Great craic!

LOML and I have been spending a lazy couple of days here in England - mostly napping! I think our travels have caught up with us a little bit; we seem to be sleeping all the time. LOML is off to London today for a week of work, meeting clients around the UK and over in France. I'll be staying here while he's away, spending time with my family and catching up on some work. My agent is expecting the new manuscript in October, so I need to get that finished fairly soon.

We've downloaded some of the photos of us from the wedding in Northern Ireland last week. LOML's grandfather runs a bar, and we had a pre-wedding party there on the Monday night. The regulars were quite disconcerted to see such a big crowd, I think - particularly such a large crowd of women! So few women venture into the bar that there isn't even a ladies's toilet - only a gents'. There is an outhouse, though, if you're prepared to brave the darkness and spiders.

LOML's grandfather is 94, and still going strong. He stores all his favourite jokes on bits of paper in a jar behind the bar - some of them date back to the Second World War - and brings them out to show visitors. He was happy to show LOML the whole lot, but had to censor a few for me. He doesn't want to put ideas in my head, he says.

We met some great people there - mostly friends of the couple's from university or work.

The wedding was on Tuesday afternoon. I had left my original wedding outfit back in New Zealand (silly me), and so bought this dress from Monsoon the week before. I do love it, though. As you can see, I'm standing in one of the two upstairs sitting rooms in LOML's family home - it used to be a hotel, and so has a labyrinthine series of bedrooms, bathrooms and sitting rooms. It's an amazing house, really, old and rambling. Out the back are lofts, barns and stables; we found a box of books in one of the lofts that dated back to 1804.

This is Charlotte, my second cousin and new best friend.

We walked from the house to the church where the ceremony was conducted, then headed off to a local hotel for the reception.



It was a really beautiful day. After the dinner and speeches, the tables were pushed back, and the next several hours were spent dancing - both modern and traditional Irish dances. The party didn't end there, however: the following day, one of LOML's uncles roasted a whole lamb on a spit out in the yard, and about forty people came over for a barbecue. I spent most of the day sitting on a chair watching it cook, sipping Pimm's and reading a book. My hair still smells of woodsmoke, but it was totally worth it.