Claire Speed's Wedding

Claire is well known on both the alt.sysadmin.recovery and alt.fan.pratchett newsfroups, and when it came to her wedding, she decided that not having met someone in the flesh didn't mean that that someone didn't count as a friend. So, as well as the traditional friends and family, she decided to invite some of us that she knew from the groups.

Friday 3rd May 1996: Preparations for a wedding always start some time before. In our case, this meant that Colette, who was taking a day off, trogged down to Ealing Broadway Tube and grabbed Colm Buckley who was flying in to Heathrow from Dublin. Meanwhile, I snared Emmet O'Brien from Duxford while on my way home from work before a mass flight of Spitfires decided to take out his house. I was only a little disconcerted that, on my ringing Emmet's door bell, Jo Walton answered it, with husband Ken behind. The explanation as to why they'd come down from Lancaster somehow involved Emmet's birthday.

There has been some speculation recently on afp over the fact that Colm and Emmet had never been seen in the same place at the same time, despite both of them being members of Trinity College Dublin. Some have believed that they are the same person. Others have posited even wilder hypotheses - including one that they are antiparticles of each other. Thus, it was with a little trepidation that we introduced them to each other. We are pleased to report that the expected mutual annihilation didn't occur.

Saturday 4th May 1996: The following morning, we all piled into Colette's car and sped up the motorways to the village of Thelwall, whereat our Claire was due to be wed. The five hours we'd allotted for this turned out to be unduly pessimistic, even with a stop for food, and we arrived about an hour earlier than necessary. With all this time to kill, we decided to repair to a local hostelry.

Due to the vagaries of the British licensing laws, this turned out still to be closed. So, with fifteen minutes to wait, we investigated the Manchester Ship canal, which here has the smallest ferry I've ever seen: a rowing boat. After deciding not to avail ourselves of the boatman's kind offer to row us across and back, we returned to the pub in time to find the groom and best man taking a little something to reinforce their courage.

An hour later, we were in the church. Up piped the organ and, finally, we saw the bride advancing down the aisle. I'm not a great connoisseur of church services these days, and I was a little disconcerted by the 'happy clappy' nature of this modern ceremony, but our party all agreed that the singers were excellent. Most importantly, Claire was properly hitched.

Once the bride and groom were packed off in a tiny black Austin 7 (and the attendants in a somewhat larger Austin Princess), we found ourselves with some time to spare before the reception. Wandering off and checking in at the Travelodge, and having lunch at the adjoining Little Chef only consumed a small part of that, so we looked at the map and worked out what to do next. Well, we thought, it's not that far to Lancaster from here - let's go visit ppint.!

So an hour or so further north, and into Lancaster where ppint.'s shop, or more exactly North Street on which it stands, turned out to be a little elusive. But we eventually tracked it down and caused the ppint. some surprise by arriving unannounced on an up-till-then quiet afternoon. ppint. welcomed us with open arms, garlic vodka and quite excellent chocolate, and we reciprocated by spending a small fortune on books and the odd die. A very odd die, in this case, as it was totally missing any markings.

Let me at this point note that interstellar master traders is an excellent little shop, with the highest SF&F book density I've ever seen, and I rather wish it was closer to home so I could visit more often.

Come the evening, and we were back down south in Walton for the reception. Claire and Graham had hired Walton Hall for this, and we were suitably impressed by this Victorian pile in the centre of spreading gardens. Once the crush in the bar dies down, it was found to be cheap (us southerners have to put up with a lot of crap, one of which is the price of beer in London), and only the 'Celtic' band kept us from the dance floor. Instead, it was up the ornate stairs to the food, where we discovered a real feast. As for the quantity - well, next time Claire gets married, I'm bringing a doggie bag.

A closer look at Claire's dress showed it to be a Regency style raw silk dress, with white boots laced with white ribbon beneath (much to Colm's delight). Also, we had a chance to investigate one of the ongoing speculations of afp: namely, whether Claire is fair, dusky, titian or (covering all possibilities) bald. Careful inspection revealed that what appeared to be a bridal head-dress is almost certainly a Mimbari head crest, and that therefore Claire, though currently blonde, was almost certainly bald in the past.

Much discussion followed, including the obligatory OS wars. I suffered the second 'unexpected person' case of the weekend (the first being the KenJo) when one of the other guests turned out to be Nick Gibbons, who I'd last seen at a CUSFS meeting a year or so earlier.

Sunday 5th May 1996: and it was up early again, to get Colm back to Heathrow in time for his plane. But a direct route? No. For some reason, Emmet was getting worried about Ken and Jo looking after his house, so we described an enormous zigzag across Southern England and dropped him at home first, where the Ken and Jo also got to meet Colm. Then back round the London Orbital Carpark to the airport to bid Colm god-speed, and then home to recover from nearly 600 miles driving in about 30 hours.

Memorable quotes:

"Once Alan and I reached the stage where we weren't fisting each other ...". Colm's unfortunate phrasing when referring to coming to terms with his brother. It is only fair to point out that Colm comes from a nation where the ideal Friday night is 'going out looking for good crack'.

"Should you go for a flamboyant and traditional style wedding, ensure that the car is larger than the dress." Claire later on asr.