Weddings...

Ah ha! So I managed to beat the Gremlins...this time...

So following on from my first successful post I was wondering what I should, or rather what I would like, to write about. There are so many things I find interesting, and so many things I could talk about I don't really know where to start. I could talk more about this balance problem I have at the moment, but when I first thought about writing a blog I was conscious that I didn't want it to turn into one of those, "follow me on my journey of discovery and feel sorry for me" things. There are so many people out there who are far, far, far worse off than me (might talk about that another time), that I thought I'd prefer to talk about something more positive first.

So I thought I'd like to talk about what happened immediately BEFORE I got this virus thing, which was a wedding my boyfriend and I went to in the Netherlands. I almost wrote Holland there, but my geography isn't good enough to know if where we were was actually the Holland part of the Netherlands and I don't want to offend anybody who could (just possibly, maybe?) be reading this.

Camping Domaine de Labeiller, St Victor de Malcap

A couple of months ago I got a text message off an old friend of mine that I have known since I was a teenager, called Marlot. Now Marlot and I met on holiday I forget how many years ago as both our families used to go to the same campsite near Saint Ambroix in the South of France at the same time every year, and we have stayed in touch on and off for the last... must be at least a decade now I think of it! Her real name is Martha Charlot, and I knew her as Charlot the first year we met, but she decided she preferred Marlot after that and that's how it's been ever since. Her Dad always used to call me his second daughter, as we actually looked quite similar as teenagers - both tall, slim, with long, straight, light brown hair, although I think she is much prettier than me, but then we do often think that about our friends. She came over to visit me in Wales and Cambridge a couple of times but I had never been over to stay with her in the Netherlands, although we had met up in Amsterdam when I was there with friends on my gap year, and then in London while she was there on an internship.

As teenagers we'd often talked about boys while we were on holiday and I think she must have met quite a few of my old boyfriends over the years, which I think is quite nice for someone you see so rarely. At the time of her text, I knew that she was living with a long term boyfriend called Michel who I'd never met but had seen photos of and seemed quite nice, although I knew nothing about him. Anyway, one day I get a text message out of the blue, announcing that she and Michel were getting married at the end of August and did I want to come!

I don't need to tell you how excited I was. Apart from the obvious appeal of a trip abroad, it was also an opportunity to catch up my "other sister" and finally see where she lived, and experience a wedding in another culture which is something I've always been curious about.

After a fair bit of time spent on www.travelsupermarket.com looking for cheap flights, and www.laterooms.com looking for cheap hotels, and a fair bit of back-wards and forwards with text and Facebook messages we eventually settled on us flying from Liverpool John Lennon to Amsterdam Schiphol on the Tuesday and staying in Amsterdam the night before the wedding, getting a train to Capella a.d. IJssel (where the wedding was taking place) on Wednesday morning and staying at Marlot and Michel's apartment that night, and then flying back from Amsterdam on the Thursday after. In hindsight I should have booked the Friday off work as well, as it was a Bank Holiday week and I could have had the whole week off and spent more time in the Netherlands (especially as my boyfriend had never been there before). But alas, it was Staff Development on both the Thursday and Friday and I didn't want to give work a reason to be mad at me by missing both days.

But eventually, the flights were booked, the accommodation (at the bizarrely named Hotel Flipper) was booked, and the cheap airport car parking was booked so all we needed to do was get a card and a present (in spite of Marlot's protestations) and get there. As we were spending a fair bit of money getting there I wasn't planning on spending much on a present, but I still wanted to get her something small, especially as we were taking hand luggage only so wouldn't have much room in our bags!

The invitation that she posted to us (complete with English translation, bless her) had included the words "Cadeau Tip" at the bottom and a picture of an envelope, so I assumed this was the name of a website where she might perhaps have had a wedding list. After a while confusing myself looking at very general dutch gift websites I decided to read up on Dutch wedding customs on Wikipedia, and discovered something that I quite like.

 The symbols on Dutch wedding or birthday invitations are actually hints at the kind of present the bride and groom (or birthday boy or girl) would like, the envelope signifying money in (surprise surprise) an envelope i.e. they're not going to open it in front of anyone else at the reception, but after the party instead. This made much more sense!

But still, I wanted to get them something a bit different, so I suggested to my boyfriend the traditional welsh "Love Spoon". If you've never heard of one it might sound a bit like a bizarre, pre-wedding snuggle between you and the bride and groom before they gain their status as a legitimate, grown up, married couple, sleeping in the same bed and everything, or some kind of weird version of the French kiss on the cheek. I know, Wales can be weird sometimes, but it's not that weird people.

A Welsh Love Spoon, is actually something handmade by the man and given to his beloved lady friend (presumably homosexuality wasn't invented in Celtic Britain), so technically it should have been Michel giving it to Marlot, but I have heard of people giving them to couples as a wedding gift and as they come in a range of sizes I was pretty sure we could get one to fit in out hand luggage. Winner.

Only problem was that we'd left it quite late, and turns out they're not that easy to come by outside of the gifts shops at welsh tourist attractions or heritage sites. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing (seems to be a re-occurring theme on this post) we eventually bought one on the morning of the day we flew out (the shop was closed on Bank Holiday), along with a welsh wedding card and tea towel from the Welsh Shop in the market where we live. The tea towel I particularly liked as it had a picture of the sun with the words "Bore Da!" ("Good Morning!" in welsh) in big letters across the front. I know it might seem like welsh overkill, but I quite like the idea of being greeted in the morning by a cheery little welsh person saying "Bore Da!" to me. Don't know why, but it just puts a smile on my face. I may well get myself one if they bring their prices down a bit - £8 is a bit much for a tea towel.



So anyway, following a bit of a stressful time at the airport involving getting lost and executing dangerous manoeuvres and 3-point turns right next to roundabouts, and a good half an hour of not talking to each other, we eventually got on our flight and landed safely in Amsterdam. We'd also realised that the hotel was close to another train station in the city and successfully found a connecting train that took us straight there, and despite a good hour wondering around not asking people for directions, we eventually found Hotel Flipper (thanks to the security guys in one of the nearby business buildings who printed us off a map and helped us orientate ourselves).

The next day was a lot easier (despite some hair issues) and we met up with Marlot's brother Frank (who again I'd never met before, but who turned out to be funny and charming, and an all round decent guy) at Capella Schollevaar train station and then went on to meet up with the parents of the bride Ron and Hilde in plenty of time for a nice catch up before heading over to the ceremony venue.

The venue looked like just an ordinary red-brick town hall type building, which looked like it had been converted into a modern art gallery inside - and by modern art I mean lots of paintings of nude women in bright colours - but upstairs they had kept the original dark wood panelling, old portaits and porcelain collections and various other artifacts pertaining to official civic matters.

The bride and groom arrived in a Porsche Sportster (apparently the groom is meant to collect his bride with a bouquet of flowers for her before taking her to the wedding, rather than meeting at the altar/registry office). Marlot looked absolutely beautiful as I'd expected (she worked a brief stint as a model) and Michel looked very smart as well. The registry room itself was actually very small but then it was a small wedding - aside from us, there were only two other people who weren't family, so I felt really flattered to have been invited. One of the other guests explained to me afterwards that the registrar had told the story of the marriage proposal in which Michel had had to do it three times as they were diving at the time and Marlot hadn't understood what he was trying to do, which I thought was a sweet story.

Then we went downstairs to the riverside (the IJssel, I think) for Marlot's homemade wedding cake and a bit of bubbly and lots of photos. Me and my boyfriend ended up by pure coincidence having the two parts of the cake that spelled out Marlot's name which was really funny (and delicious!).

After that we were given some silver balloons with wedding wishes attached to postcards and let them off in the courtyard. Unfortunately the postcards were too heavy for the balloons to float so we had to tie them all together in one big bunch and in the end they did take off, but sadly they didn't get very far before getting stuck in the branches of a tree on the riverbank.I really liked the idea though so I may well suggest it to a friend who I'm going to be bridesmaid for next year.

After the ceremony we were driven by Marlot's parents to the reception which was being held at a "luxurious beach resort" near the Hague, Kijkduin, which according to Marlot's brother means "watch the dunes". Not sure if he was telling the truth but I liked the sound of it anyway. At that point the clouds had disappeared and it ended up being an absolutely beautiful, bright, sunny afternoon on the beach. The reception venue, a cool wooden beach club was stunning.

Lots of natural tones, to match the natural environment I suppose, with an added element of glamour and luxury, with gilded chandeliers and chairs. If I had to pick one element of the club as my favourite (aside from the sea view) it would have to their version of those beaded door curtains you sometimes see in old seventies shows, or slightly old fashioned houses, but they were made out of round discs of shell and they were hung in the windows.

These gave the room a beautiful shady kind of look in the afternoon light, but also reflected the light off the surface of the discs to add a pinky-golden effect to the room, which was emphasised at night when the red of the disco lights came on.

The wedding meal was just amazing too. Initially we couldn't understand much of the menus as they were in dutch, but everyone around us helped translate and eventually we were able to make our choices. For starters my boyfriend had the carpaccio of beef, and I had tuna spring rolls with wasabi mayonnaise and a dipping sauce. Both dishes were beautifully presented, but the tuna spring rolls were to die for. The spring roll was crisp and not at all soggy as they sometimes are, and the tuna and sauce filling was warm and tender (obviously not canned tuna by the way), and went really well with the dipping sauce and wasabi mayonnaise, even though I'm not really a fan of wasabi or horseradish at all. Sometimes I think it might help to not be able to fully understand a menu, as you can be put off by some aspects of it. In this situation we had a choice of two alternatives for each course, and with such a small group (we were all on one large table) the last thing you want to do is appear indecisive, or even worse picky, so the only thing you can do is to pick between beef and fish and see what turns up in front of you! It's actually rather liberating to eat like that - so I may well try this approach again next time we end up eating out.

For the main course we both had the entrecote (steak) on a bed of vegetables with some kind of slightly spicy jus, and a cup of the tastiest chips and mayonnaise I think I've ever had. Apparently they were grandma's secret recipe fries according to one guest's translation. If so I would have loved to have got my hands on that recipe! And for dessert there was a trio of puddings - there was definitely a chocolate mousse, and I think a creme brulee, but I can't remember what the last one was, I think because I might have been full and asked my boyfriend to finish it for me. All in all an absolutely delicious meal (I'm salivating just remembering it now!), and the only thing that was a shame was that Marlot started feeling nauseous half way through and couldn't eat her dessert (apparently unheard of for her!) but thankfully she got better as the day went on and she was soon boogying the night away!

The club also had a large outdoor decked area with smooth white wooden booths, square shaped seats and stools with cushions and sofas in soft cream, stone, beige, and sandy brown tones. Looking back at photos, it kind of reminded me of a Japanese zen garden.

My boyfriend and I spent a fair bit of time after the meal just sat outside with a glass of wine or beer (the bride and groom had paid for a free bar!), chilling in the sunshine and enjoying the view. Not because we were being anti-social you have to understand, but because I think it was a bit of an effort for everybody to try to keep speaking in English in order to include us in the conversations and Marlot and Michel had to greet lots of evening guests, plus it just seemed that kind of chilled out wedding where people could do what they wanted and just enjoy being there.

I have to admit, that was one of the unexpected delights of the trip - taking off my heels and walking bare foot in the warm sand on literally the last day of summer. At one point as the sun was just about touching the sea in front of us (at least from my perspective), when the sky and clouds are turning that chalky grey-blue which fades into the hot, almost blinding white of the setting sun, we noticed a horse and rider making their way from (our) right to left along the waters edge. In one of the photos I took, it looks as if they are literally riding into the setting sun.
 

 At almost exactly the same time though, a large group of joggers turned up on the horizon and made us feel like a pair of proper lazybones, although I think after all the travelling we'd done (according to Google maps, about 550miles including flights and trains) we were entitled to enjoy sitting still and enjoying the view for a bit.
 

The beach club at night