Rain, rain go away, come again another day

So it completely passed me by that the thunder and rain that has kept me awake for the past two nights has been a freak storm that caused the cancellation of 300 NYC flights yesterday. My American friend A is understandably perturbed as I fly (hopefully) out of Newark tomorrow to attend her wedding in London. Being English, to me rain is rain is rain - it really hadn't occured to me that it was a special, aeroplane-grounding kind of rain. It just goes to show how isolated from external events one can become in the middle of a big city.

I splish splashed my way through the puddles to meet my personal strength trainer at the torture chamber this morning - I am now lifting 120lbs and making small grunting noises rather like my sister's dachshund - and on the way back braved the tourist hoardes at Bloomingdales to buy vast quantities of beauty products (Prevage, Kiehl's, Murad, Stri-Vectin) for all my girlfriends. I also bought a pretty silk tunic for the wedding rehearsal dinner in Zara - 30% cheaper than in Europe.

Unfortunately I (and I suspect all of A's English girlfriends) had failed to realise that we were expected to wear glamorous eveningwear to the wedding. A very unusual dress code for a wedding in England where it's more usual to wear smart day wear with a jacket & hat for the ceremony, even to late afternoon weddings. (It's actually illegal to get married after 6pm in England). I am even more perturbed by the fact that she said floor length sounded great. Now I am impaled on the horns of a dilemma - do I doll myself up for A (not very English, dahling) or dress to fit in with the other female guests...