Another Mrs Rayner - Max and Inna are married

Max and Inna were married at Kilworth House, Leicestershire, on August 3rd.

That’s all three of my children married - Sam the first, then Tom and now Max - and being the father of the bridegroom, I haven’t had to make a speech at any of them!

Sam and Lucy married at Thorney Abbey with a reception in the Bedford Hall; while Tom and Hannah were married at Bow Register Office with a reception in a restaurant in the city.

Max was christened and confirmed; Inna was born in Russia and is Jewish, so several flavours of church wedding would have been possible, but Thorney Abbey or any other religious ceremony was never really a consideration.

Max had always said that Inna wanted a small wedding and that they’d probably just elope. I’m not sure when the plans changed, but change they certainly did. The search for a venue began quite some time ago, winter of 2011-12, and having decided not to be married in church, a country house seemed favourite. Legislation licensing venues other than churches and register offices to perform marriage ceremonies came in a few years ago and weddings are now big business for country houses.

Some are better suited than others and there’s a real variation in price and quality, with the two not always synchronised as they should be. Max and Inna must have seen six or seven venues - perhaps more - and we visited three with them one cold Saturday early last year. Kilworth wasn’t one of them (they found that later) and it was an excellent choice, it has a lovely setting, it’s handy for Inna’s home in Wigston and only a hour or so drive from Thorney.

They decided on the place over a year ago and Margaret had visited it with Inna’s mother, Marina, soon after they decided. I went for the first time some months ago, when they were making the final decision about menus and we had a taster session of different dishes.

Some of the country houses we had visited were still family homes, although the owners probably live in three or four rooms in the spare wing and some look decidedly scruffy (in a grand way), others seem a little unwelcoming and, in one case, I got the sense they were somewhat resentful at having to let the proletariat through the front door.

Kilworth is a country house, but also a working hotel and therefore has to maintain a welcoming atmosphere and keep the decor spruced up. Someone told me it was owned by the lead guitarist of Black Sabbath (a heavy metal band), so no aristocrats on the board.

The wedding has been a major or lesser project for many people this year. Our part was relatively minor, but small things can become big worries. There were three particular concerns in our household:

1. The flowers
2. The dress (Margaret’s dress)
3. The cake

Margaret had volunteered to provide flowers for the registrar’s table and also centrepieces for the dining tables at the reception. Our very good friend, Pauline Coakley had done the flowers for Sam’s wedding and was willing to help out again. Inna had wanted sunflowers and I had thought it would have been nice to grow them in our garden.

Thorney sunflowers (a few) in the registrar's table

So wedding planning for me centred first on whether I could get sunflowers to bloom for August 1 because, in previous years, I’ve sown them quite late and they’ve been an autumn feature in the garden. I ordered three differerent types from Thompson & Morgan (the seed company) and they were planted as early as I could in pots in the summerhouse. We spent a few weeks putting them inside at night (to prevent a frost from checking them) and carrying them outside during the day so that they wouldn’t become etiolated.

I cleared some space in our big border, fenced it off with wire netting to stop the dogs trampling on it and planted out the young sunflower plants in May. It was a terrible summer last year (extremely wet) and the winter was cold and wet, so I was concerned that we’d struggle to get them to bloom in time. Nature and the weather do what they like, of course, and as it turned out, this was a warm and dry spring - excellent growing conditions.

I had three types of sunflower - tall, medium/short and short - and they all grew strongly with the first flowers in early July. Instead of worrying about not having flowers early enough, I was now facing having too many flowers too early and the whole show being finished by wedding time.

The short ones and the tall ones all flowered ahead of time, but had smaller secondary flowers ready for the wedding. The medium short plants had absolutely massive heads (like giant sunflowers on short stems) and they wouldn’t have been at all suitable. In the end, we decided that we’d buy sufficient flowers and just use some of ours in the arrangements as available. It would have been just too stressful depending upon ours and then not having enough ready.

So the flowers came from a dealer that Pauline uses in Biggleswade or Sandy (I can’t remember which) and Margaret picked some of ours to take round to Pauline on the Thursday before the wedding. I was up to my ears in cake making, so didn’t get involved. Pauline said that our flowers had been much better than the bought ones.

It was nice to have a few home-grown Thorney sunflowers in the mix and Pauline did a good job with the flowers. She had some help from Janet Knights putting them together and she and Chris came across in two cars on Saturday morning with the arrangements laid out in the back.

The flowers were a success.

The dress proved a little more stressful than the flowers. It’s one of the rules of a wedding (for women) that there has to be a huge drama over the dress. It started good and early for Margaret with a couple of trips to Peterborough to wander around dress shops saying “I just can’t get anything to fit me.” I might have pointed out that I’ve worn the same suit - my best suit - for all three weddings, but I didn’t (well, not until now). On the subject of dresses, it’s fine to have opinions, but they are generally best kept to yourself.

At some time, Margaret’s friend Amanda (a former work colleague from Moore Stephens) offered to make the dress. I was assured that Amanda would do an amazing job, but it did involve measuring (I did that, and not terribly accurately, apparently), going to London to choose the material - purple silk lace over a purple satin inner - and numerous fittings (correcting my measurements) using a calico material to get the fit right before an exact pattern was produced to sew the final garment. It’s quite involved and hard work for Amanda, but from my perspective it was “job done”. There couldn’t be any complaints about fit, style or material because all of those factors were chosen or being crafted.

If you don’t have to worry about the dress, there are plenty of other things to worry about - shoes, bag and hat, to name three obvious ones. I won’t dwell on this except to say that shoes which matched the dress were sourced, a fascinator was selected from a wide choice of possible options and a bag should have been made from the same material as the dress, but wasn’t and it wasn’t a problem. There was also an interesting interlude regarding some kind of petticoat which made you look slimmer, but didn’t work. The only thing that makes you look slimmer is losing half a stone (I just wish I could lose half a stone).

The dress was delivered on the Tuesday (dramatically late) and as expected it was not plain sailing. Margaret hadn’t expected the silk lace to be sewn onto the inner (I’m not sure what else you could do), the seam wasn’t right (it looked fine to me), it didn’t lie right at the back (that’s because you’re twisting around to try to see yourself in the mirror) and one problem which I couldn’t dismiss - it made her hot. She hadn’t thought about it, but satin was hot and the sweat would be pouring off her. Even trying it on in the bedroom and wearing it for five minutes, she was sweating - ”look!”

Margaret in the dress, with Max, Inna and me

She said she couldn’t possibly wear it, I said she couldn’t possibly not wear it after Amanda had gone to so much trouble. If it was too hot, she could get changed after the ceremony into something cooler. That was the compromise that was accepted and, on the day, the dress was worn from 11am to 10pm, was admired by everyone and Margaret was quietly satisfied.

The dress was a success.

Cakes are a strange wedding tradition. In our day, it had to be a rich fruit cake and you would have it cut into very small pieces for people to eat on the day; people who you couldn’t afford to invite (or who couldn’t attend) would have been sent a small piece in a little cardboard box. The cake would have been three tiers and the top tier would have been kept for the christening.

Sam and Lucy had a traditional tiered cake. I don’t think we sent any to people who couldn’t attend but the top tier was kept for a while, not so much in the expectation of early grandchildren, but rather because it would be a shame to have thrown it away (which we had to in the end, of course). Tom and Hannah didn’t have a cake; they had cheescakes, which were very, very nice but everyone was so full of food and booze by the time they were served that most were wasted. I remember forcing a piece down, but it was a real effort!

Max and Inna had decided that they wouldn’t have a cake. Neither of them liked fruit cake and so they’d decided on cup-cakes and asked if I’d make a Victoria sandwich (Max’s favourite) so there was something to cut for the photographs.

My Victoria sandwich will feed maybe 12 people and, although this was just something to cut because there would be cup-cakes galore, I’m enough of a traditionalist to think that everyone who wants some wedding cake should be able to have some.

So began a series of experimental cake-baking, which pleased people at work no end because they (Davina in particular) got to eat the experiment. First I got a larger, square cake tin, which took the full mixture from both my normal round cake tins in one hit. By making two of those, I’d have a large, square Victoria sandwich. It worked really well, I had to adjust the cooking time by trial and error, but I’ve now made enough cakes to be comfortable to know when a cake is ready.

The big question was over the icing - should it be buttercream or proper hard wedding cake icing? Margaret suggested roll-out icing, which comes in a big block like ready-made pastry. You knead it for a while to make it pliable and then roll it out, place it over the cake and trim it to fit. My first dummy run attempt had to be abandoned, but I got it right second time and made a passable cake. The icing kept quite well, it didn’t go hard and it didn’t go gooey, so that was settled.

I then decided on a second tier using a smaller cake on top (possibly a third tier) and to decorate the white icing with heart shapes cut out of pink and blue icing. There was another dry run, which convinced me that a third tier would be a tier too far and the hearts also got vetoed as being too twee. Sunflowers were requested as an alternative and Margaret knew of someone in the village who made amazing icing-sugar flowers. I blocked that because this was my cake, but Margaret then got Barbara Moorhen involved, who (kindly) produced several books on making sugar flowers, lots of advice and some strange chemical which made the icing sugar pliable and rubbery for a while, but then made it set hard.

We had a “Just Married” banner that Inna had bought and I wanted to get a bride and groom for the top. I thought about Sylvanian family figures, but Margaret found a Playmobil bride and groom, which worked much better.

The cake, with slightly creased icing on the top tier (and the groom is still standing)

The cake bake happened on Thursday and took about five hours all told. Gravel, Holly, Max, Lucia and Margaret all enjoyed some off-cuts and the finished article looked really quite good. There was a problem with the first pass at icing the big cake. It was a really warm day and the icing was much stickier than it had been on the dummy run. Luckily, Margaret had bought more icing than we needed, so I had enough left to have a second, successful, attempt.

At the wedding, the cake had its own table and with the figures on top and the banner, it looked pretty good. The groom did keep falling over, so in the end we had to sit him down.

The cake was a success.

The wedding itself passed off really well. We had a nice dinner on the Friday evening, aside from some controversy about over-cooked pigeon, which didn’t affect me as I had risotto. Michael, Inna’s dad, had made a cake for our final course (what is it about men and making cakes?) and the private room was really good.

Friday night, pre-wedding dinner. We look like something from Downton Abbey!

The wedding was in the orangery, it was set out really well; there was some high levels of nervousness around Marina, Inna’s mum, and Inna; also some grumpiness from Max, who may have been nervous but is also often quite grumpy in a morning (especially when mum had umpteen questions for him). Inna’s chief bridesmaid, Sophie, was excellent - she was very chirpy and rooted - and Toby proved the perfect best man - serious, sensible and supportive. The pair of them were unflappable (and there was plenty of flapping going on!).

In the morning, I had a walk around the grounds and sat and read through my reading. I’d thought about memorising it, but wasn’t confident that I’d be able to manage that - no hope of me playing Shakespeare any time soon. There were lots of helpers, anything that needed doing got done and it all came together perfectly.

For the ceremony, Inna looked really lovely, Max’s speech was well received; Inna’s dad, Inna, Toby and Sophie all gave good speeches; the food was good and the wine was plentiful.

After the ceremony and the wedding breakfast, the guests dispersed around the hotel, some on the terrace, some in a central courtyard and lots in the cellar bar where the band and disco were sited. I was able to move between groups, have a chat with lots of people and it was a really nice evening.

Tom was official photographer and was busy snapping all day. He’d hired a fisheye lens to get some feature shots and there are lots of nice pictures. Inna got attacked by a wasp while she was posing on the lawns and Tom has a snap of her waving her arm to ward it off. If you blow the photo right up, you can see the little wasp (still quite sharp).

Top table through Tom's fisheye lens

Next morning, we all met for breakfast before packing up and heading home. Max and Inna were spending the night in Leicester before driving back to London and their car was decorated by Toby and Andrew (perhaps with others).

What is the matter with Inna (above). It's this pesky little wasp (see below)

The news this week, April 20th

It was so nice to step outside the door at the weekend and not feel that we were still in the grip of winter. The really cold easterly winds finally stopped and a warmer airflow came up from the south.

Saturday was warm, but we had some quite heavy rain during the afternoon and then Sunday was beautiful.

I took advantage, once the shopping was out of the way on Saturday, to get out in the garden and plant some more seeds. The sunflowers which had been planted the previous Saturday had germinated within five days and were now showing strong primary leaves. I didn’t want them to get too leggy so they were put outside with the sweet peas. We have them on the decking at the bottom so they can be taken into the summerhouse if there’s a danger of frost and we’ve done the same with the ivy-leaf geraniums that I grew from cuttings during the winter. Four of the eight cuttings have produced really strong plants.

On Saturday morning, I sowed cosmos (a smaller, more compact variety than the monsters we had last year), nasturtiums and cornflower. They’ve all gone in individual pots in the summerhouse where it’s a little warmer.

By the time I’d pottered around with these tasks, the sun had disappeared, it had grown a little colder and then began to rain, so I retreated to the kitchen for some test baking. I’ve agreed to make a wedding cake for Max and Inna. They’re having cup-cakes for guests, but will want a cake to cut for a photo and I said I’d make a victoria sponge - always one of Max’s favourites.

I don’t just want to make a regular victoria sponge and Margaret has been suggesting various options during the week (mainly involving butter icing). Anyway, in the morning, I’d bought extra eggs and some roll-out icing which I’ve never used before, so it would be interesting to see what I could do.

I thought I’d make a regular mix and cook it in a larger tin to see if I could get a bake that’s the same as usual, but in a bigger shape. It worked really well and I ended up with an eight-inch square sponge that was about the right depth to form one layer of a sandwich. So what I can do is bake two of those to make a larger sandwich cake and then ice it and perhaps create a smaller second tier. Decorate with cut-out hearts and a couple of figures and it should make a nice cake.

I wasn’t as well prepared as I’d thought and when it came to icing, I had no icing sugar (to prevent the roll-out icing sticking when I rolled it) and no apricot jam to brush the cake with to ensure the icing stuck. I rolled the icing out on greaseproof paper and Margaret brushed the cake with melted raspberry jam, but only had enough to do the top, not the sides. She was adamant that we should just ice the top, but I wanted to give it a try doing the sides.

It was a real problem to roll the icing out in a large enough section to cover the cake and to make it thin enough so that it wasn’t too sweet and sickly. I finally got it right and after another small debate with my technical adviser (Margaret was sure that I’d need marzipan) we were ready to apply the icing. Margaret was supposed to hold down the pop-up handles on the cake board, but when I moved the icing, she hadn’t got them down. The icing hovered over the cake for a minute while she tried to get hold of them and then fell apart in my hands. Margaret said it was my fault for not telling her and I said all she had to do was hold down the handles, but no matter, we’d just re-roll the icing. Actually, the extra practice was quite useful and second time, the icing went on quite nicely and I was pleased that I was able to cut out flaps so it folded over the sides quite nicely with a neat join. I thought it looked quite good, but Margaret was critical of the uneven top and said I’d definitely need marzipan to give me a proper smooth surface. It was time for my “no marzipan is ever coming near my cake” speech.

The cake cut well and it tasted nice. My sister had some on Sunday (as did I) and then I took a pile into work on Monday. Margaret e-mailed to say that she’d had some and the icing was disgusting, it had gone all gooey and that marzipan would prevent this (she’s not dropped the marzipan campaign) but we’d all had some at work, some more than one piece (Lawrie and probably Davina) and everyone agreed the icing was fine. I’m not sure if the cake box we have at home had caused the icing to sweat or not, but it was OK at work, not too sticky at all.

So this weekend, the plan will be to make a complete cake and have a go at icing and decorating. It could be a long day on Saturday! I’ll then keep the cake for a couple of days and see how well it cuts. There will be cake galore on Monday evening and a decent amount for work to try on Tuesday.

Sunday was a really nice day, so I was able to really enjoy being outside. We took the dogs to the park in the morning and there were lots of dogs there, so plenty of hounds for Gravel to play with. Holly is less keen to greet other dogs and is more focused on chasing and bringing back her ball. Gravel is much better and looks really well. He did blot his copybook by running off through the trees and down into the ditch at the edge of the park. He came back pretty dirty and then Holly and Mia (the Falcos’ labradoodle) thought they’d check it out and so all three dogs disappeared. Mia is a large white dog and came back with four dirty boots, while Holly and Gravel would definitely need a bath. To give them a longer walk, we went round by the runway and then cut through back into the village by Miss Green’s old yard, which is now full of geese and ducks and is always a popular walk for two bird-loving springers.

After dog-washing, I sowed some cornflower and night-scented stock directly into the ground, put some more cosmos and cornflower in pots and also did a bit of weeding. Finally, I wanted to get my dahlia tubers out of winter storage in the garage and start them off in pots. I think slugs destroyed several plants last year by biting out the growing tips, so if I start them in pots I should avoid this hazard.

I’ve inspected the tubers several times and when I last looked in late February, they had appeared a little dry. I packed them with damp compost and covered them up. When I looked on Sunday, several had started to sprout and some of the tubers had grown long roots into the compost. I’ve put some in the summerhouse and some upstairs in smaller pots where I just had single tubers which had broken away. I think they’ll be OK.

I have my motorcycle out of winter store and it’s been good to ride it to the station in the morning. The new rear tyre is working well; the old one was so squared off that it really cornered badly, trying to stay upright and then dropping into a bend too quickly. It’s much better now and riding the bike home really cheers me up. I needed it on Monday as signal problems between St Neots and Peterborough caused our train to stop at Biggleswade for about half an hour. Some people abandoned the train to get taxis, but we were on the move again in time to get to Huntingdon at the same time as some of the taxis (so Gordon told me the next day).

No such problem on Tuesday as I was staying over at Sam’s. He wasn’t working on Tuesday and so had made sea bream parcels of tin foil to cook the fish with ginger, chili and onion. It was served with brown rice and broccoli. He goes to a lot of trouble, but I wasn’t really hungry enough to do it justice. It’s nice to stay at Sam’s or Max’s in the week as it breaks up my week and saves me a long commute. Sam’s house is quite convenient as it’s five minutes walk from Walthamstow tube and so my journey to work can take me just over half an hour, which is great.

While at Sam’s I had a text from Tom to say that Lucia had been offered a place at LSE to do her PhD. I think he’ll be pleased to get back to London.

Wednesday was the day of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral and there were big crowds in London, although I was tied up in the office all day, except for a lunch in the Queen’s Arms with Darius, so I saw none of it except on TV. There were major security concerns, especially as a couple of bombs had been detonated by the finish line in the Boston marathon, killing three and injuring many more (including a runner who had both legs blown off and a three-year-old boy who had gone to watch his dad. The bombers were identified on CCTV and yesterday (Friday) there was a gun fight where a policeman and one of the bombers were killed. The other bomber escaped, but was arrested overnight. The were from Chechnya, a country that was part of the Soviet empire and which has been fighting a bitter war of independence. It’s a muslim country, but odd that people from there would want to target the US.

On Thursday, I worked from home because I had a hospital appointment with a specialist. The good news was that my lumps were just cysts; the bad news is that they might get bigger and removal would be painful and require a general anaesthetic. The advice was to do nothing unless they caused me pain and discomfort and that’s what I’ll do. In the evening, we went to the Dog in a Doublet for a meal and it was quite good (more of that later).

The weather has been good right through the week, with very little rain in the east and very strong winds through the middle of the week. We had a fen blow (a dust storm) during the week and in Elgin on the Moray Firth, the council had to send out workers to clear the roads of drifting sand. We went to the Moray Firth for a day when we were on holiday and the beaches and dunes are beautiful with fine white sand. It was quite windy that day and I can remember the fine sand blowing up from the dunes where it was dry.

Aunt Margaret, my mum’s youngest sister, died on April 7, aged 81. She had suffered from a heart condition and had then contracted cancer. Her husband George had died in 2011 and I guess that had hit her really hard. They were married in 1951, so were together for almost 60 years. I would have attended the funeral, but had three or four meetings at work that I needed to attend. It’s been really, really busy this year.