Our friends Francisco and Fatima (whose wedding we went to in Madrid last year) sent us these photos they took at the wedding.

Victoria found a baby to play with at the wedding.

This weekend featured yet another wedding, which was on Sunday. It was in Manchester, which was good as we would have a hard time spending the night if it was too far away, as Victoria needs to work in the morning. A lot of people could take the day off, but she wasn't really able to. The wedding was really nice and we went to a place called Mere Court Hotel for the reception, which was an old family home turned into a hotel. Unfortunately the band took a long time to set up and started about 2 hours late, so we had to leave right when they got started. There aren't many trains on Sunday night, so we had to be careful not to miss the last one.

It was the wedding of two of Victoria's friends, Gisella and Chris. They met while in Salzburg when Victoria was there. Gisella lived with Victoria as well when she was at Leeds University.

We went to the south of England for a wedding yesterday. It was in the middle of the countryside, with the nearest large cities being Eastbourne and Hastings. Our journey started at 7am when our train left from Sheffield. When we arrived in London, we got a bit annoyed because we had to cross London on the Underground (it turns out the ticket covered that part of the journey, but we didn't know and paid extra). The annoying part was that the one line that went directly from St. Pancras station (north London) to Victoria station in the south (the Victoria line) was completely shut all weekend for maintenance work. Our connecting train from Victoria station was based on the assumption we could get there using this tube line. We ended up taking two different tube lines to get to the same place, which resulted in 11 tube stops (including one transfer) instead of 5 stops with no transfers. We missed out train but this turned out okay as we could take any train we wanted and were planning on being there early. It also gave us time to get some lunch at the station.

We arrived at Polegate station, which was the closest one to the wedding. Victoria got the name of a cab company for the next morning's departure as the hourly bus from Polegate to the wedding apparently doesn't operate on Sundays. We met up with two other wedding goers that Victoria knew while waiting for this bus to the wedding. The bus driver dropped us off in the town of Boreham Street, unfortunately at the wrong end of it, which meant walking back over a mile with all of our stuff in tow. We did eventually find the bride's family's house, which was where the wedding was.

The wedding involved a procession from the town hall to the bride's family's house. We had a little 5-piece band leading us in the procession, and we clogged up the only highway so I think we may have pissed off some cars. It was about a 5-10 minutes walk on the highway.

The ceremony was outdoors, in the back yard of the bride's family's house. It was a nice ceremony, led by a minister whose style seemed quite liberal, and reminded me of what a Unitarian Universalist minister might do. I do not know what faith she was, but the ceremony was not distinctly religious. They had been legally married at the town hall that morning, but I think only family were invited to that part. Luckily the weather was cooperating and it was pretty sunny. We even got a little sunburnt as rain had been forecast so we were not prepared.

After some time hanging out in the sun, we had a procession back to the
village hall, where the reception was. The wedding atmosphere was very relaxed and nice. We had a great time. There were speeches by a bridesmaid, the groom, and the best man. They were all hilarious, and everyone was practically rolling on the floors. After dinner there was barn dancing, which was very fun. Unfortunately Victoria had a headache and couldn't dance very much. We ended up going back to the tent and falling asleep a bit early as we were exhausted from getting up at 6.

This morning we were woken up at 5am by a huge thunderstorm that hovered above us for an hour, making a racket. We ended up taking refuge in a potting shed and then the main house (when we realized it was unlocked) because the lightening was very close and we were on a large ridge, fairly exposed. Victoria arranged taxis for all of the people who were camping, which turned out to be cheaper than the bus when split between us. It was also much faster.

We took an earlier train to London to make sure we had plenty of time to cross London. One girl, Lucy, who was going up north on the train like us suggested that we take a cross-London train instead of the tube since we knew it was still broken. This worked well and saved us a lot of time and hassle. However, we ended up at St. Pancras station over an hour early as a result of leaving early. It did give us time to get some food for the journey though. When we got on the train, it was a bit annoying as they had not put out the seating reservations, so everyone was sitting in the reserved seats. We did manage to get our seats though. Just when everything was going so smoothly on the way back, we had a bit of disaster. There was a delay at the first station, as they said there was an obstacle on the track just in front of the station. I guessed that this was someone who jumped in front of a train, and I found out I was right later. They had to clean up the mess and get the police in, so they said this would cause a delay for at least an hour. It did take exactly one hour, which was of course quite boring for everyone on the train. Everyone made a run on the food as we didn't know how long it would be. The on-train catering services were completely sold out by the end. Eventually the train did go and we passed by the police and a covered up body. This is actually the second time it has happened to me on exactly the same route, near the same station. Seems to be a popular place to commit suicide or something.

Conveniently, the train managed to make up 30 minutes of the lost time which meant we were not home too late. I've got work tomorrow, but Victoria gets the day off. She can take care of last minute business before we leave on Tuesday for Canada.

Tomorrow morning we are going down to the south of England for Will and Alex's wedding. We will be camping in their front yard tomorrow night as the wedding is in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately it just started raining a ton, so it may be a wet night tomorrow too.

By the way, things have mostly returned to normal after the floods. Most of the villages have had their water pumped out, and the restoration work has begun. The biggest way it has affected us is that the train to Victoria's new school is still not running. Apparently there was damage to the track and the signalling equipment which they say will take at least 12 weeks to fix. Hopefully it will be done as soon as possible so Victoria does not have to keep getting rides from co-workers.

We're going to a wedding in the south of England this weekend. I'm hoping this continuous rain we have been having for about 3-4 weeks will finally stop, at least for Saturday night when we have to sleep in a tent!