Looks can be deceptive!

On Sunday I went over to visit my oldest son and his girlfriend as it was Lily's birthday and I had a gift for her. So I finally got to hear a bit more about the wedding plans - no thanks to my son though of course! What is it with young men, or maybe just men in general? I mean, we women can probably natter about anything for hours but do you think he has told me anything about how the plans were going?  It turns out that they have booked a venue not so far from where I live (about 40 minutes I guess). They had wanted to book something in Switzerland but the cost was prohibitive (no surprise there then) so they have booked what looks like a renovated barn complex and very nice it is too. In fact, I know that area quite well because "in the day" we used to take our camper down to the Parc National des Bauges every second weekend to go fishing. Good times actually, as we made friends with quite a few French couples who kept caravans there all through the season so that the men could spend as much time fishing as possible and the women seemed quite content just taking walks or chatting. It was pretty nice for the kids too as there was a well-thought-out camp site where they had the river and park to play in and plenty of friends to run with. Then of course they got older and didn't want to come with mom and dad any more so that kinda put the kibosh on that!!!

Les Bauges

In fact, on New Year's Eve 1999/2000 about five couples from the fishing group came up to our village where we rented the village hall and had a fancy dress party. You ain't seen nothing until you have seen two fat, elderly French fishermen dressed as Asterix and Obelix!

Anyway, I digress, but as Lily's mom will be dressed in traditional Korean dress, I have to come up with something to wear that is also somewhat formal. Question: I have seen the most beautiful dress but it is silver and I'm not sure that that would be appropriate to wear to a wedding. I know only the bride is supposed to wear white but I'm not sure about silver. I suppose it would be ok if it was jazzed up with a colourful shawl or something, and come to think of it Lily did actually show me an outfit she liked for me and that was pale grey, so maybe it is a possibility. Oh and I just need to lose about 15 kg too - forgot about that minor detail! Thankfully I have some time but right now the blubber isn't exactly falling off or disappearing subliminally!

I tell you what though, André is pretty damn lucky he has Lily organizing this (what on earth did we do before the internet?) as she is a natural organizer and obviously enjoying it - well for the time being at least. I have offered to help but she seems on top of everything for the moment.  André has also seen the most gorgeous suit which is pretty darn expensive, but as it is Italian we were both nagging him to drive down to Milan (the home of fashion!! and only about four hours' drive away), and check that out too. I mean, with the recent referendum in Italy the euro took yet another hit so it would be to his advantage to either look there or, indeed, fly to England for the weekend and look around.

Lily mentioned that they had booked someone to come over and do hair and make-up on the day and that "I should feel free to come over". I hadn't even thought about that, I mean, I did get my hair done the day I got married but it never occurred to me to have someone do my make-up! (Yeah, tell me I'm sounding like a dinosaur - I know).

Talking of "make-overs", many, many years ago, when said dinosaurs actually did still roam the earth, I took six months leave from my job and back-packed around Australia (wonderful time - the subject of another post I suspect). Anyway, I was just 24 and my friend and I were in Brisbane waiting for the next bus going further north to our next stop. Trouble was, we had about three hours to wait so since we were in the city centre my friend suggested we had a shufty round the local department store and get a "free" makeover. Of course the aim is to get you to buy their products but we did get the makeover. Well .... we were both young, in shorts and T-shirts and lugging backpacks - and we came out looking like two hookers! You know, pile it on with a trowel and strip it off with a blow torch kinda thing. We both dashed straight to the nearest loo and washed as much of it off as we could but heck, it took some scrubbing!

Photo by Cindy Sherman

I have a lovely colleague who took a month off to do a course at the London school of make-up so she offered to give me a free tutorial since, as she pointed out, she needs to practice too! So she did my make-up the other day during my lunch break and hey - I didn't look quite so bad. It's amazing what can be achieved in the right hands isn't it! And it does bring it home how so many celebrities might not be quite so stunning if they didn't have the help of make-up artists, stylists, hairdressers, back-lighting and good old photo shop.  To be honest though, there is such a "fashion" now for the ultra-white (false) teeth, the hair extensions, botox etc. that so many look identical. Shame really, because the most interesting faces (in my humble opinion) are the ones that have a bit of character to them. Ah well, I'd better be off to see if I can re-produce what my colleague did - wish me luck!