I complete my delicious wedding cake

And I am sure you will agree it looks dee-licious. 

In other news, the last week of work before I leave for two weeks to get married, become 40 years old, etc etc, has passed in a blur of anxiety-ridden late nights, emergency trips to the doctor and 2am gnawing on Benadryl.


A trip to Ottawa to talk to some people about chickens was roughly cut short when my lips (for the third time in 10 days) started to swell, joined by a little light swelling and tingling on the roof of my mouth and tip of my tongue.  I looked almost exactly like this:

Not a welcome early wedding present, particularly when joined by a light sprinkling of eczema on my chin and in my ears, but still, regular sucking on some cortisone pills and a light smearing of Vaseline seems to have kept the monster at bay.  


We think it is an allergy; to what we cannot say, and the last time I had patch tests - involving 80 metal pads strapped to my back with gaffer tape for a week - the results came back with a resoundingly helpful "atopic!", from Dr Cream (who does, I am happy to tell you, does actually exist), so I am not holding my breath.


Still, there is much to look forward to, not least the decision about which song we shall make an 'entrance' to in a comedy style ("and now ... the BRIDE AND GROOM!", as we trip and fall down the ornamental staircase).


Pip (swollen) pip!

I welcome you to my adopted land

I have too much to report

Yes friends: the days pass, and with them, my sanity.

Still, there is much to look forward to, and much to dwell upon, not least: what was I doing last Friday in a fur coat, "Canada 2010" woolly hat, a belt like that of the bonhomme, and a drinking stick (also featuring the head of the Bonhomme) full of Caribou?.

I will tell you what I was doing. I was embracing a French Canadian tradition of earning the beer money for my own surprise "bachelorette party" by dancing, singing Alouette, selling maple cookies for a dollar and eating le meilleur chien chaud in the world. We made $90, my friends and I, and I must salute the kindness of:

The many Canadians who gave me $5 without flinching and gave their sincere congratulations;
The man from Rhode Island who gave me $20;
The (many) people who gave me a $1 and refused to take a cookie;
The person who lent me a fur coat;
The people who lent me shin pads, a helmet, and a Canadiens jumper;
The six people who let us take their photograph;

And the dear friends I work with, who dressed me up in a Canadiens hockey outfit and made me save goals in the lift doors; who made me a sash with "Quebec Bride-to-Be"; who carried music down the street and made me dance in Phillips Square; who made an astonishing THING that I shall reveal in the coming days and who made me do things I would never have done in Blighty.

Canada is OK!!! Canadians are nice and know about irony and all that, but what is really great about them is they are not cynical the whole time like Britishers are and think it is OK to be (for e.g.) joyful and dancing on corners with your friends.

Come on England! Lay aside your cynicism. Do not sneer at people being happy in the street; smile with them and have a jig and buy them a drink! And come to French Canada, where no-one cares if you can dance or not, as long as you are amusing yourself.

Pip pip!

I am getting married quite soon

And it is quite the nicest thing that has ever happened. It is as happy as this:



In other news, what the shit is going on here?



And there is a $10 prize for the person who can make the link between rat head man and the loon pants coming up here:

The readers decided

Regular readers (and lively newer participants) of and in this web-blog will no doubt remember the recent Prosecco/Cava debate.

The results are in! Prosecco won by a clear margin, and for this I thank you, dear and loyal readers. (You will see that 'Jizzwater' and 'Orange Squash in a Sodastream' got a few votes, which I find very comforting.)

Coming next: why does the man who runs the place we are having our wedding keep talking about 'toasts'? I do not see what that has to do with our carefully-crafted menu of Scampi-in-a-Basket and Knickerbocker Glory, 'washed down' with some nicely-chilled Liebfraumilch (which, I have just discovered, translates as "beloved lady's milk" - yes, beloved of a certain TYPE of lady in the early 1980s, perhaps).

And if it is the non-bread type toast, can we toast ourselves? And if so, when? And if we can't do it, who can? It is all very confusing!!!