Time flies so fast. The clock is ticking real fast. It's now almost a few days away to Emily and Craig's wedding!
We got our kitchen renovated. This took more than 4 weeks that caused lots of disruptions in the house and has only completed the weekend there, so now I am trying to put the house back to normal and to tidy it as much as I can before my sister and her husband coming for the wedding. The kitchen would have finished good 2 weeks ago if it went as planned. 2 weeks would have made a huge difference to what I could do to our house to prepare before the wedding however as I don't have that luxury now, I have to cut corners and focus on what I can do. And now they are arriving tonight and I am panicking.
I know, this is what I am gonna do.... One room will be blocked off so that we can dump everything we can't manage to sort out and its door would be shut. I am sure my sister and her husband would not notice, unless they accidentally open it to look for a toilet. I am also not going to tell them that we won't put our Yuki in a cattery. (They don't like pets in a house and claim that they are allergic to cats.) As soon as they land at the airport, I am going to tell them that there is a lot of hay-fever epidemic going on and strongly recommend them to take hay-fever tablets immediately and definitely before they leave the airport building to allow the over-the-counter hay-fever tablets to work in their systems during our car 30 minutes journey back to our house. When they arrive and our Yuki comes to the door to greet them, I am just gonna tell them she is a special bleed of non-allegey feline and, yes, it's not our cat but their jet-lug that is making them sneeze. .... Do you think this would work?
Anyway, I have been so stressed about the kitchen that had resulted in chaos in the rest of the house and getting the house sorted before tonight, I have not had a proper chance to look forward to our daughter's wedding until the realisation has hit me that now my sister and her husband are actually arriving all the way from Japan to attend the wedding. It is now sinking in that the big day is really approaching real soon.
This is also my reason or excuse for not having updated my blog. So I think it's apt that I shall talk about our 'Away' Hen Do, leading up to her big day this weekend to get us in the mood (or what would be the point of talking about it after the wedding!)
Followed by 'Home' Hen Do, we all went to Newcastle for Emily's fun-packed 'Away' Hen-do. There were 15 of us including Emily, the Bride-to-Be, Maria and Gillian, Bridesmaids and Craig's mum Christine and me, Mothers of the Groom and the Bride. We had a great time. I must say that both Maria and Gillian did a great job organising both Home and Away Hen parties for Emily.
The coach was picking us all up at 11.30am from outside of Emily & Craig's house. Before everyone arrived, Emily, Maria and I had to eat some quick breakfast .... rolls with bacon and potato scones from ASDA's cafe to get us started!
Then we checked all the things we would need - first, lots of drinks for the road and for the hotel room.....
 |
| and more in the fridge and bags to go .... |
And even more for the road....
And Maria and Gillian also bought Mankini Cake for Emily for fun.
Just as well the coach was picking us up otherwise we would not be able to carry them all with us!
What else do we had .... yes, Hen-Do pack for everyone including black T-shirts which became our 'uniform' for the road! I got the one for MOB - Mother of the Bride!
Emily got her nails done for the occasion ...
Bags were packed - ready to go!
The coach arrived right in front of Emily and Craig's house. It was a lovely sunny day.
And, we are all ready to go!
After 4 hour coach journey, we arrived at our hotel in Newcastle. The first event of the day was a cocktail making class at Bonbar (http://www.bonbar.co.uk) followed by dinner. Our Bridemaids-cum-Hen Do Co-ordinators asked us all to wear something black for the occasion except Bride-to-be wearing white.
We were escorted to a back room which was reserved for our party exclusively for the cocktail making class.
 |
| Cocktail making kits - all lined up and ready to go |
Anyway, under his guidance, we made 3 tasty cocktails and tried our own creations. First, Cosmopolitan (using vodka). We then had Bramble (using gin). Oh, what was the third one called using rum? I knew I typed on my iPhone to take a note of this at the time. After a glass of prosecco and two cocktails, me being a sort of week-day teetotaller I was feeling the effect, my typing says 'Choco n rad wry daquri' I assume it was chocolate and raspberry daiquiri.
It was really fun! We then moved to join other customers in a big room for dinner. Despite I was cheeky asking Ben the mix-master to pause for a photo, I did behave and did not ask the fellow Hen-doers if I could take their food pictures so that everyone could tuck into their foods right away. Anyway, I had prawn cocktail for starter and veggie burger with sweet potato fries for main course.
We also had Emily's Mankini Cake for dessert ....
... and its left-over became a swan ....
We also had shots of lychee liqueur amongst other things ...
Well done to Maria and Gillian who organised the evening.
 |
| The Three Graces |
We girls all behaved very well too. As we were leaving Bonbar I noticed the skull with bling in a glass case..... Yes, despite all those drinks and food, we (or I?) survived the first round of the evening and left in piece.
 |
| L.I.P..... |
The next morning I was up bright early and went downstairs for a breakfast at the hotel. I thought breakfast selections at the hotel was rather good and price was reasonable. I had cooked breakfast for the first morning and went back again the next morning and had continental breakfast.
 |
| Vegetarian breakfast |
To be honest, this was my second visit to Newcastle. First time was not for hen party. My husband and I came here to go to IKEA long long time ago before IKEA came to Scotland. You can tell how long ago it was! We never saw any of Newcastle. It was therefore a good opportunity to see a bit of Newcastle in a day light! We walked along the river. The wind was strong and rather chilly. I could feel my mascara was smearing with tears because of cold wind, ended up having panda eyes.
Newcastle may be famous for shopping and hen parties/stag nights, there are lots of beautiful buildings in the town center. It sort of reminded me of Edinburgh a little bit.
We came to the top of Grey Street where a statue of Earl Grey, prime minister in Britain in 1830s, standing atop 130ft column.
We suddenly realised that lunch time was approaching and we had to go back to our hotel to get ready as Maria and Gillian had arrange an afternoon tea at Malmaison (https://www.malmaison.com/locations/newcastle/) and I had to fix my panda eyes!
We toast to celebrate the forthcoming wedding and fun weekend and enjoyed our lovely afternoon tea.
I loved their creme brûlée - it was divine!
It was a lovely afternoon tea with delicious cakes to eat.
Later that evening, Maria and Gillian had more fun things up in their sleeves. We were all told to go to Emily and Maria's room before the dinner for a celebratory drink at 5pm. Prior to this, I was meant to keep Emily in my room as long as I could to allow Maria and Gillian to decorate their room.
I asked Emily to help me with my hair and check my outfit for the evening as an excuse. This would have taken at least 20 minutes in my calculation but only took 5 minutes to do my hair and Emily was getting already anxious to get back to her room. Both Maria and Gillian became good hosts, going around everyone offering beverages and a tray-full of cheese puffs etc. In their bedroom were also 'Craig' and a big inflatable of a certain shape which I am unable to mention as my blog is PG that followed everywhere we went for the rest of our Hen-do.
 |
| Cheese puffs, anyone? |
Katie, Laura and I had a bottle of deep red wine to share between us.
I them had mozzarella and tomato salad for starter and Skinny Pizza Primavera for the main course but with mozzarella instead of goats cheese. The pizza came with roasted aubergine, artichokes, peppers slow roasted tomatoes, olives and fresh oregano. I really enjoyed both courses.
Craig's sister Gillian ordered Garlic Bread for starter, which was huge, and Pizza Rustica Sofia as her baby dauber's name is Sofia. The pizza was also huge and came with spicy chicken, pepperoni, spicy sausage, mozzarella, green chillies and rosemary.
I don't know how Gillian manages to eat all these yet also maintains such a good figure. It's nice to be young.
For dessert I had Honey, Sea Salt and Macapone, which was sweet, salty and creamy at the same time just like what it says on the menu!
After the dinner we all went to a bar that caters hen parties and stag nights. Upstairs VIP balcony space was reserved for us and the naked butler did appear for Emily this time. He seemed a really nice guy, as if he were a university student doing this for pocket money, and it turned out that was the case. We were there for about an hour or so. Girls booked another club. Christine and I went with them just to see them all off before we headed back to our hotel. The club did not allow them to bring their inflatable companions with them into the premises. So guess what. Christine and I ended up carrying 'Craig' and the other with us all the way back to the hotel. You should see the amount of attentions we attracted from every single person (or I should say, every single male) that passed by us. As I carried in both arms whilst trying to deflate with great endeavour, 'Craig's underwear kept slipping off down to his ankles and every now and again I had to pull them up. We must have looked very curious or interesting to others if not funny. I wonder if we looked a hen party of just two middle-aged ladies carrying those as part of our Hen-Do outfits. It would have looked really sad as hen-do .... however anything goes in Newcastle. What happens in Newcastle stays in Newcastle, they say. I dare not to ask what our girls were up to that night. Don't ask, don't tell.
The next day, we headed back to Scotland by a coach. Everyone was quiet, some were very tired, some were suffering and some were just happy just because. It was also snowing one point.
We stopped at Service Area, meant to be for 5 minutes and ended up cueing for ages for Burger King. I couldn't resist their fries!
I am sure other girls would have different versions of Emily's 'Away' Hen-do from mine. Whatever it is, it was fun packed weekend and Maria and Gillian did a great job to organise it.
I felt very privileged to be part of such a great weekend.
 |
| All single and not single ladies .... |
