A piece of cake

THERE is nothing quite like a good ceilidh to boost your spirits — I’d say it was on the same par as a ride on the waltzers.
For this particular wedding hooch and tchooch, there are not enough superlatives in the Oxford dictionary to describe what a good time was had by all.
The last reception I’d been to before this one was reminiscent of a Peter Kay sketch: the drunk dad dancing with any skirt that moved; little boys sliding over the dance floor with their ties round their heads; granny in the corner moaning that she wanted to go home, but managing to hang around long enough to moan about the buffet, and then that she couldn’t get a taxi to take her home.
To avoid fooling myself into the need of buying something new, I’d planned in advance exactly what I was to wear, thus cancelling the need to have the usual alternatives on hand, just in case.
So you can imagine the panic-filled stupor I found myself in two minutes before I was due to be picked up, when the zip on my chosen skirt burst. I don’t just mean a little burst at the stitching — I mean a fat-spilling, earth-shattering point of no return burst, and not something that could be fixed with my makeshift sewing kit I’d got in the Brownies.
Up until this point my hair had been sitting lovely, my make-up was done and I’d been sitting about in my scabby old dressing gown, waiting until the last minute to get dressed.
It wasn’t just a case of changing the skirt — the top, shoes and bag only went with THAT skirt so it all had to change.
By the time I was en route, tear-stained and feeling fat and frumpy, my entire wardrobe forming a bleak layer on the floor, I convinced myself I was not going to enjoy myself.
However, whenever I walked through the door and was approached by said drunken dad brandishing a bottle of white wine/vinegar he’d acquired from the meal table, the one man band played Dire Straits’ Walk of Life as if he was waiting for my arrival, and I was on top of the world.
By the time I was heading home, I couldn’t give a monkey’s what I had on, what I looked like, or where I’d been. It’s funny that isn’t it? I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it doesn’t matter how great I look when I go out, I still return home in the same hair-up, shoes off, mascara-massacred state.
To avoid the chaos of these previous nuptials, I had several options of outfit, and accessories on hand. I even invited my ‘partner’ round early for him to advise me, after all he had to be seen with me all evening.
Knowing it was a ceilidh I was preparing for, my mother had put a piece of elastic into the bust of my beautiful dress to keep it up, and I relinquished the chance to wear a pair of beautiful shoes, opting instead for my old, scuffed dancing faithfuls.
And I’m so glad — I was not off the floor all night, and thanks to the said old faithfuls I wasn’t ‘on’ it either.
By the end of the evening, I’d provisionally booked the band; telling them I would have to get back to them with a date, venue and groom’s name as soon as I knew it.
I then proceeded to mingle amongst the post-bar/pre-bus company, inviting anyone who would listen to my wedding; telling them I would have to get back to them with a date, venue and groom’s name as soon as I knew it.
I joked that by putting the cake I had neatly wrapped in a napkin under my pillow that night that I’d know who the man was at least. By their blank reaction I thought it may have been one of those childhood stories mothers are duty-bound to tell you don’t exist.
But no — it seems I just wasn’t doing it right.
You are supposed to take a small piece of wedding cake, pass it three times through a wedding ring before you put it under your pillow.
Alternatively, I could have put the cake under my pillow and put a borrowed wedding ring on my wedding finger. Before going to bed I should have arranged my old, scuffed dancing faithfuls in the shape of a T. Again, my groom should then put in an appearance in my dreams.
The only thing I got from the experience was an unsettling dream about one of my dancing partners that evening and a stained pillow case. Somehow I don’t think a borrowed wedding ring would have helped matters.
Still, until the next time I am enticed into borrowing rings and wrapping cake, I’ll settle for dreams about the dreamy Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson in tuxes.
Go see Wedding Crashers if you haven’t already.

Night of shining amour

IMAGINE the scene — I’ve been seduced by a night of drunken debauchery immersed in small town mentality, surrounded by my demons (two of whom I’ve just overcome), and I’m now being chatted up by a random.
I feel a pat on my shoulder, and turn round to be faced with my first love.
Suddenly, I’m transported almost 15 years back in time to the local park, wearing cerise leggings and a cerise polka dot top which had invariably been bought from a clubby book. When I say polka dot I mean in Twister-like proportions.
I’m happily cycling around, on my equally cerise bike (I think I can see where my aversion to pink stems from), when around the corner a youth on a bike comes flying towards me, showing no mercy.
If the eighties’ equivalent of a white stead was a BMX, my knight in shining shellsuit then appeared from nowhere and came to my resuce. He went mad at the kamikaze biker for scaring me and told him that if he messed with me, he messed with him and that was not a good plan.
I now see that it was a complete set up, but at the time I fell for it. He was my hero.
We held hands all day (probably about an hour), and just before I left, he kissed me with the most delicate kiss and asked me to be his girlfriend.
When I told my boy-space-friends at school that I had a boyfriend, and who it was, they immediately warned me off him — basically because he was from the other school and so was obviously bad news.
It was nothing to worry about anyway because I never saw him again. He was filed away and I probably wouldn’t have recalled him, had it not been for this weekend. In fact, I’m writing this, surprising myself at how much I actually remember.
It was one of those ‘I know you, I do, I know you’ moments when I turned to face him. He had me at hello. That, however is the extent of my debauched memory.
The morning after the night before, I tried desperately to piece together what had been said. I’m sure one of the first things I said was I used to love him and that he’d grown up to be a ‘nice young man’. I hope I stopped myself from pinching his cheek. And what cheekbones they are!
I definitely remember him asking if the random, who at this point had put his arm around me in an ‘excuse me but we’re in the middle of something’ manner, was my boyfriend, and me asking him if his girlfriend was with him. I thought it would have been a waste of time to ask if he actually had one and so presumed that he would have to — looking that good. But no, she wasn’t because no he didn’t.
There seemed to be a pink haze all around him and I could hear or see no one but him. We just stood there smiling at each other. We had a moment.
I woke with a start, and a warm, fuzzy sense of confusion — as if he had been the last thing I’d seen before I’d fallen asleep.
Was he really as nice as that? Had my mind gone into slow-mo overdrive and it had merely been but a fleeting glance? It felt like it had lasted forever, but my mind was numb and not differentiating between fantasy and reality.
All I wanted to do was sleep but I couldn’t get his image out of my head. Now, three days on, the fragments are fading and I can barely remember what he looks like.
I wonder if in 15 years time we would meet again — Brigadoon style in the same place at the same time?
I figure the reality is I’ll probably meet him next weekend, and every weekend for the next fifteen years, and be sick of the sight of him.
It was all worth it, however, for reminding me of such a silly story from my youth.
And for reminding me how grateful I am that I now buy my own clothes.