You may recall I bought a wedding dress by Skype for my daughter a couple of weeks ago. Shoes?  I ordered every white size 8 from John Lewis. Excellent returns service you know. Transport / van, flowers/she ordered, cake/I sorted,  photos / I fixed 24 hrs before… I charmed my bestest charm to friend of a friend who knew the bestest there was… sorted. EASY (!)

This is daughter 1, she’s beautiful, she’s frighteningly clever, hilariously funny, but sad to relate has struggled with her inner demons for the last few years. Her fiancé, now husband, terrific support. So chilled he’s horizontal. Which helps , except when there’s a wedding to plan with only 6 weeks notice.

Her dress, of course,  was worn to her wedding, ie  this week, yes, yes you are right , we only bought it two weeks ago.  A weekday registry office service in her local town.
A ten minute service nice and calm. Family only.
Parents all, his and hers, that is all four of us. Siblings:  her brothers, sister and new sister-in-law all managed time off at short notice to get there somehow.

I can tell you about the vintage-VW -surfer -van- wedding -car driven, by a lady crazier than me.  She was nuts – simply perfectly nuts.
Then there was the grey, gloomy  Registrar who wished us ‘good afternoon’ at 10:30 am.
The ‘quick- no- fuss’ service which took well over an hour., Well, we had to revive our lovely girl from a faint. Lying on the floor in her beautiful dress, legs up on a chair. No photos for that bit we decided! Act normal. Act normal. Got her back to the wedding room finished the vows and whisked her out, dress askance but who cares. Act normal.

Lady – in – the- Van poured fizz and coffee and tea and strawberries…dancing around us like Jiminy cricket.

Groom’ s parents had not seen each other for 16 years. Groom was nervous about this meeting. He needn’t have been. They were charming, perfectly civil and bloody good company actually.

One small thing: the videos by iPad father-of-the groom, filmed, showed an awful lot of pavements and carpets and feet and….. Oh well who cares…act normal act normal.

Lunch: without the bride and groom. The waitresses even asked us who in the wedding breakfast party had actually got married. ‘None of us’ we replied they’ve gone home’. Act normal Act Normal!

Tea: cake+ fizz with the bride and groom. No speeches. But amusing stories of the groom with a pebble in his ear. Of the bride’s first day at school; she changed her name, kicked a teacher and went up a year all in one day.

In the meantime I’d had a change of Suprapubic catheter only a week before. Somehow that unleashed a sort of shower of bugs and pain and fever…I shook and shuddered my way through that first night. Found steroids, painkillers and antibiotics and bladder drugs. Lignocaine plasters spread everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Spoke to Dipstick, he suggested ‘hope it settles in 24 hours’ but his son birthday party next day so please to try not to ring. I promised I wouldn’t. Somehow or other I got a grip. For by Wednesday I had to be fit, mother -of -the- bride, wedding planner and thinker of thinks. Somehow it worked. Not least because the Lady in the Van,  my awesome children and long suffering husband just ‘acted normal’ . …these things  happen to everyone….don’ t they?