Tarts on the Town

It's my Hen's Night this weekend. MY. Hen's Night. This is surreal to me - having gone through my late 20's with the whole, I'm going to die old and alone with 90 cats fear, I am now finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that I'm going to be Richard's wife. And - oh shit - Richard will be my husband. IT'S JUST SO WEIRD!

Don't get me wrong. It's a good weird. But it's so monumental. We will have a family together. His brother will be uncle to my children. We will be old people together. These things go through my head at 4 in the morning.

In celebration of this fact, my head bridesmaid has organised my Hen's night. It's all one big surprise. I just have to turn up to the apartment in Auckland at 4pm on Saturday. Now, I am not a surprise person. I like to know the full ins and outs of a situation before letting myself go. But this time, I'll just have to run with it.

Judging from past Hen's parties that I've been to, I think I can safely say there will be the following:

• Penis shaped straws
• Penis shaped jewellery
• Penis shaped food
• Penis shaped penises (amazing how guys will get naked for a bunch of girls on a dare)
• Karaoke
• Shots of Jagermeister
• Hideous fake veils
• Condom balloons
• How-well-do-you-know-your-fiance quizzes (I hate losing so am trying to get Richard to give me the answers already - kinda not the point)
• Make a wedding dress out of toilet paper games
• Tears and giggles and screeching and general girl things.

Funnily enough, I'm actually having a boy bridesmaid, or as I like to call it, a Bridesmate. He's my boy-bestie, and has been since we were babies together. He had 2 conditions when I asked him whether he'd be my bridesmate - that he didn't want to come to the Hen's Night, and he didn't want to walk down the aisle on his own. I said FINE to the first one and suggested he take his little girl Georgia down the aisle with him. His beautiful wife is our M.C., and has just had another baby, the gorgeous Tom. She is going to be at the Hen's, hell or high water, she says.

I always feel funny when people sacrifice their free time for me. I know it sounds martyr-ish, but one friend is flying up from Wellington to be there. Another is leaving her 7 month old for the night to fly up from Napier. All I hope is, I better not pass out at 7pm and have to go home.

In other wedding news, we went to Smith and Caughey's in Auckland in the weekend to do our wedding register. I'm not going to go into the whole politics of whether you should do a register or not (YOU SHOULD) or whether you should put the information for it on the invite (YOU SHOULD) and whether you're a greedy cow who should just be happy to receive 10 toasters and a cracked china pot (YOU SHOULDN'T).

Well it was fun. Smith and Caughey's is a big department store, and is quite posh. However there is nothing else in Auckland that has so many different things under one roof. (Tauranga? Um. Let's just say it's somewhat lacking for nice housewares). We wrote a list of things we wanted, nay, NEEDED, and proceeded to find our favourites and make a list. It took two and a half hours. Rich only looked like he wanted to shoot himself 5 times, but I chivvied him along by going to look at beer glasses. It was funny, after we left, even though we hadn't bought a thing, we both had terrible buyer's remorse. Maybe I should do that all the time. Fake shop.

In other totally un-related to wedding news, who am I kidding it's all I think about these days....the Dean of the church we're marrying in is trying to veto our "walking down the aisle" song choice. Now, when I was young, every favourite song was my "walking down the aisle" music. It's all I thought about. And it's very special to me. So when Richard and I found a song that we both loved (doesn't happen often) and that brings me to tears - I'm probably not going to want to change it for some "nice organ music". I like church choirs, but organ music always reminds me of the geriatric organ lady from the Simpsons. Cat loose on the keyboard. So we are taking a break on the music and seeing if she'll come round with some pleading and puppy eyes. I mean come on. It's only Marilyn Manson. Kidding. It's the Wiggles.

Cluck cluck cluck

On Sunday, Richard and I were lucky enough to be delivered of one child, namely Amelie, my nearly-3 year old niece. It was our first sleepover. I swore I could hear this howl of delight as her father drove away, only having his 1 year old daughter to look after now, but maybe I was mistaken.

We did an Easter Egg hunt, we foraged for walnuts from our tree, we played the guitar and read Kimi and the Watermelon. We were reminded - often - that she was a big girl who could do it herself - and she could.

She hopped up on a stool and helped me peel the potatoes for dinner, and even cut them into little pieces. "We're having thauthages," she reminded me.

Sitting up for a pre-approved meal of said thauthages, peas, lashings of tomato sauce and mashed spud, Amelie decides she doesn't want any mashed spud.

Well. I am well-versed in child psychology (I'm not really).

"Richard!" I say. "This mash is the most delicious thing I have ever eaten! Try it!"

"Oh wow," he says. "You are right. This is better than Easter Eggs."

"Mmmmm," now positively flirting with my fork, "this tastes like chips and McDonalds put together!"

Richard takes a forkful of Amelie's mash.

"Hey! Yours is even better than ours!"

Amelie is staring at us.

"Try it Amelie! It's soooooo delicious!"

"Yeah, I still don't want it," she says.

One bubbly bath and two stories later, she's crashed out in our spare room, muttering "can do it myself....big girl..all by myself...."

We're zombified on the couch. Add to this daylight savings and the clocks going back an hour, I'm ready for bed at 8pm. All night I doze, imagining burglars and nocturnal wanderings and the cat sitting on her head. At 5.15 though, a poke in the shoulder tells me she's awake. She crawls into bed with us and snuggles up for a snooze. I don't even mind that it's dark and an ungodly hour. It's lovely.

Her father picks her up at 10.30. Richard and I are contemplating a beer and cooking dinner, because we've been up for so long. He laughs at our hollow eyes and stories.

After she's gone, the house is too quiet. I know parenting isn't all fun and games and snuggles, but if what we had for only one night is some of it, then I can't wait.