True Mirrors

I was listening to a programme about Rembrandt on Radio 4 recently. Rembrandt was an artist who seemed to do a lot of self portraits – an exercise which usually requires looking in a mirror and painting what you see.

Recently people have been able to see under the layers of paint (some sort of whizzy X Ray) and noted that, in one picture at least, he had painted his left hand holding the brush – which is the image a normal mirror would give. He then, apparently, amended the painting so that he was right handed.

The discussion touched briefly on true mirrors. These project the image that is shown to them (basically some fancy 90 degree angled mirrors fandangle), rather than the image that is seen in a mirror. If you look in a true mirror and are wearing a T shirt with a slogan, the slogan will appear as other see it, not as the image is reflected. This means that if you use a true mirror, you see yourself as others see you.

The specialist from the Courtauld looked in a true mirror and was shocked – she felt she identified more with the true image than with the image usually seen in a mirror. As we know, we’re none of us entirely symmetrical (apart from Calypso in the Camomile Lawn) so looking in a true mirror will result in some differences.

I would like to see myself in a true mirror! And, having looked up Mary Wesley, I see she has some novels I haven’t read yet. I will be acquiring some of them, if not all, for some reading on my upcoming honeymoon.

Try this!

Send this website a photo of yourself and the website will tell you which famous person you look like!

Thursday, oh what a day

I've already touched on the first part of Wednesday evening. When I'd finally sorted out the payment details, and given my mother all the information she needed to get on with extracting cash from the daddybank and finding the florist's office, I settled down for some interview preparation. I took a brief break when Mr W came home, and then got back to it. I finished my work at about 0130 on Thursday morning, and fell asleep, only to wake myself up six minutes later at 0610. I've no idea how I did it - and because Mr W wasn't awake so I assume I didn't wake myself up by talking too loudly in my sleep.

Anyway, it's normally OK to wake at 0610. Usually I get up about 0700, so it's effectively a 50 minute lie-in. However yesterday I had to get up at 0630, and from past, and bitter, experience I'm aware that if I miraculously manage to doze off, the wrench at 0630 is just not worth it. So I got up early. I had time for some breakfast (well, a mug of something hot, but I can't eat usually if I'm nervous or in a hurry or I end up bringing it up again) - and even packed a couple of apples for the journey.

At 0740 I left the flat for my interview, which was about 50 minutes drive away. I figured because I didn't know exactly *where* in the business park my interview was, I could spend some time finding it and then still have my 20 minutes self-confidence-boosting session (where, basically, I re-read my CV and the job spec).

What do you know - half way there I start seeing those orange signs that evoke misery for all motorists. Roadworks between junctions 1 and 2 of the A1(M). Damn and blast... But I still had time, and I thought I knew where the location of my interview was to be. I'd just up the speed after the roadworks finished. In the end I got there fine, and the journey only took about 10 minutes longer than it used to when I last went to the place in September. But this week is half term week, which does lead to a marked decrease in traffic on the route I used. So I'll have to allow more time to get there than I have in the past. If, of course, I get the job!

It made me think though. I do not like driving. I believe I have mentioned this. When I worked in Watford, they dug up the Hendon Way and sections of the M1 such that I only had about three months of no disruption to my journey in the whole 18 months I was there. When I drove in from my parents' there were roadworks on the major route to Watford from Oxfordshire. When I last worked in Hatfield there were roadworks on the biggest roundabout there, and the one I was meant to use. It became quicker to go up to the next junction, turn around and head back (thereby avoiding the roadworks).

I think I have had more than my fair share of roadworks, thanks. I'm not sure I could handle roadworks and a 7.30 start (as in out of the flat and on the road) in the same day, five days a week. Still, I'd be leaving by 0745 to get to the office for 0900 and avoid the right turn at the end of my road. But the office hours of this place are 0830 - 1700. 0830. Sheesh. So if I leave at 0730 and there are roadworks I might not even arrive on time! What a depressing thought.

So, out of interview, to my old place of business and coffee with two people who I haven't seen since September and who are coming to our wedding. We had an interesting chat, and I headed back home to sling the car in the garage and get to work for the afternoon.

Last night I sat on the sofa and read and dozed in about equal proportions. and suddenly it was midnight! Now I can't wait until the weekend (well, tomorrow we need to be up at 0800 because it's our aufruf in shul), so I'm having a lie-in on Sunday. Up until right before I have to go and get ready for lunch with Gregoire's parents. But still, Saturday evening, blessed relief. I'm not on the coffee yet but my office is so deathly cold I might go and sample a "creamichoc" from the vending machine - just to be able to feel my fingers again!

The final touches

Wednesday evening Mr W went out, and I had to sort out the flowers and the table stationery for our wedding. It really, really annoys me that both of these (and in fact the band too) require cleared funds to be in their accounts a certain amount of time before the event, otherwise they will not provide flowers/ give you the table stationery/ play, but they still insist on not sending out invoices until incredibly late.

Take the stationery. We’re picking it up Tuesday evening this week coming (this has been arranged for a while now). Tuesday of this week I received the final email from them setting out what we owe. Note: not an invoice. Remembering from the last payment we made that they don’t take bank transfers, I emailed asking if they would be OK to receive a cheque by post (which is how we did it last time). As there wasn’t an earthly way my mother could get the email, write a cheque, post it, allow a day for delivery and then a couple of months for the cheque to clear into their account, and seeing as they’d agreed to us picking up the goods on Tuesday evening, I assumed that they had realised the problem and were somehow waiving the condition. When I emailed to confirm this (suspecting that they weren’t going to let us disappear with the goods), I was told a cheque wouldn’t do, they needed cash on Tuesday. If that’s the case, then please present your figures more than five working days before the goods are to be collected, you dumb asses – especially when you can’t take bank transfers and are aware that (from the last time we had this discussion) my mother will be posting a cheque).

Then take the flowers – I changed the proposal back at the start of October and emailed it off, promptly receiving a response saying they’d amend and re-circulate shortly. On Tuesday when I hadn’t heard from them, I called the lady and asked when exactly I would receive the document and final invoice (I had changed the number of tables and this made a difference to the final total, obviously). She said they’d sent it out ages ago, and were getting concerned they hadn’t heard from me – they need cleared funds SIX DAYS before the event. Which meant I somehow had to clear the money to them by today, Friday. Excellent, excellent. I pointed out (again), that I hadn’t received the proposal. In the past they had emailed me letters with my old employers address (because I sometimes emailed them from work) and each time this had happened I had said “that’s the wrong address”. The proposal before this one had been mailed to me at my old employers address, and when I found that out (happily I received it by email as well) I had assumed they would amend their records. Apparently not. Anyway, later on Tuesday I got an email with the document attached, and track changed from the previous proposal. When you’re reviewing someone’s changes, you can see when the changes were made – and these weren’t done until the Tuesday morning – the day I called up. Hmmmm. So the long and the short of it is that my mother has had to take a trip into town to the florist with a bit less than a couple large (did I get the street slang right?).

Bloody people.

A significant percentage of both the florist’s and the stationer’s work is related to weddings. In the case of the stationers, they also deal with bat/ bar mizvahs, bat chayils, and simchas in general. The florist has contracts to provide hotels and conference facilities with flowers, but also has a large amount of wedding customers. Why then, seeing as they are clearly experienced in dealing with people whose brains are functioning on double-time and no sleep, people who are multi-tasking with the best of them, and people who still have issues unresolved (is there a separate table for the civil register, for example, is one of my outstanding queries) which, to the person organising the whole carnival, are more important at the time than dealing with stationers or florists who have essentially been given the all-clear a couple of weeks before. So WHY THE HELL do the florist and the stationer assume I’m going to be chasing them? Why do they not chase me? In the case of the florist, they were aware I only had three days left to pay them, and they STILL didn’t bother contacting me and waited for me to make contact.

I think they should have sent a letter out, or put a call in, ten working days before they require cleared funds. I don’t think anyone planning a wedding by themselves would object. If I had received a call earlier it would have flushed out the fact I’d not received the bloody document, we could have sorted it all out and my mother could have posted a cheque; job done. It is, to my mind, not reasonable also to raise invoices the day before you require cleared funds – the florist’s invoice arrived yesterday! Not everyone has a mother who is willing to hop on trains with substantial amounts of cash, and people whose parents live too far away for this to be feasible would have, in my situation, been looking at bankers’ drafts, cash withdrawals (and maybe entering into overdraft, or unauthorised overdraft) while the cash cleared from the daddybank, and taking a day or a morning off work to go and visit some person who couldn’t be bothered to tell you the amount you owed until it was too late to pay any other way than cash.

I have expressed my surprise that they decide to add such a needless amount of stress at such a time when I really, really, could have lived happily without calls to my parents at ten at night. It’s even more of a shame that this came after their having been mines of information and sources of inspiration on the whole wedding front. The stationer and the florist have until now been extremely accommodating and pleasant, putting themselves out to meet me when my erratic timetable permitted. So why go and spoil it by insisting on cleared funds and not finalising the details themselves with more than three days to go before those cleared funds are needed? They should bloody also accept bank transfers.

After all that, I’m really looking forward to seeing the flowers and stationery in place because, if it all goes to plan, it will look fantastic. And I’d willingly recommend both the florist and the stationers but chase them three weeks before you need the goods.

End of.

Chocolate and photographs

I met my parents for a snack on the weekend at a lovely place called Rumseys, which is in Wendover (45 minutes from London Marylebone, two minutes walk from Wendover station). It's a chocolate shop (my dad the diabetic loves it) and they make chocolate in there. I'm not kidding - there's a glass window into the chocolaterie place. If you're in the area, definitely go there. It's near my parents' house, there's some fantastic walks and cycle rides nearby tpo assist with the removal of calories or guilt.

Anyway, my parents were completely cool and wonderful. My dad gave me £20! And ate the crust off my lemon pie. My mother gave me some photographs of me as a small person (well, ok, up until I left secondary school) because the video-guy wants to start off the video with some stills of old photographs of us.

Ah, the memories.

There was me and Laura sitting on a fence sharing an ice-cream aged nine or ten (on guide camp!), leering at the camera, and one of my on a bicycle wearing a cagoul. Do you remember cagouls? Waterproofs, elasticated hoods? Well, I used to wear mine with my ears sticking out. When my mother was able to look at me and keep a steady camera (no mean feat when you're wetting yourself) she took a photograph. I might well put that one on the wedding video, for laughs. Or here, even.

Cancelling everything (including grip on reality)

I had a bit of a bridezilla moment today (I need Lucille to tell me the URL of that website, because I can't find it).

I was looking at my photographs of, consecutively: me in my nearly-finished wedding dress; my with my practice hair; and me with my practice makeup. I threw my toys out of my pram. I was *this* close to cancelling the hair and makeup people and asking Derya to do my makeup. I called the chief bridesmaid (Laura) for advice and I think I acted like a textbook case of unbalanced, neurotic bride-to-be. Anyway, advice was to take a bath and then lie down. I think the idea behind the advice was to keep me away from the 'phone. I was also told to get rid of the photographs!

So a couple of hours later, after having snarled at Greg when he tried to wake me up, I arose, refreshed and slightly sheepish. I called Shelley and explained that I was nervous that although I'd sprung for some moisturiser (which, incidentally, is gorgeous) and she'd spend about an hour on Friday telling me how it would all work, and why, and what we'd do if it didn't, I was still concerned. So she told me to go back to hers next weekend and she'd redo it. Which is fantastic, and a super service.

I'm so relieved - at least now I can stop worrying about my face. And concentrate on my weight. This seems to be fluctuating at the moment. I'm always within about three pounds of the weight I should be, but I guess weighing myself upwards of four times a day (ok, I weigh myself everytime I use the loo now, and on weekends when I'm mostly in the flat, that's unfortunately quite a lot) is not a clever thing to do. Once a day is bordering on neurotic; once an hour is basket-weaving territory.

So, I've taken a deep breath, and promised to weigh myself once a day, only. Absolute tops. I'm not freaking out about the weight itself, because that isn't actually a problem - I'm more concerned that my obsession could get ugly. I already have to check about three times when leaving the flat that I've locked our front door, and sometimes have to turn around on the way to work to come back and check it. Oddly, I've never left the bloody door swinging in the wind, and everytime I go back to check, I'm kicking myself as I walk up the street (yes, it's hard; and yes, it hurts).

When I used to drive to work I'd have to walk back across the carpark, sometimes five minutes (big carpark, I'm telling you, and in the rain, not good), just to check I'd locked the damn car. I'd be going back twice or three times before I'd got to the office. If I ignored it when I had the first "oh! did I lock it?" moment, I'd stop in the carpark waiting for the feeling to pass. And it didn't - so I'd be stuck there like an idiot in the middle of a relatively busy carpark trying to work out whether to go back. Anyway, as I always went back, I soon learned that it was futile to resist. Once the thought popped into my head, I had to go back and check. I'm not sure how a weight obsession could develop, but trust me - if there's a way it can, I guarantee I'll find it.

Make-up session, threading, dermalogica

I got to the makeup run-through *and* back, and only deviated from my route twice. This isn't good when you consider that for the vast majority of the way I was driving the route to shul, and that only the last five minutes turned out to be uncharted territory for me (I didn't go via the North Circular in the end, but up to East Finchley). I als managed to park in a space, perfectly, with only two foot spare in total - at the first attempt.

I am truly a driving goddess.

Which is lucky because this Thursday I've got to get to Hatfield for 0900. I think I'll leave home at 0730 (as I used to when I worked there) and get there a bit early - purely to avoid the one right hand turn on my way to work.

Mr W has asked if I would be happy with one of those TomTom things that you stick in the car and which magically tells you where to go to get to where you want to be.

Anyway, I digress. The gory details about the make-up session.

That went badly. Not because of the artist (a friend of mine and I'll link to her site when it's up again because she's lovely), or the makeup (mmmmmmmac), but because of my skin. It's apparently waaaaay too dry to wear makeup at the moment. Shelley had asked me to arrive with cleansed and moisturised skin. Not a problem. Walked in - she asked if I'd forgotten to moisturise. Well, obviously I said I had moisturised, but she said my skin needed much more. So she painted some on with a brush - lovely vitamin E stuff from body shop (and they've got a three for two at the moment in some of the stores). When that had settled, she tried a foundation. A very light foundation because I don't usually wear any. Anyway, my skin absorbed the moisture and within five minutes it looked like I'd caked my face in powder - plus my skin was so dry that it started to flake - one reason I'd stopped using makeup. I'd thought that bad absorbtion of makeup was a sign I shouldn't wear makeup, and so had stopped wearing anything apart from mascara and some lippy, but apparently it's a sign that my skin is dry to the point of dessication. Fantastic news. So Shelley did what she could with my face and her amazing bag of tricks. Her brushes alone apparently cost thousands! I was in heaven looking at her kit. Thw whole way through she kept exclaiming "your skin is SO dry!". It's not ideal to have pants skin on a makeup dry run - I'm living in fear I'm going to look like a leper in the wedding photographs, she's worried she won't do either of us justice - and I'm feeling guilty about her portfolio and my photographs.

I threw myself on her mercy. Thankfully there's a salon about ten minutes walk from her house which she goes to as regularly as she can afford, and with which she has a cross-recommendation thing going. So when we'd done what we could with my peeling, flaking, frankly-not-performing face, Shelley made a call to her friend there and explained the situation. I also needed my eyebrows done. I was dispatched to said salon (a wonderful place - Goldilocks in Muswell Hill) and arrived five minutes late (having read the map incorrectly in my haste). Within minutes I was lying on a couch having my eyebrows threaded.

Threading - that hurts. I'm sure you've heard of it - it's one of three ways to remove eyebrow hair. One - plucking (long and painful). Two - waxing (not good for skin's elasticity as it's essentially an exfoliator). Three - threading. Originally from India, it involves swiping hairs out by using knotted thread which the nasty person sort of rolls over your eyebrow. My god it hurts. I was flinching like you wouldn't believe - at one stage (I was lying down) both my feet came off the couch as I tried to stay still and not kill the girl.

Dermalogica had now been recommended to my by three people - Nicky (wife of Nathan, designer of of zoeandgreggethitched.com), Lucille, and now Shelley. The girl at the salon used the stuff to remove my makeup and cleanse my face (and then obviously concluded by moisturising it fully) whilst telling me the order to use the products in and how much to use of each. She wasn't telling me to buy everything, and some things she was recommending she gave me samples of so I didn't spend *all* my salary in one fell swoop.

So I bowed to fate and signed up. I know it's common sense not to mess with your skincare regime within the last three months leading up to your wedding day, but to be honest I don't think my skin could have looked any worse, so am hoping it will at least look a bit better. I'd like to look less like my skin is made of chalk in some photographs in my life.

I'm now a dermalogica convert. I'm also worrying that, whilst my skin feels quite good now, it might still be too dry. So I have decided that I'll see if I can meet up with Shelley in a week or so (I'll probably see her in shul next Saturday for our aufruf - which I'll explain later) so she can do a progress check. If my skin is still a problem, she's just going to have to find some way around it. I've no idea what to do if this new stuff doesn't work. Not lifting my veil at all throughout the whole day is seeming a more and more attractive option.

Vrooom vrooom. Beep. *SMASH*

I did it. I wrote about a billion emails (at least five) to people, crossed them off my list, and then called those for whom I don't have an email address. Job done. All I need to do now is follow up the emails with calls (as promised in said emails) tomorrow, and hope that everything gets sorted out.

I've been approaching this wedding planning thing a bit like a corporate deal. Do nothing and soon enough the deal will tank. No, seriously though, I've been assuming everyone will have a much more adversarial attitude to the whole thing. When I got a proposal from the florist which had a ridiculous amount for something I'd thought was much cheaper, I called her on it. In the next proposal, she'd discounted her original quote by 50%. I was panicking that I didn't have the cheaper figure in writing, but it was irrelevant. People seem a lot more eager to please than clients ever did. And that's partly because this time, I am the client, and partly because we're planning a happy celebration.

We've got a bit less than three weeks to go now, and I've got my trial makeup thing tomorrow. I'm going to a mate's house and it should be fun - who doesn't look forward to being beautified? One small problem is the location. It's either a ten minute walk to the tube, a twenty minute tube ride, then a bus ride of indeterminate length - or I drive and it takes about half an hour. Hmmmmm. No brainer? No way.

First, I try to avoid driving. Second, I've never been there before so will be driving with the map on my lap/ clutched in my sweating little mitts and crumpled over the steering wheel. Third, actually more a subsidiary of second, I don't know what parking is like in the area I'm heading to. Or rather, I know what my parking is like and as I'm off to a suburban area of London my chances of finding a parking space that suits my needs (no cars within 100 metres, preferably no pedestrians, cats, lampposts or sleeping policemen either) is minimal. Fourth - I think I'll have to turn right at some point en route. If I go up to the North Circular I should be able to turn right with the help of traffic lights, but driving on the North Circular with a map clamped to the steering wheel does not sound like an ideal way to spend time.

However - I hate buses. They vibrate in a certain way, and the lines they take around corners have me feeling waves of nausea before I've travelled ten minutes. And this route (because if I get a bus I'll insist on following the route with my A-Z) is a long one which means I'll feel even worse from trying to read in a moving vehicle.

I guess I'll see how tired I am in the morning. If I can't face leaving at 0830 to catch the tube (my appointment is 10) then I'll drive and leave at 0915.

All this makes me question why I applied for a job in the same business park where I worked for nine months - 45 minutes drive up the A1. I have no idea - apart from the pay is great - but I've got an interview there next week. So maybe I'd better drive tomorrow just to convince myself I can still do it.

Anyway, the long and the short of this, or rather, the moral of the story: avoid North/ North West London roads tomorrow between 0900 and 1000.

I am reaching screaming point.

My ‘phone was stolen on Friday, so I have ordered a new one which should arrive at work tomorrow. The call with Orange was interesting – they required my work address [cue frantic fumbling to locate work address - I've only been here a couple of weeks and don't know the postcode] and a telephone number for contacting me in the event of any problems [cue more frantic searches for my work telephone number, which I have never used myself, unsurprisingly]. However as I’m only in until 2pm tomorrow and have no idea how to work the voicemail facility on my work telephone, if they do call me on it I’ll probably never know.

We’re meeting the rabbi this evening, the pair of us and both sets of parents. I had the rabbi’s telephone number, obviously stored in my damned mobile telephone, and now of course I don’t have it any more. So I checked the synagogue’s website but forgot momentarily that due to security reasons there is no ‘phone number (or address) on the website. So I can’t check where we’re meeting him.

And I have to sort out final issues with the caterer, the florist, the invitations people and the music people. Thankfully I wrote everyone’s telephone number in a book dedicated to wedding stuff. But I can’t call from work because I’m paid by the hour and extremely busy.

And the stone in my engagement ring is loose, and needs to be sorted out.

And we’re trying to get hold of our terminally badly organised and incredibly slow management company to sort out an electrician (to come and re-install the light fittings which he removed because they needed to dry out) and to authorise a painter who came on Friday to quote to repaint three ceilings (which were only painted in the first place a couple of months ago), and I suspect their response time will be a couple of months, as it usually is unless they are hounded and hounded. Ideally I want this to all be sorted, painted, rewired, etc, before we go away on honeymoon. The idiots who live upstairs will probably flood the place again when we’re away, anyway.

I’ve got to go back for another dress fitting this week. On Friday I tried on my dress and they were pinning it everywhere. In the end they decided to redo the under-dress thing and therefore I need to go back again this week. So there I was, standing around whilst they were sewing it, and trying not to think of the time that was running out before my interview. And that's another half day off work!

The interview on Friday went ok. It was an hour and twenty minutes with two lawyers and the head of HR. Asking all kinds of technical questions – including about the company for whom I’m currently temping. Considering I’ve been here for about two weeks so far, and am a TEMP, I was surprised at the request for a summary of their business, but managed to give one anyway. When asked what percentage of my time has been spent drafting in each of my jobs (including my training contract which ended over four years ago), I felt a stabbing pain develop behind my right eye. Still, I've managed to give my feedback to the recruitment consultant, which is one thing off my list.

I mentioned the ‘phone theft to my brother. He made a good point – that the thief will probably only get about £20 for the handset (and it wasn’t in peak condition, having been thrown at walls and doors during its life), and that if the thief/ thiefette had said “look, I've got your 'phone but I’ll give you an option – either you give me £20 or I take your ‘phone” then I (and probably most people) would say “hell, take the cash”. It’s true. I have now lost all of my telephone numbers, and loads of text messages that I had saved for sentimental reasons.

Well, hey, at least the brick was over a year old and I was eligible for an upgrade. I went for the Samsung E900, and it will probably be waiting for me when I get to work on Wednesday morning. It’ll need to charge until sometime Thursday, and it’ll probably take me until Friday to work out how to use it. Still, I’ll bring in my old brick and bung the new SIM card in that, which should work, I reckon.

I've got to sort out a cleaner as well, but until then I'll be ironing and cleaning the flat. As predicted, whilst once every so often it's cathartic, it's now reached the point where I do not want to be farting around with dusters/ vacuum cleaner/ ironing boards/ bathroom cleaners.

My head feels like it’s full of bees. The only way to stop feeling like I'm on a downward spiral with tasks threatening to overwhelm me, is to actually do everything on my to do list this evening. So I might not be particularly early to bed tonight, but hopefully I'll stop having weird dreams.

Stop the world; I want to have a break

Sheesh, where to start. I've moved my events this week (including a dress fitting, picking up wedding rings, supper with a mate, dentist, shopping for a bikini, and now a job interview and consequently a huge amount of preparation) so many times in order to maximise the amount of time I can spend actually doing my (paid by the hour) temp job, that I'm all confused as to what day it is. Today I was supposed to be getting rings (now doing that on way through town tomorrow evening) and getting a dress fitting (which is now on Friday - right before my interview the other end of town). I've moved everything once, and did this before the interview cropped up, which means I'm not going to be able to get to work on Friday. This is a pain but I've told myself I can't move any more junk around, in case people start hating me. Plus I have one of those old fashioned diaries (the ones you can operate in a power cut) so I'm running out of space and the arrows are starting to get me a tad confused. Still, as it's Wednesday today (right?) I've only got two more days before I can drop all the balls and relax [at synagogue]...

This evening I've got various things to do. Not least, clean the en-suite, write a couple of thankyou notes, bone up on the firm where I have my interview on Friday, finalise timings of various things during our wedding, carpet shampoo the flooded carpet (which is now smelling and Mr W thinks will require replacing) and amend and return the proposal from the florist.

And I've just eaten a yoghurt which has a "best before date" of 6 November 2006. If I'd left it in the fridge, I could have safely eaten it after the wedding. That really brought home how little time we have left...

Busy busy

What a tiring couple of weeks. First, my new (temporary) job has been going well, and is based in Docklands so it’s a refreshing change from driving to work. It takes the same amount of time (nearly an hour) but usually I get a seat on the tube, and can pass the time how I want to, rather than being forced to pay attention to the world around me. Which is a GoodThing, both for me and for the people who unwittingly shared the road with me.

Second, the people in the flat above ours managed to flood their flat, and ours, and the flat two floors below ours. They really do appear to be idiots. When I got home on Thursday afternoon, we had two-foot wide damp areas on the floor of each bedroom, and the floor of the en suite was sparkling with water. How pretty. Water was steadily dripping down from the light-bulbs. I went upstairs, hammered on their door, and when there was no response I tried to turn off their mains water. A combination of a stepladder, a delicate pipe that moved whenever I touched it, and the certainty that just out of eyeshot there was a huge hairy spider all conspired to terminate my efforts prematurely. I went back to the flat and proceeded to start moving stuff. Our bedroom wasn’t too bad, just a sodden carpet. The en suite – well, it’s a bathroom. Annoyingly though, the water had been flooding through the fan, so that all shorted out and started smoking. The study (our second bedroom) was a bit of a mess. Our spare wedding invitations were mostly waterlogged. Mr W’s sister’s veil was all wet. My tiara was soaked. Its box was waterlogged and actually had standing water inside it. At least my tiara is made of sturdier stuff than sugar, so it seems to have survived. The repairs will all be covered by buildings insurance, which is good, but we’ve still got to arrange electricians and painters, and work out what (if anything) needs to be replaced. So that’s annoying!

Third, our cleaner decided she needed to spend more time on her studies and stopped coming. The agency who supplied her seems to have gone out of business, so whilst we find a replacement cleaner I’m doing the cleaning. It’s quite cathartic, and probably a good workout. The first time I cleaned the flat in its entirety it took me about eight hours. Admittedly this did include ironing, for which I’m not about to win time trials, but also things like dusting all the blinds, cleaning the insides of windows, and cleaning the bathrooms completely.

When I was younger, I used to clean my parents’ bathrooms in return for my pocket-money. I wasn’t paid unless I thoroughly cleaned all the bathrooms, which would usually take about one and a half hours. When I was at university, I acquired a random set of jobs during the summer. These jobs included cleaning the houses of our optician – so I can definitely say that I can clean a house. As I’ve said, I do enjoy it, and before we stopped having a cleaner I would occasionally “deep clean” something, because I knew that it wasn’t something Betty (our ex-cleaner) did. A couple of times I completely cleaned the extractor unit in our kitchen, and occasionally (well, once) took out all the glassware from out glass cabinet and cleaned the whole thing. Anyway, I didn’t do much apart from that. And the flat usually looked clean.

Betty specified what she wanted us to buy, and we would buy her preferred cleaning products. She used to ask for flash wipes for the bathrooms, and occasionally for limescale cleaner, so I assumed she was doing fine. However, when I went through the panoply of products we have, we didn’t have a cream cleaner! Amazed, I tried the flash all-purpose stuff, and the wipes, but they didn’t really do the job; so I cleaned out our under-sink cupboard (where we keep our cleaning stuff) just to make sure, and then went and bought some cream cleaner.

Last night I tackled the bathroom. With the cream cleaner. And then with the limescale remover. We now have a sparkling bathroom! My master-plan is that during the evenings this week I’ll completely clean everything in the flat to the right standards, so that when our new cleaner starts she’ll know the standards we expect to be maintained. I can’t afford eight hours one day to do all the cleaning, and I do like to know that on a certain day, all the cleaning and ironing will be done. If I did our cleaning, I’d split it into various sections, but would end up cleaning or ironing every single day – and I think that the novelty would wear off within three days! So we’ll be getting a new cleaner, and I’ll go back to occasionally cleaning stuff. Only downside is, with sorting out a lot of wedding preparations, it might take us a while to sort out the new cleaner!

Products I can wholeheartedly recommend include Cif cream cleaner (which I use with a mildly abrasive cloth), which has a lovely lemony scent, and flash glass cleaner. This stuff is super, and makes cleaning windows, mirrors, and all types of glass a delight. No random smears, no need for excessive elbow grease, and a lovely finish.

The Pledge dusting wipes are pants. As with all of the wipes (floor wipes, bathroom wipes), they are ok if you're just using them to touch up during the week, but if you're relying on them to clean properly you'll gradually notice your home becoming grungy as they just do not cut the mustard. We have some, but they are now only to be used when we're quickly tidying before people come over. I just don't trust something you quickly twirl around a bath/ floor/ room to provide a proper clean.