Busy, busy, busy!

As the absence of updates has probably indicated, I have been up to my ears in this and that lately. First came my mate's stag, which took place in distant, darkest Wales. Well, really, really sunny Wales, truth be told. You think you know a country, and then it tries to help the sun set fire to your skin! We had a grand time, blasting away at clay pigeons, stumbling up a river in wetsuits, a curry (with suitably impossibly hot addition for the stag himself, naturally!), and a spot of dancing. It was a splendid do, and a certain amount of alcohol may perhaps have been consumed. Behold the stag in his manliest pose.

A few weeks later came the wedding, which was absolutely delightful. The place-settings were marked in unusual fashion, so I now have a rock with my name on it right next to me. I think this means I can't be killed. Unless rocks aren't bullets. I might need a philosopher to weigh in on this point. The bride and groom very kindly took into account my eccentric dietary preferences, and provided a vegan chocolate cake, which I shared with a lady with an egg allergy. It was a whole cake, so in combination with Scotch and a three course meal (including champagne sorbet!) I didn't manage to finish it off. It was a beautiful day, with sunlight again abounding. There's something very strange happening to the weather in Wales, I believe. Here are the happy couple cutting the cake.

Many congratulations again, Martyn and Vickie!

Wonderful Wedding Number One

Last Wednesday I went down to Wales for my friend's wedding. We met at uni - wargaming, naturally - but since he lives in Swansea, and I in Cheshire, I tend not to see Mark that often. I couldn't turn down this invitation, mind, as I was the (Co-)Best Man! On the Thursday we trundled over to Cardiff and had a couple of games of Flames of War. There was Mark, Jay (the other Best Man), Mark's dad and a couple of his friends, and I - and Mark's younger brother popped in to say hi. It says how very rusty I am that I got outflanked by the same unit commanded by the same opponent in the same terrain in both games I played. Clearly, you do have to tell me twice! We had a nice time, and had a full day.

On the Friday Mark's affianced, Marie, was doing last-minute wedding stuff, so Mark and I got to take care of their baby, Lily. She's usually good as gold, but was teething. I know very nearly nothing about babies, and my dramatic reading of video titles failed to distract her from her primary purpose of crying. Mark was hoovering, and so couldn't help. Thinking back, we really should have done that the other way round. She's very fond of her dad, and doesn't cry if he's holding her. Well, she certainly cries a lot less, anyway! She seemed phlegmatic when Mark popped on The Walking Dead, and lots of chaps wandered about missing bits of faces and trailing their innards. I'm not much of a zombie fan. I heretically find Romero's original Dawn of the Dead something of a yawn-fest. Nonetheless, I quite enjoyed the show. Given my love of wordplay, my favourite bit was the appearance of a doctor called Jenner who worked for the CDC and even mentioned smallpox. Simple things for simple minds!

Come the Friday evening, we trundled out to TGI Friday's, where they kindly knocked up something vegan for me. Then at the end of the meal, as it was a special occasion, they gave Mark a glass filled with cream and three cherries. The idea is that one stands on a chair and tries to eat one cherry. Something got a bit lost in translation, and he ended up eating all three cherries and drinking all the cream! The truly remarkable thing was that his stomach did not then rebel against this alien incursion. I'll draw a veil, as is only proper, over the events of the rest of the stag evening, as is right and proper. Suffice to say that even Mark's ironclad stomach was eventually defeated.

The Saturday was mainly a day of rest, and saw us watch most of the second season of The Walking Dead. When Channel 5 catches up, I shall have to watch the last two episodes, as that is all I missed. The Sunday was the big day, and we all pottered about, preparing, putting on suits, gathering buttonholes and so on. Needless to say, there were hiccups. The bride had the rings at her parents' house, and had meant to bring them over on the Friday or Saturday. Having forgotten, Mark was to pop over on the Sunday to pick them up. But when he got there, only Matt was left in the house,the others having gone out, and they'd not told him where the rings were! Happily, they came with the bride to the venue, Sketty Hall, and we didn't have to come up with some crazy last-minute plan!

The bride looked lovely, the groom very smart, and both were brimming over with happiness. The marriage went off without a hitch, and then we adjourned for the wedding meal. After two very nice courses we paused before dessert for speeches from the Bride's father, Paul, from Mark, and lastly from me. I was a little nervous, but all seemed to go well. Then there was dessert, followed my merriment, revels, dancing and a teeny-tiny amount of drinking! I shared a taxi back to Mark and Marie's place, as they were spending the night at a snazzy hotel. All in all, a lovely time!

#Snow is falling all around me#

Ducks are eating stale bread. Wait, that isn't the next line. But it is happening. It's the sheep in the next field I feel sorry for; the poor blighters have got snow settling atop their thick woolly coats. This snow has come down quite suddenly this morning, albeit in stop and starts. There was a flurry before I got up at 9.40, lightly coating the fields. That's the snow coating them. I didn't get up and put coats on the fields. Well, if I did, I don't remember it and I can't see any coats now. Under the snow. I drove off to the dentist's this morning, and could only keep the windscreen from misting up by turning the heater to maximum, putting the air-conditioning on and turning the blower to at least 3 (of a maximum of 4). I felt like a cooked dinner by the time I got there. So on my return I put on a scarf (which I drew up over my face like a muffler), a hat, buttoner my coat up tightly, then put on some nice, thick gloves. Then I opened the windows. My knees and a small part of my forearms got a bit cold, but it was a hell of a lot more comfy than the drive there.

Dad's just returned from church, and he's left his car up the road, where it's flat. We live on a hill, and the snow is pretty thick on the road even now, so he wants to be sure he can get out again! It seems this snow might dislocate all our plans. A long-standing family lunch planned for tomorrow will be difficult to have if the rest of the family cannot get here! Afterwards, I should be drivign to Wales for a friend's birthday, but if tomorrow's weather is like today's, I shall be unable to leave Congleton, much less reach Wales! Anyway, no use crying over milk which has yet to be spilt! Here's a shot of the poor wee sheep ten minutes ago.

Can't blog. Too hot.

I have previously mentioned my distaste for the temperatures of summer. My dislike of summer's hellish heat has yet to abate. Funnily enough, I just spent the last couple of hours feeling too sickly to do anything more than lie on my bed and read some more Gibbon. "Pete, it's cooler outside. Why didn't you go outside?" My cognitive capacity has been so reduced by the heat that I honestly didn't think of that possibility before now. Sadly, it's now late enough that a man sat outside with a book and a drink will be blind without a torch. A man with a torch will provide a, aha, beacon to all the multitudinous forms of insect life out there. I returned from the Post Office earlier and saw some hitherto unknown black insect crawling about on my windscreen. A flying ant or somesuch summer commonplace, no doubt. I don't have an animus against insects, but I do feel rather put out, both selfishly and with due kindness to wee winged thingies, when they drown themselves in my orange juice or silently secrete themselves on a page of a book. If they are lucky, I note and carefully remove them. If they are unlucky, then years later I find their pressed, dessicated corpses providing additional and unsought punctuation to my favourite authors. Or perhaps the image is that of a mediaeval manuscript, save this time illuminated with work similar to that of that plastination fellow, Gunther von Hagens.

Casting my mind back a few days, though, the situation was far merrier. For a start, I was in Wales, which is blessed with a damper climate than oppressively sunny Cheshire. Second, I was seeing several old friends from university, one of whom I haven't seen for years, as she's forever secluding herself in Saudi Arabia, where she lives and works. It was a delightful long weekend, and we managed to fit in a trip to the cinema, where we watched The Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It's a pleasing film, and dispatched my pre-viewing contention that the conceit did not give sufficient ammunition for the apes to overwhelm humanity. I tend to be the sort of chap who recognises actors based on their previous work, so the heroic human remains for me the second Green Goblin, or rather the son of Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, that way I can lie to myself that Spiderman 3 never was. There were some amusingly well-done references to the original film, both in dialogue and imagery. I shan't bore you by an enumeration, since my heat-addled brain can't recall 'em. Oh, and because it'd be tedious. One of the central messages of the film is that there are certain things scientists should not mess with. I am finding this message a little tedious now, and wonder how deeply it's permeated our entire culture. I think I first noticed it back when I read Jurassic Park. New theme, please, people.

We also watched Your Highness, which I commend to any of you who are fans of very silly films with puerile jokes. We laughed ourselves silly. Funnily enough, it's another film with James Franco (Green Goblin Mk II, scientist dude in TROTPOTA) in it. We had a delightful excursion to the Penderyn whiskey distillery, where Peter (not to be confused with me), whose birthday it was, received a bevy of samples of their various products (whiskey in Madeira barrels, in sherry barrels and in Laphroaig barrels, gin and vodka). My estimable friends then did me the great kindness, on seeing my delighted expression on tasting the Laphroaig'd Penderyn, of buying me a bottle of that delectable spirit. I do recommend that to any whiskey-drinkers out there. While it has, of course, a delectable peaty quality to it, it is not so strong as the original Laphroaig, and so will appeal to those who find the Scotch too strong in flavour.

Right, that's three paragraphs that show my title is false. I think that's probably almost enough. I intend to put up some more things in a day or two, and to show the completed General Store, as well as my sketches for the Hotel/Saloon. If I remember, I shall try to spend all tomorrow out of doors. I hope that the heat doesn't sabotage my brain again, causing me to lose the capacity to reason. Right, until next time, dear readers, I wish you whichever brand of weather you most enjoy, and the beverage of your choice with which to enjoy it in the company of friends! Au revoir.