Yes, so, finally, the famous stag night. (Part, The First.)
Well, the preparations for it actually weren't that difficult and, despite a bit of gratuitous pressure from my brother (yes, Bob, you know it's true!) being Best Man was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. So far, anyway. Still the wedding itself to go. Of course, I think I was pretty lucky and the existence of the internet, Goddess bless it, made a few things a lot easier. Anyway, the night itself.
Actually, we started at 10.00am on the day, me, Bob and my cousin Tommy who had stayed at Bob's the night before. We had gone out the previous night but I don't want to get into that because for some reason I was just really tired and not up for it at all and ended up having a pretty early one while Bob and Tommy stayed up and drank whisky and took photos. (More on that later.) So anyway, we had breakfast which I paid for, getting an early start, and then shopped for really flashy trainers. Bob wanted a Sacha Baron Cohen theme for the event and we had previously hired Ali G costumes and wanted the trainers to go with them. That done, we went back to the house to meet up with a pal of Bob's (Dave) before the next event.
1pm, the Cain's brewery tour. Having dropped off our costumes at the pub to change in to later, we headed off to get the day's drinking off to a good start. My brother in law and his sons had manifested a reliability failure so it was just the four of us to grab a quick pint and then be guided around the brewery. We had this old geezer as a guide who was pretty cool and his version of the history of the place was fairly entertaining. However the mechanics of the process weren't too magical (wheat, malt and hops comes in one end, beer comes out the other) but fortunately the whole thing was only an hour long so pretty soon we were back to the drinking.
My sister's husband (Richard) and my elder nephew (Jack) had showed up by then so we had a couple of pints each and a (very) light lunch, which were included in the tour. I thoroughly recommend the pub associated with the brewery, by the way, prices are reasonable and the beer quality is excellent. Dave had to run a costume related errand and Richard offered to give him a lift so, while we waited, we rounded off the drinks with a couple more beers. Then it was off to Formby for round three.
Approximately 4pm. While we were in the pub, the weather was very hot and bright but when we decided to shift outside it (typically) clouded over and started to rain. While it was nice however, we were commenting on how good it would be to have a swim. This fitted in with my brothers plans precisely. We had been talking about this and enthusiasm was not at it's highest. Still, into taxis and cars we got and off to Formby beach we went. On the thirty minute journey up, a miracle occurred. The weather became really nice. By the time we got there it was gorgeous and there were no more excuses.
For those of you not intimately acquainted with the urban art scene, Anthony Gormley, the designer of the Angel of the North, has set up a row of life size, mannequin like statues, below the high tide line, facing out to sea, at Formby beach, west of Liverpool. So, after publicly en-nakeding our selves, dressed in fluorescent, lime-green mankinis, we waded out to the closest statue, dressed it in a similar fashion and posed for photos and mpegs. (Links are not safe for work or sanity. You have been warned.) Oh, the shame/pride of it!