a moment of calm

As evidenced by my lack of blog posts this year life has been rather hectic. It is hectic in all of the best ways - life is brimming with unforgettable happenings.
Over Easter there was the wedding of friends to attend - which took us from Edinburgh to London and then across the channel to France - with a day or two in Germany on the way home. Much eating and dancing was done and sleep was distinctly lacking.

After that it was home to Edinburgh to finish planning my own wedding - and while the Easter celebrations set the bar very very high I think our happy day was a pretty good follow up - and from the perspective of the princess in the white dress I have to say I loved every minute.

bride and groom in Edinburgh's Old Town

Somewhere in the middle we went to see Paul Kelly perform in Glasgow, and had the second ultrasound on my growing bump - getting to see Paul Kelly and our healthy, acrobatic baby within the space of a few days was a very special lead up to our nuptials 

Even though I was something of a dead beat bride and did very little in the way of a hens do I was still pretty happy with my pre-wedding outings. The Edinburgh hen tradition of going out with a squealing gaggle of girls and vomiting in the loo's in a pub in the Old Town was not really an attractive option for me, though the girls at work did manage to get a sparkly tiara and veil combo on my head for a meal out.

... and we have been flat hunting, doing rental applications, started packing, had my mother visiting, had lots of lovely other visitors for the wedding and been skyping with all the folks in Oz. All this on top of working and getting stuck into the paperwork involved in new passports, name change, visas and plotting a celebration down under...

It can all make a girl rather breathless -
The lists of things to do have been raging on the edge of out of control - and no sooner has one event passed us by than there seems to be another one chasing us down. I wake up in a cold sweat rather often remembering than I still have not sent out any thank you cards - and don't even get me started on the fact that I have not had time to see the inside of the flat we are moving into in a month.

All the chaos is the glorious stuff of life and I remind myself every now and again that I am not the first or the last girl to be having a baby, getting married, moving house, holding down a job whilst living on the other side of the world from many of her nearest and dearest -  but it is the first time that all of these particular stars have aligned for me and I try to squeeze in the occasional moment of calm so as not to miss the excitement of it all in the midst of the busy blur.

I had thought that when I sat down to start this blog before running off to work - and am finishing it now on my return home that I might be reviving out one of those extinct moments of calm in my life - but actually I think it has just reminded me how harried I have been feeling of late - oops.

 Perhaps... perhaps I will sneak off and have a bath this evening and leave those thank you cards for another day...