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Day 41 - London (Milly & Sven's wedding)
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Katie was up early in an ambitious attempt to get a million and one things done before getting her taxi to Milly's before sharing Milly's last journey to the church as a single woman.
I was rather the worse for wear after Friday night out with the boys, think I got home just before 2am, and tried desparately not to wake Katie, James or Anna on my drunken stumblings back into the house.
As usual Katie gave me a list of things to sort out while she was off getting a manicure, pedicure, haircut etc, so I plugged on with those jobs and awaited her return.
As was horribly predictable, Katie eventually knocked on the door about an hour behind schedule, and had worked herself into a right state. I think she was supposed to be leaving for Milly's at about 11am, yet got into the taxi after 1pm, cutting it fine to say the least...
I was charged with lugging all our bags (2 x 80 litre backpacks, 2 x smaller backpacks, 1 x camera bag, plus 3 x bags of clothes to go back to parents) into a taxi in Barnes and over to Adele & Ken's in West Hampstead, where we would both be staying tonight before going to Bedford & Cambridge to "meet the Parents" before flying out of Gatwick tomorrow evening.
Delee had booked a taxi for 2pm from her place, so that was my target. The timing was not helped by Katie stealing my taxi because her's was late, so I had to explain to a very confused driver that I needed to go to West Hampstead, rather than Clapham Junction as he was expecting.
I knew it was going to be a struggle when he said "West where ?!"...
I repeated "Hampstead" about 4 times before giving up and trying anywhere near West Hampstead that I thought he might know.
In the end he told me that "he didn't know that area", so we would have to go to his office to collect "another driver" (?!) who would take me to Hampstead. He probably knew that I wasn't too impressed by me rolling my eyes, looking at my watch, and questioning the nature of his relationship with his Mother under my breath.
Naturally we headed off in totally the wrong direction to pick up his mate, who then headed in suspiciously like the wrong direction towards our destination. These suspicions were confirmed when he asked for the A to Z, and I ended up navigating him to Adele's house myself (and paying for the pleasure !).
By this time the taxi I was in was definitely running late, and Adele & Ken's taxi had arrived early, so Ken called me to work out a new plan. We decided that they would leave me their keys and jump in their taxi, and I would dump the bags at their place and take my taxi on to Chancery Lane and on to the wedding venue.
I reached Delee's at 2:15pm, dumped the stuff unceremoniously inside the door without the driver's help (cheers), and then gave him directions for our second and most important stop, the wedding !
Unsurprisingly he didn't have a clue where Chancery Lane was, but I was able to establish that he had heard of the West End, and roughly where Trafalgar Square was, which was nice. Glad this wasn't his job or anything ?!
44 minutes later (and after more passenger navigation), we miraculously arrived outside the venue, to find Milly & the bridesmaids waiting for their cue to enter the church. Great timing !
Admittedly it's not the first time that I've been the last guest into the church, but at least I got a kiss from Milly before Sven did ! She looked amazing. Result ;)
The church was stunning, allegedly the oldest Catholic church in London, full of beautiful big stained glass windows... and people wondering who the sweating ginger mess was walking up the aisle when they were expecting the bride !
As I hustled into a big church full of strangers, Delee came to the rescue, giving a big wave over to join them, and admiring my perfect timing (I think ?!), and sure enough seconds later the music started and in walked our blushing bride with her proud Father.
After the service (resided over by a colourful priest who was not unlike a character from Father Ted) we all strolled around outside admiring the building and catching up with our friends who we hadn't seen since the beginning of September.
We then walked the 10 mins to the evening venue, which was 'The Chop House' on Patternastor Square (however you spell it), which has a fantastic location nearly underneath St Paul's Cathedral, one of London's most beautiful buildings.
By now we'd established that England had beaten Estonia 3-0 in the Euro qualifiers, and the Scots had impressively beaten the Ukraine 3-1, so all was going according to plan. Apart from the Scotland result ;)
Now we just had to find a television to watch the England v France World Cup rugby semi-final, and it would be mission accomplished. Oh, and there was something about a wedding ?!
There was no sign of any tvs (televisions, not transvestites) in the venue, and a quick sweep of the area was also unsuccessful, so I realised that this was not going to be as easy as I'd hoped...
After some lovely photos under St Paul's, and some very nice champers, we were guided inside to our tables.
The food was DELICIOUS, salmon fishcakes to start, roast beef for mains, and absolutely no idea what the desert was because Ken & I had left under a cloak of darkness to find somewhere to watch the last 20 mins of the rugby ! Naughty naughty, very naughty ;)
We'd been checking our mobiles & getting rugby updates from the waiters, so we knew that France were one point ahead with 30 mins left. We were nervous wrecks, and finally we snapped.
Our plan was one of great genius and beauty (running out of the reception to find a pub !), but we were nearly instantly scuppered by a taxi pulling up 10 metres away from us containing Beccy, Zack, Kirsty & Rich, who understandably asked why we were running away from the venue with looks of extreme concern etched onto our drunken faces !
We were able to convince them to join us in our quest, but after trying a number of pubs which were all "closed for private parties" they decided to head to the venue instead, leaving Ken & I to feel even more guilty, and desparate !
Luckily Ken used to work in the area, so knew the pubs well, but all of them were closed for private parties, leaving us swearing and cursing our luck, until we eventually decided that there was only one thing that we could do: gatecrash a private party.
The one we happened to choose was probably about the worst possible, as we were suited & booted and everyone in the pub was in t-shirts & jeans, so we just had to hope that they had more important things to worry about than inverse wedding crashers ?!
We casually ordered a couple of beers and agreed to keep a low profile so as not to attract any attention which might lead to an ejection when they realised that we were not invited guests.
This lasted approximately 8 seconds.
"COME ON ENGLAND" thundered Al.
"COME ON JOHNNY" roared Ken.
"LET'S DO THESE FRENCH %$*&#*s" roared our heroes...
Of course you all know the eventual outcome (Johnny Wilkinson's magic feet carressing a penalty and then another perfect drop goal to break French hearts), and can imagine the scene at the final whistle, with me & Ken jumping up and down, arms around each other, spilling beer everywhere without a care in the world.
England had done it, beaten the French in their own backyard, after beating Australia in the 1/4 finals. We were there, we were IN THE FINAL, against all expectations, and with the chance to become to become the first country in history to retain the rugby World Cup. Wow.
We then hared back to the reception, outside of which were standing our not-very-impressed wives, but who could deny these two proud and happy Englishmen, without having hearts of stone ?!
We were then rushed inside ready for the first dance (which was somewhat unconventional in that Sven appeared to spend most of it literally throwing Milly off her feet as their dance lesson was forgotten within 5 seconds), and a night of celebration for so many reasons.
It was so good to catch up with our friends again, who are too numerous to list here but you know who you are, and thanks so much for helping us enjoy the special day so much, it was a fantastic wedding.
Many drinks later, most of us jumped in a couple of taxis and headed for Ken & Adele's for an after-wedding party, which continued into the very early hours. Katie sensibly disappeared at about 2am, leaving the rest of us to carry on (champagne & fish finger pittas !) until 5am.
What a great day, a bit stressful but absolutely worth it in every possible way. Thank you very much Mr & Mrs Hagon for all your hospitality and for throwing such an excellent and enjoyable wedding ;)
Another hangover was sadly unavoidable, and I went to bed absolutely thrilled that we would be up in less than 4 hours and flying back to Asia !
lots of love,
Al & Katie xx
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