Bermudababble Week Twenty-Four
This time last week I was preparing for my brother’s wedding, the whole family was running around like loonies, it was hilarious! A bit like Gremlins and that infamous kitchen scene, thankfully without a blender! We took over a fab pub in Peckham where we all stayed and there were children, babies and friends of both bride and groom, drinking wine and chatting as the aforementioned babies were passed around until your arms ached – Bliss!
The beautiful bride and her groom beamed all day and everyone chatted, laughed and danced until the wee small hours! The wedding was a fabulous vintage affair. Starting at Dulwich College for the ceremony, where we wept as the phenomenally talented Rachel Tucker (Wicked etc.) sang until we cried, not that anyone needed much encouragement – having watched my brother and his new wife blub through their vows and me through my reading! It was highly charged and very emotional. We then rode around London in an old red bus and ended up at a glorious cobble stoned venue where there was bunting aplenty and a variety of performers playing ‘It Must Be Love’ as we arrived.
Hope you are all now on the good side of the weather, I find thunder and heavy rain quite frightening and my heart goes out to anyone that has experienced damage in the wake of the St. Jude storm.
I am now back in Bermuda!!! I find it strange how one day I am in central London and the next chatting in my supermarket in this tropical paradise as if I’ve never left. It’s lovely to see the Major who I have missed very much, but now my heart aches for my boys, am I constantly to be pulled in two like this? It’s quite exhausting.
My flight over was interesting, I was sitting with the crew of a drilling boat all mostly men from Cornwall who were coming over to join a boat just off the coast here. It was moving to hear them talking about the wives and girlfriends they had left behind. I told them what it was like as an army wife, having to wave goodbye with alarming regularity and the gut wrenching loneliness that ensued. I realized it was the same for the women and partners of these guys too and my heart goes out as ever, to anyone whose loved one is away working. Funnily enough a few of them had wives and girlfriends who had read Poppy Day and that made me smile, I love how books and literature link people from all walks of life all over the planet!
Halloween in Bermuda feels very different – it is certainly less spooky when it’s warm and sultry instead of damp and grey! My friend told me that everyone dresses up, so I hauled my butt to the Dollar Depot where I picked up a Pirate costume and a Witch outfit for a couple of quid! My boys Skyped me before they went to bed and were totally nonplussed to see me in my witches hat and spooky make-up and chatted as though I dressed like that every day, asking about my flight and telling me about their day. In fact it wasn’t until I mentioned that I was dressed like a witch that they peered at the screen and gave a small shrug in a kind of whatever way! I think they are used to my little oddities. Let’s face it, when you’ve got a mum who spends half her time with her head in a made up story – anything goes!
Despite the fact that it is apparently only the kids who dress up (who knew?!) we had a riot, driving around on our moped, distributing sweets to all the trick or treaters and ending up in our favourite diner for French fries and coffee – a pretty good evening and one I shan’t forget!
Details are coming through for my trip to Australia and New Zealand in a few weeks, it’s going to be a busy time but I can’t wait! Looking forward to meeting all my publishers out there, visiting various bookshops and doing a bit of PR, actually a lot of PR! It will be strange having Christmas in a hot climate, last year we were in New York for Christmas and it was snowing, that was pretty perfect.
I am so looking forward to the release of A Little Love – http://amzn.to/1a6I3XG I really like this book and I think you will too. Pru is an awesome character that I think will capture your hearts she certainly did mine.
Right off to get a bus to the Naval Dockyard, armed with my camera – need to get lots of shots to help with a book I’m writing and then I’ll catch a boat over to Hamilton to meet the Major from work and we will once again take to our trusted moped and go in search of French fries and coffee… won’t be as much fun not dressed as a witch, in fact sod it. I’m reaching for pointy hat and false black nails as I type, why not, eh?
Embrace your inner child!
Mandy xx
©Amanda Prowse – all enquiries PFD ajhughes@pfd.co.uk. +44 (0)20 7344 1084
