The weekend and my brother's wedding.
So.
- Directions from the RAC website which have a map without any of the needful place names on it and instructions like 'Take Ramp on Left' or 'Turn Right down Road 2.3miles' are really not very helpful. I got us lost. Frankly I'm amazed I only got us lost the once since the level of information given really was like 'turn left, go 3m, turn right, go 0.5m, go down another road I don't fancy giving you a name for, 4m...'
- The Grovsenor Hotel in Shaftsbury where we stayed was really rather swish. (http://www.hotelgrosvenor.com/) My father wouldn't let me pay anything towards my tab for which I'm equally grateful and horrified by.
- Dinner on Friday was a bit of a chore as it was the epitome of all I hate about social situations. (I was tired and scruffy, didn't know anyone there save family, was horribly reminded of how happy and social and shiny my mother used to be, and had generally reached the stage where I was working out how to put table knives down my boot in the hope they'd be sharp enough for GBH, all the while smiling in a wry and decidedly fixed way.) Bleh.
- There is a certain breed of gentleman who will stand whenever a lady approaches, and if she continues to stand he will also remain standing until she either leaves or is seated. These days, these gentleman tend to be at least 85 and really shouldn't have to stand for anyone. Karl (lovely man and old friend of the family) is just such a gentleman. What an utter darling. Also had a very long conversation with him about Saki, Sherlock Holmes, Doc Holliday and Steampunk: he attended in a manner that suggested he was neither bored, exasperated nor concerned for my mental health, so I love him all the more.
- Saturday. Even my father was impressed with my outfit. Apparently many people were asking who the girl in the fabulous 20's get up was, and I got told I looked gorgeous by a lot of people I didn't know. This was a fiction; I didn't look gorgeous, but I did look like I'd just stepped out of an Evelyn Waugh or Agatha Christie novel, so I was happy. The wedding was at the Larmer Tree Gardens (http://larmertree.co.uk/) an amazing place full of peacocks and strange little follies and temples and gloriously odd architecture. My elder sister did a reading and burst into tears, my younger sister sat on the edge of the stage and did an Amy Winehouse style rendition of a song I know but can't tell you the name of. Everyone was happy and bouncy, my brother was beaming and his lady looked like a beneficent Nordic goddess. (Anja may well actually *be* a nordic goddess, she really is amazingly lovely.)
- Saturday evening, there was dancing and larking about. I proved there are an astounding number of songs to which one can dance the Charlseton, if one has a mind to. One of the photographers was rather taken with me, but then I was probably the only girl there without a husband or children, so his options were a little limited. He was quite interested in frolicking in a field; I was pretty sure that wasn't how I envisaged my evening ending even if I was cold and mildly smashed on a lot of champaign. A compromise of sorts was reached whereby I piked his jacket and mostly left him to it. (There were some raised eyebrows in the morning when I announced I'd lost my headband in a field and ought to return a young man's jacket - I think the raised eyebrows were more fun than doing anything would have been.)
- Sunday was a naming ceremony for Dylan - which is rather like a Christening minus any actual religion. I found my headband, returned the jacket and spent a while sitting in a field talking to my cousin Lucy (who I haven't seen since I was twelve) and one of her sons who I'd not met. Lucy looks like a Valkyrie by way of a 60s flower child: willowy, serene, lovely and with long blonde mermaid hair. Her son Lanyon was laid-back, happy and charming and quite at ease talking about whatever came into his head. (Usually I quite like being odd and Corvidic, a little bit dark and stressed at the edges. But when I meet really sunny lovely people I always think how grubby and scrunched and shadowy I must seem and wish I had some sunshine in me.)
- I'm returned, and feeling slightly crippled from running round in high heels all of saturday as I don't ever wear them. Doubtless there will be many photos appearing on facebook in the near future, and if I find any of which I approve I shall put them up. In short, I think it was as near as perfect as can be got for my brother and his lady, and it wasn't too awful for me either =P
- Directions from the RAC website which have a map without any of the needful place names on it and instructions like 'Take Ramp on Left' or 'Turn Right down Road 2.3miles' are really not very helpful. I got us lost. Frankly I'm amazed I only got us lost the once since the level of information given really was like 'turn left, go 3m, turn right, go 0.5m, go down another road I don't fancy giving you a name for, 4m...'
- The Grovsenor Hotel in Shaftsbury where we stayed was really rather swish. (http://www.hotelgrosvenor.com/) My father wouldn't let me pay anything towards my tab for which I'm equally grateful and horrified by.
- Dinner on Friday was a bit of a chore as it was the epitome of all I hate about social situations. (I was tired and scruffy, didn't know anyone there save family, was horribly reminded of how happy and social and shiny my mother used to be, and had generally reached the stage where I was working out how to put table knives down my boot in the hope they'd be sharp enough for GBH, all the while smiling in a wry and decidedly fixed way.) Bleh.
- There is a certain breed of gentleman who will stand whenever a lady approaches, and if she continues to stand he will also remain standing until she either leaves or is seated. These days, these gentleman tend to be at least 85 and really shouldn't have to stand for anyone. Karl (lovely man and old friend of the family) is just such a gentleman. What an utter darling. Also had a very long conversation with him about Saki, Sherlock Holmes, Doc Holliday and Steampunk: he attended in a manner that suggested he was neither bored, exasperated nor concerned for my mental health, so I love him all the more.
- Saturday. Even my father was impressed with my outfit. Apparently many people were asking who the girl in the fabulous 20's get up was, and I got told I looked gorgeous by a lot of people I didn't know. This was a fiction; I didn't look gorgeous, but I did look like I'd just stepped out of an Evelyn Waugh or Agatha Christie novel, so I was happy. The wedding was at the Larmer Tree Gardens (http://larmertree.co.uk/) an amazing place full of peacocks and strange little follies and temples and gloriously odd architecture. My elder sister did a reading and burst into tears, my younger sister sat on the edge of the stage and did an Amy Winehouse style rendition of a song I know but can't tell you the name of. Everyone was happy and bouncy, my brother was beaming and his lady looked like a beneficent Nordic goddess. (Anja may well actually *be* a nordic goddess, she really is amazingly lovely.)
- Saturday evening, there was dancing and larking about. I proved there are an astounding number of songs to which one can dance the Charlseton, if one has a mind to. One of the photographers was rather taken with me, but then I was probably the only girl there without a husband or children, so his options were a little limited. He was quite interested in frolicking in a field; I was pretty sure that wasn't how I envisaged my evening ending even if I was cold and mildly smashed on a lot of champaign. A compromise of sorts was reached whereby I piked his jacket and mostly left him to it. (There were some raised eyebrows in the morning when I announced I'd lost my headband in a field and ought to return a young man's jacket - I think the raised eyebrows were more fun than doing anything would have been.)
- Sunday was a naming ceremony for Dylan - which is rather like a Christening minus any actual religion. I found my headband, returned the jacket and spent a while sitting in a field talking to my cousin Lucy (who I haven't seen since I was twelve) and one of her sons who I'd not met. Lucy looks like a Valkyrie by way of a 60s flower child: willowy, serene, lovely and with long blonde mermaid hair. Her son Lanyon was laid-back, happy and charming and quite at ease talking about whatever came into his head. (Usually I quite like being odd and Corvidic, a little bit dark and stressed at the edges. But when I meet really sunny lovely people I always think how grubby and scrunched and shadowy I must seem and wish I had some sunshine in me.)
- I'm returned, and feeling slightly crippled from running round in high heels all of saturday as I don't ever wear them. Doubtless there will be many photos appearing on facebook in the near future, and if I find any of which I approve I shall put them up. In short, I think it was as near as perfect as can be got for my brother and his lady, and it wasn't too awful for me either =P