Ann & Mike's Wedding

The wedding was LOVELY.  It took place on Ann and Mike's front garden and wasn't even marred by the fact that there was a garage sale going on across the road.  In fact, Ann's mum took the chance to pop across the road for a last-minute wedding present.  

Ann looked absolutely gorgeous in her dress, which was something of a relief for Caro who had never seen tomboy Ann in a skirt before.  Caro had done all the make-up that morning as Ann's official stylist had been fired for, “making her look like a hooker”.  Macca was also after the Caro Treatment, and since Caro and Brownie practically have an entire cosmetics department in their combined make-up bags, Caro was in her element.  Ann's two sisters were also there and got sucked into the exciting world of  make overs.  There was lots of "Ooh!  Can I have some of that?!" and soon Caro was slapping eyeshadow all over the place.

So the girls were all well-presented out on the lawn.  But where were the boys?  Mike, Paul, Glenn and Matt arrived at the last minute, roaring up in a lime-green Tirana and presented themselves to the unimpressed marriage celebrant.  "Come on then, smarten yourselves up!" she snapped.  "Get those jackets done up!  Take those hands out of your pockets!  And get those sunglasses off your head!" 

Actually the celebrant was very good and kept the whole thing light-hearted.  Mind you, she also pulled a fast one during the course of the ceremony.  She had arranged for Ann and Mike to write down the things they liked best about each other, supposedly so that she could refer to it during the ceremony.  However, she passed these sheets back to the pair and Ann and Mike read them aloud to each other.  Mike was HOWLING by the end of his - as was Caro (naturally).  

Then we piled into a bus for the reception at the rugby club.  Here's where it went all horribly wrong for me because they had decided to decorate all the tables with petals which is a lovely idea unless you happen to be hugely allergic and before I knew it, I could hardly speak as my throat had seized up, my nose was exploding all over the place (all through the speeches) and I  could hardly see anything because my eyes had closed.  Ha ha ha!!  What a great time I had!  What I saw of the reception looked really good though, and Ann and Mike had a great time which is the main thing.  I spent most of the evening outside, feeling guilty that Caro was having to do it without
me, but honestly, I couldn't really breathe in there.

So I hung around outside until it was time to go.  Tom kept me company and I discovered that is a very droll man.  He's a very Australian bloke who lives in Melbourne.  He's also got that terribly Australian knack of freaking you out about the wildlife.  "Awww yeah... don't touch those bins over there," he informed Lisa Brown, "there's redbacks in there.  Redbacks'll kill ya."  Lisa refused to believe him.  "Go on, stick your hand in," she insisted.

"Nah, you gotta watch yourself.  You gotta watch where you swim too.  There's blue-ringed octopus.  The deadliest venom known to man.  Blue-rings'll kill ya."  Brownie headed back into the rugby club,
seeking out verification on "red-backed octopusses". 

Australia, it must be emphasised, IS a dangerous place.  Not dangerous in the Edinburgh sense, where small Englishmen are the favourite prey of the Scots football hooligan who has been drinking too much.  No, it's dangerous in the sense that it is a very venom-intensive country with spiders, snakes, jellyfish and crocodiles - all of whom are EXTREMELY DANGEROUS when they have been drinking too much.

To illustrate, Tom told us a story about a mutual friend named Reg.  Reg is a lovely Scottish chap and it appears that when he first arrived in Australia he was playing football in his bare feet and ran across a patch of grass before doubling up in agony.  Yes, it was special evil Australian grass with extra-sharp blades that had managed to gash his foot.  "Christ!" complained Reg, "in Australia even the GRASS tries to kill you!"  Tom laughed a lot at that.  He's a bad, bad man. 

All this talk made Brownie paranoid on our return to the house.  She was seeing spiders everywhere and shaking all her bedding in our direction so any spare Huntsmen would come flying out at US.  Caro and I, with our allergies, were far more concerned about the dust.  "AAARGH!  AAAARGH!" we both complained, our nasal cavities swelling like feet on a long flight.  I blame Tom indirectly for all this.

So it was a good hour before we got to sleep at which point - BANG!  BANG!  BANG! went the door.  It was Zela and Mike with two more crumbly relatives in tow who had decided to come back to our place for a party.  

Zela was terrible, clopping about in her high-heels all night and keeping us awake with her shrieking laughter while we were turned into old people grumpily complaining about needing our sleep.  Mind you, the next morning Caro got her revenge by being extra loud in the kitchen despite Mike's request that "Zela would like you to keep it down."  

Cheek.