Grim and Holly got married. Some people said “at last”, and they have a slight point – some expected this sooner, others thought it moot – but none of this detracted from the depth of the celebration.

The ceremony was at Matfen Hall in Northumberland on Sunday afternoon, at a ceremony to which I had the pleasure of being invited. It was a jolly good romp; I’ve just posted a batch of pictures at [www.crypticide.com] but I can’t do too much in the way of commentary tonight, having driven the 350+ miles home stopping only for lunch at the Black Sheep Brewery[1]

I drove up on Friday in order to set a quieter pace for the weekend, leaving me saturday to explore Hadrian’s Wall and the Corbridge Roman history museum; growing up in Droitwich I have a long-term interest in Roman history, and it was nice to see something new, or rather very very old.

I went for a drive into Scotland, and a loop around Kielder Water too – beautiful scenery, lovely people.

Snippets and mementos? At random:

• Morning swim, sauna, salt (?) and steam rooms.

• Evening walks on the golf course.

• Surprisingly bad bitter at the hotel, and apparently at local pubs, too. We were expecting better of that area.

• Grim’s mother stoutly reprimanding people who called him anything other than Richard, whilst repeatedly referring to me as any/all of Alex, Ian, Alan, Steve…

• Grim’s father being a total lovely card, and to boot, a wit.

• Little cameras on every dinner table, for a spontaneous photo album.

• Sarah, after repeatedly failing to drag me onto the dancefloor, getting her hands on the bride’s father who subsequently ended up doing tequila shots with her.

• Small Dave, doing his IRA jokes. Scarey, but funny.

• Jos not only making an appearance but also exhibiting no apparent symptoms of hysteria or projectile vomiting caused by my presence; perhaps things are looking-up (?) although I gather that Grim offered her the usual option to veto my attendance at the wedding, probably helping boost her confidence in the proceedings. I suppose I am meant to be grateful at her munificence, or maybe I am meant to be being magnanimous in defeat? Anyway she blanked me but at least Bob chatted pleasantly, en-passant.

• Jane, long-suffering, veering wildly back and forth between multiple roles of wedding-guest, pinch-hitter for the best man’s speech, cattleherd, and riot control officer.

• Totally failing to recognise Alan Horn, first go.

• Finding out that I will soon have more vehicle registrations than Gary Sereno.

• Steve. Dancing. Well. To Smells Like Teen Spirit, amongst others.

• Everyone has cameras. Except Bob. Except for the one in his phone. About which he momentarily forgot.

• Kippers.

• This bizzare 3’6″ high white pyramid on the edge of Matfen Golf Course; we didn’t find out what it was, but Jane’s guess of it being a marker for an ice-house sounded plausible… ooh, hang-on, Google:

  [www.epnet.org] Reckoned to be access to an irrigation system. Quite small and known affectionately (by us) as “Mini-mid of the North”.

  …which is cute. You can see the manor house in the background, on that page.

• Singing Happy Birthday to the DJ.

• The clocks “going back” on the day of the wedding.

…speaking of which it is getting close to Midnight, GMT. Time for bed, more later.

—
[1] incidentally picking up a case of each of Black Sheep Ale, Riggwelter, Golden Sheep, and Monty Python Holy Grail – making for a total of 48 bottles and a tail-heavy Skoda.