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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)