THE WEDDING STRESS

I first reported on our Christmas family wedding with regard to my wife's search for the perfect outfit. The wedding is now just a week away and stress levels are now at high altitude.

The latest issue concerns capes. Being a December wedding, there is a natural concern over keeping the bride and her maids warm so my wife found some fake fur wraps on the internet and ordered them many weeks ahead.

As the clock ticked and there was no sign of a parcel so my wife kept looking out of the window and co-ordinating our social calendar to ensure that one of us would be in at all times to receive the garments. Yesterday she phoned the supplier yet again and was assured that they were on their way. This morning as my wife was all but having her breakfast at the front window they arrived!

She was relieved, I was relieved, so much so that our combined sighs of relief could have powered a wind farm. My wife opened the parcel with the zeal of a 4 year old on Christmas morning. She tried them on and modelled them for me. "Pretty aren't they?" she said. I knew the answer to that one.

Then the seed of doubt arrived. "Would you say they were ivory?" I knew the answer to that one too. "You don't think they are yellow?" Again I knew the correct, reassuring answer to give. As a mere male, I have the colour sense of the blind but it did occur to me that ivory is a sort of yellowish-white. Naturally I didn't share this thought.

However, the seed of doubt grew and I next witnessed my wife's near hysteria take root as she convinced herself that they were yellow. Normally I have a well developed sense of self-preservation but it must have been about then that it deserted me.

I foolishly suggested that she might let the bride-to-be see them without knowing of her own colour concerns. "Don't say a word to her - see her unbiassed reaction" I heard myself saying.

This got me the mother of all tongue lashings. In the circumstances, I am beginning to see the benefits of living in sin.