John and Suzanne's wedding

So I got back into the country saturday evening, after a hassle free passage through security at the airport in Tel Aviv and a fairly nice flight, though it was delayed a little due to the thunder storms in London. Chris came and picked me up and I stayed the night at his house, he is a super star. Set off just after 0800 from hemel to Liverpool for my friends wedding, stopped for some fuel and picked up three polish students who were hitching their way to some hippy festival in Yorkshire. Dropped them off at watford gap where I found another hitch hiker looking for a lift to the M6, so I took him onwards. Finally I reached Liverpool and that is when the location problems began, suddenly the sign posts decided that the name of the road was no longer important, so as I was looking for the A-such and such, all I got was vague locations. Inevitably I got lost, and I found a number of locals whom I asked for directions, most of whom turned out to be incoherent to my ears. The first girl gesticulated towards some road, saying go along till you come to a park, and then spent a good few minutes describing what a park looked like, it's like a lot of green grass, not a small bit, but a big bit. Yeah cheers, i know what a park is, the thing i don't understand is which is the road that you mean from the seventeen that congregate here!

Eventually I arrived at the correct location where I met up with an old school friend, rebek. We've both known John all our lives, having been through school together and amazingly still kept in touch. The wedding started at 3, and it has been some time since i was last able to see John, and the difference the ravages of his illness had made as quite telling, and it upset me to see him like that. However, once chatting with him, it was clear he was the same old John, and the frailities of his body dissolved away. Suzanne looked absolutely stunning, she is such a wonderful girl, and has gone to great lengths to help john in his illness and arrange the early marriage ceremony.

After a wonderful meal there were some heartfelt and emotional speeches, as Suzanne's father, a staunch Liverpool fan like John and Suzanne, handed John the ticket to the European Semi Final match that he missed for the birth of his daughter, he told about all the heroes he had seen in the liverpool shirt, but none more worthy of wearing the strip than John. Then John spoke, and mentioned how great it was to have his dad at his side after his father's long serious illness at the turn of the new year. John is so lucky to have found someone like Suzanne and I'm pleased to count them as my friends.

Wedding photos

My dad sent me his photos from Sal's wedding, but it's still disappointing that I don't have mine. I really did have some good photos. However, some of these are ok, despite the lack of any interesting shots. There are a few of me dancing with Sal, so i am pleased that at least there is a record of that. The whole set can be viewed in my flickr set.
Had a great time in London yesterday, and I shall blog more extensively about my time once I've got some photos to go with the text. They are still on v's camera at the moment.

Wedding

So this weekend my cousin sal got married.

Me and my sis were staying with some of our other cousins in a cottage to the south of cambridge, we headed down on friday night and arrived just before 10pm. It was great to see them all again, as it is not often these days that we meet up. Amelie had grown considerably and was now sporting a full head of hair.

After a wonderful continental breakfast and a relaxing morning, we all got ready and left for cambridge via the park and ride. Once in the town it was necessary to find a route to Selwyn College, where the ceremony would be taking place. Being a tourist town there was no shortage of public maps and we were soon on our way to the destination. We hadn't eaten, and time was pressing, however we came across a great noodle bar, dojo who readily obliged in bringing our food within minutes of our order. It tasted great and was enough to satisy our apetite during the wedding ceremony. We made it to the college in plenty of time, and the setting was truely beautiful. The college chapel is such an incredible venue for such a ceremony, and the building really did have a sense of the prescence of god about it, whether that was due to the magnificent arcitecture and ornamentation or the accumulation of years of fervent prayer within its walls, i don't know.

As Sal arrived and came down the aisle, she looked radiant, and her face was glowing, I've never seen such a large smile! Then as we began singing the first hymn, the sound was fantastic. So many people singing with gusto, and this accompanied by wonderful harmonies from the choir. I really enjoyed the ceremony in all it's high anglican formality. There was a real sense that this ceremony was not just celebrating the relationship of matthew and sal, but also their continuing relationship with god.

The wedding was then followed by photos and a wonderful meal, during which the rain began to come down heavily. The meal was proceeded with a ceilidh in cambridge guild hall. Dan, ben, sarah and myself decided to walk there, despite the rain, calling into a cocktail bar on the way. Once inside we got some drinks, including a very nice ale from the cask, and then my m&d arrived by taxi! It took them longer than us, and we'd walked and stopped for a drink. I really enjoyed the evening, and I was quite privilaged to have a dance with the bride.

Now where are the photos you may be wondering, well where indeed. Due to some drunken foolishness I appear to have misplaced my camera, somewhere between the guildhall and returning to our cottage, presumably in the back of the taxi. How annoying, and not the loss of the camera, but those few photos amongst the ones I took that I was really pleased with, including one of me and sal.

There are some photos on other blogs here or here.