Gareth Harrison

It’s that funny time between Christmas and New Year when generally nothing really happens – so the ideal time to do a blog update!  And since I last posted a week and a half ago, I’ve actually done quite a lot of stuff in that time!

Last Wednesday night, I went over to Liverpool with John Roberts to see a production of ‘The 39 Steps‘ at the Liverpool Playhouse.  He runs a theatre reviews website called The Public Reviews, so we we got free tickets which was pretty cool!  It was actually a really good show – it’s a comedy and was performed by just 4 actors, who changed roles continuously throughout the play, which surprised me at how well it worked!

The show culminated in fake snow being showered on the audience, and then as we left the theatre, we discovered that there was real snow falling – and I’d have been really impressed if that was part of the show as well!  We’d already had a bit of snow in Manchester a couple of days earlier, but there was none in Liverpool when we arrived.  We got back to the car, and within a few minutes we were driving through a pretty intense blizzard, and the snow really started to build up on the roads.

And by the time we hit the M62, we couldn’t see very far in front of us, and you couldn’t see any road markings at all!  So basically you had to follow the rear lights of the car in front, which at one point meant that we accidentally left the motorway by following the car in front off a sliproad!

Anyway, because of the snow and the likelihood of the roads being a nightmare on Christmas Eve, I decided to wait until the next morning to drive down to Tamworth for Christmas with the family. 

What this did mean was that I was still up in North West that evening, so I went along to a little get-together at Michael & Becci’s for anyone who was still around in Manchester.  There was a nice little crowd there, including Jon & Emma, Andy & Ruth, Yan, and Luke, and it was an enjoyable way to spend Christmas Eve.  I chatted quite a bit with Michael who was telling me all about their future plans, and about their upcoming move to America for 3 months to spend time at IHOP before coming back to Manchester to model something similar here.  It sounds really interesting and exciting, but quite a big thing for them to do!

The next morning I drove down to mum’s and got there around noon.  The motorway was a lot busier than I expected – I guess lots of people had decided to wait until the morning because of the weather.  Even so, I was actually the first there, and everyone else was really late, and they all live really close!

It was great seeing Brandon and Chloe again – I know I say it every time, but every time I see them, they’ve always grown up so much more!

And they’re so much more chatty now – even though half of the time it doesn’t seem to make all that much sense, but bizarrely they seem to understand each other alright!

I last saw them at the beginning of October when we were all out in Turkey, so I suppose with it being two and a half months there’s going to be some serious growing up taking place!

And it especially was nice this Christmas because they obviously got a lot more out of it this year than last.  They were really excited about all their presents (of which there were loads!) and what was really funny was that Chloe would decide which presents should be for her, and Brandon would basically go along with it!

I’ve uploaded the photos I took over Christmas here.

It was a nice weekend, and was quite chilled out really, and good catching up with everyone.  I also managed to fit in a few drinks with Tom on Boxing Day, who was back at his folks’ from the UAE for Christmas which was cool.

One last thing I did whilst I was in Tamworth was going to visit my dad’s grave with my mum and sister – I’d not been to it before, so it felt a bit weird to be honest… I’m just not very good with stuff like that at all.

I drove back home on Sunday night, and then to round it all off, yesterday I travelled to Llandudno to visit Emma who was back from the States for Christmas.

I arrived mid-morning, just as Emma and her mum were dealing with a bit of a crisis!  They’d been out to the supermarket first thing and whilst they were out, all the dogs managed to get into the bedrooms where they found load of chocolate stuff which they then ate.

I knew that chocolate and dogs aren’t supposed to mix, but I didn’t realise how dangerous it can be for them, so Emma’s mum had to arrange a visit to the vet to get some medicine to force the dogs to be sick, which sounds like a really grim job!

Anyway, to escape the chaos, me and Emma drove to Betws-Y-Coed, which is a small village about 20 miles from Llandudno.

We went for a short, slippy, walk by the river before grabbing some lunch at a cafe, then decided to head up to Swallow Falls, which we discovered later is actually 2 miles out of the village, so it ended up being quite a long walk there and back!  The falls were really impressive, although the steps down to the river were really iced up and were pretty lethal!

Check out the photos here.

I’ve just got back from my first proper holiday in many years (I’m not counting Anglesey over new year!). Quite a few of my family were on holiday in Turkey staggered over a couple of weeks, so I managed to get some time off work and join them over there for a week.

I’d never been there before, but my mum and dad started going over there on and off for holidays about 10 years ago, and both my brother and sister had been there quite a few times as well.

Anyway, I headed over there from Manchester Airport with my cousin Sam and her husband Matt, and we got into Bodrum airport at about 5am, after having been awake since the morning before! Then it was onto a mini-bus for me, whilst Sam and Matt went onto a Thomas Cook coach (I’d booked with a small travel company, so my transfer was with a local company), and the journey from the airport to Altinkum seemed to take forever – the roads we pretty ropey, as was some of the driving! I eventually got to the apartments for 7.30am, and then crashed down for a few hours sleep.

Venturing out around lunchtime, the first thing I noticed was how much warmer it was than the weather I’d just come from! To the locals, it wasn’t hot at all, but to me, it was just about right!

I also got to meet Steve’s new girlfriend Jeni and her daughter Chelsea – I’d not had a chance to before this week. And as well as my mum, Vikky, Damien and the twins, it turned out that a couple we’ve known for years, Colin and Jenny, were and had been moved into the same apartment block at the last minute!

It was really nice to be able to spend such a long time with Brandon and Chloe. Again, I really noticed how much they’d grown since I’d last seen them in July. And they really are just so cute!

Unfortunately Brandon seemed to have some kind of bug for part of the week which meant he was quite unwell for a bit of the time, but generally they seemed to really be enjoying themselves, and loved playing on the sand, or running around in the beach cafe!

I’m not really the kind of person who enjoys sunbathing every day, so on Thursday I went on a day trip with mum and Sam to the city of Ephesus – or more accurately, what archaeologists have discovered of it!

It really is an amazing place. It was re-discovered about 150 years ago (it had become buried or something) and they’re still excavating it and re-constructing the ruins.

You could feel the ancient history around you – and it was weird feeling when our guide was talking about stuff that had happened there during Biblical times, and then to think that you’re standing in places where all those people had also been! It’s hard to get your head around! And some of the technology they had there 2 thousand years ago, like hot running water, and proper sanitation… and then all that was lost for so many centuries – it’s really crazy!

So generally it was a good week, although I found the town to be far to touristy… apparently it used to be a much more traditional place, but it now very much caters for the British, which actually isn’t a good thing. And I really didn’t like the fact that you couldn’t go to any shops or past any restaurants without being hassled to buy something – it really annoys me!!

Yesterday I was down in Tamworth and got to spend some time with Brandon and Chloe. I think it’s been about 3 months since I was last down there, so I could really see how much they’ve developed.

They’re now walking (and running!) and it really does make a difference. It’s kind of strange to see!

They seem so much more independent now, and they’re pretty chatty, even though you can’t make sense of anything they say other than the odd word! They’ve got such character, and are really cute! Obviously I’m biased because they’re my nephew and niece, but they really are the best kids in the world!

We played in the garden for a bit, then they spent some time in their sandpit, where basically they poured sand over each other! It’s a pity I don’t get down to see them more often, but at least I get to chat to them on Skype every so often – although I’m not sure they totally understand what’s going on when we do that!

Work-wise, me and James have been busy. I’m trying to get the 29th Chapter music video sorted, but it’s taking a lot longer to do than I’d hoped. I think it will look good, but the work on it is more intense than we’d first thought.

Also, we’ve been working on the graphical look for Channel M’s new daily magazine show. We shot the titles for it with Tim a couple of weeks ago, and we delivered the majority of it on Monday for their pilot week ahead of the show launch next week. It’s not exactly what we’d originally planned to do with it all, but I think it still looks good – especially with the amount of time we’ve had to do it in!

It’s been a weekend of parties – but there was quite a difference between the two!

Last week was Brandon and Chloe’s first birthday – I can’t believe they’re a year old already! It’s gone so fast, but then at the same time it’s like you can’t remember what it was like before them! I went down to Tamworth on Friday to see them (their actual birthday was the Thursday), and then on the Saturday afternoon, it was time for their party!

It was a new type of party for me really – when the main guests are all under 2 years old! The twins looked really cute – Brandon had a Superman costume, and Chloe had a pink ballet tutu!

They’ve really got their own personalities now, and it’s amazing seeing them growing up. I reckon they’ll be walking soon – they keep trying to stand up, and move around using furniture as support!

All the kids seemed to have fun, and there weren’t too many tears, although at that age, you can’t really explain to them about sharing toys and stuff! There are photos of the fun here.

Anyway, after their party, I drove down to Bristol for another one! Ali and Julie were having a joint late birthday party – but this one had a theme… 80s cheese!

I really struggled to come up with a costume for it. The night before I still didn’t have anything, but a trip to Asda found a rock star wig and inflatable guitar!

So on the Saturday I bought the most horrific t-shirt (a nice skull, sword and snake design!) and a head-band, and created my 80s rocker look! It turned out alright, but I think it’s a lot easier for girls to put costumes together for something like that!

Anyway, nearly everyone made a pretty good effort, and it was a real reminder of how bad the fashion was in the 80s! Ali and Julie back-combed their hair which was an interesting look, and there were some great wigs making an appearance!

Then yesterday afternoon, I went into the centre of Bristol to get lunch with Ali, then we took a ferry down the river back to her house which was really cool! You don’t get anything like that in Manchester! Check out the pics of the party and our afternoon in Bristol here.

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone!

I’ve been down in Tamworth since Christmas Eve, and it was my first Christmas back down there for quite a few years – certainly since I’ve been living in my current house anyway.

Part of my reason for going down this year was that it was Brandon and Chloe’s first one, so wanted to be there for that really. My sister was doing lunch at hers, and there were quite a few of us there for it… me, mum, Vikky, Damien, the twins, Damien’s mum and dad, and Damien’s brother, Gavin. Also, Steve and Julie popped in before dinner, so it was quite a full house!

I was quite surprised that the twins also had Christmas dinner with us – they were eating pretty much the same as us, and it didn’t seem that mashed up really! They like to be able to grab food and put it in their mouths themselves, so the more food they can hold the better!

It was actually quite weird being around people – I’ve really got used to being on my own on Christmas Day, and doing what I want to do, when I want to do it! So I didn’t get my usual lie-in, and didn’t really get to watch the TV I wanted to see either!! Thank goodness for Sky+! I’ve got so many shows I’ve recorded over the last 3 days that I need to try and find the time to watch!

Anyway, back to Christmas Day at my sister’s…

Brandon and Chloe had a great day – even though they were both a bit snotty. And they got so many presents from everyone, it was ridiculous! My sister said she’d have to put some of their new toys away, and swap them all round every month! It must have been quite bewildering for them, because they got so much attention, and then were going from one new toy to another!

One of their cool presents was a talking Elmo toy – and it was amazing! The movement on it is so realistic, and if he falls over, he even asks you to pick him up again!

Both the twins were transfixed by him – especially since he was sitting at the same level as them – although Chloe eventually decided she wanted a hug from her dad rather than a robotic toy!

It’s amazing seeing the kind of toys you can get for kids nowadays – when I was that age, there was nothing like that at all! It was just teddy bears and Fisher Price telephones!

They also got a ball pool which was great fun! We put them in there and buried them under the balls. I don’t think Brandon quite knew what to do at first – he just lay there as they piled up on him! And Chloe spent a lot of time trying to eat them!

There are photos from the day here.

While I was down in Tamworth, I also dug out some old VHS tapes of stuff I filmed years ago and copied them to DVD. Some of my stuff was so bad!! But it’s fun to look back at it now though, especially some of the videos I made with Tom whist I was at school. It also made me realise how bad quality VHS is – especially when I was editing it back then, because the picture got much worse on every pass, whereas nowadays you can copy stuff or edit footage without any quality degradation at all.

I also copied some old home video stuff from when we hired a camcorder back in the early 90s. It’s really strange looking back at video footage of yourself from so long ago! And also of all my grandparents, as well as my dad. It’s one thing looking at old photos, but watching footage puts a whole different perspective on it all.

Anyway, that’s Christmas over… I’m back in Manchester now, but this afternoon I’m off to Anglesey for the next week to see in the New Year in a cottage next to the sea, so hopefully that should be fun!

It’s been a strange few weeks.

A few posts ago I mentioned about my nan being ill. Well unfortunately she died a few weeks ago on the 1st November, and we had the funeral just a couple of weeks ago. It was weird thing – obviously it was all really sad, but with it being a Catholic funeral, there was a service for the family on the Sunday night when the coffin was brought into the church, then the actual funeral ceremony the next morning. It’s also quite strange, because I’d never realised that Catholics believe that the soul of the person is still in the coffin whilst it’s in the church, and they ask the saints and Mary to protect it overnight, and then in the second service the priest kind of commits the soul to heaven. All a bit odd!

It was also the same weekend at Steven’s birthday, so it was a strange weekend really. Also odd to note that last year dad’s funeral was 2 days after my birthday – and then this year, nan’s was 2 days after Steven’s.

On to yesterday then, and I had the most rubbish day, and it turned out totally opposite to how I’d hoped it would. It was Jess Torry’s dedication service at Vinelife, with Helen then being baptised afterwards, followed by a gathering back at their house. I’d totally planned to be there for the whole thing, and am truly gutted that it just all went pear-shaped. I arrived for the service about 10 minutes before the start, and it was all going fine until unfortunately, just as it was starting, I bumped into someone who I really wanted to avoid, and then just had to get out of there. I really tried hard not to let it get to me and stay in my seat, but I just couldn’t do it, even though it was such an important day. I’m actually really angry with myself for not being able to deal with it, but also pretty annoyed that the situation arose in the first place. As it was, I listened to the dedication part of the service from outside, but then left which meant I missed the get-together in the afternoon as well. I guess I just feel rubbish ‘cos I really wanted to be there for the whole of their special day, but because of what ultimately is just stupid stuff, I wasn’t there for them.

It’s a year today that my dad died, and if I’m totally honest, I still don’t think I’ve properly felt anything abut it. I commented after the funeral that I hadn’t really had much of a reaction to it all, and maybe it’d come further on, but it hasn’t really. Maybe that makes me heartless – I don’t know. But maybe now isn’t the right time, and it’s still something I’ll deal with in the future.

Also, nan’s been taken into hospital this weekend, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that. When I first found out on Thursday, it sounded like it was really bad and everyone was fearing the worst, although mum’s texted me today to say that she’s improved, and is now eating and drinking (she hadn’t eaten in a week before being taken in), but they don’t know whether she’ll be allowed home or not. I guess it’s just a case of waiting really.

Been a bit of a gap since my last post, so need to do a bit of a catch-up!

Firstly, tonight on G.O.L.D. (it used to be UKGold until this week!) there’s a documentary about one of the funniest shows ever – “Blackadder Exclusive: The Whole Rotten Saga”, and we did the graphics for it.

It’s on at 9pm (and I think is repeated throughout the week, as is the way with digital channels), although there’s another show next Thursday night at 9pm called “Blackadder’s Most Cunning Moments” where we provided a lot more graphics, as well as doing the background images for the interviews.

It’ll be quite strange seeing it, because we were working on it back in May and June, so seems like ages ago now! I won’t forget it though because it coincided with James’ paternity leave, and the week it had to be delivered I was juggling that along with the Drama Trails 3D stuff! Fun! The programme was originally going to be aired in the summer, but then it was decided that they’d save it for the channel relaunch which happened this week, hence the gap between working on it and it now being shown. I’ve watched some of it on DVD, and they’re actually really well put together shows, so hopefully the viewers will like them!

Other news… a couple of weeks ago I was down in Tamworth for Brandon and Chloe’s dedication service.

They looked cute – Brandon had a little suit with a waistcoat and cravat, and Chloe was wearing a dress with little flowers on it, and a sparkly headband!

They were really well-behaved and seemed to enjoy themselves, although Brandon does manage to be sick at pretty regular intervals!

Both are really happy babies – they seem to laugh all the time, and really know how to pose to the camera! I guess they’ve got pretty used to having people taking pictures of them all the time!

And it’s amazing to see how quickly they grow up… obviously I don’t get down there that regularly, so when I see them each time, I can see how much they’ve changed!

Anyway, it was a really nice day, and it was good catching up with my cousins again, and also getting to see Dave & Tanith’s baby Evie, who’s a similar age to the twins, but it was the first time I’d seen her for real, and not in a photo on Facebook!

And to carry on with the baby theme, we had a bit of a random day in the office last week… Helen turned up with Jess and James’ mum on Wednesday afternoon, so it was really nice to see them. I hadn’t seen Jess since July when she’d last come in, so she really had grown since the last time I’d seen her, and she’s really got her own personality now, and pretty cute smile!

Then, about an hour after they left, Brandon and Chloe turned up with Vikky and my mum! They’d been up in Manchester for a photoshoot for Littlewoods catalogue, and popped in afterwards before travelling home.

As you can see, we made sure we put Jess, Brandon to Chloe to work on some doodledoMOTION projects!

Well my excuse for not having updated this blog since February is that I’ve just been too busy with work! And it’s pretty true to be honest! I’ve not had a day off for over six weeks now and I’m feeling pretty knackered! I’m currently in the middle of doing a load of 3D graphics for a series that starts on ITV3 this Wednesday night at 9pm called Drama Trails. I’m actually really pleased with how our stuff’s all looking in it, but it’s a 10 part series and I’ve still got 5 more episodes worth of graphics to do, so it’ll probably be a few more weeks until I get a day off!

The show’s being made by Tiger Aspect, and we’ve also just completed graphics for another of their programmes – a Blackadder special which is going out on UK Gold in September, so I’ll probably blog about that a bit closer to the transmission date!

I mentioned a while ago that we were going to be moving into an office – well that happened at the end of February, and it’s great have a proper space to work in. It’s not 100% finished yet… we’ve still got to put the finishing touches to the edit suite, but I think me and James have done a pretty good job with it!

The picture here shows mine and James’ desks, which is currently where we spend most of our time. To the right of the bookcase, we’ve got a little seating area, and to the left of the shot is an edit suite that we built ourselves using lots of wood and plasterboard! Check out my photos to see how we did it all!

In my last blog, I announced the birth of my little nephew and niece – Brandon and Chloe. Well they’ve certainly grown a bit since that week! This first picture of me holding both of them was taken as they were about to leave hospital, and they were just 4 days old. You can see how tiny they were by the fact I could hold both of them at once!

They’re now 19 weeks old, and I last saw them a couple of weeks ago when I made a fleeting visit to Tamworth for my mum’s birthday, and they’ve really grown into little people, and are definitely developing their own characters. I don’t know how my sis copes with looking after 2 babies, but she seems to be doing a pretty good job!

(Brandon & Chloe – top: 6 weeks old, bottom left: 11 weeks old, bottom right: 17 weeks old)

Staying on the whole baby thing, James is now a daddy!

Helen gave birth to Jessica Grace on the 4th June, nearly 2 weeks overdue, but if I’m really honest, I was so glad that the baby held on those 10 days, because work was crazy, and we’d have struggled to get it done otherwise!! (sorry Hel!!)

Anyway, James brought Jessica to the office for a visit when she was just a week old, and she’s so cute – though as is the norm with babies, she didn’t do much more than sleep and cry!

I haven’t discussed it with James yet, but as soon as she’s old enough – 18 months should be fine – we’ll be training her up on After Effects to take the workload off us a bit…

Late last night, Brandon David and Chloe Amy were born into the world!

My sis was 27 hours in labour, which sounds like a heck of a long time to me – I think it was a pretty rough one. Brandon was 5lbs 6oz and Chloe was 5lbs, so those are pretty decent weights for twins born a month early!

I’m going down on Saturday to see them – and hopefully they’ll all be out of hospital by then (not a big fan of hospitals myself!)

Just got back from my mum’s – Vikky has been in hospital since Friday night because she wasn’t feeling well, and also because her blood pressure had pretty much doubled!

I went to visit her this afternoon at Good Hope hospital, and by the time we got there she’d been moved into a delivery room, going through the final stages before getting ready to give birth! By that point, she was only supposed to have her birthing partners there – Damien and my mum – but they got permission from the midwife for me to visit because I’d not seen her since the beginning of January.

I couldn’t believe how big her bump was when I saw her – it was massive! She’s supposed to have 4 more weeks to go, but there’s no way she could go much longer with 2 babies in there! Her blood pressure has now come down a bit, but I think she still feels quite uncomfortable.

Anyway, they hooked up some pads to her stomach to monitor the babies’ heartbeats, and the whole thing was just amazing. It sounded like a train with both hearts beating just out of sync with each other, then for short periods they’d match up making a really strong beating sound. And it was really weird seeing them kicking really hard – I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before – seeing something living, moving so much just under the skin… really freaky to watch, but brilliant at the same time!

By this time tomorrow, I might well have a new nephew and niece!

It’s been a couple of months since my last post, so I thought I should bring my blog up-to-date with stuff that’s been going on.

The big project we worked on at the end of last year was ‘The Vicar Of Dibley’s Greatest & Top 40 Moments’, made by Tiger Aspect for UK Gold.

We did the titles, interview background graphics and studio backdrops, plus the animated stings to appear before each clip as they counted down – basically anything graphical in the two 90-minute shows! Our work got a really good reaction, and UKTV said the show was one of their highest rating original programmes which was good to hear. And the show was repeated loads over Christmas, so it’s sure to have been seen by a lot of people! And we should have another show from Tiger Aspect to work on from March – this time a series for ITV, so a busy time ahead!

Also before Christmas, I spent a lot of time working with Rob editing the Cannonball 8000 programme. It was a pretty big job because we had to deliver an hour long episode for ITV1 and ITV4, as well as re-cutting it all into 4 half hour episodes to go out on the Extreme channel later this year. There were a lot of late nights, and I was even editing on Christmas Day and Boxing Day!

Then, at the beginning of this month, we had to produce 2 commercials for Channel M which are running on Granada this week. It was a crazy turnaround time, with us doing the recee in between Christmas and New Year, and then we shot one of the commercials in James’ house, and the other one we made using clips from the news programme, with specially recorded pieces-to-cameras from the reporters.

Both the commercials we produced came out really well I think, and Tim did one for music which also looked great – especially in the time we all had! I think they should also be running again in a few months time, so watch out for them if you miss them this week!

The final bit of work news is that we’ve found ourselves an office! It’s in an old converted mill in Stockport, and we’re going to be renting one of the units on the top floor. The plan is to move in sometime next month, and we want to try and build an enclosed edit suite in the space, so we need to try and find time to do that before we move all our kit there!

Other news – I forgot to mention on here before that my sister Vikky (and her husband Damien of course!) are expecting twins! She’s due in March, and when I was down in Tamworth just after New Year, her bump looked pretty big! I think it was a bit of a shock when everyone first found out they were having two babies – it’s going to be a busy time for them when they’re born! Also, James and Helen are expecting a baby this year – in May – so we need to try and make sure we don’t have any major jobs happening when theirs comes along! I’ve offered my services for babysitting, but I’m not sure I’ll have the time with all the work we have! I think we need to make sure James trains the baby up in Avid and After Effects as soon as they’re born!

Just got back home after being down in Tamworth today for my dad’s funeral. He’d been ill for a very long time but it’s still weird when it actually happens, because no matter how much you’re expecting it at some point, you don’t know how you’ll react.

I guess I still feel a bit numb over it all… today was really hard, especially the funeral service itself. There were a lot of people there – loads that I didn’t recognise, and some faces from the past that I hadn’t seen for 10 – 15 years. As part of the service, a song that my sister recorded with him a few years ago was played, and it was difficult hearing him sing at his own funeral.

I don’t know if I’m going to have some proper reaction further down the line – it feels a bit bottled up at the minute. In the last few years I’d not really been close to him and we’d had a lot of disagreements, but at the end of the day he’s my dad, and he’s now no longer with us, and I know I should react in some way.

Just not sure how at the moment.

Thought it was time for one of my not-so-regular blogs! A couple of weekends ago, my brother Steve got married to Julie, so that leaves me as the only one not married!!

It was a nice day – they’d asked me to film it for them, so it kept me busy and gave me a job to do! Not sure when I’ll get a chance to edit it though… I’ve still need to do Vikky and Damien’s one from last September! It was a bit weird, because apart from family, I didn’t really know anyone else there – Vikky knows a lot of Ste’s mates, but being up in Manchester means that I lose touch with all stuff like that. There are photos of the day here.

It kind of makes me think about my own life a bit though. Both my brother and sister are now married, and I’d always hoped that the same would happen to me, and that I’ve have my own family and all that, but as I’m getting older, I see all that slipping away from me which makes me really quite sad at times. Also, I suppose as you see your mates around you getting married and having kids, it just reinforces it to you all the time. I know I’ve wasted my life a bit over the last few years… I’ve let my head get totally screwed up twice by someone I really liked (going back for more heartache obviously wasn’t the wisest thing I could have done – but sometimes you don’t act rationally!) It’s a bit weird how much your emotions can switch from having really strong feelings for someone to then never wanting to lay eyes on them again, especially when at the end of the day, the problem is mine not theirs… there’s no law that says they have to feel the same way! Even now though, I’m still struggling to put all that behind me and move on, but by never having to see her again, that should at least mean I can just wipe that period of my life away, and try to move forward. It is totally rubbish though – 5 years of spending your time thinking about one person is such a waste – but it’s a lot easier to say you’re over it than it actually being true!

Wow – that was all a bit more open and honest than I planned… though sometimes it’s good to get things off your chest!

Well, the wedding all went off great, and my sis is now officially Victoria Wood (insert your own gag here!)

It was a completely mad morning – I was staying at Steve & Julies’, and I got up about 8.30 to watch a bit of tv… the calm before the storm! Then it was time to get my suit on, and it was going okay until the phone rang, so I opened the door to go and answer it, forgetting that the suit jacket was hanging on it. I picked it up off the floor, to discover it covered in cat hair and sawdust (Steve had been constructing a wardrobe in the room the day before!) I tried my best to get it all off, but eventually I decided that everyone would be looking at Vikky’s dress rather than my suit, so I stopped worrying too much about it!!

The weather forecast for the day was pretty horrendous – heavy rain had been predicted all week, and we certainly had a downpour first thing, but by mid-morning the heavy rain stopped and it wasn’t too bad.

I headed off to my mum’s house at quarter to eleven where they were all getting ready – my mum, sis and her four bridesmaids… and to say it was hectic there would be a massive understatement! And then at 11.15 (45 minutes before the wedding was to start), there was a major panic as it was realised that one of the pairs of shoes for the bridesmaids was missing, and no-one had ever seen them! So I was sent off to race over in my car to Vikky’s house to look for them (with no clue where they’d be!) and I eventually found them in a box in the back of their storecupboard! And when I got back at about 11.30, she still hadn’t got her wedding dress on!

Anyway, we made it to the church for noon, although it took about 10 minutes to do the photos outside, so I’m sure Damien was sweating a bit at the front of the church!

It then all seemed to happen so fast – we walked down the aisle behind the bridesmaids, and then I stood at the side of them just praying that I wouldn’t mess up the bit where I had to give her away! I did it right, but then couldn’t remember whether it was then that I was supposed to go back to my seat, or if I was supposed to stay there a bit longer… but I chose the former ‘cos I though it better to do that than be standing there when I wasn’t supposed to be!

Then after the service, it just seemed to be never-ending photographs! We had some taken outside the church – it was drizzling a bit, but it wasn’t that wet really, then we headed over to Middleton Hall for the reception and had a load of photos done in the gardens there. This was then followed by the meal (chicken.. mmm) and then a disco with karaoke.

Both Damien and Vikky had a great day, and you could see they both really enjoyed it all (except when they had to walk around everyone before the meal!), and then yesterday they came back with me to Manchester because they flew out to Cuba from here this morning.

I’ve posted all my photos here.