Damp but happy

[liv]

I took a couple of days off work at the end of last week in order to make sure of getting to see my aunt during her visit from Australia. This led to getting soaked almost every time I went outside, but hey.

I wasn't able to come up the evening before my day off, since I had work commitments chairing a post-graduate research meeting and couldn't get away early enough to get a sensible train. So I travelled up on Thursday morning, and arrived at my parents and spent the afternoon chatting to them until my aunt and her husband showed up. More family socializing on Friday, followed by a shopping trip to pick up stuff for the wedding.

I managed to drop in on my cousins, and meet the newest of them (just a month old!) The purpose of the visit was to remind my bridesmaid who I am; she's not quite four and last summer is a long time ago in the life of a child that little. This wasn't entirely successful, as both she and her middle brother were completely exhausted by Friday afternoon, so they weren't really in the mood to be sociable. But jack and I managed to chat to their parents a bit. Then jack came over to my parents' for dinner, and was duly introduced to my long-distance relatives. He stayed until nearly midnight chatting, and getting a highly simplified version of my family tree.

Saturday was my celebration of my third of a century birthday. deborah_c had very kindly offered to lend her house as a party venue, so we spent the morning helping her tidy and sort things out. Tidying other people's houses is much less annoying than tidying your own place, and was also a great opportunity to chat. As it happened, it was mostly jack's friends who were able to make it to the party, which worked out very well as they are all lovely people. I was a little disappointed not to see several people who'd hoped to come and not been able to make it, notably my brother Screwy; not sure what happened to him and his not getting to the party meant I missed him entirely this visit. As well as excellent company, there was tasty food and even some spontaneous music-making, which I appreciated very much.

It was slightly weird to realize that this weekend was the last time I'm expecting to see most people, jack included, before the wedding itself! ghoti tried to explain to her little daughter that she should stop calling me "Jack von gay" (which apparently is her incredibly adorable version of "Jack's fiancée") from now on.

Then Sunday morning, after helping clear up, we headed to Kent for a fitting for jack's wedding outfit. The awful weather cleared up just as we reached the village, and Kent suddenly became this beautiful paradise of rolling hills and apple orchards glowing in the sunshine. We had lunch in a nice pub called the Plough and Harrow, including a seriously impressive mushroom stroganoff made with half a dozen actually distinct tasting mushrooms. And I am as excited about jack's clothes as mine, and his dressmaker was very friendly. We had a little time left before I had to head back to London to catch my train home, so we drove to Sheppey to look at the sea for a bit.

Students are back for that squeezed little three weeks of teaching before their end of year exams. At the end of which period I'm coming back to Cambridge to get married!

Comments

[purplecthulhu]

Yes - sorry to have missed you on Saturday, but I was definitely not at my best and may have ended up even more dead after my flight than I actually was.

Glad to hear you had a good time!