Arrival...

Well I'm sat here now in Bari, but I I feel like I could just as easily be sat at the top of a rollercoaster ready to plunge down the slope at top speed. I can't believe it's just one week tomorrow.. .the time seems to be going so sooo fast.

We arrived two days ago after a monster jouney from Trento (12 hours in 35° heat, 1150 km and 2 mega wrong turns) with my two lovely little future nephews stuck in the back of our overloaded car. It should have been a nightmare but it was o.k. really.

We arrived in the middle of the night at Laura's house where her Australian cousins and their 3 children were sleeping. We crept in to the house... dropped a couple of things into Laura's room went back out to the car and started playfighting. We heard someone creeping around in the house so we went back in to see who it was. It was the littlest, Ellie and her Mum, Janine, but one by one they all woke up as they (and we) were so excited about seeing us again that they couldn't sleep. The last time we all saw each other was in Melbourne when we were saying goodbye to Laura who was leaving Oz to return to Italy, not long after Me and her had met. Neeedless to say, we stayed up till about 4 in the morning chatting, chatting, chatting.... It was a really lovely reunion, though I think the kids must have been exhasted the following morning!!!!

The preparations for the big day are all going extremely well…. so well in fact believe that it can't all be a coincidence. Someone or something is guiding us… really, it’s all just so wonderfully falling into place.I feel so lucky.

Yesterday for example we went to meet the musicians who are playing at the church (remember: the ones I was really unsure about at the beginning, shame that I just don’t on me!) We went to where they live, in a truly beautiful trullo house, with vines loaded with grapes, and flowers creeping all over the Terracotta veranda tiles.

To cut a long story short, they are incredibly kind, interesting and talented people. We were only supposed to talk for 20 minutes or so about the wedding ceremony, but ended up getting on so well that we chatted for ages and made the violin player, Leo, late for his job at the Bari Symphony Orchestra.

We then met one of the members of an an association that runs the B&Bs where a few of our mates are staying near Monopoli (Jules², Beth and Francesco e Alberto.) The association works to promote sustainable tourism in the South of Italy with a real emphasis on helping people to see the real beauty of the south, its fantastic friendly people, wonderful countryside and beaches with the minimum of environmental impact. They also try to provide a really authentic Southern experience, none of them tourist brochure hotels here!!! Anyway as it turned out he was also a really great, friendly guy, whoe gave us a heap of great ideas on places to go, things to see, restaurants and Trattorias to eat, beaches to snorkel etc etc…. really lovely and DEAD useful.

To finish I just want to say that at the moment I’m feeling really emotional. I keep on getting moments where tears of happiness flow down my cheeks. I’m so struck by the momentousness of what I and Laura are about to do. I’m full of trepidation and excitement for the coming days. I’m having thoughts of thanks to all of you, my friends and family for helping me to be the person I am and particularly for my beautiful mum. I am so, so looking forward to seeing you all here and sharing these wonderful moments with you all.

Until next Thursday…?

Seth.