The Kitchen Cometh...

While dreaming of the potential grandeur of the kitchen of my dreams (above), this week has mainly been a fraught one...

Pulled from pillar to pole by duties, beauties, responsibilities and playfulness, I am cream-crackered - Knackered, shattered, exhausted, en-ratted even!

I took part in two marriages.   Beautiful, they were, in their simplicity and elegance.   I duly registered the first.   This involves writing out the marriage certificate (while 'spoiling' 3!) and entering the full details of the wedding in the register, which is kept in a safe vault for centuries.   It's important to use registrars' ink rather than ordinary ink, as it is more permanent and less prone to fade or corrode over time on paper, which ordinary ink does apparently...   It's a devil of an ink to get off your fingers or clothes.   Put registrars' ink together with a bride in an expensive white dress and you've a recipe for disaster!   Thankfully, only my fingers were victims.

I just watched the second, where a lovely lady in her fifties married her boss.   Both of them looked surprised and delighted to have found one another unexpectedly, and the bride sobbed with joy throughout...   I really find it hard not to cry at weddings, which is somewhat off-putting for guests when you're officiating!   I find a lot of pinching my hand is involved.

I've upped my voluntary counselling practice to two days per week.   This is the last year of my three year course, which is a bit intensive as it was truncated to two years in any case!   The race is on to get my counselling hours up to the required 150 in order to graduate from the programme this year...   I love the work, I really do.   And, like weddings, I feel it's a real privilege to support people at a crucial and fundamental time of their lives...

It takes its toll on me, however!   While I'm writing this, it's Sunday night at twenty-five to eight and my bed is calling my name like a Siren from the Sea!

On Thursday, I found myself here at Alnwick Castle and Garden:

Ancestral home to the Percy family for over seven hundred years, and where bits of the Harry Potter movies were filmed, I was at an assessment day for potential seasonal workers...   I met some lovely local people and took part in some bizarre and clever tests, so they could see our creative potential to become employees of the Duke and Duchess...      One test involved me, blindfold, pushing a girl around in a wheel-chair in the gift shop.   The idea was that we communicated effectively enough so that we were able to collect two items safely and soundly.   It was more fun than it sounds, and a very useful exercise in understanding the challenges facing visitors with disabilities.

I am like a bull in a china shop at the best of times, so this was a real exercise in control for me!

I don't know how I imagine that I'll fit additional work in to my schedule - if I'm lucky enough to be selected - but I quite fancied the chance to do some temporary work in this fabulous location, a world-class tourist attraction, and I'd be welcoming visitors to the beautiful Castle and Garden.  

Also, since I've started signing cheques to the bold and beautiful workmen to pay for said kitchen, my legs have started to wobble a bit, and it's time to think of bringing money in rather than paying it all out.

After all, I've my own castle to see to!