It has been a month since our wedding, which went really well and we enjoyed hugely (apart from our first waltz, which went really fast and everyone else enjoyed hugely). Thank you everyone who was there, and those who couldn’t be there but were thinking of us, we appreciated it. Photos are still coming in and we’ll put a gallery together here in the next few weeks.

For those who weren’t there, we were married in December at Haikko Manor near Helsinki; the civil ceremony in English and Finnish included our own vows, a reading from The Little Prince and Edward Lear’s poem The Owl and the Pussycat (they also had to improvise an engagement ring at first…). I had a dress made in blue, white and silver by a fantastic designer in Ljubljana. According to tradition I was kidnapped after dinner, but won back by Tim who was obliged to serenade me at my balcony on his French Horn (after brushing off several years of dust). We had fireworks, silly dancing, many hours in the sauna, but no snow.

Our honeymoon was a rather wonderful mix. We had of a couple of days in Estonia, exploring the Old Town in Tallinn – really very impressive with its medieval towers and narrow cobbled streets, a day in Brussels enjoying mussels and pharmacies (I get disproportionately excited about browsing foreign pharmacies for all kinds of weird and wonderful products), and finally four days by Lake Bled in Northern Slovenia, where we stayed in a hotel that used to be Tito’s private mansion.

Bled is a glorious little town with a lake small enough to walk around in a pleasant hour and a half. In the middle of the lake stands Slovenia’s only island, not much bigger than the church that has been there for centuries.

As you land on the island, there are 99 steps leading to the church and tradition has it that a newly-wed groom should carry his bride all the way to the top. Apparently at peak wedding-season nervous grooms-to-be are often seen pacing up and down the steps, practising with bride-sized sacks of potatoes or accommodating friends. On this occasion the groom had neither practice nor, fortunately, an audience, and managed to bear me to the summit unharmed (but displaying a flash of turquoise thermals)

The weather in Bled was beautifully sunny and promisingly wintry, although the only time we saw snow was riding in the Voje valley in the Julian Alps. Tim saddled-up a gracious Lipizzaner while I battled wills with a Hungarian stallion that had eaten too much paprika. Still, it was Tim’s horse that kicked two sizeable dents in a car driving past… On the whole it was a lively day out.

And then it was Christmas and New Year! It was great having friends over for a few days – lots of mulled wine in the Old Town, walks in the woods, incessant fireworks, and more silly dancing.

We hope you all have a peaceful 2007 wherever you are, we look forward to seeing you soon.