To Yorkshire (Kilham area) for Chris and Sally's wedding. And a good time, too. Though I was a bit tired from socialisation by the end of things, and rather happy to be back home leaning against the sofa with my laptop, and M behind me still reading the cycling blogs - she has become a fanboi. Or fangrl I suppose.We drove up on friday night, and arrived rather late - past 11 - at Wold Cottage just outside Wold Newton. Which is in the Yorkshire Wolds, I think, shock horror. Not too far away from Bridlington, and Flamborough, and Filey. WC, as you'd expect, completely belies its name and is a fairly large place, an ex Edwardian gentleman's dwelling now renovated, and a very pleasant place it is too. Chris had arranged for all the visitors to stay there and was footing the bill. When we got there Annie was still up, and Michael (aka Mick, Chris's eldest, currently in Y2 at Catz and trying to work out whether he is studying cricket or chemisty), and a guy who I didn't know but who turned out to be James who was from the ex-Roland's side of the family, so to speak.
The pix are all on Flickr, or will be.
We did a small amount of pretending to talk to people we didn't already know but gave it up fairly quickly. We're really bad like that, but I've given up trying to improve. Though I will now fairly happily talk back to people I don't know, if they want to talk to me. As long as they don't talk about traffic or other such nonsense.
Anyway, to bed, via marvelling at the enormous size of the bathroom - Miranda was dead impressed, but we really must teach her taste some time. The bedroom was big enough to take two floor beds for D and for E - we'd brought sleeping bags, thinking they would be necessary, but they weren't, although D for reasons of his own chose to sleep on the floor anyway. As to the place: pretty good actually, nice house, lovely grounds (especially the west facing terrace and lawn and fountain, on the lovely calm sunset day we had; and the east-facing entrance porch with sunlight was good too) and the owners were friendly etc. Take all that as read, note a few minor fiddles, but the major problem was that they didn't bring the breakfast coffee until after the cooked food.
Next morning's breakfast was indeed splendid - they boast of it - and then M and then I went for a run. Hers about 4-5k, mine 16k - it would have been longer but I slightly broke myself on friday evening running fast, and didn't want to cripple myself before Amsterdam. Very hot, and the actual real hills slowed me down somewhat. But its fun to run somewhere new. Would have been about another 4 k to get to the sea. Back, bath, then its time to Dress for the wedding - I've brought my suit, M something formal, D his school uniform, E one of her cute dresses. I wear the suit so rarely now that I don't really mind and - whisper it - almost enjoy dressing up.
A few miles down the road to Kilham church, where it appears that a large section of the village has turned out to see Sally in a dress - apparently she doesn't do that usually. I vaguely remember the church, from when? Possibly Georgina's baptism - she is now 14 ish. And, there was a service, in the usual way of these things. Nothing exciting, the reading was the familiar "love endures all things", there was one quick photo taken afterwards, then the bride and groom went off in a cute old Morris Minor 1000 - much like you'd see at any wedding. The difference this time was that this was actually one of Chris's cars - he buts them as near-scrap and restores them; this one was immaculate, but also slow: despite giving him a good head start we nearly caught them up on the way back.An image: the road ahead, dipping down in the sun, and then climbing up again into the shade of woods. And their car, alone on the road, in the sunlight. Heading off alone together. Lovely, but I'm afraid I didn't do what I should have done which is: braked to a sudden halt and rushed out with the camera.
And so back to Wold Cottage for an afternoon shading into the evening of drinking things (in abundance, though it was a very hot afternoon and they could have done with pitchers of iced water outside), eating things (very good, too much indeed to do justice too, I don't think we managed to touch the cheese course at all), watching the children on the bouncy castle, playing connect4 (I was fairly good until I got drunk) and talking to people. A traditional cake-cutting, and a speech from Chris so short I missed it (I think it was "thank you for coming"). There was no music and no dancing, which was to Chris's (and I presume Sally's) tastes, and to mine too.
Next morning... M woke up for a run before 8; I decided to give myself a break due to my injury. A better breakfast this morning because I got there before the children and knew to order a coffee first, so got to read over it.Croquet on the lawn, donchaknow Carruthers, though the "speed croquet" quickly degenerated into violence, mostly instigated by Toby I think. Lunch was chez Chris, so we packed off and went for a quick trip to the seaside at Filey (next time make sure you know where the car parks are). BBQ at Chris, first sight of his house though he has lived there for many a year, and a tour of his extensive workshop where he spends his evenings instead of wasting them online :-)
The backstory
As I recall it...Chris was a bit wild when young... ahem. The text that was here was from the LiveJournal blog and was non-public. So, I've removed it from here; it's in my gmail, should I ever want it.