The woman serving me nearly gave me a decaf espresso. Yes, a decaf espresso. Obviously she should be taken outside and shot for that alone, but it actually gets worse. They put foamed milk on my espresso without asking me, which turned a lovely strong coffee shot into a strange small-cappuccino-with-a-kick. I'm not entirely sure why anyone would want to put milk (frothed or not) onto an espresso in the first place, and I suppose it is good that the option is there (for the same people who ask for a diet Coke with a Big Mac, I presume), but I asked for an espresso. I think they'll find most people consider an espresso to be sans bovine juice. Finally, the flapjack looked like oats which had been left to soak in left-over cooking oil and then chopped into squares, which isn't a great surprise considering the usual ingredient of butter (or margarine if the manufacturer is being cheap) was replaced by vegetable oil and "hydrogenated" vegetable oil (whatever that is). End result: tastes like the cheap syrup you accidently make when dissolving sugar cooks too much, without a hint of oat. I now feel slightly queasy, like I'd eaten a small stick of lard.

It's not long now until the wedding -- only 3½ weeks left! The plans are slowly coming together: hopefully no-one else has left the band, we've finally picked two readings (The Promise and The Owl and the Pussycat), the bar license if off to the magistrates and we've changed the reception colour scheme again. It does seem to us that either people are ignoring the gift list we spent weeks arranging, or are leaving it until the last minute: despite nearly 100 people coming to the reception only 10 have selected a gift. C'mon people, the good ones are going fast! And we want that new kitchenware! :-)

We also finally had most of the replies back, so we sorted through them and updated the attending numbers. Originally I thought that a 75-capacity room for the ceremony would be big enough, but obviously not. So far we're at 74 and we've still got a few unconfirmed members of family. Luckily we're not having the ceremony in the local registry office which I believe only holds 60-odd people: then we'd be forced to pick from family as well as friends...

Sometimes the arranging of the day overtakes the reason for the day, so I have to sit back and think about why we're doing this. That puts a smile on my face, and despite worrying about what could go wrong (a trait of mine I'm not particularly fond of) I'm pretty confident the party will be wonderful. How could it not be?

NP: Nothing. Damn minidisc player broke.