Christening

Managed to achieve a few "firsts" today plus learned a couple of things.

Up early today to go to a christening and for the first time in my life I saw an adult get baptised. I was sort of hoping for the full dunking in the local river bit, but alas, he got the same treatment as his baby daughter who was being baptised at the same time. Still, the cold water evinced the expected screams of shock and surprise followed by the traditional inconsolable fit of crying - but the baby was as quiet as a mouse.
We did wonder why our nephew was getting baptised since we never had him down as a religious type, but apparently it was a condition that had to be fulfilled in order to get his baby baptised. So now the good lord has two new fully signed up members, and we got to get chocolate cake, pastries, cucumber sandwiches, beer and sushi. SUSHI? Yup!
And that was the second first of the day - I've never had sushi.
I also hadn't realised that the other type of cake we are which tasted like two-year old wedding cake was actually two-year old wedding cake - being the top tier of their wedding cake, saved for the first christening. Traditional, apparently. So I learnt something.
The third first was the fact that I was actually able to watch the ceremony going on around me for the first time in years on account of having no camera in my hand. I decided I wasn't going to take any photographs and actually take part in the ceremony - a refreshing change.
Finally, I learnt that Nottingham wasn't the shit-hole I thought it would be....

....as long as you kept yourself 14 miles away from the city.