While we were in Ireland for Tim and Amy's wedding we managed to grab a morning to explore the town of Bangor.
Again
Abersoch Detective Agency
Huge thank you to the Abersoch Beach Mission team of 2011. We had such an awesome time. So thanks to each one of you for all your wisdom, courage, inspiration, faithfulness, enthusiasm, patience, prayer, fun, eagerness, aerobics, welcoming, volunteering, leading, studying, encouraging, listening, dancing, singing, dishwashing, early waking, fancy dress, chav make-up, flying saucers, action songs, hot chocolate, dramatic improvisation, photocopier fixing, frisbee throwing, car shuffling, den building, floor sweeping, bonfire building, resource buying, moustache wearing, equipment carrying, errand running, venue decorating, banner tying, banner untying, bracelet making, key hunting, garage foraging, garage locking, prayer letter folding, communal teeth brushing, exhaustion-beating hugs, emergency murder mystery script writing, sticky toffee pudding and marzipan.*
Magic Light
D+M The Preview
A sneak peek of Dan and Mel's wedding in Aber on Saturday for you all. There'll be more to follow after their honeymoon, which we hope they are thoroughly enjoying!
T+A The Preview
It is our immense pleasure to share a super quick preview of the wedding we were at yesterday in Belfast.
Tim and Amy got hitched in Union Theological College and had their reception in the barn at the Larchfield Estate. Many, many more photos to come. But for now...
Tim and Amy got hitched in Union Theological College and had their reception in the barn at the Larchfield Estate. Many, many more photos to come. But for now...
[Our Wedding] The 'Moon
Having booked our honeymoon in January we were well excited to get flying by the time November rolled around.
 The day after our wedding we had a mini breakfast celebration of being together for 7 years, then headed over to nom's parents where some of our guests were gathered for food and chatting. They bullied us into opening loads of lovely gifts. Its a tough job... |
We took the train to Manchester, stayed over and then flew to Marrakech!
We stayed about 15 mins drive outside of the city and could easily hop on the shuttle from the hotel to go wandering around the city.
We arrived a few days before Aid El Kabir, which gave us the rare opportunity to play spot the weirdly transported sheep. It is a Muslim practise that each family should have at least one sheep killed for the festival. As we took the shuttle from the airport to our hotel we spotted our first sheep: being transported on the lap of a man riding a moped.
Our first trip into central Marrakesh was "eventful": we did a spot of shopping (managing some mild haggling) and just as we were wondering what to do with ourselves next (looking a little lost and bemused) were approached by a local offering to show us a Berber Market. He began to take us through the maze of back streets until we were no longer confident of our ability to find our own way back. We were more than a little nervous.
Eventually, having walked past plenty of residential areas with everyone getting ready for the holiday celebrations the next day, we came to a tannery split across both sides of a road. There was a pungent smell and several wide wells filled with coloured liquid for dying the leathers. Our guide kindly recommended we could take pictures and encouraged us to sniff the leathery bits covering the floor, before introducing us to the owners of the leather shop.
We were taken downstairs into the selling room, seated in chairs on the furthest wall and shown a huge array of hand-woven rugs. Having been bribed with some of the worst mint tea we experienced during our whole trip, the sellers asked what our favourite colour was and proceeded to show us all manner of different yellow rugs. They demonstrated the rugs' flame retardant properties by holding a cigarette lighter to the edges and assured us that they were completely machine washable. After much protestation we managed to escape, having paid about £30, and clutching a meagrely sized red rug.
Having been reliant on our "guide" thus far we then had to pay him to take us back to the central square and his service as a whole. Relieved to finally recognise the market place we'd barely began making swift moves toward our return coach before we found ourselves trapped once again, this time by Fatima, a street henna artist who insisted Nom had a pattern done on her hand: "Just one, for luck". She then demanded £40 for the "privilege"; we paid £4.
In retrospect we can highly recommend the Moroccan Lonely Planet guide book, which retells what it calls the "faux guide" experience, right the way from the point of initial contact to the rubbish tea. It also advises that you do as the Moroccan's do, which is to completely ignore any calls from sellers and entertainers. This seems cruel but even a polite "no thanks" is a foot in the door for Marrakech's highly skilled barterers.
During Eid (which our hotel chose to explain this to the English Folks as "the Muslim Christmas") the vast majority of places were closed. We enjoyed being forced to stay in the hotel and make the most of the swimming pools and all inclusive bar.
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| We picked up a copy of Grahame Greene's "Our Man in Havana" in the airport, which Malc read to me (over a g&t or two) while we were away. |
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| This is our favourite gate in the city walls: "Bab Nkob" (snigger). Notice the holes that cover the old city walls; these were originally put in to aerate the clay as it dried. "Look at all the bullet holes!" a surprised British lady on our coach shouted to her husband. |
The Jardin Majorelle is a key tourist attraction. Formerly a private residence, it was designed by Jacques Majorelle and was bought and refurbished by Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent. An interesting mixture of Islamic and Western designs, its distinctive feature is its use of bold blues and yellows on everything from the plant pots to the exterior of the house.
Our decision to go all-inclusive was a huge bonus, as our hotel offered an extensive choice of food, including a few Moroccan specialties we were previously unaware of. Our favourite mealtime options included: beghrir (previously featured on this blog), the tea table (which offered fresh mint and dried rosebuds), custard slices, spaghetti, fried fish, balsamic squid, and beef carpaccio.
Our favourite market catchphrases: "changes colour like michael jackson", "it is time", "117 takes you to heaven", "bloody marvellous!" and "See you later alligator".
Aparently on Sundays the locals often head to the Menara Gardens not far from the city walls. According to the locals' stories in this building people had their heads chopped off and dropped into the pond below. The park was lively on a Sunday afternoon with people strolling amongst rows of olive trees, others selling food and drink, and animals standing for photographs.
Turns out that snail soup is highly palatable and worth buying a second bowl.
We left this parting gift for the hotel house keeping staff, who'd kept our room supplied with an ever changing display of folded towels.
[Our Wedding] The 'Ding Part 2
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| Wedding cupcakes by Charlie-Rose |
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| Malc: Suit Slaters, Tie Tie Rack, Shirt Marks & Spencer, Hankie Oxfam (plus hand embroidery), Nom: Dress Homemade, Headband Sophie Dahl (from Her Dandy Wolf). Balloon: a gift from my little sister. |
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| Lighting by David Baxter |
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| Gorgeous food by Syd the Chef |
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| Our first dance was a fairly pimping Strip the Willow accompanied by our live band (four friends from beach mission and a new friend who called the instructions). I got to dance with every man present (and Malc danced with every woman) twice as we weaved our way down the line of assembled friends and relatives. Constantly spinning all that way was a bit of a epic adventure but I loved it, though I do remember yelling "Please help me I think I'm going to die" to one of the guys near the end of the first lap. |
Our wedding photographers were: Sam Kelsall, Jessica Adams and Jack Adams. The final photo by Laura Street.
[Our Wedding] The 'Ding
Photos from the first half of our wedding day...
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| How to get all the wedding guests to smile for a huge group photo. These are our awesome photographers Sam, Jack (on the car) and Jess (who owns the car). |
[Menu Thoughts] Sangria and Pic 'n' Mix
We interrupt the wedding broadcast to bring you these photos of when Pete and Abi came to stay a little while back.
Bean burgers with homemade chips, jalapenos and home made salsa. Followed by sangria and pic 'n' mix.
Hope you're settling in well to Bradford life!
[Our Wedding] Preparations
We officially registered our intention to marry on the 1st of April (April Fools Day). It was tough going convincing the registrar that we were serious about having a wedding on the 13th at 13hr30. We are not superstitious.
One of the earliest preparations we made after getting engaged was to book our dream honeymoon. We chose somewhere that we thought we wouldn't be able to do again for a long while. Somewhere with warm weather, exciting food and plenty to photograph. Then we kept it secret from the majority of our friends, which was great fun.
I had a few certain ideas of what I wanted my dress to be like and it wasn't what was in the shops. I was after something that wasn't strapless, wasn't floor length and that I felt myself in. I always intended to buy one, but as the search was looking less and less likely to be successful we started to wonder about making it ourselves. And then, whilst shopping on my birthday with my sister, we came across this one.
My Dad's rules for the dress where that you couldn't see my underwear and that I was happy in it, at this point I think he added that the colour should be white. Fear not Dunks: the dress wont be black with white spots when we walk down the aisle together!
We bought the dress from the fancy silk store, we'll the fabric anyway. It cost around £80 all in. And Nom's wonderful Mum did the rest of the magic.
Malc's Mum made our cake. She used their family's Christmas Cake Recipe, but multiplied the quantities generously- our top tier was the size of their annual celebration.
We asked Hana Kelly to draw the key decorative elements for our stationary, and she didn't disappoint. The stationary turned out to be one of my favourite things in the whole process. We digitised her pen work and added the typography and other essentials (such as the map).
We spent an evening hand stamping the place cards with a two colour lino cut I made and wrote on our guests nicknames. We had a few left over cards to use as plant care labels to convert our phalaenopsis table centres into thank you gifts for a few special guests.
We used a professional florist for our bouquets, button holes and church displays but bought the rest of our orchids from IKEA. We used them on the table centres and to decorate the cake. And now they have new homes, some with us and others with guests.
I embroidered a couple of hankies as gifts for the wedding morning, the yellow one was sent to Malc and the white one I gave to my Mum.
The finishing touches: I henna'ed my toes (the pattern was hidden by my wedding shoes) and packed the final items into my honeymoon suitcase.
[Our Wedding] Bling
Malc asked me to marry him on Christmas Day 2009. We were in a car park and he didn't get down on one knee, what he did do included chocolate peanuts, heartfelt words and a ring that he had spent hours deliberating over by himself (that fitted perfectly). And the car park was the place we first met, nearly 7 years previously.
After that we went carol singing with our families, made casual announcements with champagne, put it on Facebook (to make it real of course) and had 2 engagement parties, with more champagne.
Off to Wales
We're heading off to Abersoch today to help run a Scripture Union Beach Mission there.
We've made some blog posts to upload while we're gone, about our wedding! And hopefully when we get back there'll be plenty of pictures of sunny beaches to upload.
Happy Holidays
Just out of interest...
...this is what google has come up with as my demographic:
You can reach this information by hitting the little options icon on the top right hand corner of certain adverts online. So, what did google make of you?
SHCC Community Fun Day!
...it was SWEET!
SHCC Community Fun Day
We've been baking! In preparation for the fun day tomorrow we've been getting our cook on with our friend Sarah.
We made:
Popcorn Cake
(Sarah also rustled up some fairy cakes and a chocolate and banana brownie)
My favourite Lucian Freud Picture
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| Lord Goodman in His Yellow Pyjamas |
[Menu Thoughts] Cold
Make the most of summer and avoid sweating in the kitchen by making heat-free foodstuffs to eat chilled.
Gazpacho: Summer soup eaten cold.
1kg of tomatoes
4 inches of cucumber
a handful of chives
a clove of garlic
a couple of glugs of olive oil
a splash of white wine vinegar
Salt and pepper
Blend and fully chill.
Coffee ice lollies: these ones without milk, though milk reportedly works well too.
Make a mug of strong and sweet coffee, then freeze in moulds.
By far my favourite of these frozen stuffs.
Summer Cooler Cubes: a weird combination of savoury ingredients to put in a glass of water? A very refreshing combination.
[Menu Thoughts] Leftovers
Leftover potato frittas fried with spinach, garlic puree and chilli flakes.
London Baby II- bring on next year
Does he look nervous? On Thursday Tom interviewed for a masters at University of Buckingam. We accompanied him to the big city for moral support.
We "did" the Saatchi Gallery and it "did" us proud: its long qualified as my favourite gallery not necessarily because of its contents but because of how it "does" being a gallery. For a £1 they'll give you the complete listing of works in the show with information on each artist. There are no barriers so you can get up close and smelly with the work. And best of all you can take photos, with no restrictions.
We were reunited with Smithy by the Albert Memorial and made our way to the Lido for coffee before walking to the V&A to meet Nai.
Keeping up with some favourite haunts we had cookies and milkshake at Ben's cookies in Covent Garden and discovered a new favourite place to sample tea for free, Tea Palace. Then found our way to Leon.
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| Nai took this pic to record our milkshake |
I'd strongly recommend the sweet potato falafel. And this pair seemed to enjoy their food too.
The trip was nicely rounded off when Tom got the call to confirm his place on the course next year, whilst driving home into the sunset no less. Well done Smithy.