It’s been a humid week this week, the kitties have been keeping cool in the shade.
I had a couple of job interviews (one I liked the sound of and one I didn’t) and I got offered the job for one of them (the one I liked!) so that’s good news, the job is 20 hours a week in the same town I live in so no commute (wasn’t looking forward to that when it starts snowing!). The job process is pretty much the same as here except here they are quite nosy about what all your previous salaries have been when you apply and you’re meant to send them a thank you card afterwards… even though you are the one who has gone to the trouble of going to an interview and filling out applications etc. I settled on a thank you email. I finally finished off painting the upstairs bedroom and made a start on the lounge. My brother messaged me to say Bruce Forsyth died, I refrained from telling Kim too much about Bruce Forsyth after I made the grave error of explaining who Cilla Black was when she died and then had to put up with weeks of Kim singing ‘surprise surprise’ and saying ‘ta-ra chuck’ afterwards in a dodgy accent that was meant to be Liverpudlian but came out Indian (as all her accents do).
This weekend we drove up through Rhode Island to Massachusetts to Plymouth to the wedding of Jen & Rob. Jen’s family lives next door to Kim’s family so they played together as kids and Jen has been a really supportive friend to Kim over the years so it was lovely to be invited. Usually long car journeys are a bit dull but the roads in America seem a lot more scenic than in England, perhaps it’s because it’s still a novelty but there’s a lot of forest surrounding the roads usually and big boulders etc. Also if you can get on a route that takes you through towns you get to see all the weird country shops and have a shufti at the houses… like this stunner.
When we got to the hotel in Plymouth (which as you can imagine is very Mayflower themed) we had a little pilgrim painting in our room which I thought was sort of funny because it looks like Jesus and an Indian are eating garlic bread together.
Jen & Rob had wedding gift bags waiting for us at the hotel and for Kim’s parents who were also invited. Kim’s parent’s neighbours are all really close friends so all the neighbours were there. The bag has a bit of a New England theme and there was some taffy in it I haven’t tried yet.
So the weather had been nice all day until immediately before the ceremony was due to start where upon it started to rain cats and dogs so they had to change the wedding venue three times to work around the weather. We were sat at a table with all of Kim’s parent’s neighbours and also some nice work colleagues of Jen’s who got chatting to us. We had a pretty good view of the ceremony and it was so so hot and humid because of the rain but we had a cool breeze from where the tent openings were so I think we had a good spot. They had a very good band there and also Jen’s best friend sang accompanied during the ceremony which was nice.
So they had the ceremony and then there was a cocktail hour which was fun and I met lots of people who Kim knew and they were all very friendly (‘oh Hayley I’ve heard so much about you’ etc.. whilst I smile and nod and have no clue who they are! Until afterwards Kim relates some story she’s told me, that’s so and so who did such and such – ohhh!). After the cocktail hour we had the toasts and then it was time for food, they had different stations buffet style so you could pick what you wanted which I was glad of because I’m a fussy eater and some well known dishes in the USA I have no idea about. There was a New England station, a carving station and an Italian station. I devoured the Italian station, I’m well known for hating roast dinners so I gave that station a wide birth and I wasn’t brave enough for the New England station. At a wedding you don’t want to fill up too much you see… have to eat strategically. I tried some of Kim’s cornbread and I still think it just tastes like Victoria sponge cake… I don’t understand why you’d want it with a main course.
And then for dessert I had some carrot cake. It’s funny the differences in wedding music when everyone was dancing and the popular ‘oldie’ songs compared to the UK ‘oldies’. There was even a shuttle to take us back to the door step of the hotel so we were very well looked after and it was a lovely night.
hayleyiraina 