Thank goodness for coffee!

I must have looked a bit rough as I stumbled through the door of Luscious this morning gasping "Coffee …! Large …! …and please, please, please hurry!" because the coffee girl was already making it by the time I got to the counter, and the yummy cakes girl was poised over the cabinet with tongs in hand ready to give me my heart’s desire before I hit the floor, face first. I went for the orange blossom cake because she was standing right in front of it, thus cutting down to a minimum the time it would take for the sugar to get to me.

My baby brother’s engagement party was Saturday night (yes, the baby brother who sent his girlfriend a text message saying that he was going to ask her to marry him, and did he have to have a shower first?). Sounds simple enough? …You’d think, but no.

Disaster 1: Al works at Air NZ and couldn’t get leave for Friday night, meaning that he’d be working until 6-6.30am Saturday morning, and the party was in Palmerston North on Saturday night. (His shifts are 6 on, 3 off, 10pm to 6.30am. The shift pattern alone makes it a ’mare trying to make special occasions work …Air NZ’s policy of making leave as hard as possible to get makes it even more interesting).

Disaster 2: We were going to fly (subload flights) and couldn’t. Because Al was working Friday night, the plan was that we’d fly down at sparrow’s fart Saturday morning – he’d finish work at 6-6.30am and we’d jump on the 7am flight. Ha! Hahahaha!! He has the ability to look at the flight loadings (to check the likelihood of there being spare seats for us), and did so throughout the week …only to watch them dwindle rapidly. All of them. All day Saturday. Chocka. By Friday night the planes for Saturday weren’t just full, the seats were oversold (although, much to our teeth-clenched delight, had we been flying Friday night, there were were seats available up the wazoo!). There was no way we were going to be flying. It turns out that not only was it orientation weekend at Massey University, there was a Kapahaka (sp?) festival on as well. Crap.

So we drove it. Al on absolutely no sleep, and me on not very much sleep (courtesy of a first class dose of the heebie jeebies from watching ‘Supernatural’ before I went to bed Friday night). From Auckland to Palmerston North and back again in one weekend. With an engagement party in between. And it was worth every ounce of effort it took to get there.

We had a hilarious night – the highlight of which I’d have to say was one of my brother’s best mates, fondly known as ‘White Nut’, burning his arse on the BBQ. I don’t know what he thought was going to happen when he sat on a BBQ (wedging his butt between the sausages and steaks) that we'd been cooking stuff on for a good hour, but the entertainment value was right up there for everyone else (...and in case you’re wondering? I did ask where the nickname came from, and no I’m not going to repeat it …I’m still a bit traumatised from the …errr…demonstration side of the explanation! ...Needless to say that when I was introduced to ‘Sawn Off’, I just stuck my hand out and said that it was nice to meet him). And these people are invited to the wedding. I’ll be taking popcorn.

I am immensely happy to be welcoming Lou into the family. She is beyond fantastic. I remember a couple of years ago, she complained to my little brother that they weren’t spending any time together (he is a builder, and works hard), and do you know what he said? "I’ve got to build a fence at the weekend ...you can come and dig the post holes." (Yes, he did!) One of the things I love about my little brother is that he honestly doesn’t see how this might have gotten him killed and buried in one of said post holes. And, what I really love about my SIL-to-be is that she went out and dug the post holes!

Oh, and we’re going wedding dress shopping. Just her and I. Wicked.