lacunae

a work in progress - linen, lace, silk and cotton thread

Alas, poor Max

our little black cat Max died while we were in Europe. He had some kind of horrible accident - a run-in with a dog or extra large possum - and died under a bush in our front garden.  Where he was found by my poor teenage daughter - she and my Mother gave Max a dignified burial.

Poor little Max - sadly missed.

blessed

On 29 December 2012 Kind Dog and I had our marriage blessed in the ancient stone church of St Boniface in Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight.

You may remember that we had our first wedding at home with our Australian family back in June last year which was just lovely. And then we had the legal ceremony in October. So we wound up the Year of Getting Married with Kind Dog's family in the UK.

 It was a lovely combination of solemn formality and a relaxed sharing and acknowledgement of our happiness and amazement at having found each other.

We were very lucky in having Vivienne as priest and not some comb-overed, cardiganned vicar going through the motions. Vivienne made it a very personal and meaningful service which was even more amazing as we had only met the day before at the rehearsal.

Apart from adapting the service to include bits about us, she included a lovely ritual of surrounding us with a blue satin ribbon (bought by her to match my dress - I did wonder why she asked me what colour my dress was when we were at the rehearsal) as a symbol us of us being bound to each other; and then asked all the congregation to come forward and hold the ribbon and promise to support us in our marriage. It was a really special moment.

She also presented us with a kitchen timer to use if we felt tempted to argue - in case of narkiness, set the timer and if you're still narky in 60 minutes, then it's gloves off. Luckily we are not good at narkiness - we have now spent almost 24 hours a day together for 11 months and have had no irritation or boredom. We still prefer each other's company to all others.

Style Notes: of course being the northern hemisphere in the middle of winter it was cold, but it didn't rain or sleet. And yes that is a real fur coat I'm wearing, get over it; it was very cosy. The dress is a midnight blue and black brocade by Viedler and Fink in Fitzroy, the shoes are Fluevogs, the pearls were bought in Rome last year.  Kind Dog wore a cashmere sweater and a cashmere coat with a mink collar.

to europe and back

Kind Dog and I have just returned from a wonderful odyssey to the UK and Italy.  We went over to spend Christmas with Kind Dog's lovely mother and to have our third wedding, in the form of a church blessing in an ancient stone church (photos to follow in a separate post)

We spent a week in London absolutely flat out seeing wondrous things from the Tate's Pre-Raphaelite exhibition to Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry in Twelfth Night to renewing last year's acquaintance with the British Museum and the V&A and a boat trip down the Thames to Greenwich.

 We stumbled upon the Wallace Collection which was one splendid room after another filled with precious, beautiful things.

We also went to a candlelit performance of the Messiah at St Martin in the Field's, which was one of the highlights of the trip.  I loved the simplicity of this statue in the porch 

There are some incredible embroideries in the V&A

 I liked these socks very much

 And we found the Tristan quilt - a mediaeval treasure which deserves its own blog post.

 Then a more relaxing week on the Isle of Wight with the Kind Dog clan and our church blessing.

 Then back to London for New Year

 - where we fell foul of a ghastly flu virus that kept us doleful company for the rest of the holiday. While we were very glad it wasn't the dreaded norovirus, being ill meant we didn't enjoy Paris and the train trip to Venice as much as we had hoped.

We did manage a couple of hours in the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa, some wonderful Veroneses and the amazing Nike.

Then it was over the Alps in the Bernina Express,

 coughing and feverish but still relatively cheerful - here we are looking wan in the train to Milan

 And then Venice - a wonderful, disconcerting place: looking as though it's about to pitch into the lagoon, and full of treasures.