Pebbles and visas

On Tuesday everything fell quiet. The VIIIIISAAA screech finally FINALLY fell silent and I am now in possession of a genuine get-me-into-America fiancée visa. For some reason I'm rather green in the photograph. Maybe that's part of the process of becoming an Alien.

And I felt? Relieved, yes, but primarily I felt tired. Like the end of a race where I've just about crawled over the finish line. I'm ignoring at this point that there's a whole other process to be undertaken once married to achieve a temporary green card [note the use of the word temporary - I wont be a permanent green card holder until we've completed 2 years of marriage]. I'm also ignoring the fact that I haven't ran a race since I was about 12 so I can't really claim much authority on crossing finishing lines. Either way, my immediate response to receiving the visa was to fall asleep, only I'd had the HPV vaccine that morning and was a little worried about dying so I didn't let myself. No dances, no shrieks of joy, just an intense fatigue.

I have since mustered a few smiles, and every time I try and remember what I'm supposed to be worrying about and all I can come up with is painting pebbles, my heart does do a little leap...

...which brings me on to painting pebbles...

After much wedding magazine / Martha Stewart consultation, I decided it'd be a good idea to do pebbles as place-names. No faffing about with sticking bits of ribbon on lace on card (and thus adhering to my 4 core-wedding-values) and also they could double as favours...

...I should state here (if you haven't already guessed) that I don't believe in 'favours'. Seems to me they're just another trick to up the budget, plus they're not a true English tradition, more an imported one akin to Jelly Belly or phrases such as 'what's up'. And really I think guests should be satisfied with a meal / alcohol / dancing and the gift of sharing in the happiest day of our lives (blah blah blah) without being given a present each on top of all of that...

Anyway, off I went to Whitsands bay, aka most-beautiful-beach-in-cornwall, and collected a metric ton of pebbles and then painstakingly painted them with each and every guest's name. It took hours. And when I'd finished? I decided I didn't like how I'd done them and washed it all off.

I also stamped my feet more than a few times in frustration.

Think I may have violated a few of the core values.

So, back to square one. I'm still determined to have pebbles though, if only because I've now gone out and bought 4 big bags of fancy ones. They will look good. They will. They will.

Tippex is the answer.

Trust me.