The flea market, where Kate got monkeys (but not fleas)

If anyone knows the root of the phrase "flea market" (and honestly, Sheila, I would be amazed if it's not you) please let me know, because I've never seen a flea in a flea market. Just tons, literally tons, of antique crap. Crap that people once valued highly and is now being sold alongside corkscrews and miscellaneous forks, 4€ for as much as you can fit in a bag.

The flea market was after class with A, who was a little unfocussed today. I've found that if I wait until he thinks he's finished the question, rather than correcting his errors as he makes them, he checks his answers himself and spots the mistakes himself - a far more fruitful learning process. I can imagine those wonderful teachers who read this blog - Hannah, for example - rolling their eyes at the fact that they learnt this years ago, but hey. I'm relatively new to this game.

After work I caught the tiniest bus in the world (seats: 20) to the station, and from the station a speedy little train to Paris where I met the girls at La Madeleine, a gloriously imposing church in the 8th. Mary had just thrown down 240€ on perfume for a friend of her mother's while wearing skinny jeans and the most broken down converse you've ever seen. I would have paid good money to see the shop assistant's face when this girl asked for a frighteningly expensive perfume. I would have laughed and laughed, if flies could laugh. As it was, we made our introductions, and at one point Kate put the bag on my head. It smelt of roses and paper, if you were interested, but if that's what 240€ smells like I'll just take the cash and sniff it.

On arrival all three of us were feeling a little hunger and we set off in search of some grub. As we were walking, I spotted an interesting storefront: Chick-can. Intriguing. On closer inspection, the food sounded great - a quarter roast chicken plus two hot sides for 12€. Bargain, but we weren't expecting much - this close to Concorde and the Champs d'Elysées, a bottle of water will set you back 2€ - but upon entering we found beautifully clean premises and a host who was enthusiastic and charming in equal measure - and both of those measures were enormous. He asked first if we spoke French or English, and when we proposed French he rattled off the menu and the way it was prepared slowly enough for us to understand but fast enough to make us feel as though we were absolutely winning at French. In essence, for your 12€ you get a quarter of a roast chicken - and you can see these chickens roasting behind the counter - in a sauce of your choice. In addition, we could choose two hot sides from between roasted baby new potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, mashed potato, ratatouille or quinoa. Every single sauce sounded delicious, every side looked exquisite. Our host ladled our plates high with the food, instructed us to help ourselves to glasses of water that he'd placed in the fridge so that they'd be cool, and moved quickly on to explaining this marvelous prospect to a new set of customers.

The food - oh, gods, the food. The chicken was amazing. The sides were amazing. The water was, well, water, but it was chilled and therefore amazing. Never underestimate chilled water. Knowing how my mother loves a roast chicken, I'm planning on taking my parents there when they come to see me in July. There'll be high class meals too, but sometimes you need to get down and greasy and rip into some chicken with your hands. Do not, like me, wear a classy shirt, because that delicious sauce will make a break for freedom all over your shirt, and then you'll have to fight the urge to then eat your shirt. And that will endear you to absolutely no-one. So that's my Paris meal tip: Chick Can, 12 rue Vignon, 75009. Wear a t-shirt. Or a bib.

The afternoon was given over to a flea market in the northernmost reaches of Paris, where we had to walk a veritable gauntlet of shifty looking people offering us glasses, belts, shirts and phones. They had probably fallen off the back of a lorry (an English euphemism which means stolen), and so the chances of me buying any of the goods was slim. All the same, it's a trifle intimidating, and made me realise I should start asking to be paid by cheque. At the market, Kate haggled down a fellow from 40 to 30€, displaying a mastery of the girlish pout that has toppled nations and brought low the mighty. And saved her 10€, so that's pretty good. She bought the three monkeys: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. I myself spotted several julep cups (a julep is a kind of cocktail; you can see I'm already planning my return to the Aberdeen scene) and a beautiful shaker which knocked in at 220€. Temptation tried to slip her hand in my back pocket, but for the moment I resisted.

Once we quit the market we made our way to Chatelet, where there are plenty of bars and cafés where one can sit and watch the world pass by. So we grabbed a table and did so. There is no greater pleasure, in any city, than to sit and be surrounded by the hurrying people, to watch them and make no move at all to join their hustle and bustle. A couple of drinks later we made our lazy way to St Lazare where I said goodbye to Kate (by pulling a bizarre face and banging my face against hers) and goodbye to Mary (she's my girlfriend. If I need to tell you how I said goodbye to my girlfriend you need to step away from the Internet).

A journey home and a careful avoidance of my takeaway heaven - with a liter of excellent Belgian beer coating my insides, and despite my enormous lunch, a kebab was looking exceedingly delicious - brings me to here, finishing up the second of two gigantic blogs.

Thank you always for reading. And Fiona, if you've got this far, you may now rest.

For everyone else, here's a Youtube entertainer that my girlfriend (a concept that is apparently utterly alien to my sister) has got me hooked on. She's fantastic, but this video did make me question a lot of things.

No, don't ask what things. Just watch the video.

Really. Don't ask.

Jonathan im Deutschland - Third Day

Today dawned grey. I looked out across a beautiful vista that was simply a mass of grey. Things did not look hopeful for our early morning journey to Frankfurt, or The Fort of the Franks, the barbarians (the bearded ones) who would go on to make Frankreich - or in English, Frank-land. Except we dropped the -land, and the hard k, and ended up with France. 

Etymology lesson over for today. Onwards and upwards!

A short drive, two trains (a train station is no place to stand about for fifteen minutes, especially when it's so cold you can actually feel your toes tingling as they cling onto sensation) and a change later we found ourselves in Frankfurt. Our first stop was for liquid fuel, and to my enormous surprise my German was sufficient to order a cup of coffee, a cup of tea and a waffle.

Do not underestimate the ease with which my ego can be stroked. The mere fact that I ordered in German and was understood was enough to put a spring in my step and an easy, winning smile on my face. I imagine I was utterly insufferable. As we sat with hot drinks we bent our heads to planning, having acquired a plan of the city in the tourist information centre for a mere fifty cents.

(I also acquired an interesting book in French about Frankfurt, which the lady sold me in French. Because she speaks French, English and German and instantly won my eternal respect.)

The plan was to head out of the town centre and in the pursuit of knowledge and museums. We puzzled our way through the U-bahn (underground trains which, puzzlingly, convert themselves into trams with no warning.) system and set out an itinerary. We were so intensely involved in the planning, in fact, that my waffle that I'd left warming over my coffee sagged and sunk into it. Fishing a caramel waffle out of a cup of hot coffee is not an exercise I recommend to anyone.

With our bodies refueled we set off like jet planes except slower and with legs. Our first stop was the Explora science museum. It's not a science museum like the one in London, it's just a wee thing hidden away ten minutes from a U-bahn stop. It's over four levels, each floor with something fascinating for the eyes or the ears. A path is laid out, and you go up to the top floor first. There are these lovely images, which use mirrors to construct an image of the painter of the images that surround the mirrors.

It's a bit complicated when I explain it, but the images should help explain what I mean - for example, on the left here we've got Picasso in the mirrored pyramid with paintings in his style around it. I couldn't work out how the image got in there, so perhaps someone with a bigger brain than me can figure it out and leave a comment to let me know.

I also really like this one, which is - well, it's obvious who.

There were also a load of holograms, some of which were seriously unsettling and some of which were simply surprising.

We also agreed that clowns, all clowns, could go fuck themselves, and further that any adult who thought children would not be emotionally scarred by clown-doctors could join the clowns in auto-adoration.

I really don't like clowns.

After the museum we headed back towards the old town. Our stomachs were gurgling and hunger was setting in - Ali and are people who need to be fed regularly or we become snappy and grumpy. I know people who can play video games all day and need nothing more than water for sustenance but I am not one of those people. I am a person for whom food is an addiction and the withdrawal pangs more than I can face.

We were momentarily distracted from the onset of starvation by a cathedral. It takes a lot to take my mind off my next meal, but this building was sufficient. The cathedral is astonishing. It is a work that has been in progress since the 14th century. That's unbelievable. It looks astonishing, and although it's impossible to capture such a mass of stone in a photograph, I've given it a go. 

It's absolutely incredible, both outside and inside. The inside is enormous, with two organs and an incredible mix of artwork. I say mix because it's not every day you have ancient sculpture:

One of the thieves at Jesus' side will be going to heaven.
Odds are it's not the chap with the most clothes on.

With this quite frankly disturbing interpretation of the crucifixion, although it does raise interesting ideas about the nature of Christ, vis-à-vis his humanity versus his divinity.

Or at least it does to nerds like me. To everyone else maybe not.

The middle skull has a crown of thorns, just in case the viewer is not as obsessed with Christ-mythology as me.

However, even the incredible works of humanity could only do so much to stave off the pangs of hunger, and we descended once more into the bowels of the earth in search of food.

We found it. Oh, god did we find it.

We found a little place that served me a burger that I ate (ate is the normal verb, but demolished, devoured, destroyed would better describe the action) with haste, while Ali had a club sandwich for which even the most homesick of Americans would shred his or her passport.

Lunch took a goodly long time, and it was 4pm before we left. Both Ali and I were excited for our next stop; the Natural History Museum. It can be found opposite the Goethe University and is a mere 4€ for students. Plus, dinosaurs. 

MOTHER

FREAKING

DINOSAURS

I like dinosaurs. They were terrible thunder lizards and this guy was the king of the terrible thunder lizards.

Saying that, I also like Economics, French, etymology, physics, mathematics and apparently now German, so I'm kind of slutty when it comes to giving my attention to things.

Knowledge is there to be picked up and learnt. It loves to be learnt. Get it inside you.

Alright, enough silliness. Onwards to the exciting time we spent in the natural history museum...

Or didn't. It was half past four when we arrived, and the museum would close at five.

We turned ourselves around and headed back towards the station to catch our train, but before we did, we stopped off at Willy-Brandt-Platz.

Stop sniggering at the back there.

In...the Platz, there is a giant European symbol. This was good for me, because I love Europe. Europe is sexy and full of different languages and you don't need to change your money. It's probably infantile to be pleased by this, but I can take money earned in Paris and spend it in Frankfurt and at no point will an exchange earn commission for changing my money.

I like that. I like a lot of other things about Europe, but that's the thing that struck me today.

Note that one of the stars is broken. Notice how I make no political comment at all here, because this is a fun blog about my third year abroad and also because a broken light is literally meaningless, unless you need to see your way to your bathroom or you've forgotten it's broken and you bruise your foot trying to turn it on.

Don't ask me why you'd turn a light on with your foot, because I agree that it's insane.

Another two trains, another brief car journey, and we're here. And I've written all this to you and uploaded photos from the day; if you're interested in seeing them, just click here.

Europe. I love you. Frankfurt, I'm going to be in you again tomorrow. We saw something by the Europe symbol that means we'll be back in the fort of the Franks tomorrow. To find out what it is, you should probably follow me on twitter.

Le Havre, and what I did there. (Part 2)

We woke at about 9 and set off for a little breakfast; a small bakery that Kate had showed me yesterday does the most enormous, the most delicious brioche rolls for less than a euro. Admittedly at first the chap got my order wrong; he was too busy staring at the vision of beauty beside me to actually listen. There are disadvantages to having attractive friends.

(Well, that's not quite right; there's a disadvantage to living in a society where being attractive also means being treated like a piece of art, or a piece of meat - something to be looked at and sized up.)

Tucking in and strolling back, we met up with the last member of our little trio and headed to the hotel to pick up Mary's parents and brother. We'd told him we'd be over at 11 last night, but we rocked up to find sleepy faces all round. We should have seen the flaw in our plan last night; at 2am it would have been tricky to tell their parents anything, since they were absolutely fast asleep.

In any case, they told us they'd be ready briefly and we retired to the bar downstairs for a coffee. Before long the Scales has descended (sorry) and we set out, heading towards the beach. The weather was a little less misty than yesterday, and I managed to snap a look out towards the cape.

That's a patch of sand. It should be noted that Mr and Mrs Scale kindly didn't point out that beach here has quite a different meaning to the one it has in the US; I suspect they were expecting slightly more in the way of sand and slightly less in the way of...well, rocks. 

This is them, by the way; the very sweet (and very slightly chilly!) Scale parents:

And no, I don't know where he got the beret and yes, I am exceedingly jealous. It's a lovely beret. 

Having looked out to sea for a little while, we struggled back up the rise of rocks and to a little stall the girls had nicknamed "Victory Fries." I struggled to understand why until I tasted them; truly they are kings among chips and would be crowned victorious in any contest of taste.

However, the elder members of our little fellowship were starting to struggle in the cold, and we made for a restaurant nearby. The restaurants by the sea in Le Havre are rather unique; they are essentially collapsible. Come tourist season a lorry drops them off, they are constructed overnight and in the morning you have a fully-functional restaurant, including kitchen, floor, chairs, tables and all the other wonders one thinks of when one thinks of restaurants. This included heat, a welcome relief as we sank into chairs. It fell to Mary, Kate and I to order, which we managed with a hodge-podge of orders spoken over each other with pauses to speak to our English speaking friends. I have to commend the poor waitress; understanding only one half of a conversation being held in front of you must be frustrating in the extreme but she smiled all the way through.

Conversation was varied and the food was excellent; I had a warm goat's cheese salad and divvied up the tomatoes and olives between father and daughter. I hate tomatoes. Mary and Mary's father are rather keen on them, and as I felt a certain kinship with the pater familias I favoured him a little more. I have suffered Mary's keen wit once or twice before; to have lived with it was, I felt, deserving of an extra tomato. Mary did not feel the same. The look she shot me through her lashes would have skewered a lesser man, but I rallied and skewered her straight back. 

Kate and Mary's mother had mussels. Kate had an ingenious way of excavating the little morsels from their shells; using an empty shell as tweezers she made short work of a shell that years of evolution had crafted. The rest of the Scales stayed away from seafood and plumped for pizza instead. All was sumptuous, and when the bill came Mary's mother surprised us first by offering to pay - a great kindness - and then by revealing that she spoke French as well. The tip she left was as generous as the lady herself, and the waitress stammered thanks as we left (a little slower, unwilling to leave the heat) and made for the ice cream stall.

I had sorbet, lemon and strawberry. An unfortunate intolerance to lactose meant I was already feeling unpleasantly unwell from lunch, and so decided not to exacerbate that particular problem. The others plumped for various different flavours, all of which sounded scrumptious (including salted caramel, which I'd have never thought of by myself). Ice cream in hand, we made our way back to the hotel in which the Scale family was staying and ordered hot chocolates and coffees to round off the day. 

The rest is unexciting; I caught a train back to Paris, another to La Défense, and a bus home. Sadly at every point I was confronted with "Manif pour tout" flags, a nasty little aberration which is attempting to block a law giving gay couples rights equal to those of straight couples. I'm not going to waste another byte on these people save to say that taking your kids to a protest is stupid. Kids have absolutely no opinion on the subject, and it just makes me feel that you're trying to indoctrinate them from the cradle and that's messed up.

Enough about them. They're unpleasant and I hate unpleasantness. Instead, marvel at this picture taken inside the church at Le Havre which is square, with a circular spire that inspires someone who's spent too much time with Assassin's Creed (me) to give serious thought to climbing it. Note also the helical staircase that clings to the inside of the tower and which gave me a shiver just to look at.

So that was my weekend over. Thank you for sticking with me all the way through.

Writing and writing.

Today I completed or polished:

• A translation 
• A poem (my own. Not very good.)
• The writing exercise from yesterday, which gives me all weekend to polish further.
• And I printed off tickets to go and see my uni chum in Le Havre tomorrow, although because I'm apparently unable to stop tormenting myself the train leaves at 0808 and I will have to leave here an hour before.

Year abroad. You'll do things.

My new office is being installed, which is brilliant. My current office is directly above it, which is a little bit less brilliant. Nevertheless, the judicious application of headphones and a dose of The Piano Guys (if you don't know who they are, here's my favourite piece of theirs. Guaranteed shivers.)

I'd love for there to be more to talk about, but aside from my usual Friday students, there's not much to say. C, who is nervous until she gets over it and then talks at quite a pace and B, her brother, who's slower but pays more attention. I think both are excellent for their stage; C's still getting the hang of the language and I want her to talk more so she has a better feel for it while B needs to knuckle down and get the grammar and complicated bits solid, now that his spoken English is at a good level. I saw an advert for the The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on the way to the bus stop and almost decided to see it - but this week has been hard, and I've got to be up early.

So this will have to suffice for tonight. I'll try to write tomorrow but, if not, meet me here on Sunday. 

Having faith in yourself could save you money.

Today was a crazy busy day. I'd really like to talk about it, but my last couple of days have been stressed. I imagine that people are rolling their eyes as they read this. "Not more stress," they say. "All I ever here is stress, stress, stress. It's like being in a pronunciation class."

So instead I'm going to recount what happened over the weekend when I wasn't in Rouen. 

On Thursday, having been reminded by Google, my brother, and an alert I set up last year, I went online and bought my mother a gigantic bouquet of flowers. Gigantic. The flowers were great value, but delivery was a bit of a hike because I wanted them delivered on Sunday.

This is called using demand inelasticity to your advantage.

In any case, I ordered the flowers. I sat back and felt contented in a job well done. I wrote a blog. I felt the sort of smug that always comes before a calamitous fall.

I had two days to wait for it.

On Saturday night, as I walked home from the station, my brother facebooked me. 

- You got mum a present?

Yea I had, I thought smugly. I got it on Thursday. Let me check my inbox for the confirmation email.

Nothing.

Checked my deleted items, panicking just a little.

Nothing.

Checked all other potential email inboxes and deleted items.

Nothing.

You know that cold sweat that comes over you when you can't quite believe the way reality is unfolding?

You know that fear that steals over you, starting at the base of your spine and scuttling up, its sharp claws digging into your skin?

You know how your tongue, normally a fount of liquid words, dries into a sponge and attempts to jump down your throat?

Check, check, and check.

I rushed home, fear now stealing through my hair and giving me cause to scratch frantically. I muttered iterations of curse words in French and English. I made some new ones up when I ran out. I got home. I threw clothes off myself and threw myself into my chair. A screw came loose. The seat fell off. 

Smug, meet fall.

I scrambled back up and logged into the flower shop's website. The site looked familiar. Had I dreamed the transaction? The transaction!

I eagerly logged into my bank account. If I'd bought anything then the money would have left my account. I tapped the keys eagerly. There was light at the end of the tunnel.

No recent transactions.

The light resolved itself into an express train.

In even more of a panic, with sweaty palms slipping over the mouse, I bagged the last collection of tulips, tapped a frantic and deeply apologetic note and, ashamed and chastised, clicked the button for it to be delivered on Monday. 

That night I lay awake frantically worrying. I'd forgotten Mother's Day. I was in another country. Perhaps I could get a train home. Would my presence be enough to abate the storm? 

I sweated all night.

I wore a hole in the bedsheets with my tossing and turning.

At one point I considered concocting a story about a rare but debilitating disease in order to have a valid excuse for why I'd not got anything. I was three pages into the grosser parts of Wikipedia before I realised I'd probably have mentioned African sleeping sickness in my daily blog.

I got up late. I called my mother immediately to offer a groveling apology. 

"Thank you for the lovely flowers!"

I blinked. Still asleep, clearly.

"The man just delivered them, they're lovely!" My mother has a way of drawing out the syllables in lovely. She rolls the word around in her mouth, as though just the word is a pleasure to say. She's said it that way since I can remember. She said it that way when I presented her with what can only be described as a blob of pink with a pencil mouth and my teacher's neat script explaining "Mum."

The way my mother says "lovely" cannot be replicated.

I was not dreaming. This solved the problem of flowers on Mother's Day wonderfully.

I froze.

It also raised the problem of extra flowers (not really a problem, my mother loves flowers) with a note that apologised for forgetting Mother's Day. Which apparently I had not done.

I hate looking stupid.

Being smug. Now with twice the karmic backlash.

These are the flowers, by the way, delivered by the extremely decent (and very funny on Twitter) +Arena Flowers. If you need flowers, they're the guys. And gals.

Photo credit: my brother.

(I've just had to go on their Twitter page to get the link, and the last two post are "Cliff Richard appears dressed as an owl. But there is no crowd. He's at home. In his kitchen. Alone. Hooting 'Devil Woman'." and "Do turtles find tortoises attractive? You wonder..." Honestly, if you like your comedy smart and surreal follow them.)

Friday night, I'm going nowhere

Well, not entirely true. I've not gone far today, but I've left the flat at least.

Today has been interesting. My sick colleague (see yesterday) decided to stay at home and, with my other colleague in Spain, I was flying solo in the office. I'm really quite proud of how I managed it; I answered several calls and aided several slightly confused seniors through the maze that is the Internet. I also took messages, filed money, and worried about double-entry bookkeeping which, I maintain, I should not need to worry about at the mere age of 23.

Incidentally, do I look lots older or lots younger than 23? A student of mine asked today if I were married. Bizarre. Incidentally I said yes, because saying no is really difficult for me as an Englishman. She nodded, pleased, and said "Tu as l'air de quelqu'un qui est tombé en amour."

Really? Do I look like someone who is in love? 

Saying that, I recall being in love, and the hopeless, lost, head-in-the-clouds person I was certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to my current self. Unsettling; apparently being in love is approximately similar to being unsure of one's location in Paris, which might go some way to explain it being the city of love - in fact, it's the city of confused and lost tourists, which actually amounts to the same thing.

In any case, my afternoon was spent packing and sticking boxes - I'm definitely getting into a sort of Hobbit/Victorian vibe, where even manual labour has to be undertaken in a waistcoat - and finally I escaped, at 5, to a bar where I sunk a double Talisker, 16 years old. The bar in which I drank has prompt but rude service, and every time I go I'm reminded of why I don't go very often. 

Thus, with one drink inside me, I strolled to the local stationers and perused the books, looking for something lined.

I must explain at this point that (for reasons utterly unfathomable to my otherwise remarkable brain) the French seem only to produce exercise books with squared pages. I can't get my head around this bizarre trend. Does it help with cursive handwriting? Because I absolutely despise it.

While perusing, I met a friend of mine and asked her for a drink. Just one drink, I assured her, proffering my arm. I am a gentleman, after all. She kindly agreed to accompany me and, arm in arm, we made our way to the Café Leffe, where we talked and supped for the next four hours and thirty minutes. 

One drink turned to two, which turned to Irish coffees, which turned to emergency Turkish food on the way home. A kebab has a certain greasy loveliness; one recognises even through the haze of alcohol that it will be an unpleasant memory but, in the moment, it is utterly delicious.

Following the demolition of the aforementioned sandwich I am home, my blog is finished, and since +Blogger thinks I'm in England it still counts as today.

Two sessions of three hour lessons this weekend plus all museums are open, for free, on Sunday. I'll be at the Musée d'Orsay or the Institut du Monde Arabe.

Cannot wait.

Oh; my drinks guest made this. It's about CCS, carbon capture and storage, and presents the idea in a fairly easy-to-understand way. If you've ever wondered about how we can clear up carbon dioxide while continuing to use dead dinosaurs to make plastic (which, by the way, is kind of cool) then watch this. Well illustrated and voiced, it's a useful bit of learning to be installed in your brainspace.

P.S: If you're interested, I imagined a press release for a fairy-tale, since it's National Storytelling Week, over on my PR blog. You can read it here, if that's your bag.

Wedding Belles

I am not a religious chap, in general. I don't like religion of any sort; the tunes are pretty but the words are sort of creepy. However, I do appreciate the role of symbolism and ritual in doing anything. They feature everywhere in life, and religious ceremonies are the best places to find them.

Last night was a triumph; a gorgeous ceremony in a beautiful church and the couple surrounded with love. Love is just as amorphous an idea as God, but I've seen more evidence for love than for God, so love is what I believe they were surrounded by.

We were due to arrive at 1pm, and 1pm is precisely the time we arrived. Although this seems obvious, within my family tardiness is the norm rather than the exception. We actually sat in the car for a minute, struck dumb by shock, before disembarking in the usual shambolic way. I know that in theory it is possible to exit a car with style and grace, but I am yet to discover the secret. We also disembarked the cake, the secret cake the photos of which were embargoed yesterday. It was extremely heavy; we carried not only a 10 kilo cake but the responsibility of the wedding cake. It added to the mass in no small way.

We shipped it onto the coach and made the greetings that one must make amongst family that one hasn't seen since the last religious rite. It's tragic that I only see these wonderful people at times of great sadness or great joy, but that's the way life is - we are brought together only to see it at its best and its word. Reality, that great squisher of dreams, interferes in the idyllic life we would otherwise lead.

The traditional greeting between younger and older generations are always the same: "Auntie So-and-So, how are you? It's so nice to see you! You've not got any older!" And, of course, the standard response, "Jono! It's been so long since we saw you last! Haven't you grown!" That's especially kind in my case, because my height peaked when I was 12 and the only way I've grown is outwards. The coach brought us to the church, an absolutely stunning early Gothic construction. It is Roman Catholic, and so the ceremony proceeded with all the pomp and circumstance inherent in that institution. The words were excellent, and I am glad that someone chose to change the usual ones just a little - cherish has a less misogynistic tone than obey. Their voices were a little quiet, but what do you expect - they were binding themselves together three times, which has always been a powerful number in mystic systems. The Christians still have three parts of a one God, and marriage binds a couple three times - before God, before the State, and before the love of their friends.

Soon the ceremony was over, and it was time for pictures, and hundreds thereof. The couple looked embarrassed and proud and nervous, and could barely stand to be apart. The dress was daring, a sheath with a good meter of train, and the bride was accompanied by her mother. They came out to the traditional shower of petals and cheers; the bride doesn't know it, but she's married into one of the most boisterous and loving families in the world. We went on to the reception, which had a casino downstairs in which my sister managed to win £110 on her first go. Beginner's luck, and I don't even believe in luck. The prices were extortionate and the staff added a service charge to every transaction, and although the setting was beautiful I have no qualms about naming and shaming the Millenium Gloucester as practically criminal. To add a service charge to every drink served is an absolute outrage, especially when a request for a large vodka and tonic was met with the kind of gawping expression one generally finds on a goldfish. I don't mind tipping - I've worked in bars, and I'm proud that I can usually earn a goodly sum in tips - but to just add it to orders regardless is disgusting.

My dad did his speech, and it was excellent, although a collective groan went up when he clocked in at only 8 minutes and 12 seconds - a sweepstake had been run, of course, and my cousin cleared up, having plumped for 8 minutes. My father's ability to ramble is legendary amongst my family, and the conservative estimate had been fifteen minutes. He did incredibly well, and I was massively proud, even if he went off-script a couple more times than I'd have liked. It didn't matter. He captivated the audience.

At long last we wound our way home; jollier and fuller than we'd arrived. And so I write this in the afternoon, with a head that only aches a little and still surrounded by the love of my family. It is something we carry with us always; like the Queen's crown or a wedding ring, it need not always be physically present. When the Queen is in the shower, she is still the Queen. If you wear your ring or not, you are married. And whether you are in the midst of your boisterous family or far from them, their love is still with you. Those still with us and those taken from us in sadness; all are with you and - do not forget this - you are with them.