Speeches
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Speeches, including speeches in my blog, and speeches in Folkestone.
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Sep3
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Bit my lip this morning eating my breakfast in a hurry, drew blood and everything, and also the work I did at the weekend fixing my xml namespaces in jquery doesn't work now I've transferred it to work...
Great weekend though, did our usual lunch at Wagamama and afternoon drinks in The Dolphin, then had a reasonably quiet night in watching Children of Men and Hot Fuzz and drinking our new favouite tipple Prosecco and eating goodies we'd bought in town.
Saw two weddings in Canterbury, one was having their reception in The Goods Shed, so while we were doing our shopping on the ground floor there were speeches and things going on on the mezzanine level just above us, all very public. Then there was another reception at The Dolpin, which the bride was delivered to by VW split-screen van, very nice.
Spent most of sunday clearing Clare's stuff out of the inlaws loft, as they're moving soon. Threw out a whole of crap but couldn't resist bringing some of the books and keepsakes home, more than we'd intended.
Enjoying what I'm doing at work right now but this week feels like it's going to be a long one, looking forward to Dean's birthday celebrations at the weekend.
2007 :: Comment / reply
Jul16
We started our little trip with a wedding, the least possible wedding that was still attached to home by land that I have ever been to. This was somewhere one side of the Scottish border, and the reception was just the other side, which was quite a nice little idea. Getting there was actually OK, prebooked train tickets to London and then on to Carlisle were fine and not too expensive, I must remember to prebook all train journeys as far in advance as poss... We were booked into a guesthouse somewhere and were warned that it was in the middle of nowhere, with no nearby facilities, so we met up with some other wedding going friends and decided to stay in Carlisle as long as possible. We had lots of beer in a couple of pubs but struggled to find a restaurant, the only one we could find at all was an Italian, which was OK. At closing time our cab driver made a bit of a big deal about where we told him our guesthouse was, it was about a forty-five minutes away and not technically in any town, I had the fear a bit of being stuck there. Not sure why we weren't booked into Carlisle itself as this place was equidistant from the wedding too. Forty-five minutes, by taxi, several times, the miser in me was retreating deep into his innermost secret inside pockets, I'm glad we had so many people to share rides with.
The wedding itself was nice, ceremony was a bit long and religious, but the reception was quite special. It was in the grounds of the bride's house, yes "the grounds", not the garden, this was a grand affair. There was a massive marquee down a sloping mudslide of a track from the house, though with a bit of straw thrown down I managed to not ruin my shoes on the day. Apart from the marquee, the first thing I saw on riding this mud flume were several sheep, dead, gutted, skinned, fully prepared basically, and staked out over a huge fire. Was this some kind of crazy caveman feast? It was quite impressive actually, even to a vegan. 
While waiting for this back to basics barbecue we were fattened on champagne and canapes, by the tonne, like we were some posh geese ready to be fois-grased. This was great, there really was a lot of food on offer. When it came time for the food, each table had a quarter of a sheep and an apron and carving implements dropped on one of the chairs at random. I didn't get one, but a vegetarian chum on another table was - he swapped. We herbivores had a good fill of roasted vegetables and things; I can't remember exactly what, that's the champagne for you. Speeches were a bit different but the entertainment came from the bride's brother's band who were ace, and also DJ's and an Elvis impersonator. I assume we went back to our guesthouse at some point.
Despite the best efforts of a welly lending chum, Clare's shoes went in the bin after the event - any excuse to buy more shoes.
I do have more pictures to come, and please stay tuned for Edinburgh and onward. I'll try and be less text-heavy.
2007 :: Comment / reply
Aug16
Pictures
Back in work today, the wedding was amazing. I have several days to catch up on here, but if you want to cut right to the chase, here's a picture of us:
More wedding pictures here... The long weekend started on Wednesday, which I already kind of covered. We went out drinking at The Clifton, stayed right till closing, then got people back to ours for more drinks. We stayed up playing pool and being loud until 4am or so, I am dreading bumping into any of our neighbours. You only have one wedding weekend though so I hope they'll understand. Guests of honour were one of my new brothers-in-law Kevin and his wife Krishna, visiting especially from Miami. Krishna pointed out that if you google for her only this site comes up. And now it will again! Krishna sensibly went home at closing time, but Kev joined us in feeling like crap the next day...
Thursday my family and friends started to arrive, and we had a few light chores like collecting the suits from Canterbury and doing a dry run of the wedding ceremony in Ashford. Leaving Clare at her mum and dad's looking much like this:
www.clarkeology.com/img/thumb/img_2005_06_17_IMG_2037.JPG
everyone else came to Chambers for food and drinks. Not sure all the Fareham chums were that enamoured with it, six of them went for a proper sit down dinner at The New Delhi. Much boozing and a really good night out, it's rare to get family and friends together like that. Not too late to bed.
Up early Friday with not a lot to do before the wedding, ate a good vege fry up in Sandgate, and played pool at home with best man Andy. He got me to the castle on time, so then I just had to wait for Clare... She kept me standing at (whatever the civil equivalent of) the altar for fifteen minutes I think. She looked amazing, as you can see in the photo above (the one in the white dress, not the blue curlers), so from then on it's a bit of a blur. Everything went amazingly fast, the ceremony, our sprint back down the aisle (to "Don't Stop Me Now"), the meal, even the speeches went fast. We had an Irish band and a DJ, so there was something for everyone, and before you know it the night was over. I don't feel I've said enough about the wedding, but I'm a bit lost for words at how good it was. It's particularly ace to be at a bit party and realise you know everyone. We are lucky to have so many great family and friends who could make it. I wish we could have had more there, to have invited everyone we knew, but for one the venue wouldn't hold it, and for another we didn't really get time to speak to everyone we did know. Everyone, if you're out there, we had a wild time, thankyou very much.
We stayed in an amazing room at the Hythe Imperial, with a TV in the jacuzzi and everything.
Saturday we didn't get time to catch up with many friends before they had to head home, but we had a great meal for the family at Portofino and then more drinks at The Clifton. How long have we been going there, without knowing they have a POOL TABLE? There's a games room under the main bar, with pool and table tennis. We got late drinks and sat in the other lounge as most of the family were residents there.
Sunday it started to feel like things were over, my folks and my Nan and my sister and family all left, though we did have an evening curry to look forward to. Spur of the moment we went out for a pub lunch with my new in-laws, and had to try half a dozen country pubs before one wasn't fully booked. We ended up at The Palm Tree, a bit of an old style family country pub. They were all out of the vege options, but we were sat down before finding this out, so I settled for salad and chips. Anyway, discovered lots of fine looking pubs in Elham, so we will be returning. As mentioned, a bit of a party and then curry for tea round Deano's, that's the perfect Sunday. Not having to work the next day helped.
Yesterday we had more chores, returning things to Whitstable and Canterbury. Caught up with Lost, that is looking GREAT. What on earth is going on though.
Up early this morning, and back at work. BOO! Two weeks to honeymoon.
2005 :: Comment / reply
Also there's an xml feed of speeches, a JSON feed, and a KML feed of speeches , search my speeches venue info.
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