Stress & Its Most Amazing Abilities

4:12pm Monday 2nd July 2007

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Who would think that letting yourself get stressed could affect your health so much? Not me.

The wedding was amazing, despite my vows back in January NOT to be the fat lady in the photos, I was. It didn’t matter. Everyone had a wonderful time, the clouds parted to give our bride some sunshine for her wedding photos and the rain held off for the BBQ the next day. We’ve not seen the bulk of the photos yet but our Juliet’s cousin’s fiancé did a slide show that left everyone with a tear in their eye when they saw it at the BBQ.

Oh yes there were glitches. . .a major one with the suits that sent every scrambling to try and get it right. You would think that a major wedding hire company could get it right considering the number of branches they have and the length of time in business but they messed up big time and were really bad on picking up the pieces. I won’t mention names because I wouldn’t like to be the one to spread their bad reputation earned from this wedding alone. I have a feeling on their return from their honeymoon in Italy the bride and groom will be giving them an earful right up to the Chief Executive Officer.

The hotel did a smashing job and I won’t hesitate to name them here because we were well and truly impressed. While early on communication wasn’t as good as we would have liked, on the day they pulled out all the stops and what a beautiful day they made for us! I highly recommend the Royal Hotel in Ross on Wye for wedding dos. They weren't the only ones who did their part to make it a sucess. Emily Rose cakes, chocolate sponge to die for, The House of Flowers in Ross on Wye, beautiful arrangements that should have cost way more then they should have. It was all in all a very memorable day!

So anyway, back to the stress. I’ve written before that we have sold the house and I have to bid adieu to my lovely red hat ladies as we head to Florida and retirement. That’s stressful enough but toss a long distant wedding into the mix, a step mum that’s not too familiar with British wedding customs (why do you call it a wedding breakfast when you are dining at 5:30 in the afternoon) and a bride and groom to be who are trying to stay within a reasonable budget and still have a wonderful day and all the little niggling things that can go wrong and you’ve got a big bucket load of stress.

I did well, I held up fine until two days after the bride and groom headed off on their honeymoon and then I was hit with an episode of excruciating IBS. When I get it, it always follows a very stressful time in my life, last time was in November a couple of weeks after my husband’s mum died following a lengthy illness. Unfortunately once its run it’s course, 5-7 days most times, I am laid low with exhaustion and weakness which takes another week or so to recover from. So there you go, the power of stress, who knew? I spend my 54th birthday in bed with a hot water bottle and have had to cancel the BBQ I was going to have for my red hat ladies to give myself some time to get well.

If anyone has a cure for letting stress get to you I am open to all suggestions. I don’t relish going through this again any time soon!