Smidge: the diary of a little girl living in the big city: Page 3

This post is part of Wedding Wednesday hosted over at Something Charming. You can read my other wedding posts under the Mr + Mrs Smidge tag. Today’s Wedding Wednesday is about choices. More accurately it’s about having too many choices.

After the venue, the photographer and the reception are booked there is so much choice as to what to plan next! Flowers, decorations, invitations… every blog, book, magazine out there makes having a theme priority and the main thing? Well everything has to match.

Apart from people’s opinions never match, the only thing B and I have agreed on up to now was that we wanted an ‘anti-wedding’. But what the hell does ‘anti wedding actually mean? What do we actually want from our wedding, how do we make a choice?!

Well, I obviously started where all internet savy girls start – the wedding blogs and as I have written about before they left me tearing my hair out. There are literally hundreds of wedding blogs them, but as far as I can see they fall into two camps.

On the one side there is the alternative bride side – the most famous being Rock and Roll Bride – these are wedding stuffed full of Crafts! Handmade Stuff! Tattoos! Bunting! Lots of bunting. Multicoloured shoes and dresses and pink hair! Basically the RNR bride shouts I can look different and still want to be traditional and get married! F*ck tradition, lets be traditional. This at first is what I thought I wanted, but honestly, it isn’t me at all. A) I do not like bunting outside a royal jubilee and b) I haven’t been crafty since I was in the brownies.

On the other there is are all the other blogs (Grey Likes Weddings, 100 Layer Cake) which show the beautiful hippy brides, the pretty farm receptions, hand painted favours, graphically designed by the groom invitations, jewel colours and 8 different designer bridesmaid dresses. Otherwise known as having someone do all the stuff for you is the norm and paying through the nose through it too. All this is not me either, despite my love of a good designer dress it is the antisepsis of anti-wedding. To cutesy! Too princessy! Too blog!

But if you decide to take the middle path then you are boring and bland and falling prey to the wedding industry – if you aren’t doing it yourself or paying someone to make it look like you are then you are DOING IT WRONG.

I am not doing it wrong, we are doing it so right for us. Who cares…

if we have given up trying to design our invitations. My hand drawing really was crap.
if we have given up trying to be non- traditional – we really are – I suit a proper dress and I’m dying to see B in a kilt.
if we don’t care if our flowers we like are normally used at funerals – I love them.
if we don’t give a hoot that our playlist will include Build Me up Buttercup or that our first dance is cheesy.
if we aren’t serving venison, smoked salmon and steak for dinner – nobody ever dances properly after a big steak.
if we don’t pretend to like champagne and biting the cost in our budget – I much prefer prosecco and its half the price. At least I am honest.

…and finally this is a wedding after all. It is B and I’s wedding. Its not anti in any way. Through all the choices we have to make, we need to remember that everything we choose, however twee, cheesy, glamorous or damn traditional will reflect that…and that is enough.

More than enough and I don’t need any blog apart from my own to tell me so.

Miss S x

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Hullo everyone!

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, it is spring cleaning time around here. First up is a redesign, let me know in the comments of any browser issues and what you think. Plus subscribers if would you mind popping out of your readers to have a wee look?

Thanks S x

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Monday Sundries are otherwise known as ‘I’m rather brain dead right now and ill just update you on my life instead of writing anything’. Basically the lazy blogging option and this week’s is more lazy than most (which means lots of photos in blogger speak) anyways…

Last week…

Included a trip to see The Hunger Games (finally, I was waiting for B to finish reading it). I must admit I was rather disappointed. It was slow, there was no gore (ok I know it’s a kids book) but it’s a pretty gory subject which was glossed over. I really don’t like films that don’t being the darkness of the book through to the screen. Plus I didn’t like Gale or Peeta, but I did like Haymitch and Cinna. Katniss was a little meh.
We followed the hoards (including an ex, embarrassing) to visit the refurbished Southern bar which has been taken over by the folks of Holyrood 9a and the Red Squirrel fame. The beer was good, as were the burgers (bbq and bacon and mushroom) and the staff were so friendly and helpful, but sadly the place lacked atmosphere. Maybe it because it’s no longer the scruffy Southern but in this case I think the gentrification has gone a little too far, maybe in time it will bed in.

I also ate at Roma in Glasgow, with the lovely Polly. Fab night and my resulting Sunday was very slow because of it. I love catching up with my blogging girls in real life, sometimes you just have to hear the gos from the horse’s mouth, if you know what I mean (not that P is a horse!)
We celebrated the Cask and Barrel Southside winning the Edinburgh Camra Pub of the Year for 2012. The landlord has a right to be proud as the pub only opened 18 months ago. B and I have been frequenting the pub from the start and have sampled many a fine pint since. You can follow the Cask and Barrel on twitter where they tweet every new barrel that goes on. I’d suggest looking out for Thornbridge’s Jaipur India Pale Ale, at 5.9% it makes for a very funny evening.
Beer wise I also visited the newly named No.1 The High Street (formally The Tass) and I am mourning the loss of the old place. More gentrification not needed. Good beers though including one of my favourites Timothy Taylor Landlord.
It wasn’t all drinking this weekend, as I also started to find all of the giant hoodie’s painted by Edinburgh College of Art student Joe Caslin. You can see a set of the artwork via Flickr, but my take on it is below. I love the fact you have to find and spot these artworks, despite the fact they are huge. Well done Edinburgh for allowing it. Joe Caslin’s website is also worth checking out.

So onto this week:

More wedding dress shopping, planning my work’s pub treasure hunt, hair dying, house cleaning and back to the swimming twice a week.
Plus it is now only 5 weeks until my holiday, with (hopefully) a visit from my brother, a trip to Zante and Kefalonia, it is going to be a brilliant 2 weeks. Check out the weather in Zante right now!

What are you getting up to?

Miss S x

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Hello and welcome to another Food Friday, the weekly post where I try to eat, cook and do things housewifery in a harking back to the 1950s manner. Seriously, Food Friday is all about a recipe a week, good food, big portions and no faff. You can also check out my past food Friday recipes.

It’s another Friday and another Indian recipe. I do love my spice I must admit. This is an incredibly simple way to recreate the takeaway at home, especially those naughty late night chicken kebabs bought whilst you are stuffed full of booze. It’s not just me that loves them is it?

Anyways, as I said, this is really easy, the chicken needs marinating for an hour, but don’t worry about it too much, the spice infused yoghurt sinks into the chicken making a very tasty tea.

Smidge’s Spicy Yoghurt Chicken Kebabs

You will need:

Chicken breast, cut into good sized chunks
½ cup of plain thick yogurt
a good squeeze of lemon juice
2 cloves of garlic, squashed
1 teaspoon fresh or powdered ginger
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of tumeric
A couple of teapoons of cayenne pepper and chilli powder (to taste, I like mine hot so I add more)

To make:

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl, pop in the fridge for an hour.
if you have skewers then make them up with whatever veg you fancy (I used peppers, onions and mushroom) and then grill until the chicken is blackened.
If not, just place everything on a grill pan, yoghurt included and grill. Don’t worry, the yoghurt soon soaks into the chicken.
Serve with pitta or nan bread, with lots of chilli sauce. Oh and beer, must include beer.

As I said, so easy and so tasty!

Happy Friday folks. What are your plans?