Mornings on Mt T

In preparation for our honeymoon hike in Tassie, we've been waking at ungodly hours (5:30), putting on our packs, complete with weights stashed in the bottom and walking up the hill/mountain down the road. I have to say, I've been surprised by how many other people are up and walking/jogging at that time of the morning there's even been a couple of boot camps running the hill!

Mt T Local

After doing it for a few mornings we've started to recognize people, nod 'hello' and this morning stop to talk with some of them. To be fair, mostly we recognise people by their dogs at this point. There's the ladies who walk 'Sirius' (our nickname as the dog looks like the one from the Harry Potter movies), a Maltese Jack Russell cross that has the fluff of a Maltese but the colour and temperament of a Jack Russell (so much to smell, so little time to do it in - and no, I won't come when you want me to because this smell right here is just tooooooooo good) and a Mini Schnauzer that is well and truly doing it's bit for Movember.

It has such a nice community feel to it. Not to mention that the view is stunningly beautiful with all the rain we're having lately. Someone brings up a big container of water each day so that dogs who walk their people up (or people who walk their dogs up) can get a drink. At the moment there's a laminated sign tied to the bench at the top advertising the Mt T walkers' christmas party - 6 am, BYO champagne and strawberries! I'm sorry we'll miss it as we'll already be honeymooning.

Even once our big hike is over, I think you'll still find me stumbling out of bed just because of that shared sense of community.

What to do first??

We decided to do the boutonniere and corsages first.

They were little, they were simple, they did not have ribbon tied around them as planned as I left it in Canberra.  Not a big problem though, saved some time and I was happy with them anyway.  Actually, that's not quite right - I was really happy and very proud of them!

These shots before the stems were cut to the right length.

So bright and happy. They still make me smile. And after getting them done, we had the confidence to tackle the bouquets.

The recaps begin...

Friday morning we woke up at 6. We'd left the blinds up in our room the night before. This is all very well in our own secluded north facing bedroom but not so great in the 2nd floor, east facing apartment we were staying in. I was not in the least bit impressed as I was still feeling really sick and told A there was no way I was getting up yet! We lazed around for a while, I popped a zillion vitamins and some cold and flu tablets and we went out to get some breakfast.

We wandered down the road in the sunshine (amazing in Melbourne given the weather over the previous couple of weeks) to a cafe and ate delicious ricotta, honey and banana on sourdough - my mood improved significantly! I figured if I was going to be sick there was no point dwelling on it as it wasn't going to make any difference. Plus, I had my voice back so chances were I'd be able to croak out some vows the next day and that was the main thing!

We headed back to the apartment and decided that it really was time to work out out dance.  We moved all the furniture out of the way, worked out the stereo and tried to choreograph a dance using the few merengue moves we could remember to some not-so-merengue music. We got to a point that we felt satisfied that we wouldn't embarrass ourselves too much then went out to relax on the sunny balcony.

Soon after, my parents and sister arrived and the real fun began. We lugged buckets of flowers and boxes of vases upstairs and feeling a little overwhelmed, tried to work out where on earth to start...

7 things

So, Sammie from Marriage, Renovations and... was kind enough to give me a versatile blogger award - thanks! Though I'm not sure I really deserve it! Perhaps an 'unreliable blogger' award would be more apt? For us, November held two weddings, two funerals and the writing of 150 or so school reports. I'm glad it's over and in an effort to get back on the blogging horse I'm writing down my 7 things.

1. In four days I'll be on holidays for 8 weeks! 8 weeks people, that's two whole months! 2 weeks honeymooning, 1 week with family for christmas and then 5 more weeks to do things around home that were totally neglected for most of the year due to Operation Wedding. Oh, the things I could do!

2. If I were stuck on a remote island and could only have 2 types of fruit and vegies I would choose sweet potato, corn, golden queen peaches and pomegranate.

3. I've climbed the highest mountain in South East Asia - Mt Kinabalu in Borneo. It was awesome. I should write about it some time!

4. I love lists - particularly crossing things off them! I love this to the point that sometimes, if I do something that I didn't put on the list, I'll write it on afterwards just so I can cross it off!

5. I wish I was able to make wonderful arty/crafty things. There's so much beautiful stuff out there.  I'm more of a starter and less of a finisher so until I deal with that it's not going to happen!

6. I love to read and I have many favourites but the top 3 are... The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham and I love To Kill a Mockingbird too. Ok, let's make that 4 favorites.


7. I'm excited to start a family (or start trying to). Thanks to a comment in the wedding speech, the in-laws have a pool going that there'll be a little A by next Christmas. I guess we'll just have to wait and see!


As I don't have 7 people to pass this on to, I'm going to leave it open. If you stumble across this and want to introduce yourself and tell me 7 things go ahead, I'll come and read it and leave you a message!


And finally, just because, here's another wedding photo taken by a wonderful guest (who was also kind enough and cluey enough to video our bridal dance - thank you, thank you, thank you)!