Spending lots of time helping the sister with her wedding arrangements, and thanking my lucky stars that I’m not her. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my wedding and the fella wasn’t bad either, but the arrange-ings were beyond tedious. We’ve printed invitations all day today, with reasonable success, and so all is right with the world. Except that I don’t know how I’ll do without her as a housemate.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all the Dear Readers, and thanks for leaving such lovely comments. Youse are more of a tonic than you’ll ever know.

Back to business. Still married, which is a bonus. Batman’s still working in Gotham, whilst I’ve just started year three of my six years of surgical training in Astro City. It’s essentially an apprenticeship, so I’m stuck here and he’s stuck there, but it’s not as bad as you might imagine. The airlines are very happy. Married life has, so far, taught me several things:

1. Husbands are very nice for warming cold feet on, especially when they are so very obliging about it.

2. Husbands need proper dinners or they get a bit disconsolate. My rotten cooking repertoire is now up to two (yes, two!) dinners: lasagne and Very Good Brown Stew/Casserole. The stew made him lick the plate.

3. If you have a very small kitchen (yes, we do), then make a firm rule, early on, that only one person is allowed in the kitchen at any time, unless expressly invited to enter the kitchen by the person who is already there. Batman is too tall and long-limbed to manoeuvre around with hot plates.

4. General nuisance eg tenants x (One busy life + another busy life) = much rushing around at the weekends.

5. Husbands always drive. When did I become the wee submissive wife? It must be some genetic thing, but now he always drives (and it’s my car!).

6. Weekend marriage is the way to go: all the good points without much in the way of laundry or unpleasant bathroom emissions.

7. I like being married to Batman.

I am sure I’ll have some more fascinating pearls of wisdom in the future. Batman and I were talking about the blog, and he reckons I was better when I was blogging more. I reckon he’s right. Work has been utterly exhausingly draining. One of the bosses is a very senior person, and I actually think I’d set my hair on fire if it’d impress him. I have been standing on my head a lot, it feels, and he’s quite disinterested. Actually, we had a conversation that went:

Him: You know, you trainees are standing opposite us in theatre and we are thinking how to get rid of you. Will you be consultant material? Would you make a staff grade? Or will you make it through training at all?

Me (thinks): !!! So which one am I?

After a fortnight of this, I chatted to my Educational Supervisor, who tells me it’s confidence, or lack thereof, that’s my problem. Imagine! No shit. So I responded to this by arguing thusly with a good, but very forceful, registrar colleague:

Me: So Mrs X has got Q syndrome. She’s not doing well.

Him: Yes, but there’s nothing we can do.

Me: (thinking out loud) But the question is, should we take her to theatre? Would there be anything we can do that would change the outcome? Or is the Q syndrome so advanced that surgery is not an option? I really don’t think there is anything we can do.

Him: Why would you take her to theatre? She is going to die. She has Q syndrome. What happens is that blah, blah..

Me: I know, but it’s blah, blah, blah.

Him: No, blah, blah. (We’re in the tea room, and it’s getting louder and louder.)

Me: Listen, I spent two years researching Q syndrome, you know this. So do you want to take me on about it? Go on, go ahead. Make my day.

Him: *mumph*

I am not usually an Intellectual Snob. But you know what? It felt good.

Reader, I married him. And I don’t care what anyone says, I am never doing that again. I wouldn’t repeat the month before the wedding for all the tea in China, Japan and anywhere else you can think of that makes tealeaves. People think it’s very bloody funny to joke about nerves and whether or not you’ll turn up. It’s like poking a corpse at a wake and saying, “He’s not so cheery today!” Bloody hell. Your usual ice-cool FB was the proverbial bundle of batshit-crazy nerves. Batman didn’t know if he was coming or going, I was working, he was working, we were miles apart, hadn’t time to talk let alone see each other, the house was full of visitors (the last one left at 10pm the night before the wedding!), the enormity, the commitment, the emotion, the questions (I just want a bunch of flowers, please. But what colour? What size? What shape? What sort of handle? What???), the leaving of home, the huge enormous finality of this moment that would change everything, forever, for always and completely…

…and then it was the day before. Airport at 8am to collect D, fantastic D from Over There. House full all day. Wonderful P, family, friends. Batman and I left the endless tea and sandwiches, and slipped down to the Church to have a little run-through. I choked. He looked at me and said, “This is where you say your bit.” I gasped like a mackerel on a line; clutched him like I was a drowning man. He held on tight. Home, more tea, convoy to pick up wedding cake and take it to the hotel. We had a precious half-hour together in the car, muted, nervous, too filled with emotion to speak. Batman’s family all at the hotel, in high spirits. We kissed goodnight and promised to see each other in the morning. “Give me a toot when you pass,” I said, then went to meet some more Over There visitors.

Chased to bed by Mammy, lay and wrote a speech (not sure if I’d make it or not). Stuff this, I thought, and went down to sleep with Mammy. We talked and called across the hall to the sister until she threatened GBH. I slept. In the morning, the nerves that have plagued me for weeks have gone. Completely vanished. Indescribably lovely time with sister getting our hair done, then home to Mammy, and boiled eggs and sausages for the three of us. Such love. Such emotion. Then sister did the makeup, and cousin arrived. Flowers delivered. Horns blaring outside as Batman passes. My heart leaps. He’ll be waiting for me. Into the Dress. It’s perfect. Cousin leaves, and shit, the bloody veil is on back-to-front. Car Man holding headdress in place whilst Mammy and sister pin me together. It’s all gone a bit Monty Python, and it’s such fun.

I say my farewell to home, and heave back the tears as Mammy closes the door. It’ll always be home, but now I must make somewhere else into our home. Off to the Church. My father was Baptised here, my parents worshipped and were married here, so many important moments in my own life have happened here. Mammy takes my hand. I get such strength from her and the sister, my beautiful bridesmaid. We stand at the back and I see heads turn. The whisper goes round that the Bride is here, and it’s me. This day it’s my turn, the day I hadn’t ever really thought would happen. It is incredible. I am elated: game face on. The music begins, and we’re walking, too fast. We slow. Batman is at the front, I see his shoulder and his hair, and the smiles and the love all around, and then he turns and he is all I can see. I wish Dad had had the chance to live this moment with us. We’re at the front, and Mammy gives my hand to Batman.

Then it’s just us, stepping forward. First, we sit. I look across at this handsome, kind, loving man and can’t believe he wants to be with me. And then we stand, hold hands, and I can feel every second of this moment, twice as long as normal seconds. Looking in each others’ eyes, we promise that, with God’s help, we will make this life together, all the way, until death do us part. We kiss, they clap, and I am filled with bubbles of elation. Utter, wonderful, unconditional joy. I feel that I might burst with the happiness of it all. It is too much.

The day passes, too quickly, in mirth and music and dancing, talking and kissing, hugging and high spirits. It was far, far better than I could have ever imagined. We are married. We are so blessed, so bloody lucky, so thankful. We did it.

Let’s get one thing straight: I do not do Saturday mornings. Saturday mornings are for Other People: people who share their houses with short people; people who cut hair and don’t do Mondays instead; and Batman, who just does mornings, possibly because of some weird superhero genetic defect. Apart from the morning thing and a fixation with Brown Sauce, you’d never know he was a superhero. Neat, huh?

So why was I getting up at 7.40am on Saturday? Because my lovely, normal, no-fuss Mammy has turned into Mother Of the Bridezilla. Operation Meringue has been in the planning stages for several weeks, but Saturday was the first formal appointment to fit on frocks, and it was at 9.30am and 45 minutes away. MOBzilla was practically trailing the duvet off me with her teeth, to get out of the house and off to try on frocks.

And try I did. B. I. Z. A. R. R. E. Lean forward, shake your ladybumps around and put hands on your waist, then push ribs backwards and inwards. These are the instructions for getting into a frock. Honestly, man landed on the moon (if indeed he did) with less engineering than some of these dresses. Between bones and braces, frills and furbelows, it’s quite the experience. There are a few problems: (1) sleeves, or lack thereof. I’ve mentioned this and it hasn’t got any more interesting since then. (2) cleavage. It’s amazing what pops out of some of these dresses, and personally, I’m allergic to cleavage. I’d rather not, thanks. (3) big rustly skirts. I can trip on flat ground, in jeans and trainers. What’re the chances of not going arse over ear in twenty yards of taffeta, three petticoats and high heels? Slim to non existent, I think.

Anyway. There was a definite possibility but MOBzilla wants more. So two appointments have been booked for Saturday. No. 1 is in Astro City, at 9.30am. No. 2 is an hour away, at 1.30pm. Except the Mammy decided that no. 1 is no. good, and has booked an alternative no. 1, for 10.30, an hour from home and then wondered aloud if she could book a third appointment on the same day. No.

Add to this the catalogue of disasters which were told to me on Monday by some of the clinic nurses (that’s another story), and you’ll understand I was a teeny bit wound up. But a tiny little trip to Gotham has sorted me out. Sunshine, walk in the park, dinner. I am going to say something really rather cheesy, so please feel free to look away now…Batman, you’re lovely.

Operation Meringue over and out. Pip Pip!

Sometimes, I just hate my job. For example:

Tuesday: patient is on other surgeon’s list, but for my boss to operate upon. My boss denies all knowledge of patient, I have never heard of them, and the surgeon whose list they are on thinks that they belong to my boss. Our list finishes early and Head Nurse sends all theatre nurses to other places. Then my boss decides he does know about patient, so sends me to try to get list re-started. Phone anaesthetist as first priority, who makes a t*t out of me and says that it would help if I had come in the night before and sorted it out. I would have, had I known anything about them.

Today: We have two cases on a morning list. One is infected and so theatre must be scrubbed out after this case, but is the only one I can do without Boss. Boss late, so I don’t start the infected case, as he’d have to wait too long to do the other case. He arrives and bollocks me that I didn’t do said case, and tells me I should have more initiative. Choke back waves of self-loathing for general crapness, then later explain that I would have started, except that it would have delayed the start of the other case and he might not have got it done. He says this was right. Still feel slug-like. Go to clinic and do not understand what Other Boss is asking me, so appear rather stupid. Get home (after an hour in traffic) and remember did not see another random patient, so have to get back into car and return to work. Am stupid and sluglike.

Anyway. In other news, a band has been found and booked. I wish I were in a band: it pays much better than my sluglike existence. My cough was improving, until today, when I have either pulled a muscle or punctured a lung, as every cough sends a faint-inducing stabbing sensation through your own dear Blade. The patients were being sympathetic this afternoon, which is clearly a bad thing. And finally, it has been three weeks since I saw Batman, so I am off to Gotham on Saturday afternoon, following a session of frock-trying. I can’t wait.