Tales From a Hen Weekend Read Online Free
Author: Olivia Ryan
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary Women
weekend!’ he added.
‘You knew we were going to go to Dublin! I always promised Jude we’d have the hen weekend in Ireland!’
‘So you’re doing what you want, and I’m doing what I want! What’s the problem?’
‘The problem is,’ I said, spitting the words out through my teeth, ‘that you’re spending a jolly ten days not earning anything, while I’m at work bloody paying for it!’
And the problem is that I’m still furious about it. I’m so furious, it’s eating away at me, and whenever he talks about Prague I feel like chucking something at him.
Really auspicious start to a lifetime of happiness, eh?
I know, I know – we shouldn’t really have spent so much money on the honeymoon. We let the travel agent talk us into it. We went into the shop with the idea of a week in Spain or the Canaries, and came out with a booking for two weeks in the Caribbean. Well, it was the pictures of the white sand, the palm trees, the clear blue sea… it looked perfect . At the time, we were much more entranced with the idea of jetting off together as husband and wife on our perfect honeymoon than we were about the wedding itself. We’d had this naïve idea that perhaps we could just book our local church on a quiet day when the vicar could fit us in, turn up with our immediate family and half a dozen friends, do the business, retire to the pub for a bar meal and a few rounds of drinks, and it’d be a done deal.
And now look at us: not much more than a handful of loose change and two steadily growing credit card bills between us, a two-week luxury honeymoon booked in the Dominican Republic, a ten-day stag holiday in Prague for the bridegroom which probably won’t be worth the money because all those going will be pissed every night and hung over every morning, and a long weekend in Dublin for the bride, which I might be too miserable to enjoy.
‘To be honest,’ says Emily, ‘the break from each other will probably do you both good.’
‘Do you think so? Matt and I have never thought in terms of having a break from each other. We’ve always thought it was bad enough being apart every day when we’re at work.’
‘Yuck!’ laughs Emily. ‘Your problem, Katie Halliday, is you’re just too bloody romantic by half!’
Well, I’m sorry, but it’s my job, you see.
I haven’t told you about my job, have I? I read, and sell, romantic novels for a living. Nice one, eh?
I’ve got a pretty good idea what a relationship is supposed to be like. It’s supposed to be all about long, lingering looks, and kissing in the moonlight, and making love on rugs in front of crackling log fires. We’ve done a bit of all those. We like romance. But nowhere, in these books I read every day, is there any mention of the guy booking a ten-day piss-up in Prague and telling the girl it’s none of her business. There’s never anything about the girl calling him a selfish inconsiderate pig, or the bloke saying she’s getting more like his mother every day.
I just wanted it to be like it is in the books. That’s not so very terrible, is it?
ABOUT MARGIE
I’m at Mum’s today, and she’s driving me round the bend. My mum married my dad in 1972 and divorced him in 1980. Considering how few years it lasted, it’s strange how she’s now holding her marriage up as a shining example of how things ought to be done.
‘People didn’t used to live together before they got married,’ she announces as she hands me a mug of tea. ‘Our parents would never have allowed it.’
‘That’s not strictly true, Marge,’ pipes up Auntie Joyce, who’s been sitting quietly in the corner reading the paper. ‘I moved in with Ron before the wedding.’
I’ve got a lot of time for Auntie Joyce. She often does this – very quietly, without any fuss, puts Mum right and knocks her off her high horse.
‘Yes, well,’ huffs Mum, ‘it was all very well for you .’
This, too, is a well-worn theme. Joyce is twelve years
‘You knew we were going to go to Dublin! I always promised Jude we’d have the hen weekend in Ireland!’
‘So you’re doing what you want, and I’m doing what I want! What’s the problem?’
‘The problem is,’ I said, spitting the words out through my teeth, ‘that you’re spending a jolly ten days not earning anything, while I’m at work bloody paying for it!’
And the problem is that I’m still furious about it. I’m so furious, it’s eating away at me, and whenever he talks about Prague I feel like chucking something at him.
Really auspicious start to a lifetime of happiness, eh?
I know, I know – we shouldn’t really have spent so much money on the honeymoon. We let the travel agent talk us into it. We went into the shop with the idea of a week in Spain or the Canaries, and came out with a booking for two weeks in the Caribbean. Well, it was the pictures of the white sand, the palm trees, the clear blue sea… it looked perfect . At the time, we were much more entranced with the idea of jetting off together as husband and wife on our perfect honeymoon than we were about the wedding itself. We’d had this naïve idea that perhaps we could just book our local church on a quiet day when the vicar could fit us in, turn up with our immediate family and half a dozen friends, do the business, retire to the pub for a bar meal and a few rounds of drinks, and it’d be a done deal.
And now look at us: not much more than a handful of loose change and two steadily growing credit card bills between us, a two-week luxury honeymoon booked in the Dominican Republic, a ten-day stag holiday in Prague for the bridegroom which probably won’t be worth the money because all those going will be pissed every night and hung over every morning, and a long weekend in Dublin for the bride, which I might be too miserable to enjoy.
‘To be honest,’ says Emily, ‘the break from each other will probably do you both good.’
‘Do you think so? Matt and I have never thought in terms of having a break from each other. We’ve always thought it was bad enough being apart every day when we’re at work.’
‘Yuck!’ laughs Emily. ‘Your problem, Katie Halliday, is you’re just too bloody romantic by half!’
Well, I’m sorry, but it’s my job, you see.
I haven’t told you about my job, have I? I read, and sell, romantic novels for a living. Nice one, eh?
I’ve got a pretty good idea what a relationship is supposed to be like. It’s supposed to be all about long, lingering looks, and kissing in the moonlight, and making love on rugs in front of crackling log fires. We’ve done a bit of all those. We like romance. But nowhere, in these books I read every day, is there any mention of the guy booking a ten-day piss-up in Prague and telling the girl it’s none of her business. There’s never anything about the girl calling him a selfish inconsiderate pig, or the bloke saying she’s getting more like his mother every day.
I just wanted it to be like it is in the books. That’s not so very terrible, is it?
ABOUT MARGIE
I’m at Mum’s today, and she’s driving me round the bend. My mum married my dad in 1972 and divorced him in 1980. Considering how few years it lasted, it’s strange how she’s now holding her marriage up as a shining example of how things ought to be done.
‘People didn’t used to live together before they got married,’ she announces as she hands me a mug of tea. ‘Our parents would never have allowed it.’
‘That’s not strictly true, Marge,’ pipes up Auntie Joyce, who’s been sitting quietly in the corner reading the paper. ‘I moved in with Ron before the wedding.’
I’ve got a lot of time for Auntie Joyce. She often does this – very quietly, without any fuss, puts Mum right and knocks her off her high horse.
‘Yes, well,’ huffs Mum, ‘it was all very well for you .’
This, too, is a well-worn theme. Joyce is twelve years
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