I joined in Blogger 2007 and have let my blog sit empty all this time. For some reason, I decided that I'd give Posterous a go, created one post on a significant day, and haven't been back. I've decided, instead, to revive my blog here, and paste that one, lonely Posterous post here as a starting point with a promise to do better.
So here's my retrospective post from 5 March 2012 . . .
I'm in between two significant days.
Yesterday was our 40th wedding anniversary which found me happily looking back to the day we were married. Tomorrow I start a brand new job.
I've been encouraged by friends to start a blog, but have been spending far too long wondering where to begin and generally faffing about. I'm still working on a WordPress blog that will be more about the world I work in - digital, social media and web content - but I've been wanting to have a more personal blog to play with, one that's more about the many things that I enjoy. So here I am. Finally.
I posted this picture of our wedding day on Facebook yesterday - I wanted to mark the day.
I had a happy time remembering all the friends and family who were with us that day, tagging the photo with their names. It also made me a little sad to see the faces of those who are no longer with me - my mum, her sister Essie, both my grandparents, Auntie Sadie. My Aunty Gwen isn't in the photo, but she played a big part in helping with the wedding reception and my Uncle Ern isn't there either (my Aunt Essie's husband), he was a steady influence in my childhood. My cousin Kathleen was working as a nanny in Monte Carlo and a few of my schoolfriends were away in University.
I was 19 when we married and Ken was 20, just two weeks before our birthdays on 15 & 16 March, which means, yes, I Was A Teenage Bride. We were the first of our friends to get married. It stills astonishes me how much went into making our day special and memorable. My Aunty Betty and Uncle Howard planned, cooked and arranged for the reception at their home, with help from my Great Aunts Gwen and Sadie, my grandmother and cousins. My Aunty Essie made the wedding cake, Ken's dad beribboned his car and drove me to the church, my Uncle Howard gave me away, Margaret May, a friend from work, made my wedding suit, Paul Simms, a friend from art college took the unofficial photos. Ken spent the night before at best man Neil's home, and Neil's mum made sure he was looked after and ready in time. 3 of my aunts had been married in the same church. I don't remember all the arrangements and preparations or even knew about many of them, but it made our day special and unique.
It snowed the night before the wedding, my cousin Rita's maternity dress was in the same fabric as my wedding suit, our friend Mike sported a black eye from a fight on Ken's stag night (despite having his arm in a plaster cast) and the organist didn't turn up so friend Doug stepped in, although he didn't know the wedding march and I walked down the aisle in silence. Friends had decorated our car and tied empty cans to the back bumper, one of which lasted all the way from Cardiff to our hotel in Bristol. It couldn't have been a better day.
A couple of years ago, we were featured in You Magazine in an article 100 years, 11 dresses: The V&A's database of wedding fashion. We were chosen to represent the 1970s! Fashionistas!
So. Tomorrow I start a new job. Deep breaths.
