Mahinda’s Little World

I really must apologise for not doing much blogging recently. I’ve had other, more pressing, things with which to occupy myself.

This weekend, for example. Ian’s wedding. Nancy’s too, but I definitely count as one of the groom’s party. I had the honour of being one of Ian’s two best men - the other, Marc, is a friend from his time in Southampton.

It all started inauspiciously though…

Thursday

A work social, to Samsi Express for cheap Japanese food. It would have been a pretty good feed for the standard £15, never mind the £7.50 that I paid:

• Miso soup
• Soy beans
• Japanese street snacks (little fried things, basically)
• Sushi
• Seafood sukiyaki (soupy noodles)
• Random dessert (apple and strange-but-tasty green things)

The sushi course was the most interesting, as it was make-your-own. You got your seaweed and filled it with sushi rice, ginger, wasabi and your choice of filling. Fillings included mackerel, tuna, salmon, prawns and scallops. It was very nice, and I suppose the make-your-own aspect keeps the cost down.

We ended up going to Fab Café for a nightcap…or glass of Coke in my case, as I was driving.

Now, I’d been feeling rough all day, and it was getting worse. Various colds have been doing the rounds, and I’d caught one of them. My cunning plan was to get home early, do some work on the best men’s speech, then go to bed.

I did get home early, but went straight to bed. I turned out to be slightly feverish, which led to me having a long string of uneasy "wedding nervousness" dreams. Not exactly my job to worry, really, but the fever did it!

The best of the lot was the one where I was speaking to Marc (t’other best man) in the church, just before the ceremony was to take place, when we realised that Ian wasn’t with us any more - I turned round to see him actually RUNNING out of the church!

The others included the usual "bride not turning up" and, more understandably, "best men’s speech getting no laughter at all".

Friday

So, I woke up, feeling a bit groggy, treated myself to some serious Lemsip, packed my bags, and drove down to Tom and Amy’s place in Sandbach.

Amy, as sister of the bride, was doing a reading, so they needed to be at the 6.30pm wedding rehearsal as well. I was very grateful of the lift down south, as it’d give me more time on The Speech.

As they’d have lots of luggage, and an extra passenger on the way back (and me, of course), Tom and Amy had hired a car for the weekend. They were rather hopeful of a Honda Accord, which is what the hire company claimed as their default for that class…so they were a bit miffed to get an MG ZT, which is basically a spruced-up Rover 75.

It did drive nicely, though, and was comfortable enough. The more time we spent in the car, though, the more little problems we found. Like the CD player only operating through the speakers on one side of the car…the radio was fine, but wouldn’t retune stations when drifting out of range…general build quality was naff…and so on. The "satnav" in particular was something rather special - rather than a dreary conventional map-screen, you get one button. Just one button. You press it, and the car phones someone (presumably in either Scotland or Bangalore), who asks you about your journey. Blokey then gets a route and sends it back to the car, which then tells you to do stuff every so often.

Needless to say, we didn’t try this feature.

Anyway, the wedding stuff.

We got to Portsmouth well before 5pm, eventually found Tom and Amy’s hotel (I was crashing at Ian’s place for the night), and checked in. Dave had, true to form, arrived already, with Kate (his girlfriend) in tow. Amy went for a lie-down, while I took Tom, Dave and Kate to an absolutely lovely pub I’d found (with the aid of the Good Beer Guide) the last time I’d been in Portsmouth.

The Hole in the Wall - an absolutely cracking pub, which had gotten a full-page write-up in What’s Brewing? last year. Sorted!

It’s a proper back-street boozer, full of dark wood (and a designated "Grumpy Old Men" bench), with very fine ales, a tiny snug, and a real fire.

Unfortunately, Tom and I had a wedding rehearsal at 6.30pm, so we satisfied ourselves with two halves each. We left Dave and Kate to their own devices and headed over to the church (St. Jude’s, Southsea - pretty impressive for a church website!).

There we found Ian and the rest - Nancy, both sets of family, plus various others such as ushers, a bridesmaid and, of course, the curate. Ecclesiastical positions not exactly being my forté, I’ll refer to her as Leslie (which may be doing her a great disservice if she’s actually a Lesley).

Now, I’ve been to plenty of weddings, but I’d never been anything official before. I suppose it doesn’t really happen often - while girls may be bridesmaids a few times, blokes tend not to be ushers or best men very often. But I digress.

I’d not seen the family Lewis for years - about three in the case of Ruth (Ian’s mother), but I’d not seen Michael (his father) or Caroline (sister) since the mid-90s. They really haven’t changed much, apart from the fact that my perspective has changed to that of an adult talking to adults rather than a fairly sheepish child talking to a friend’s parents.

Anyway, the rehearsal went pretty smoothly (Marc, t’other best man, arrived shortly, accompanied by Shadi, his girlfriend), and then it was off to Rosie’s Vineyard for what turned out to be a rather nice meal – just the groom’s party, i.e. immediate family, Marc, Shadi and me. Sort of a “saying goodbye” to the single Ian. The Prestons were doing the same for Nancy, somewhere else.

It’s the sort of place that has only a small menu, but full of dishes that you’d really want to eat. Highly tasty…and nothing at all like the Rosie’s in Chester.

After that, Ian and I bade adieu to the various parents, before walking back to Nancy’s flat, picking up her car (and some stuff), then driving back to his place in Southampton for the night.

Drank some water and settled down with his housemates (plus Lisa) to watch The Longest Yard. Not exactly intellectual, but fun enough. Had some sparkling cava that the housemates had got to celebrate Ian’s big day. I spent an hour in the living room writing cue cards and generally trying to sort out The Speech, then crashed on Ian’s floor.