Sunday 5 August 2012

Golden Wedding weekend

Home at 4pm from a fantastic weekend wedding down in Dorset. We took the kids and my mother-in-law who took on the lion-share of supervision which allowed us a whole day and night out at Ben and Helen's marvellous wedding.


One hundred and twenty of us, predominantly from the Royal Borough, made our way down to Sherborne for the big day. A creamy stone coloured town which simply glows in the Summer sun. The ceremony itself was right up my street - a simple non-religious affair in the garden of a local hotel with a couple of appropriate readings from friends about "the two dinosaurs" and "the little yellow leaf." After some relatively low-key photos, it was a Le Mans start to cars and a fifteen minute race through the country lanes to The Rose & Crown at Trent. Charlton Life readers may know this pub as it's run by a good friend of Curb It's and it was the stopping off point for a coach load a few years back when the game was played during a biblical rain storm. 


Anyhow, landlady Heather had pushed the boat out and the weather held all afternoon. Martini and Elderflower cocktails for the ladies and local scrumpy and Henry's IPA for the men. Plate after plate of imaginative hors d'oeuvres for what seem like a couple of hours before the main event. A pig had been roasting since early morning and had been reduced to a mountain of delicious hot pork and a square metre of crispy crackling. 








A local guitar player arrived late afternoon and enlivened proceedings by playing a set which I am confident the Bride and Groom had chosen for him (Bob Dylan, Paul Weller, Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene etc). As the light began to fade we all moved into the four bars and the revelry continued. We decided to head back to our hotel around 9pm which proved to be a good move. I bumped into another guest this evening in Charlton Lane and she told me it was still going strong on the dance floor at 1pm. 


Interspersed through the weekend was snatched glimpses of of British Heroes as they piled on the gold medals during Super Six Saturday and again today. Stunning performances from Farah, Ennis and a bloke called Greg Rurtherford last night to add to the three gold earlier in the day from Eton Dorney and the velodrome. Andy Murray also managed to blow Federer away for Gold at Wimbledon this afternoon.


It's no use showing us third in the medals table behind the USA and China. What they must do is show the medals table as a percentage of the population. That's how it should be done and it would show Great Britain top of the pile, where we belong. I will be glued to the men's 100m final this evening where I will confidently predict we will not be adding to our tally but where the action will be riveting nonetheless.

3 comments:

  1. Sorry to sound like a party pooper but I think you'll find that Jamaica would lead the pack!

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  2. Good shout, I was going to exclude all small island races, but where would we draw the line?

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  3. It was a gorgeous day.

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