Kramer vs Kramer’ or something romantic, so I had venue number three in my sights, but this time with a twist. I would ask Pippa to marry me at 12:17 on the 17/12 just as a little reminder to myself that I would remember the actual time that I proposed and I would do all this overlooking the Woolman ice rink.
We strolled toward the rink, had in hand, my panic had dropped back down to one, all I had to do was not loose the ring between here and over there. As we approached the rink, we took a couple of pictures and watched the skaters spin, twirl and fall over. I checked my watch, 12:15, sod it !, I’ll ask her now then pretend it was actually 12:17, like who’s going to know anyway. In the few seconds that I lowered my head to place my camera in its case and reach for my inside pocket for the ring, Pippa had gone, she was now standing what I estimate to be a good fifty meters away. Now if I had my head dipped for two seconds and she managed to get that far away, she must have travelled at an average speed of 90kmph !!! – something wasn’t right here. I had spent thousands on a ring we had chosen together, now I couldn’t get to stand still long enough to ask her if she wanted to wear it forever! Obviously I shot straight up to panic stage 3, skipping stage two altogether, light headed, impending bowel movement and severely moist armpits.
By the time I caught up with Pippa, after mopping my brow, we were just on a path, nothing memorable just a path in a park. I wanted more than this for the setting for my proposal; I wanted to remember images for the rest of my life, not just of Pippa but of the whole moment. I’d made such a pig’s ear of my last engagement six years ago, that this one was going to be special and forever. Maybe I should just leave it until later in the day, maybe we could go out for a nice meal tonight, that’s what I’d do…probably.
The path meandered then turned a corner with a slight incline, then all of a sudden the park looked different, a red and gold carpet of leaves lined both sides of the path, trees on either side like soldiers saluting as we walked down the aisle and there was no one around, all of a sudden the park seemed to go silent, this was the moment, I didn’t realise that it would hit me like this but it did, right - grab the ring and assume the position.
A shrill whistle echoed across the park toward me, I looked up, about a football pitch away stood my brother, arm aloft and waving. I had left him over an hour ago to ‘do his own thing’ in the park whilst I proposed marriage to my girlfriend. But in 843 acres of parkland, my brother found me and the moment was gone.
The three of us strolled down one of the main paths in the park called the mall, skaters and cyclists buzzed passed and I felt like all of them knew that I had bottled it again for the umpteenth time today. I wasn’t panicking now, just disappointed and just a little pissed off. The mall leads into the band-shell where even more inline skaters twirl & gyrate to their MP3 players. Just passed this we came to a wall which overlooks a fountain and the lake. Maybe just maybe, I still have a chance to pop the question in central park.
We walked down the steps toward Bethesda fountain, my brother Andy, had popped off again to take some more park photos. We sat on the wall of the fountain and I looked up at the inscription on the statue that dominated the centre of the fountain. The ten foot tall ‘Angel of Waters’ surrounded by four cherubs symbolising temperance, purity, health and peace, I never knew four words come sum me up so succinctly, this was the time this was the place.
“I want to go and sit over there, by the edge of the lake”, Pippa informed me as she released my hand and marched forth like a woman approaching the doors of the Next sale. I sat next to Pippa once more, looking over the frozen lake toward the Loeb Boathouse restaurant. Surrounded by tourists from across the globe, babbling on about god knows what and taking pictures of almost anything. Then the silence came again and the people seemed to disappear, a busking saxophonist started to play a non-descript melody in the background. I took Pippa’s hand and held it tight, she was not moving this time, with my free hand I reached for the ring box. This moment I had thought about a thousand times and almost rehearsed word perfect what I was about to say. My bottom lip began to quiver, I could feel my eyes become moist and stingy, I looked Pippa in the eye and said “Pippa there’s a million things I could say, will you marry me ?”. I didn’t want a pause a hesitation or a wise-crack, there was only one thing I wanted to hear and it was spontaneous “Of course I will darling”. My whole body deflated in that one moment in a sigh of relief, contentment and excitement. My life proper started at this moment, I was glad I found the right spot, the right time and the right everything. This was the first chapter of everything to come, it had to be right and it is was so right.
Even though I had been desperately trying to ask Pippa to marry me for the last few hours, I was still in a state of shock and so was she. We were numb, in love, engaged, but numb. As we walked away from ‘our little wall’ at Bethesda fountain, I dropped a couple of dollars into the sax case of the busker, just as a little thank you for providing the background music whilst I popped the biggest question of my life and waited for the most important answer in the history of man.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
New York Here We Come !
This morning we flight to New York for 3 nights and return in the early hours of Monday morning, excited ? - "not 'alf !"
**Detail To Follow**
Monday, December 12, 2005
The Works Xmas Party
A Pippa-ASBO is in full force this evening as the potential for 'trouble' in all it's guises is at an all time high.
**Detail to Follow**
Sunday, December 11, 2005
That Bang Woke Me Up !
With a dressing gown to cover my pride, I ran into the street to see if a lorry had hit an adjoing wall or if a light aircraft was sticking out of my roof, neither of these seemed to be the cause of the noise. Maybe it was something within the house, myabe the boiler had blown up or a tank in the loft had collapsed. Within minutes I had checked the garage and then had ladders extending into the loft to check the situation. No clues so far, my next thought was a terrorist attack on my local Sainsburys, so I checked on the internet for any news bulletins, there was nothing. Pippa had also been woken by the noise, but wasn't too worried, so she made some coffee.
I ventured out the back door with Pippa to check the rear of the house and as we started to describe our individual accounts of the noise to each other, in the distance an expolosion could be heard and we nodded at each other and said "Yeah, sounded just like that". I could relax now, my house wasn't about to fall down, this was something a mile or so away, but still worrying, what was going on, and could this be the start of something nasty.
By this time, the first snippets of information had reached Sky News and everything started to make sense. A massive fuel storage depot about 15 miles away had for some reason exploded. The events of that day and the devestation to the depot are well recorded. For the first time in ages I experienced an unusal feeling, I had been really scared.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Hatton Garden - Whats Wrong with Argos ?
There are a few things that I know lots about, there are a lot of things that I know a fair bit about and there are a few things that I haven't got a bloody clue about. Diamond engagement rings is one of those things that I know naff-all about, I had brought one before about six years ago, but that woman cleared off within 3 months with the ring, a Black & Decker sander, a 20m extension reel and a pair of my sport socks.
Not that I'm bitter but I did shed a tear when I had to buy a brand new sander last year to finish off decorating the bathroom. Pippa has tried her best to educate me about cut, clarity, caret and the other 'c' that is something to do with diamonds, I always remember it as 'cost'. I have tried to learn and take an interest, if I was going to spend some serious spondoolies on a highly polished jubilee-clip, then I wanted to get the real McCoy.
After all, the money you are talking about is going to buy you a 45" TFT HDTV system that would really go well in the lounge, as Pippa pointed out though, it's not the traditional thing to do, buy your girlfriend a big TV when you get engaged and neither is it practical for wearing on a day to day basis.
We had spent Friday night at my parents in Cannock, there was no real special occasion, I happened to be working in the area that day and Pippa had a day off, so we made a day of it and rounded it off with a Chinese takeaway. My parents made Pippa feel very welcome in the home and everything was fine and relaxed.
However, once my mother had got Pippa sat opposite her at dinner, she felt she was in an ideal position to start to question Pippa in more depth, Sandy (my mum) had Pippa eye-to-eye there was no way she could lie. My mum’s demure 4’11” frame was not an issue now, they were sat down, but mum had the advantage, this was her house, her manor and the game was gonna be played on her terms. I’m sure without a breath my mum rattled off a verbal chain of questions, “How did you meet Neil, how long did you know him beforehand, did he chase you or did you chase him, have you set a date yet, will it be in a church, what will you wear, do you want children ?” my mum then inhaled deeply ready for the next barrage.
Luckily this was enough time for Pippa to gently raise one hand an issue a ‘Time-Out’. This is a system that I think Pippa has invented for dealing with my parents when they get a bit boisterous. My parents are great and I love them to bits, but when they get ‘a bit excited’ they start to ‘muck about a bit’ like naughty teenagers, I’ve grown up with it and I’m a bit the same so I hardly notice it. Pippa however has a low tolerance when it comes to ‘noise & banter’ so she invented the PTO (Pippa Time-Out) where she is permitted to raise one hand, call a time-out quite loudly and this indicates that the noise level is getting too high and people should just ‘chill a bit’. In some instances when I have been issued a PTO it has been swiftly followed by a GTYR (Go To Your Room) and think about what you have just said/done. These are quite rare but often stem from me not following some simple guidelines that Pippa had laid down several months ago ‘Please think what about what you’re going to say before you say it’. I don’t mean to offend people or say the wrong thing, it just pops out, a bit like tourettes, but without the blinking or twitchy shoulders.
Both Pippa and I revealed the information that my mum was after, Sandy was satisfied, she closed her notebook, popped her pencil back behind her ear and we were allowed to leave the table.
The next morning we decided to leave quite early and get back home as we had stuff to do, not sure what ‘stuff’ but as sure as ‘egg are eggs’ Pippa would find some jobs that needed doing. Polishing the TV aerial, wiping the top of all the sauce bottles, arrange the newspapers in date order in the recycling bin all these sorts of things that just have to be done. However, I can never leave my mum’s house without at least doing a couple of jobs for her, these usually involved re-wiring something, reprogramming a microwave or fixing a leaking tap. This Saturday mornings task for mummy’s little soldier, was to connect a PIR movement detector to the outside porch lights. It was actually reconnect the sensor that I had installed a year ago when I put the little spotlights in, only to be told by my mum at the time that she actually wanted them on a timer. So with that little task out of the way, we were set to leave.
Before starting the engine, we did briefly discuss popping into the jewellery quarter in Birmingham to see if there were any rings that took Pippa’s fancy, but we couldn’t really be arsed so we drove straight home.
I have come to realise that certain idea’s, when they get into a woman’s head, start to germinate and grow and take root until the idea blossoms into reality, engagement rings had become Pippa’s seed for today.
If procrastination were an Olympic sport then I’d join the England Team, not for the next Olympics, probably the one after. So with this attribute I tentatively agreed that we might pop into London on Sunday to Hatton Garden and have a look at rings, perhaps. I had no idea that the ring idea had really taken root and before I knew it, we were at Leagrave station waiting for the 14:25 train to Farringdon.
As we walked up Greville Street into Hatton Garden, I felt like I had been transported to the tunnel at Wembley Stadium, marching onto the pitch with the England team in the World Cup final. I felt overcome by the emotion of the moment, in awe of my surroundings, a little bit scared and a little bit that I shouldn’t be here at all.
Pippa on the other hand was the proverbial ‘kid in a candy store’, she couldn’t pass a shop window without pressing her nose against the glass and admiring the array of sparkling beauties. After leaving her nose-print on about six windows, I suggested we actually went into one of the shops to find look at some close up. Whilst stood in the doorway of one of these fine establishments, we were greeted by the salesperson who was a cross between Dawn French and Cher, well to be honest she was just fat with long hair, lovely personality though. She showed us to a seat, asked a few questions of what Pippa liked and didn’t like, then presented a tray of four or five different rings. Some Pippa liked, some she didn’t and the rest she wasn’t sure about. The assistant then wisely advised us that if this was the first shop we had visited, then do look around at what is on offer and come back if you want to. It was at this point that I think she had spotted Pippa’s particularly ‘Chavvy’ ‘Diamonds are a Girls best Friend’ t-shirt, in rhinestone letters, sparkling from the opening in her ‘hoody’. We thanked her for her time and left.
Thirty minutes later, Pippa’s nose was getting sore and I was finding it hard to look interested, they all look the same to me; small, sparkling and ‘effing expensive. I decided we needed to go into another shop, not to get closer to buying one, but because it was getting cold. I chose the shop across the street called ‘Eternity’ mainly because I remembered that it had a good website whilst diamond browsing on-line earlier that day. As we walked across the street toward the shop, I started to imagine some appropriate taglines to go under the ‘Eternity’ shop Banner. ‘Because you will regret it for a lifetime’ or ‘You can’t buy it on the never-never, but you will end up paying forever’, it’s thoughts like this that I don’t often share with Pippa, as she sometimes gets the wrong impression.
Well as they say, thirty minutes in Eternity can seem like a lifetime, and they came a point when I thought the jeweller was going to either ask us to leave or suggest that he would have to hand craft a totally unique ring for Pippa as she had said no or turned her nose up to nearly every platinum, diamond solitaire in his shop. “There might be one ring that just fits the bill” the jeweller uttered as he felt the will to live draining from his body like a tyre with a slow puncture. “This one came in just last week and it’s a bit of a one-off”, you could almost here the prayer-like hope in his voice that his 30 years of experience might count for something or had Pippa finally convinced him to jack it all in and take up window cleaning.
There are moments, and they are quite rare that you feel something ‘instinctively’ and I would say that they are even rarer when two people share that feeling simultaneously. He laid the ring on the tray before us and we knew that this would be our engagement ring. I examined it closely with his eye-piece, Pippa tried it on and scrutinised it, first with one eye, then the other, then both eyes, then with both eyes shut I think, just to see if she could see it in the dark. Finding the right ring is the hard part, putting your Visa card in the Chip and Pin machine is the easy bit, telling her that you’re four grand over your limit is the really hard part. Luckily I had just transferred some of my life-debt onto my new Royal Bank of Bermuda Mastercard (0% until next spring). The transaction was approved, I was on the edge of bancrupcy, but blissfully happy.
The ring had to be altered to accommodate Pippa’s twiglet like fingers, and I thought that if he was taking a bit of platinum out that I should get a reduction, I soon learnt that this was the case, well at least not in Hatton Garden. I did confess to Pippa that on reflection I think it was right that we bought the ring together and that we came to Hatton Garden to do it. My earlier ideas of a high-street jeweller or Argos, which had been point blank refused by Pippa seemed so wrong now, but I had learned something, a valuable lesson – listen to Pippa – she is generally right about stuff.
We strolled back toward the station, smiling and holding hands, Pippa thinking that everything was falling into place and that once I had the ring all I had to do was ask, and me thinking ‘well you can’t take it with you!’. As luck would have it, a Wetherspoons pub is located at the corner of Greville Street, so we popped in there for a swift one before heading back home.
As we neared the tube station in Cowcross Street, we decided that it was maybe a bit early to go home so we popped into The Castle for a snifter, (1) to get out of the rain and (2) to plan our evening. We decided that we should carry on celebrating our ring purchase by going into the west end and getting a bite to eat. This is exactly what we did and found a lovely Italian restaurant in Irving Street, just of Leicester Square. We eat pasta drunk wine, chatted, felt very tired and went home.
Not that I'm bitter but I did shed a tear when I had to buy a brand new sander last year to finish off decorating the bathroom. Pippa has tried her best to educate me about cut, clarity, caret and the other 'c' that is something to do with diamonds, I always remember it as 'cost'. I have tried to learn and take an interest, if I was going to spend some serious spondoolies on a highly polished jubilee-clip, then I wanted to get the real McCoy.
After all, the money you are talking about is going to buy you a 45" TFT HDTV system that would really go well in the lounge, as Pippa pointed out though, it's not the traditional thing to do, buy your girlfriend a big TV when you get engaged and neither is it practical for wearing on a day to day basis.
We had spent Friday night at my parents in Cannock, there was no real special occasion, I happened to be working in the area that day and Pippa had a day off, so we made a day of it and rounded it off with a Chinese takeaway. My parents made Pippa feel very welcome in the home and everything was fine and relaxed.
However, once my mother had got Pippa sat opposite her at dinner, she felt she was in an ideal position to start to question Pippa in more depth, Sandy (my mum) had Pippa eye-to-eye there was no way she could lie. My mum’s demure 4’11” frame was not an issue now, they were sat down, but mum had the advantage, this was her house, her manor and the game was gonna be played on her terms. I’m sure without a breath my mum rattled off a verbal chain of questions, “How did you meet Neil, how long did you know him beforehand, did he chase you or did you chase him, have you set a date yet, will it be in a church, what will you wear, do you want children ?” my mum then inhaled deeply ready for the next barrage.
Luckily this was enough time for Pippa to gently raise one hand an issue a ‘Time-Out’. This is a system that I think Pippa has invented for dealing with my parents when they get a bit boisterous. My parents are great and I love them to bits, but when they get ‘a bit excited’ they start to ‘muck about a bit’ like naughty teenagers, I’ve grown up with it and I’m a bit the same so I hardly notice it. Pippa however has a low tolerance when it comes to ‘noise & banter’ so she invented the PTO (Pippa Time-Out) where she is permitted to raise one hand, call a time-out quite loudly and this indicates that the noise level is getting too high and people should just ‘chill a bit’. In some instances when I have been issued a PTO it has been swiftly followed by a GTYR (Go To Your Room) and think about what you have just said/done. These are quite rare but often stem from me not following some simple guidelines that Pippa had laid down several months ago ‘Please think what about what you’re going to say before you say it’. I don’t mean to offend people or say the wrong thing, it just pops out, a bit like tourettes, but without the blinking or twitchy shoulders.
Both Pippa and I revealed the information that my mum was after, Sandy was satisfied, she closed her notebook, popped her pencil back behind her ear and we were allowed to leave the table.
The next morning we decided to leave quite early and get back home as we had stuff to do, not sure what ‘stuff’ but as sure as ‘egg are eggs’ Pippa would find some jobs that needed doing. Polishing the TV aerial, wiping the top of all the sauce bottles, arrange the newspapers in date order in the recycling bin all these sorts of things that just have to be done. However, I can never leave my mum’s house without at least doing a couple of jobs for her, these usually involved re-wiring something, reprogramming a microwave or fixing a leaking tap. This Saturday mornings task for mummy’s little soldier, was to connect a PIR movement detector to the outside porch lights. It was actually reconnect the sensor that I had installed a year ago when I put the little spotlights in, only to be told by my mum at the time that she actually wanted them on a timer. So with that little task out of the way, we were set to leave.
Before starting the engine, we did briefly discuss popping into the jewellery quarter in Birmingham to see if there were any rings that took Pippa’s fancy, but we couldn’t really be arsed so we drove straight home.
I have come to realise that certain idea’s, when they get into a woman’s head, start to germinate and grow and take root until the idea blossoms into reality, engagement rings had become Pippa’s seed for today.
If procrastination were an Olympic sport then I’d join the England Team, not for the next Olympics, probably the one after. So with this attribute I tentatively agreed that we might pop into London on Sunday to Hatton Garden and have a look at rings, perhaps. I had no idea that the ring idea had really taken root and before I knew it, we were at Leagrave station waiting for the 14:25 train to Farringdon.
As we walked up Greville Street into Hatton Garden, I felt like I had been transported to the tunnel at Wembley Stadium, marching onto the pitch with the England team in the World Cup final. I felt overcome by the emotion of the moment, in awe of my surroundings, a little bit scared and a little bit that I shouldn’t be here at all.
Pippa on the other hand was the proverbial ‘kid in a candy store’, she couldn’t pass a shop window without pressing her nose against the glass and admiring the array of sparkling beauties. After leaving her nose-print on about six windows, I suggested we actually went into one of the shops to find look at some close up. Whilst stood in the doorway of one of these fine establishments, we were greeted by the salesperson who was a cross between Dawn French and Cher, well to be honest she was just fat with long hair, lovely personality though. She showed us to a seat, asked a few questions of what Pippa liked and didn’t like, then presented a tray of four or five different rings. Some Pippa liked, some she didn’t and the rest she wasn’t sure about. The assistant then wisely advised us that if this was the first shop we had visited, then do look around at what is on offer and come back if you want to. It was at this point that I think she had spotted Pippa’s particularly ‘Chavvy’ ‘Diamonds are a Girls best Friend’ t-shirt, in rhinestone letters, sparkling from the opening in her ‘hoody’. We thanked her for her time and left.
Thirty minutes later, Pippa’s nose was getting sore and I was finding it hard to look interested, they all look the same to me; small, sparkling and ‘effing expensive. I decided we needed to go into another shop, not to get closer to buying one, but because it was getting cold. I chose the shop across the street called ‘Eternity’ mainly because I remembered that it had a good website whilst diamond browsing on-line earlier that day. As we walked across the street toward the shop, I started to imagine some appropriate taglines to go under the ‘Eternity’ shop Banner. ‘Because you will regret it for a lifetime’ or ‘You can’t buy it on the never-never, but you will end up paying forever’, it’s thoughts like this that I don’t often share with Pippa, as she sometimes gets the wrong impression.
Well as they say, thirty minutes in Eternity can seem like a lifetime, and they came a point when I thought the jeweller was going to either ask us to leave or suggest that he would have to hand craft a totally unique ring for Pippa as she had said no or turned her nose up to nearly every platinum, diamond solitaire in his shop. “There might be one ring that just fits the bill” the jeweller uttered as he felt the will to live draining from his body like a tyre with a slow puncture. “This one came in just last week and it’s a bit of a one-off”, you could almost here the prayer-like hope in his voice that his 30 years of experience might count for something or had Pippa finally convinced him to jack it all in and take up window cleaning.
There are moments, and they are quite rare that you feel something ‘instinctively’ and I would say that they are even rarer when two people share that feeling simultaneously. He laid the ring on the tray before us and we knew that this would be our engagement ring. I examined it closely with his eye-piece, Pippa tried it on and scrutinised it, first with one eye, then the other, then both eyes, then with both eyes shut I think, just to see if she could see it in the dark. Finding the right ring is the hard part, putting your Visa card in the Chip and Pin machine is the easy bit, telling her that you’re four grand over your limit is the really hard part. Luckily I had just transferred some of my life-debt onto my new Royal Bank of Bermuda Mastercard (0% until next spring). The transaction was approved, I was on the edge of bancrupcy, but blissfully happy.
The ring had to be altered to accommodate Pippa’s twiglet like fingers, and I thought that if he was taking a bit of platinum out that I should get a reduction, I soon learnt that this was the case, well at least not in Hatton Garden. I did confess to Pippa that on reflection I think it was right that we bought the ring together and that we came to Hatton Garden to do it. My earlier ideas of a high-street jeweller or Argos, which had been point blank refused by Pippa seemed so wrong now, but I had learned something, a valuable lesson – listen to Pippa – she is generally right about stuff.
We strolled back toward the station, smiling and holding hands, Pippa thinking that everything was falling into place and that once I had the ring all I had to do was ask, and me thinking ‘well you can’t take it with you!’. As luck would have it, a Wetherspoons pub is located at the corner of Greville Street, so we popped in there for a swift one before heading back home.
As we neared the tube station in Cowcross Street, we decided that it was maybe a bit early to go home so we popped into The Castle for a snifter, (1) to get out of the rain and (2) to plan our evening. We decided that we should carry on celebrating our ring purchase by going into the west end and getting a bite to eat. This is exactly what we did and found a lovely Italian restaurant in Irving Street, just of Leicester Square. We eat pasta drunk wine, chatted, felt very tired and went home.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
A very Intimate Dinner Party
Michael and Vini are coming over this evening for dinner.
**Detail to Follow**
Saturday, November 12, 2005
One Wedding & Nearly a Funeral
Brighton train station, on a crisp yet sunny Saturday afternoon. With a suitcase on wheels in one hand and a girlfriend in the other, we set off toward the seafront and the Grand Hotel. As the train tickets were £50 and a night in the Grand Hotel was going to cost an arm and a leg, I persuaded Pippa that we should walk from the train station to the hotel to get some air (and save a fiver on a taxi). Luckily it's all downhill form train station to Brighton beach, so didn't get too out of breath, even so my blood-sugar level had dropped as a consequence and I would need a beer soon.
We checked in and made our way to our room for the night and what a nice room it was, a bit small but it did have biscuits on the tea and coffee tray, so I knew I was in a quality establishment. A quick change of clothes later and we were off to the shops.
Two and a half hours later, I was tired, bored, hungry, thirsty and basically all-shopped-out. As we strolled back to the Hotel, we decided that we did have 40 minutes free to pop in for a swift pint in a bar en-route, if we happened to stumble across one. Luckily we did find a lovely little bar in which we purchased a Grolsch and a large vodka & tonic. We sat chatting about nothing in particular, who was going to the wedding reception that evening and what would people be wearing. I was also subtlety reminded that I did have a Pippa-ASBO in force for the evening which meant that I had to be on good behaviour and not get outrageously drunk and beat up the groom - as if !
As we were only minutes away from going to our first wedding reception together, the topic of conversation soon switched to us, "do you think we'll ever get married" Pippa asked with head on one side, these sort of questions can not be brushed aside with simple, one word answers. I had sort of asked Pippa to marry me about a month earlier, but it was 2am from my hotel bedroom in Croydon after a fairly lengthy visit to a pub which involved large straight vodka's with Smirnoff Ice chasers. It hadn't been a romantic proposal, more of a practical proposition "you know I really loves you Pips, HIC, so we should be married yeah, be great, HIC, woodenit ?" I sort of remember the deathly silence just before Pippa told me "It's two am, you've woken me up, you're pissed and you expect me to take you seriously, now go to bed and ring me tomorrow". So that was sort of a 'No' response at the time, but I knew she wanted too really.
"We should at least talk about it, we've been together over a year and neither of us is getting any younger, I would like to know how serious you are about this relationship" Pippa continued. Now at this point I actually new in my mind that I was going to ask Pippa to marry me, in fact I knew in my mind the date and place when I would ask her. It was going to be December 17th at the top of the Empire State building, on our xmas holiday to New York. But this was my secret and my big surprise, so to continue the cover up, I replied "Look, we've got New York and Christmas coming up and there's a lot going on so why don't we wait until after Christmas and we will talk about it then". From the response this received, I might have well had admitted to a string of a dozen affairs in the last month alone. Initially there was a look of anger on her face and I could hear her mind shouting "You utter bastard". Then she started to cry, "I knew you weren't serious, this isn't real for you is it, you know how I feel, you're just stringing me along". The solitary tears turned into a torrent a real gut wrenching sob. "I do love you, I really do and this is real for me and we probably will get married one day" I was scrabbling now to recover the situation, I knew I was on the cusp of a potential storming out the door in tears situation, which would not be pleasant and ruin our evening out. "You're just saying that to please me you don't mean it, do you ?" Pippa's nose was running now and this wasn't a good look for Pippa. I now had no choice, I would have to shoot my bolt, I would have to unwrap my big surprise, "I'll tell you how much I love you, I'm going to ask you to marry me on 17th December this year in New York...." there followed a brief silence whilst Pippa took in this new information, this pro-forma engagement invitation had come as somewhat of a shock to both of us. "You're just making this up to stop me crying and make me feel better" she sobbed back at me, with a bit of spit for good luck. I could taste her salty tear on my lip and I knew I had to dig deeper to qualify this great statement I had just made. "OK, then ring my mum, ask her or ing Graham, I've told them what I plan to do, speak to them and you'll see that I've not just made it up". Now foolishly, I thought this was a real powerful statement to make to back up my claim and it was true, I had told my parents and six of my best mates as well. However, I hadn't taken into account the complex workings of a woman's mind.
The crying suddenly stopped, the distraught look changed to a look of anger as did the tone of Pippa's voice, "You have actually, discussed getting married, with your best mates and your mum", at this point Pippa's teeth are so tightly gritted together, that the words are finding it difficult to escape through the small gaps, "yet you haven't had the balls or decency to talk to me about it". I knew at this point that if Pippa had been holding a garden spade, she would have swiped it toward my neck and taken my head clean off. My head would have flown several feet and crashed into the Trivial Pursuit machine, rolled down it's sloped from and trundled toward the bar, as my headless body twitched and spurted my life blood in a vertical bloom all over the table and floor and probably into my pint of Grolsch.
Luckily, she didn't have a spade and luckily her momentary anger switched to joy, she had just realised that I was going to ask her to marry me and her initial shock and confusion had cleared to leave a single undeniable fact that I would be asking her to marry me in five weeks time. Instead of a garden tool execution, I got a great big hug and a kiss.
We decided that this deserved another drink and that it didn't matter if we were a bit late for the reception, I'm sure they would start without us. We capped off our mini celebration by buying a large portion of chips, a big gherkin and two cans of pop. We sat outside the chippy at 7:30pm in November in an icy wind eating chips with a little wooden fork to celebrate the fact that we would soon be engaged. We knew how to celebrate, we lived the high life, we liked chips.
We did have trouble containing ourselves that evening as we had made a pact not to tell anyone before the big event of actually getting engaged, but I think it was pretty obvious to everyone else that we did have some sort of special secret that we were keeping. The wedding reception went off according to plan, a few Stellas, quick boogey on the dance floor, bypass the chocolate fountain, slice of pizza, couple more beers then off to bed. Not a late night, but a memorable one.
We checked in and made our way to our room for the night and what a nice room it was, a bit small but it did have biscuits on the tea and coffee tray, so I knew I was in a quality establishment. A quick change of clothes later and we were off to the shops.
Two and a half hours later, I was tired, bored, hungry, thirsty and basically all-shopped-out. As we strolled back to the Hotel, we decided that we did have 40 minutes free to pop in for a swift pint in a bar en-route, if we happened to stumble across one. Luckily we did find a lovely little bar in which we purchased a Grolsch and a large vodka & tonic. We sat chatting about nothing in particular, who was going to the wedding reception that evening and what would people be wearing. I was also subtlety reminded that I did have a Pippa-ASBO in force for the evening which meant that I had to be on good behaviour and not get outrageously drunk and beat up the groom - as if !
As we were only minutes away from going to our first wedding reception together, the topic of conversation soon switched to us, "do you think we'll ever get married" Pippa asked with head on one side, these sort of questions can not be brushed aside with simple, one word answers. I had sort of asked Pippa to marry me about a month earlier, but it was 2am from my hotel bedroom in Croydon after a fairly lengthy visit to a pub which involved large straight vodka's with Smirnoff Ice chasers. It hadn't been a romantic proposal, more of a practical proposition "you know I really loves you Pips, HIC, so we should be married yeah, be great, HIC, woodenit ?" I sort of remember the deathly silence just before Pippa told me "It's two am, you've woken me up, you're pissed and you expect me to take you seriously, now go to bed and ring me tomorrow". So that was sort of a 'No' response at the time, but I knew she wanted too really.
"We should at least talk about it, we've been together over a year and neither of us is getting any younger, I would like to know how serious you are about this relationship" Pippa continued. Now at this point I actually new in my mind that I was going to ask Pippa to marry me, in fact I knew in my mind the date and place when I would ask her. It was going to be December 17th at the top of the Empire State building, on our xmas holiday to New York. But this was my secret and my big surprise, so to continue the cover up, I replied "Look, we've got New York and Christmas coming up and there's a lot going on so why don't we wait until after Christmas and we will talk about it then". From the response this received, I might have well had admitted to a string of a dozen affairs in the last month alone. Initially there was a look of anger on her face and I could hear her mind shouting "You utter bastard". Then she started to cry, "I knew you weren't serious, this isn't real for you is it, you know how I feel, you're just stringing me along". The solitary tears turned into a torrent a real gut wrenching sob. "I do love you, I really do and this is real for me and we probably will get married one day" I was scrabbling now to recover the situation, I knew I was on the cusp of a potential storming out the door in tears situation, which would not be pleasant and ruin our evening out. "You're just saying that to please me you don't mean it, do you ?" Pippa's nose was running now and this wasn't a good look for Pippa. I now had no choice, I would have to shoot my bolt, I would have to unwrap my big surprise, "I'll tell you how much I love you, I'm going to ask you to marry me on 17th December this year in New York...." there followed a brief silence whilst Pippa took in this new information, this pro-forma engagement invitation had come as somewhat of a shock to both of us. "You're just making this up to stop me crying and make me feel better" she sobbed back at me, with a bit of spit for good luck. I could taste her salty tear on my lip and I knew I had to dig deeper to qualify this great statement I had just made. "OK, then ring my mum, ask her or ing Graham, I've told them what I plan to do, speak to them and you'll see that I've not just made it up". Now foolishly, I thought this was a real powerful statement to make to back up my claim and it was true, I had told my parents and six of my best mates as well. However, I hadn't taken into account the complex workings of a woman's mind.
The crying suddenly stopped, the distraught look changed to a look of anger as did the tone of Pippa's voice, "You have actually, discussed getting married, with your best mates and your mum", at this point Pippa's teeth are so tightly gritted together, that the words are finding it difficult to escape through the small gaps, "yet you haven't had the balls or decency to talk to me about it". I knew at this point that if Pippa had been holding a garden spade, she would have swiped it toward my neck and taken my head clean off. My head would have flown several feet and crashed into the Trivial Pursuit machine, rolled down it's sloped from and trundled toward the bar, as my headless body twitched and spurted my life blood in a vertical bloom all over the table and floor and probably into my pint of Grolsch.
Luckily, she didn't have a spade and luckily her momentary anger switched to joy, she had just realised that I was going to ask her to marry me and her initial shock and confusion had cleared to leave a single undeniable fact that I would be asking her to marry me in five weeks time. Instead of a garden tool execution, I got a great big hug and a kiss.
We decided that this deserved another drink and that it didn't matter if we were a bit late for the reception, I'm sure they would start without us. We capped off our mini celebration by buying a large portion of chips, a big gherkin and two cans of pop. We sat outside the chippy at 7:30pm in November in an icy wind eating chips with a little wooden fork to celebrate the fact that we would soon be engaged. We knew how to celebrate, we lived the high life, we liked chips.We did have trouble containing ourselves that evening as we had made a pact not to tell anyone before the big event of actually getting engaged, but I think it was pretty obvious to everyone else that we did have some sort of special secret that we were keeping. The wedding reception went off according to plan, a few Stellas, quick boogey on the dance floor, bypass the chocolate fountain, slice of pizza, couple more beers then off to bed. Not a late night, but a memorable one.
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Meeting the In-Laws in Bartlow
Today I would meet Pippa's parent, her brother and his fiance.......
**Detail to follow**
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Our 1st Christening
Today see's the Christening of Scarlett Jean Rynolds - my god-daughter.
**Detail to Follow**
Saturday, September 17, 2005
I am a 14 Handicap - One for each club in my bag !
Off to Antalya, Turkey for 7 days playing golf.
**DETAIL to FOLLOW**
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Disfigured for Life
When I told people that I broke my own finger by sitting on it, some people didn't believe me, yet everybody, without exception laughed, even if it was just a muffled titter. Having broken the first bone in my body in 36 years, nearly 37, I really did think that I would win a little more sympathy. How wrong could I be.
My finger started out the day in fine fettle, without a care in the world, carrying out all it's normal day to day duties. Then it all went terribly wrong. Whilst organising the refurbishment of a meeting room at the office, I chose to sat on a long bench seat, on lowering myself down, I steadied myself with my right hand by gripping the edge of the seat. Little did I know that the seat top had not been fixed down properly and was only resting on the frame. The moment my arse hit that seat the, the top part of the bench moved slightly and dropped only about 10mm onto its frame, with only my finger sanswiched between the two parts.
After nearly passing out with the pain, I was taken to the local hospital by one of the guys in the office. Within 15 minutes I had been assesed and 30 minutes after that, I had been x-rayed, strapped and sent on my way with a mallet finger.
In ten days time I was due to fly to Turkey to play golf for a week with six of my friends. Having my finger heavily strapped was not going to improve my swing. Closer than Turkey though was our trip to Spain for the weekend to celebrate Pippa's special birthday, our flight was in 24 hours and I was walking home from the hospital in pain.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Meeting My Parents for the 1st Time !
Today was the day when my Mum & Dad woudl meet Pippa, the potential future Mrs. Hobbs.
**Detail to Follow**
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Friday, August 26, 2005
Sick As a Parrot !
A quiet night out in the sleepy village of Westoning turned into a drunken mess, with stuntman gymnastics and a bucket of sick, the evening was a success. However Pippa had to do a 48 mile round trip to take three of us home at the end of the night. Didn't win too many brownie points !
**Detail to Follow**
Saturday, August 13, 2005
It's a Ruby Anniversary Party and I Love You !
The Gallaghers 40th Anniversary party turned out to be more eventful than I thought !
**Detail to Follow**
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Our 1st Dinner Party
Friday, August 05, 2005
Emergency - Need to Get to Glasgow, Sharpish !
Another late night emergency phone call, lead me to book two flights to Glasgow leaving at 7:30am. This time I would not be taking Pippa.
**Detail to Follow***
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Thursday, June 02, 2005
The Boy Gags is Having a Birthday Bash
London - blue Posts, then onto a Thai Restaurant.
**Details to Follow**
Saturday, May 21, 2005
XN Checkout Connacht Derby, Galway
Six top class greyhounds go to traps at the splendid Galway track in College Road, chasing a first prize of €10,000 in the final of the XN Checkout Connacht Derby.
***Detail To Follow***
Sunday, May 01, 2005
In Ireland Again !
Best Western Pery's HotelGlentworth StreetLimerickIrelandTEL: 00 353 61 413822FAX: 00 353 61 4130731 double Bed with Full Breakfast01 May 20051 nightMr N HobbsRate: EUR70.00Guaranteed with Mr Hobbs credit card for late arrivalCancellation Policy: Cancel before 4pm on 30 April 2005 to avoid charge.Reservation Number: 322864718
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Emergency - Get To Ireland in the next 24hrs !
I received a very desperate call from the Irish Greyhound Board last night, much of which was swearing in a heavy Irish accent. Things were not going well at the stadium in Cork, having sent three engineers to fix the problem over the last week, the system was still down. It was time to put my underpants over my trousers, don the cape of power and book an early flight to Ireland. This was going to be a tough and difficult mission, one that I could not face alone....
Ring ring...ring ring...."Hello Pips, how are you", I enquired, even though I had seen Pippa not twenty minutes ago and she was only 40 yards away in another office. "Fine....why are you asking ? Whats up?", Pippa new I was about to spring either good or bad news on her.
"Want to come to Ireland with me for the weekend, need to know in the next 30 minutes, pop and see me and we can discuss" I informed her in a very business-like fashion.
***Detail To Follow***
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
1st Day Working for XN Entertainment
1st Day nerves, I don't think so, just a bit confused as to what my job might be and what will I be doing, maybe I should have clarified this before ?
I set off to meet the boss at Hard Rock Casino in London......
Monday, February 28, 2005
I Would Come home, But my Mate has Broken his Back !
Paul (Gags) is in hospital, being looked after by a gay nurse, paying a room rate of higher than the Ritz in London. He is receiving regular pain killing injections in his arse, so it's not all bad.
***Detail to Follow***
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Monday, February 14, 2005
Our First Valentines Day
I'm not really feeling that I want to do the whole Valentines thing with Pippa, so I don't buy her a present and pick up a simple card instead. I have already told her on the phone last night that I wouldn't be up for going out for dinner as I was still getting over the flight back from South Africa. It was a lame excused, but probably better than just saying 'no'.
***Detail to follow***
Monday, February 07, 2005
South Africa Here I Come
This evening I will be flying off to South Africa on a business trip, I should be home by the weekend, but these things can drag on.
***Detail to Follow***
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Friday, January 07, 2005
Ever Get The Feeling......?
'EVER GET THE FEELING THAT YOU HAVE MADE A MISTAKE' read the text on my mobile, whilst my thumb hovered over the send button for what seemed to be an eternity. I truly did have this strange feeling that telling Pippa earlier in the week to 'have a life without me' might not have been the wisest thing that I had ever done.
***Detail To Follow***
Monday, January 03, 2005
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