Lady Cross becomes a critic

I know there's no excuse to leaving my audience of 31 viewers (probably most of them were me) hanging in mid-air just before I got married, so here I am, back on the blog.

I've decided, in my wisdom as a married woman, to have a much more positive blog. Maybe it's the Yoga Hatha I've been doing at the gym, or maybe it's just that I've had a revelation, but all the negative angst about silly customer service must be raising my blood pressure, and that can't be a good thing.

So my new venture for my blog is not to moan, but to critique! I'm not quite sure which is worse, but I will give this a go and see what happens.

I've seen quite a few things for free through this brilliant website called seefilmfirst. You get sent codes to see films and show for free and they have a great range of locations to choose from around the UK.

On Wednesday, we saw Waiting for Godot with Sir Ian McKellan and Matthew Kelly. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much because I didn't want to have high expectations and be disappointed. And believe me, I was not. McKellan is not overbearing, and Kelly is overbearing and a larger than life character - but he's merely playing his role. I've heard bad things about Godot, but I very much enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who can get tickets before its run ends on 4 April. It's on at the Haymarket and after the performances finish in London, it's going on a world tour. Try to catch it before it goes.

That's me for now. Thanks for tuning in, and let me know what you think of my new PMA. I feel relaxed and enlightened already and hope you do too. Here's hoping you can also benefit from free theatre and cinema tickets soon.

So now I'm Cross

It's goodbye Little Lu and a big hello from Lady Cross. So after two and half years of planning and preparation, Little Lu got married to Mr Cross on Saturday 8 August at St Gregory's Church in sunny Stratford upon Avon (yes - we were lucky with the weather, and Alveston Manor hosted a fantastic reception. The guests were charming, the wedding breakfast was delicious, the music was beautiful, the flowers were gorgeous, the cake of cheese and mice bride and groom were delightful, and I am a very lucky lady. Huge thanks to the two families for all their hard work and special mentions should go to the two mothers, my bestest friend and my sister (Big Lu) and brother Lu's girlfriend, Carren.

We went to Santorini for the honeymoon where we gained and maintained lovely tans, ate far too well, went swimming an awful lot, and somehow managed to watch a great deal of English Premiership football. Ah, how nothing changes. You can take the boy out of England, but...

So here is the part where Lu gets Cross. There was me, little Mrs Cross thinking that all the stress and strain of planning a wedding was over and I would arrive home to our lovely new house, to enjoy unwrapping all the John Lewis (JL) gift list presents. How wrong I was. And just how very wrong I was, I could not ever have possibly imagined.

To put it very bluntly, I would honestly say that this was the worst experience I have ever had as a consumer, albeit surprisingly, given their standing as a pillar of British society.

Big Lu had kindly bought us the fridge as our wedding gift and we were looking forward to receiving it, having been fridgeless since we moved into our new abode. The first fridge was dented and the delivery men immediately offered us 25% off. The alarm bells started ringing. We wondered if this was ex-display model or possibly a customer return. Big Lu requested we order collection of el dento and JL could deliver another.

Second time round, even the delivery men commented that the replacement was far worse than the original! They took away both fridges, so again, Mr and Mrs Cross were left sans frigo.

On the third attempt (you might wonder if their advertising slogan should be "third time lucky"), JL managed to cancel the courier who should have delivered our "goodwill gesture" upgraded fridge. The worst of it was that the communication between departments was so poor that they did not know we were still waiting for our fridge, because our order had got mixed up with someone else's. Had I not decided to "phone up and nag", doubtless to say, we would still be fridgeless as I write/moan/sigh.

I was consoled by JL ustomer services that I had been one of the unlucky ones. What a consolation! I would hate to think this is how their best customers are treated. Two goodwill attempts to apologise for the first mistake went wrong - and horribly wrong. I just fail to understand how things can go so wrong, so many times, over what appears to be a simple collection and delivery. And it's a fridge. It's not space science.

But it's just not that simple. It never is. I'm not going to put this down as some cheesy character building exercise, developing my strengths, and all that malarkey, and turning the other cheek. It's an absolute scandal! And Lu-turned-Cross is not going to let this one slide, by any stretch of the imagination.

No, what I will do is go into lawyer-negotiation mode over the compensation. And I've already pre-agreed with JL that I will receive cold hard cash for the anxiety and stress the gift list has inflicted on me. I haven't properly explained every single little detail of how having JL as our gift list provider was probably the worst decision of our lives, but suffice to say that the once sparkling reputation of this store has been flung into the deepest cesspit of that firey underworld in the depths of hell.

Well, I think that will do nicely for now. Next time, Lady Cross will rant about something else, as a "getting this off my chest" exercise. Or possibly reveal more intricate details about the JL saga. It's good for me, and it's good for you too. Mutually beneficial. Plus I'm sure you are dying to know how I manage in taking on JL in the big compensation fight. Let's just say, there will be no prisoners. In the meantime, take care and see you soon.

Final preparations

So, after a long break from blogging, I'm back, just four days before the wedding.

What's been happening in Little Lu world? Well, one big thing is that we have bought a house and moved into it. Our new home is littered with unpacked boxes which contain all our belongings that need to find places to live in. Getting some more furniture might help to put things away! Ah well, messy and bare as it is, it's our home and we hope to be very happy there.

I have to give full credit to our solicitors, Breeze and Wyles who turned around the transaction in just over six weeks, which is some kind of miracle. Special praise should also go to the Hornchurch branch of Beresfords for ironing out a few difficulties. And although I had some customer service issues, HSBC were also committed to completing the transaction just a week before the wedding. And they did resolve all my customer service issues to my satisfaction, although I did have to fight my corner a bit. So now, not only are we homeowners, but also mortgage payers... Ooooh-er...

Back at the House of Lu, family members have been flying in from Hong Kong and Los Angeles to attend the wedding celebrations, to much excitement. My maternal grandparents, one aunt and one little cute cousin and one older cousin are all in situ. I think the older cousin is currently going round Mary Arden's house (Shakespeare's mother). We are awaiting another cousin, the cousin's husband and the cousin's husband's cousin. So LOTS of family. I am very touched and honoured that they are making these special efforts to attend.

I'm just enjoying the build up now to the big day. Everyone says your wedding day will go past in a flash, so I'm trying desperately hard not to wish away the days leading up to it. Besides, it's been fun packing up our things and moving into the house, and doing a very extensive and thorough clean from top to bottom of our new abode.

Mr Cross and I have been engaged nearly two and half years. It's funny how time flies. We've both found jobs that we enjoy and made a great bunch of friends, and grown up together. I'm very immature, but I can be sensible when I need to be, and Mr Cross just seems to enjoy looking after me.

Be warned that once the festivities are over, blog readers will be subjected to many many photos. There will be so many, that you will wish you had never stumbled across my little ramblings.

I promise to try harder with my posts once I'm a married woman. After all, I won't be wedding planning or house buying anymore, so what else will I do with my time?

It's been birthday week for Little Lu. Lots of lovely presents all round and lots of lovely wishes on Facebook and by snail mail too.

We started with drinks and dinner with my fiancé and six friends at the Smithfield Bar and Grill. The service was excellent, the company fantastic and the food, very good indeed. I had calamari for starters, shared a chateaubriand with Mr Cross for mains, and had a lovely warm chocolate dessert with ice cream, with a candle in the middle with everyone singing Happy Birthday.

The next day, we went to see Fugitive Pieces at the Prince Charles cinema in Leicester Square. Reminded me a bit of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which is not how I remembered the book.

Yesterday, the fiancé took me to Le Caprice for dinner and then we went on to the opening night of Cosi Fan Tutte at the London Coliseum (ENO). The only disappointment with Le Caprice, was that the bang bang chicken as a starter tasted like a jar of Sun Pat peanut butter had been emptied over it, but otherwise, it was an excellent meal, and the staff were very attentive. Beware of the 12.5% service charge and cover charges which are automatically included.

Cosi Fan Tutte was excellent, although being Mozart, each line is repeated about four times, because of the symmetry of Mozart's music. Ah well, it was nice to see some familiar names in the orchestra from my Royal College of Music days.

I'm now exhausted after three nights out on the trot. Maybe old age is getting to me, who knows, but I love my sleep and was glad that I didn't need to wake up at 7.10am this morning.

Thanks to everyone for a lovely week, particularly to Mr Cross, kiss kiss.

Little Lu countdown

Well, the clock has started to tick. It's ten weeks on Saturday!

Final preparations have begun, including meeting with our wonderful wedding co-ordinator, Laura to run through all the details. She is lovely and makes everything so easy for us. Plus she is super organised which really helps.

We have been fairly sensible budget wise, and so have managed to squeeze in a few optional extras to make our day complete. Lips sealed for now, but I promise a full run-down once I am Mrs Cross... Watch this space.

A girl at work was selling her gym membership, so I am now a proud member of Soho Gyms. So far I've been to three classes: abs training, yoga and body attack. All of them very hard but good. It's a great gym and the instructors are friendly, helpful and demanding, all for our own good of course.

Other than that, the Lu Crew base in Stratford upon Avon has undergone an overhaul, and looks tip top. Three new bathrooms, re-wiring, all new lighting and brand new carpets throughout. Just a few snagging issues as they say in construction, and it's home. Elder sister Lu is due home in a couple of weeks for an inspection. She's had my report and it was glowing.

Other than that, it's my birthday tomorrow and I'm off with a few friends to the Smithfield Bar and Grill. Two for one cocktails in happy hour and then on to a private room for myself and seven guests. Should be a great time. Thursday is a film in Leicester Square and on Friday, Mr Cross is taking me to Le Caprice for dinner and then on to see the English National Opera performing Cosi Fan Tute at the Coliseum. I think I will be feeling like a bit worn out by the weekend.

Over and out, tune in next time.

Party planning

So it's wedding update time.

What's the latest in the Land of Little Lu when it comes to getting married? Well we've decided to throw a pre-wedding party. This is completely separate from a hen or stag do, and is a good excuse to get people together to have some fun before the wedding. In Chinese weddings, the celebrations go on for days, and I'm trying to incorporate a little bit of my culture into our wedding.

And who needs an excuse for karaoke? Well not me! I love karaoke and all my friends to do, so what better way to celebrate two people getting together?

The only thing is, that people need to be slightly "merry" to overcome their inhibitions and get up and sing. But I've a feeling this won't be a problem.

Other wedding preparation progress includes keeping fit to get in shape for my gorgeous wedding dress. I'm doing the 5K city run in July as a running target and in my lunchtimes, you can find Little Lu running up and down the South bank, looking gormless and tired. I seem to wear a rather blank expression when I run. Must change that.

Well that's enough for now. I'll have more for later. Toodle-pip!

Old chums

It's the facebook phenomenon.

Out of nowhere, you suddenly have 300 friends. And some of those people you weren't particularly bothered about in the first place. Or worse still, you really didn't like them, for one reason or another. With the upcoming wedding, I am suddenly finding that I have a lot of "friends" who had disappeared into the woodwork a long time ago. Now, they're sprouting up from everywhere.

To be honest, people are bad at keeping in touch. We've all taken longer than we should to reply to a text or return a call. Birthdays and other special events are easily forgotten, and it's so easy to send one less Christmas card each year.

And, in all fairness, some people that I've reconnected with have picked up with me as if it was only yesterday that we were last together. And the wedding is a perfect excuse for me to get back in touch. And I've been in touch with lots of people who are delighted, albeit a bit surprised to have been invited.

There's also those who fall into the category of "wanting an invitation and that's why I'm now in the frame". With that category, to invite or not to invite is a close call. It's about trying to remember why we never stayed in touch, or wondering quite why somebody is being super-pally even though you haven't spoken in five years and they did not send you a Christmas card when you picked the best one from the pack for them.

At the bottom of my heart, I would like to have a wedding of a thousand guests, but at the end of the day, I am inviting those that matter to me, those that I want to see me getting married to the best guy I've ever met. And trust me, those people have to be pretty special to make the cut.

So I've whittled it down to 110 or so, plus or minus a few undecideds and all seems well. I'm really looking forward to the big day - just over three months left to go.

Well that's enough Little Lu sharing for today. I've done pretty well keeping to the twice a week regime at blogger.com. See you a few days...