Wedding Bells Part 2

Wedding Bells Part 1 is here




We had arrived at the 'Black Swan' in Oldstead. 

It was a complete surprise to me - Dan had let out the clue that it was a Michelin star place we were going to, and that it was in Yorkshire - well there aren't that many - so I was pretty sure I knew where we were going (the aforementioned Star at Harome)  - however what I hadn't taken into consideration was that the Michelin awards had only been 5 or 6 weeks before, and this place had only just received their star - so I wasn't looking quite in the right place! 

Anyway, we arrived along a 1 mile long track from Bylands Abbey (you have to pass through an archway of the abbey to get to Oldstead so it's suitably theatrical!) and pulled into an L shaped courtyard/car park. It was rather unprepossessing to look at - quite homely - looking rather like some nicely done up farm buildings. We parked up and went into the reception where we were greeted by a lovely girl - very friendly and chatty - who checked our booking and took us round to one of the 4 rooms they have in this lovely 'Restaurant with Rooms'. 

I do think we got the best room - it had a 4 poster bed, and a cast iron roll top bath in the lovely bathroom (which had underfloor heating much to both of our delight!) mmmmm warm toesies! 

On top of that there was a bottle of champagne sat on ice. Fab! I always like it when an evening starts with champers! 

After sweeping round the room a bit and investigating all the luxurious trappings whilst consuming our champagne, we headed over to the bar of the pub. One of the really nice things about this Michelin Star restaurant is that it is basically a fabby pub, with a cozy fire, big tables to sit round, cosy nooks, lots of books, oh and excellent food! So down we went into the bar, and sat and chatted to the owners and staff, whilst having a pint. (Hmmmm Black Sheep on top of Champers; possibly a slightly dubious combination!) 

Anyway, we were in for an early dinner so we hurtled back to the room to change (it turned out we really didn't need to, but we glammed it up anyway!) 

We were booked in for the 7 course taster menu with the paired wines. Details here... http://blackswanoldstead.co.uk/menus/Sample%20tasting%20menu.pdf 

As always in a Michelin restaurant, the food and service were impeccable. This time, though, it was very relaxed and friendly - much less 'stiff' than some of the places we've been to in the past. This really suits the lovely location and slightly more chilled vibe which I think they're going for. 

Here are a few pics of the food - not all though - the camera went wonky in the middle :( 

All through the evening, Dan had my lovely engagement ring in his top pocket which he patted smugly at various points during the meal. 

"Go on, let me put it on" I kept asking.... I was answered with a pat of the pocket!!! 

To cut a long story short, I never got to put my ring on at all that evening!!! We finished the meal, and walked the 4 pages back to our room, and zonked out for the night. 

The following morning after breakfast (which was magnificent!) I was finally allowed to put the ring on! YAY! 5th December - official 'getting engaged' date! 

When we got home we started the lovely task of ringing up the folks and friends to let them in on the secret we'd been keeping since August!! 

No snow in crossflatts

It seems to have taken everyone else a very long time to get to work this morning. I was ok - only 50 mins. No snow in Morley , none here in Crossflatts and hardly any in between!

The hash tag #uksnow has been trending on twitter but i think that is more about wishful thinking than anything to do with actual snow!

https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23uksnow

So check out this website...it uses that hashtag to determine snow levels (you have to tweet a mark out of 10 and a postcode) and u can see the live UK snowfall

http://uksnowmap.com/

Hopefully I'll make it home tonight - I forgot my yaktrax!

Wedding Bells!

We were sat in Mark's Bar - Cucina - in Morley way back in the summer. Dan said 'I think it's time we got married' I burst into tears! We have been talking about getting married in the abstract sense for a long time. It's been complicated as we both have such differing beliefs and like such different things. This was the 'getting married in the specific sense'! I couldn't believe we'd actually got to that point.

So there was an agreement that it would happen, but not quite how, when or where!! One thing we did agree on though, that we weren't 'engaged' until a ring had been purchased.

It was a busy summer so nothing really got done until we got back from Italy in September. At the end of September, remember that lovely hot weekend? We went into Leeds, had a lovely meal, and went looking in some of the nice jewellery shops in the city centre. Straight away we saw something which looked a bit like this one and we thought it looked just the ticket. I didn't want anything that looked too "engagementy" and I also didn't want anything which stuck out or I'd end up catching it on things; I'd be too afraid to wear it! Visions of watching a diamond pinging off into the distance!

After thinking about it that evening we thought why go looking for anything else when we both liked the one we had seen in Leeds. We planned to go into Leeds the next day & put down the deposit on it.

Literally, the next morning, just as we were about to go into town, I was looking on a website called Offbeat Bride which is a fabby resource for the 'non-bridely' bride (aka me) and I saw a picture of a ring in the adverts on the right hand side of the page

Well it was a picture of 2 rings - I'm not really a solitaire kinda gal but I totally loved the simple leafy band on the left. I clicked on the advert and it brought me to Valerie K Studio Etsy page.

Ooooooh it was ring heaven! I still liked the leaf one best and then I saw the leaf ring sandwiched between the 2 eternity bands. I *knew* they were mine. I showed Dan and said I really really liked them - they were a little bit different - we both loved that idea - nothing if not unconventional!

We then entered into the conversation with Valerie about gold and diamonds. All that decided we placed the order and then it was a matter of time to wait for it to be made and then to arrive in the post!!!

Valerie lives in Pasedina and so I had a nice little parcel tracking number which allowed me to see our parcel as it went from her local post office, to the central one, to LA, on the plane, to Heathrow, to Leeds, and then to the house!

The whole process took about 4 weeks but I would check the DHL website ohhh about 5000 times a day! In fact Dan sent me this fab cartoon from XKCD on the subject of online parcel tracking...

It's from XKCD.com a brilliant online cartoon - link below.

http://xkcd.com/281/

Yes, that was me. Still in Pasedina. Still in Pasedina. Still in Pasedina!

Anyway, it got here eventually and we set the date of letting the rest of the world in on the secret as being the first weekend in December.

We tried to organise something nice for that weekend - Barcelona, Edinburgh, Kinsale, but nothing quite worked out. 

We started looking closer to home, and then one afternoon Dan said 'I've booked something for Edinburgh'. ('Going to Edinburgh' had become our codeword for 'Getting Engaged'!!!) "oh really, where?" I replied. "Not telling" he said. So it was decided. I wasn't to know until we got there!!!

Last Sunday we got in the car and Dan gave me the driving instructions. Up the A1 to start with. I was convinced we were going to 'The Star' at Harome so I thought "Aha! I'm right" We got pretty close to Helmsley, and then turned off and ended up coming past Bylands Abbey we'd been to a few years ago for my birthday after a little stay at the Feversham Arms in Helmsley.

We came up to the Abbey, but then the instructions had us turning away from the Abbey and down a little road opposite...for about a mile.

It was very narrow - good job I drive a midget-mobile - and then we heard 'you have arrived at your destination', we were there! 

Part 2 to follow!