Excuses Excuses

Ok so I didn't say the radio silence would get any better, but I promise I do have projects brewing! I need to  tidy up and take after photos of the garden then I can post our quick (and free) upgrade for this summer... but it's meant to rain all weekend so that's probably not going to happen until next week. We also have a semi constructed bed, it just needs finishing off then I am so looking forward to not having to sleep on a mattress on the floor taking last photos and sharing it.

So, I thought I would talk about what has been keeping me so busy!

The Wedding:
At the moment we are having a wedding week. We tend to sway between wedding focus, and Kilimanjaro focus.

I've been dress shopping! I'm going back to order it tomorrow! And I am trying to contain my excitement! Seriously I had the most girly bridal moment ever complete with crying mother. I'm not a girly girl at all but it actually made me feel like a princess.

I went to a new shop and a vintage shop, and I will write up my experiences of both...but I went with new in the end. I really didn't have any preference but 'the one' found me in the end.

We sent of a load of enquiries to bands on Sunday, as we want live music. Tom is kind of dealing with that at the moment as he knows more about bands than me, and he may have better taste in music.

We also went to the court to declare our intention to marry, which basically involves establishing that neither of us are illegal immigrants, and we aren't related to each other or already married to someone else. This also means we have confirmed our booking with the registrar and can start planning the actual ceremony which is cool.

Now I have picked the dress I have started looking at bridesmaid dresses, hair and makeup and my accessories. Not that I will buy any of it soon but it's good to be able to start looking.

After this I will probably scale back on the wedding things until we are back from Kili, Tom has a few things he might start looking at but we have a lot of the things booked that we want to for now. It's starting to take shape and it's quite exciting to see it all coming together.

Kili:
Back in this post I told you about our jam packed week of training, I then came back and went straight into my usual training routine...then I got ill. I should have given myself a rest when we got back, but I felt really strong and wanted to keep the momentum and good energy up. I had a course of antibiotics and good rest last week (no exercise at all until Friday!), and now I'm back on it.

I am loving my new fitness level, and the side effect of losing weight and so much more body confidence, but it is a commitment. I have something on most nights after work. I am feeling strong though, my climbing has also come on in leaps and bounds as I'm generally fitter (and lighter). I also just feel better, when I'm not hurting from some self inflicted bruise or ache.

We have now decided to go self funding for the trip, as we failed miserably to raise the cash in time. Although I am STILL trying to give out raffle prizes (people, if I ring you, ring me back!) and finishing off fundraising things, we are now just raising money through sponsorship and 100% goes to the charity.

We are nearly there on kit, but we still have a few expensive trips to go outdoors ahead of us...we have boots (if I can get mine to stop making my toes go numb...weird), bags and some clothes but we need lots more like sleeping bags, puffa jackets, waterproof jackets, thermarest sleeping mats and just lots and lots of little things like more thermals, more socks, better sunglasses, better hats and gloves, better holdalls...

We also need to get our visas and jabs, and booking my jabs at the GP seems to involve some kind of quest in which I need to fill out a form with my life history and travel itinerary and wait a WEEK for someone to ring me back, to not be able to tell me even what jabs they think I need or how much it will cost. I have to make an appointment to come in to discuss that (WTF was the point of the form then the week long wait?) which they couldn't do, so I have to ring back. So basically they rang me to say they don't know what I need, they can't make me an appointment and they don't know how much it will be. OK cheers then, could I not have just made this appointment a week ago? Then I will have ANOTHER appointment for the jabs if they have to order them in. Hey here's an idea, why not sort out what I need from the form YOU made me fill out, then order them in...I think I'm going to go private. Then change GP practice. It's things like this that give the NHS a bad rap, my department is not run anything like that FYI.

I had to send my passport off too as I realised it expires in Feb, and I need 6 months on it when I go to Kili in October...then once that's back I need to apply for the visa so fingers crossed the delays at the passport office don't mess this up for me or I might be taking a trip to London in September to get the visa in person!

All in all pretty busy, add in a relative in hospital this week and it's been a manic one! I'll be glad when the weekend arrives and I can tidy up my messy flat and hopefully take some after photos and get some actual projects on here...stranger things have happened.

Sponsor me to climb Kilimanjaro! 

www.justgiving.com/katie-kili