recent events from the social calendar

There was a hog roast in Ingrave (this was several weeks ago). The Mother's Union had a cake stall and the vicar sang I Will Survive. An elderly black guy took to the mike to sing Please Release Me, inadvertently bringing back memories of Nelson Mandela in the days of his incarceration. Mat invented 'manly snakebite', consisting of real ale and scrumpy mixed. He wondered if there was a 'manly' substitute for blackcurrant. 'Crème de cassis', I suggested, but apparently this was not manly enough. Not that Mat was manly enough to actually drink the stuff or even assemble a pint of it. He was looking round for volunteers.

Ross was there, and it did seem to be the ideal occasion for him to take up drinking again – a perfect middle England setting, a lot of eminently offendable people, and an available microphone. He had already mistaken the Mother's Union for the WI. They hate that. However, he did not take the opportunity, his thoughts no doubt on his upcoming nuptials, which transpired this weekend.

It was a very good wedding, though given the formality of Ross' usual attire, his suit was a bit of a let-down. Under the circumstances, nothing short of a suit of armour would really have been special enough, though at least Christine made the effort to dress up. Nor did Ross take this opportunity to fall off the wagon, and neither his speech nor the first dance were anywhere near as pornographic as he had led me to believe they would be. But overall, it was a delightful day, and if, on our table, there was a move to fill the guest book with rather picky criticisms – off-centre table decorations, misplaced spoons – that was because everything else was going so smoothly. Mat was perturbed that his full name on the place card had been spelled with only one 't', though readers of the guest book may have had trouble decoding his obscure reference to a 'missing letter', which sounded like a subplot from Downton Abbey. Dave bemoaned the non-appearance of cheese, until its arrival at buffet-time forced him to hurriedly retract his statement.

Really the whole thing went like a dream, though at one point the lights, briefly, went out. 'Has anyone been murdered?', Ross asked. Nobody said they had – a sure sign of a successful wedding day.