Wedding food & Birthday presents

I have been having a recuring dream. Its not every night but at least once a month and the detail is unbelievable. I can do what I want in this dream and mingle freely with the people in it, I do not know most of them but its a freindly town and the people seem very relaxed.
This hamlet, as ive just realised as town is far too grand a word for it, seems to be in Northwest Spain. How do I know well its down to gut feeling and the fact the area is so green.

I have a house and that is very spanish being very higgly piggly in its set up with the toilet being down a long set of stairs and being more a less outside with a basic roof covering covering the courtyard to get to it giving just a little protection from the elements. Its set on to a small mountainside and is very rural with adjoining land , I think this is mine, growing many fruits and vegtables. I seem to always walk or catch a bus as near to it as I can from the Hamlet/town and the scenery is nothing short of breathtaking with its lush trees and grasses, rolling mountains (big hills) and lots of adjoing streams to one large river rolling through them all.

Guests appear on a regular basis in my small home and they are always most welcome visitors. Last night it was my brother and we sat and chatted for hours then had a wander around the land inspecting the crops. I love this dream and this is the first time I have remebered it in such detail once I have woken up but strangely I always reconise it when it comes around again in my sleep.

Back to reality then... Wedding food.

What about it I here you ask? One of my Brothers, the one in the dream, runs his own catering business and he had a very large wedding to cater for last weekend. I had been booked to give him a hand from the day he got the job so it was early on Friday morning I set off on the 25 mile drive to his house to begin the long weekend of work.
Our first job of the day was to go and collect a large chiller van from Melton and this was to be somewhat of a problem. We arrived to find a suprised looking chap behind the counter who obviously was not expecting anyone that day. We were then told that we hadnt booked a van! Pillocks were obviously wrong as we had the paperwork to prove it but we were then told that the van we wanted was in Loughborough!! This was another 25 miles away!! Enough was enough so I stepped in at this point as my brother was looking like he was going to explode! I pointed out somewhat forceably that we needed the van now, that we had paid for it and there was no way we could both lose another 2 hours buggering about to sort their mistake. With this they backed down and found someone to take me over to the van whilst my brother went off to carry on with the day.
Well when I got to Loughborough it was the wrong type of van!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was supposed to have a stand alone chiller that was deisel run but this one had to be plugged in to a 16 amp electric supply. The proverbial hit the fan in a big way!!!!!!!!!! The biggest problem was THERE WAS NO OTHER VAN ANYWHERE so I had to take this one and deal with it when I got back!

I went straight to the site of the wedding and what a wedding site it was!! A huge Marqui shaped with two turrets but most importantly for me there was a sodding great big generator being set up so off I went to see the sparky who lined us up with the power we would need for the wedding the next day! I then saw the sound man who had a converter I could borrow so we could plug the van in at home whilst preparing the food so by the time I got back to my brothers house I had the whole fridge thing sorted so one less worry for him!

We then spent the rest of the day, evening and until 2am that night preparing the food. Up at 6am on the Saturday to do a bit more food prep and off to site to set up. We pulled 38 hours out of 48 feeding 148 people on the first meal and then around 400 on the evening buffet. It turned out the wedding was for a brother of one of my brothers old friends so the day was spent seeing the faces of boys and girls in the men and women in front of me!

This group are very laid back and I have to say I havnt seen a better wedding. It was very relaxed with 2 live bands and a disco follwed by people jammong with all manner of instruments outside around fires. Around 100 chinese lanterns were sent up in the dark and what a spectacle that was to see! Lots of bright lights that could bee seen floating away for many miles.

So lots of hard work yes but well worth it. It made me realise how much I miss working full time and with other people so I have decided that it is time to find full time employment and kiss my failing business goodbye.

As I write it is my wifes birthday and she is having a well deserved lie in. I think she will be pleasently surprised when she awakes as we dont normally go too mad for birthdays with a single present but this year I have spoilt her with 2 new perfumes, diffuser hairdryer thingy she wanted, a large boquet of flowers and five new books. I have also arranged with friends to go out for a meal this evening because she deserves it. She has been working so hard of late and does not moan once. Without her hard work we would have really struggled this year as my business has been so quiet so time for a bit of repayment I think.

Ok then its about time to take wifey a cup of tea up and start the day. The suns shining so I intend to take advatage of it :)