I have been gigging pretty intensively since mid-January and it's been about three and a half months since I've had four consecutive days without a performance. I almost felt like a normal human being today, though my subconscious was a bit jittery and a couple of times I thought that I should be packing up my suitcase to get on the road.
I am way behind on all my other work, but today did manage to sit myself down and cobble together the next two Metro columns - probably best I do them now, I am not sure my beloved will be very happy with me writing one on the honeymoon (and so it starts, I am under the thumb). In one of them I predicted that I would be a different man once I was married, saying I expected to become hen-whipped and pussy-pecked (had I got that right?), although quite liked the sound of that. I made myself laugh for ages. And think that should probably get past the censors. After all who doesn't like being pecked by a pussy?
All wedding plans seem to be in hand. A lot of people had warned that putting a wedding together was a nightmare, but I told my fiancee today that I had found it "pimpsy". She did point out that I hadn't maybe done my fair share of the work because of my tour commitments, but even taking that into account the wedding has (so far - I am aware it is ot over yet) been the fourth most stressful thing this year. Having to move with only a few weeks' notice was definitely the worst thing, the tour has certainly had its moments and the strain and expense of having our house renovated have all been much harder. But I would reiterate that the best way to make a wedding less stressful is to do it quickly and make sure you have about four other life changing things to be doing at the same time. Your stress is finite, so why not stretch it to its limit and get it all over with at once?
But maybe we've forgotten something vital that we'll only realise on the day - oh, so we can't just turn up at the church whenever we fancy and do the service? Why did no one tell us?
None of it seems real as yet, though we're starting to get those signs that our world is changing. We went to sign up at the Harpenden gym this evening and realised that my fiancee's name is about to change. Should she sign up with her useless old non-fish based name which she'll only have for eight more days, or should she become Mrs Herring (which made her feel uncomfortably like my mum). Obviously it made sense to look to the future, but then she had to sign her new name for the first time which came as quite a jolt I think. I mean I assumed she'd been practising that signature for the last four years, ever since she met me, daydreaming of the wonderful day that that would be true. But it turned out she hadn't.
Later I had to turn down a gig because it was on my fiancee's birthday. But as that is some distance in the future she will be my wife by then and so I called her my wife in the email, which again felt strange. I don't know what we've both been thinking we've been organising these last few months, and maybe we have been playing a dangerous game of chicken where neither of us has believed the other is actually going to go through with it. But our lack of mental preparation for this is quite astonishing.
It's just starting to feel like a real thing and it's scary and exciting at the same time. I am glad it's taken her so long to realise what's happening because I think if she had more than eight days to think about it she might come to her senses and back out. But I am only a week away from handcuffing her to me and she will never escape. Ha ha ha.
In bed I realised that her new name is Mrs C Herring and told her that everywhere she went now people would be teasing her, because that sounds like sea Herring. She thought no one would tease her about that. But I said that everyone definitely would. C Herring. Ha ha, what a ridiculous name. But then I am RK Herring, which an imaginative punsmith might see as Arky Herring. I am the Herring that Noah put on his ark, before realising that he probably didn't need to waste his time gathering up fish.
