Christening time!

No, the title of this post does not mean what you think it does - I did only get married four weeks ago, for heaven's sake! I am in fact referring to the fact that although Julie (my memsahib) set up the blog for me several months ago I have had neither the time to write anything interesting nor anything interesting to write about that could not be more succinctly dealt with via a tweet! But now I have embarked on a new stage of my existence and so forth, all this must change! So I am now christening my blog with my first ever post! Hurrah!

So, the wedding! In the run up I was given the same piece of advice by various different people, which was to savour the moment and take some time to soak it all in. All very well, thought I, but I was not quite sure how to go about this unless someone had taken the trouble to buy us some sort of "time freezing device" as a wedding present (and we did not end up including one on our John Lewis list, not if to do so involved cutting out the "banana guard" or the "pass the pigs" game!) But once the day came around I completely understood what they were somewhat cackhandedly trying to say. It really does go quickly, and after all the time and hard work taken to get to that point, it is over before you know it! Having said that, we had the time of our lives, it was every bit as spectacularly happy for us as the photographs demonstrate, and I think I can speak for both of us in saying that we savoured every moment! 

What was perhaps more surprising, with the exception of a couple of mildly nerve wracking seconds before I got up to do my speech, I actually felt remarkably relaxed from the moment I arrived at the church onwards.  Beforehand my state of mind was perhaps a wee bit anxious, as is evidenced by the fact that I genuinely thought that our taxi driver had made the mistake of dropping us off at Paul's bakery rather than St Paul's Church, before remembering that a) the two are right next door to each other, and b) the chances of him being enough of a gourmand to be able to mistake a patisserie for a place of worship were pretty slim! But as soon as I got there, everything seemed to slot into place (except my boutonniere, which clearly thought that it was the star of the occasion, and repeatedly "went rogue" throughout!) 

That is not to say that the day was not without a few tiny hiccups. There was a tiny issue with the text of one of the readings not being where it was supposed to be, although it was delivered beautifully by Julie's Aunt Caroline when Rev Simon managed to locate a copy of the appropriate passage. My uncle Alan also gave a very fine reading from the Bible, and then my dad did a sonnet. I remember hearing a loud "HUP" from behind me when he stood up to deliver the reading only to discover that his trousers had different ideas and were on the point of parting company with his midriff altogether. This was followed by a few seconds of frantic adjustment which I am sure the congregation enjoyed almost as much as the reading itself, which was brilliantly performed in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Simon Russell-Beale (my mum, who had been fearing the emergence of his inner Brian Blessed, was rather relieved, I am told!) 

Other than that, and the taxi not arriving to take us to the reception, and accidentally poisoning one of the guests (he'll be fine...he's used to it!) everything went swimmingly. Julie actually turned up early, so eager was she to become my wife (tis crazy she is!), and Rev Simon was practically having to grab on to the back of her dress to keep her from running down the aisle. This meant that everything remained on schedule (if not early) throughout, which I suspect is something of a first! I am not proposing to dwell on the rest of the day in any depth, as I will let the photographs, which will be on facebook very shortly, speak for themselves. But it was everything we had hoped for and more (and we still have leftover cake, which I would describe as being "the icing on the cake" except for the fact that it is, itself, a cake!)

The next morning we were up bright and early (well...early) at 5:45ish, bidding a somewhat regretful farewell to One Aldwych where we had spent the wedding night living like royalty (only without the corgis or the extra marital affairs, obviously!) We had been upgraded to a suite that was about twice the size of our flat...it included a gym and a TV in the bathroom, meaning that I could watch Carry on Doctor whilst answering the call of nature, which I thought was oddly apposite! I think there is defnitely a case for taking Julie's dress everywhere we go from now on to see how long we can pull off posing as a "wedding couple". 

The adrenalin saw us through, though, and we were only a tiny bit bleary eyed by the time we arrived at Gatwick. Being a honeymoon couple, I thought that we were perfectly justified in informing the gloriously camp Matt Lucas lookalike who greeted us at the departures desk of the fact, and asking him what upgrades were available. His response was somewhat less friendly than his original greeting had been. "For thirty pounds extra you can sit by an emergency exit...is there something in your eye, sir?" So no honeymoon freebies for us, then, but it had been worth a try! 

Virgin's in-flight entertainment was somewhat disappointing, although I did get to watch "Rise of the Apes" (very good, although it lacks some of the charm of the original film where the apes wore monkey suits instead of being dealt with by boring old CGI - still, it was better than the Tim Burton version with its very silly "Abraham Lincoln was a chimpanzee" twist!), "Friends with Benefits" (actually very funny...who would have thought Justin Timberlake could do anything which didn't make me want to kick him in the privates), and "Captain America: The First Avenger" (I have to be careful as I know someone who was in this, so I will put this as tactfully as I can. It was a festering dog turd of a movie. It did at least allow me to catch up on some much needed sleep though!)

We arrived in St Lucia at about 2pm local time and were driven to the resort in a small van, only to be caught up in an election rally en route. The enthusiasm with which St Lucia's elections are conducted is impressive and definitely something we Brits could learn from. They even make up songs, both about the electoral process in general (particular highlights of mine included "Who you votin' for?" and the more straightforward "Vote! Vote! Vote" - 37 verses, all the same), but also for specific political candidates (can you imagine anyone composing a paean to Philip Hammond, or writing a song about Ed Balls without it getting childishly smutty?) 

Rendezvous, St Lucia, is a gorgeous all-inclusive resort just south of Castries, the main city on the island with two pools, lots of beach, and more cocktails than we could shake a stick at! It has been something of a burden to me going back to work now I am back in the UK and not having anyone to hand who can rustle me up a "Pink Scorpion" or a "Pussy Foot" at a moment's notice (you just can't get the trainees, these days!) The staff were extremely friendly, even though they did get a bit overcontrolling when accompanying us and several other couples on the "romantic couple's walk" during the second week. "Now you must whisper sweet nothings in her ear! OI! I said SWEET NOTHINGS, YOU MAGGOT! That wasn't nothing and it was definitely not sweet!" (it is just possible that I may be exaggerating slightly for comic effect here!)

There was a lot to do on the resort, not all of which involved eating and drinking, and during the fortnight we tried our hand at everything from archery (at which Julie outstripped me so effortlessly that I was reminded of nothing so much as "Maid Marian and Her Merry Men" - if you are old enough to remember that show, it makes you a proper grown up!), to windsurfing (which I was actually quite good at until my contact lens fell out...fortunately our instructor had got bored of us by then anyway and gone off on a frolic of his own, leaving us poor newbies bobbing around in our lifejackets while he surfed off towards the distant horizon, harnessing the winds (like Poseidon) and yelling "YEAH MON!" (less like Poseidon). Sailing was also good fun, but waterskiing I never got the hang of (although it did mean I got to catch up on my swimming!) There was also "water tubing", which consisted of sitting on rubber rings while being pulled along by a speedboat. I looked and felt a bit like a drowned rat afterwards, but it was highly exhilarating at the time. 

Our fellow guests at the resort were an interesting mix of people. I have never seen so many middle aged people with tattoos in one place in my life - it got to the stage that I was wondering whether there was a tattoo parlour on site, or whether there was some sort of "Get married at the resort and we'll thrown in a chavvy tattoo for free!" special package deal going on. I remember vividly our second dinner at the resort was interrupted when a booze addled Scotsman staggered up and put his arm around Julie. "Have I seen you before somewhere!" he burped, looking at me blearily. When she had recovered from the alcoholic fumes that had been breathed into her face, Julie of course responded that of course he would recognise me because I am that well known star of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". This rather surprised our new acquaintance, who we thereafter nicknamed "Rab C Pervert". I get the impression that he had not expected his spurious excuse for coming over to grope Julie to lead to an unexpected encounter with a film star! 

We also particularly enjoyed the sugar to rum tour (although I don't remember too much about that one...I do know we followed it up with a trip to Marigo Bay, which was where scenes from "Pirates of the Caribbean" were filmed, but oddly enough they seemed more proud of the fact that it had also played host to "Dr Dolittle" with Eddie Murphy (I would have thought that they would have wanted to keep quiet about that one, but there we go!) We also had a private romantic cruise on a speedboat where we got to see much of the rest of the island as the sun set, which was incredibly magical. Another particular highlight for me was the snorkelling near the Pitons (two big volcanoes on the island), where we got to see a dazzling array of sealife, even though we missed out on the seahorse (our guide did point one out, but I think it got scared off when Rab C Pervert hove into view, certainly the felonious Scot had come out in a rash by the time he got back on the boat...I dread to think what he had been up to down there!)

On the final day, we decided to take a helicopter ride back to the airport. It was something neither of us had done before, and electioneering was in full swing by that stage, so we thought that it would be worth avoiding the roads. The helicopter was very small, and I was not quite sure when it arrived how it was going to squeeze us all on (there were two other couples taking it beside ourselves) but I think it must have been constructed by the makers of the Tardis as there was room for all. Having said that, I was a little apprehensive when I realised that I would be sitting next to the driver (making me by default the second line of defence against plunging to our doom if something happened to him), and therefore I was somewhat relieved to see that he was not an 87 year old with a heart condition but a cheerful and healthy looking chap from Birmingham who looked like he had a better than average chance of surviving the 15 minute flight. 

More ominous was the fact that the gravelly voiced fellow giving him instructions from the ground sounded uncannily like one of the villains from "Live and Let Die" (up there, I am not sure even Roger Moore could have saved us!) Julie is not a comfortable flyer, so I was surprised how calm she seemed about the whole "flying by helicopter" thing, but her judgment was vindicated as the flight turned out to be a lot smoother and less frightening than a flight on a small plane (or even a large plane) would have been. I would highly recommend it to anyone (the stunning Caribbean vistas were also a plus, of course).

That's enough for a first post I think. I shall endeavour to do a further post by the end of the year, which I promise will NOT be called "Blogging around the Christmas Tree" or anything similarly excruciating!