A year ago

A year ago this weekend I was presented with this.And here I am pictured holding it up for the camera. I get emotional even now thinking about it. I'm sure you are wondering what it is all about. Well, I'm almost a year married and prior to the wedding my two bridesmaids organised a hen party for me. Not your traditional hen party it must be said but very much in keeping with what I wanted. We spent the day hanging out at one of the girls houses in Dublin (thanks again Lorraine) and drank champagne and ate fabulous food for the afternoon. In the evening Anita (my best friend) & Annette (my sister) organised some beauticians to do a house call and all of us girlies got our make up done before hitting the town for more drinks, dinner and dancing. It was fantastic, an incredible day and here I am almost crying just thinking about it. That still doesn't explain the picture above, I know, I'm getting to it - just setting the scene.

So, there we were chilling out for the afternoon when after a bit of a huhah, there was an announcement that there was a presentation to be made. I started to get a little nervous, as is the nature of these things I'd been kept completely in the dark and I'd no idea of what my friends had planned so I started to imagine all sorts of things and they weren't positive. So, anyway Anita came into the room with this knitted wall hanging for me. She explained that she came up with the idea that she would ask each of the girls to knit a square (bear in mind there's probably only two knitters in the gang) and she would make the background and into each square pocket she asked each of my friends to put something to signify our friendship. Anita provided the yarn and the instructions and each girl was left to their own devices as to design additions, stripes, pom-poms, flowers etc. The tags hanging from each pocket are pictures of the knitter. Weren't they inventive - Norah even managed to knit the letters D.J. into her square. ( Explaining the initials D.J. would bring me back to a story when I was 14 and no, I'm not telling it here- sorry).

In the pockets were the most wonderful surprises, so many that I had to pause between each as it was just too much to take in. I had poetry written for me, a song written for me, a knitted "L" (learner sign), very classy ( no flashing bride to be stuff here!) and many letters and even more photos. Anita had even asked my mam to do a square. As I said before it was an incredible day and one that I'll always remember as special.

So, to Aoife, Annette, Eileen, Anita, Cara, Grace Ann, Marianne, Tanja, Barbara, Lorraine, Fiona, Norah, Valerie and of course my mam - Thank You, I'm thinking of you all.