Now, I’ve Had The Time Of My Life….

So, 12 women in a cottage in Herefordshire for a long weekend. You may be thinking sedate tea parties, knitting and a penchant for ironing… but not these ladies! Picture instead eating mountains of cheese, drinking, burping, farting, cackling, tears (of hysterical laughter mainly!), shouting, singing, terrible dancing… well that would be much more like it!

We arrived Friday afternoon and attempted a barbeque but the coal was a bit wet so we decided to use the Aga in the vast kitchen instead (ate quite late as Aga's take a lot longer than anyone remembered!). Friday evening was grand – we had a really nice meal and everyone was very chilled - lots of drinking and banter.

Saturday morning we were up at the bloody crack of dawn (No, she wasn’t one of the hens!) to drive to the Black Mountains in Wales for our horse riding - that was brilliant fun - they took us on a trek up into the mountains - no-one fell off, though Ant came close and Gis nearly lost her knee up my horses arse! However a raaaaather close relationship did develop between one rider and her horse (twice!) but then like all men, when it was over all he could do was fart!!! (Mentioning NO names!) Then we drove back to the cottage for a late lunch and some sunbathing in the enormous garden. (Via a breakdown in Waitrose car park!) Then a hive of activity started around me - I kept offering to help and being told to go and sit down (little did I realise what they were plotting!) eventually we were ready for champagne cocktails and a toast and then onto dinner... my fabulous hens had decorated the dining room - it looked great - streamers, confetti and a beautiful tiara (complete with veil!) all over the place and a wonderful 3 course meal all of which had been concocted pretty much in secret!

Then after the meal and during some very dubious and un-ladylike conversations in the dining room, Naomi raced round like a mad thing, decorating the living room with banners and streamers and yet more confetti! I entered the living room to find my "throne" (yep, the decorated dining chair!) had been placed centre stage and a video camera trained on it! It turned out that my darling hubby-to-be had been whisked off to ‘The Other Woman’s house and been videoed answering a load of questions about himself and my challenge was to try and guess his answers!!! It was hysterical and involved me downing an awful lot of shots of Amaretto & Kaluha (bleugh!) and lots of giggling from the girls at my beloved's silly answers! (Tiiiiitties!) It was a fantastic surprise and really well planned out – Thank you SO much Naomi!

Then my stripper appeared!!! In came Mel sporting a fake beard and a (plastic!) 6 pack chest, cap & padding and did a strip tease for me! I was laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my face and didn’t quite know where to look! The rest of the evening was a bit blurry, but lots of drinking - I remember that much!

Then Sunday we went Kayaking on the River Wye - that was brilliant fun and a great hangover cure. Our instructor was a little humourless to begin with, but livened up after a while even making us stand up and reveal an unusual fact about ourselves (he regretted that when he heard Enda’s!), a water fight then ensued with my canoe taking on so much water I nearly sank… which wouldn’t have mattered as I managed to capsize myself while trying to get out anyway! Sunday afternoon/evening was spent curled up under duvets on the sofas watching chick flicks and drinking yet more booze (there was a LOT to get through!) and ended up with us dancing round the room to "I've Had The Time Of My Life" which had us all in hysterics! (A sight to behold at the wedding, but in our finery this time rather than our PJs!) – Unfortunately there is no recorded evidence of Gen getting so carried away with her filming duties that she threw her arms up in the air and almost in a slow motion picture the arm chair tipped backwards and Gen went with it (crashing not through the window as we thought, but merely into the shutters!) leaving her stuck, wedged in at the bum, arms and legs flailing madly, crying with laughter and cramp in her big toe, whilst 7 other women rolled around on the floor, howling with laughter, tears streaming down their faces and Sir Patrick of Swayze smouldering on in the background….

And then sadly home yesterday morning (well I say morning…) but after the car not starting again (all I needed was a new key!) getting seriously stuck in traffic jams and tearing round the Surrey countryside racing against the clock to get Enda to Gatwick (thank god for airline security procrastinations!) on time Lex, Chris and I didn’t make it onto terra firm until 8.30pm!