Change

On Saturday, I had the first of a year of many wedding related events - my hen-do. I'm approaching my our wedding with the same attitude as I approach birthdays - make it last as long as is possible. If you consider that the hen-do is supposed to happen a night or two before the wedding and my our wedding is in erm August, then you'll see that in this endeavour I am going to succeed immeasurably.

My task is somewhat aided by having to have 2 weddings (visa wedding and proper-white-dress-aisle wedding...although technically I have a whiteish dress for the visa wedding too but shhhh) and two lots of friends and family to celebrate with, along-with two sets of traditions. My task is greatly aided by the curious American tradition of doing everything twice: save-the-dates and invitations, bachelorette parties (aka hen-do) and bridal-showers, rehearsal dinners and wedding receptions. In fact, you could argue that in having two weddings, Jeremy and I are just seeing the American way of doing things through to its logical conclusion... sort of?

Anyway, so Saturday was my hen-do, kindly and brilliantly organised by Sian after I was told I was absolutely not allowed to organise it myself or to micro-manage anybody else organising it. So I was more or less in the dark on the whole plan and had to blindly follow everyone around London to various delicious destinations for brunch, ice-skating, cocktails, cupcakes, dinner and drinks. Much laughter, fun, sugar and wine had by all.

Part of the day consisted of embarrassing me by making me guess Jeremy's answers to a questionnaire about him / me / us that Sian had devised. The penalty for mis-answering was to eat a penis-shaped sweet. Needless to say I tried my best to answer correctly. All told I did pretty well (although numerous penis-jellies were consumed...I refused to eat the red ones, they disturbed me). We both answered that my favourite bedroom activity is sleeping, that we're most looking forward to no longer having to talk on the phone and that my most annoying habit is worrying. We also both decided that in a shag/marry/kill scenario (with Jeremy in the scenario, not me, although I'd draw the same conclusion) Paris Hilton would have to die.

And then the day was over. Poof, gone, nevertobeseenagain. And I realised (I'm a bit slow on the uptake sometimes) that this year, despite my bid to make things last as long as possible, is going to be full of firsts and lasts. Full of that weird post-birthday shade of disappointment that all the anticipated fun has come to fruition and is over (we're saving our honeymoon till 2011 which will help counteract that...plus there's always Christmas). Full of adventure and difference.

Ordinarily at the beginning of a new year I look at it with hope and ambition, crossing my fingers for it to be a good one. This year I know without doubt that the me at the end will not be the same as the me right now. There is going to be Change - as promised by Obama and threatened by David Cameron - and it's all starting with penis-jellies. Bring it on (the change rather than the penis-jellies - they really didn't taste that good).

A Very Dibley New Year

Dibley (my parents' village, code-named here a) for descriptive purposes and b) in case of reprisals) is awesome. It is the anti-London in so many ways, most of them good, some of them hilarious, all of them peaceful and quiet.

Quiet that is, until there's any cause for celebration and then all is disrupted and raucous carousal ensues. This village, buried deep in the Tamar Valley, celebrates everything - from Burns Night to Wassailing to Apple Harvest - which means that when quiet does descend it's normally the result of the whole village having a hangover, or being off celebrating something else in a neighbouring hamlet. So while it might seem slightly strange that this year I ditched London in favour of a village with a population of 300, it was with good reason.

In fact, so confident was I of the new years offering here at Dibley, I got Sian, her boyfriend Marc and Marc's boyfriend Graham to ditch London for Dibley too. And it didn't let us down.

Dibley at New Year has an incredible sense of unity and community - the entire village goes to the pub and then, at 11.50 the pub gives everyone champagne and sends them to the church next door. No, you didn't misread, The Church. And there, in the church-yard, propping their tipsy selves up on 100 year old grave stones, while the bells ring the old year out and the new year in, everyone joins hands and makes up the words to Auld Lang Syne. Then goes back to the pub.

Incongruous though it may be, this tradition is somehow perfect and just thinking of it makes me feel philanthropic - something I don't think London ever made me feel. Because somehow at the heart of all Dibley Hullabaloo, there is a sense of calm confidence. Maybe it's the assurance of traditions or community enduring, or maybe it's just the fact that when you look up at night you see the stars rather than murky light pollution, but either way, celebrations in Dibley are somehow more frank and heartfelt than their cooler, glitzier city cousins.

The very best bit about a Dibley New Year is that on new years day, instead of festering in a bottle-strewn hangover pit, fires are lit, breakfast is readily available and the world outside has green fields and fresh air to offer as a cure. So off we went, Sian and I, pretending to be 10 again and tramping our way across fields, swinging across quicksand, skipping through swamps and clambering over trees while Marc and Graham (stuck being 28) trailed far behind.

And then I felt it. Quiet. I stood at the top of the hill, looking over the river, waiting for Marc and Graham to catch up, and felt entirely calm. No monsters asking to be fed, no heart pounding anxiety, not even a slight twinge of nervy sickness (I ignored the twinge of hangover), just quiet and the peaceful knowledge of the year's promise.

Have A Very Dibley New Year.