Being mother of the groom, "er indoors TM" had wedding
things to do with mother of the bride this morning. Being up rather early I
found sister of the bride who was also at something of a loose end, so we went
for a bit of brekkie. I’d not sat outside for brekkie before; it was rather
entertaining. The hotel was home to a colony of semi-feral cats who were often
patrolling hoping for food scraps. When the family on the next table left, the
cats jumped up and had all the leftovers. They particularly seemed to like the left
over milk in the cereal bowls.
Sister
of the bride had things to do. I met up with "My Boy TM"
(groom), best man, deputy best man, step-father of the bride, and the
ushers, and we got a taxi into the village. We had a rather good full English,
and then it was time for a pre-wedding haircut.
If
ever you find yourself in Turkey I can thoroughly recommend the barber in Sarigerme.
"My
Boy TM" and I went first. We were sat down. We were shaved
and given a haircut with razors. The barber then ran over my head and face with
what I can only describe as some sort of razor wire. (It drew blood on my
nose). He then covered my ears with hot wax, and shoved hot wax-covered
sticks into my ears and up my nostrils. Whilst the wax cooled I had a massage.
I say “massage”… if it had been a fight then I would certainly have
lost. The barber gave me a proper pummelling. And when he had finally beaten me
into submission he yanked the wax off of my ears, and yanked the wax-covered
sticks out of my ears and out of my nose. Oh that smarted! "My Boy TM"
squealed. I didn’t actually laugh, but the ladies of our group who were in the hairdresser’s
next door did. They came in to point and laugh.
I
had a rather good going-over and got change out of seven quid. Can’t be bad.
"My
Boy TM" and I went up the road to the café where the rest
of the lads were already onto their second beer. We sent the next two for their
bout in the barber’s chair, then the two of us took a taxi back to the hotel. I’d
offered to iron all our shirts and there had been a little confusion over
hiring the hotel’s iron and ironing board. Having booked it yesterday
afternoon, I was then told (by one of the ladies of our group) that the
hotel reception knew nothing about my having booked it. After a lot of
confusion, I decided that the sooner I went to collect the iron, the sooner I
could have the argument about it. But there wasn’t any problem. The reception
staff had it all in hand and insisted that they would deliver the iron to my
room. Which they did five minutes later, and even sent someone to do the
ironing too. But I sent him packing. I was going to iron our shirts!
It
didn’t take long.
It
took longer to put them on and figure out how to operate our bow ties. And it
took an absolute age to come to a consensus about how our braces should go.
Pausing
only briefly to unjam "er indoors TM"’s zip, pretty
much all of our group (except the bridal party) met up in the hotel
lobby and walked across to the wedding area in the hotel next door. Turkish law
is odd; you can’t get married in the hotel in which you are staying (so why
does the hotel which does the weddings have a honeymoon suite?)
The area for the wedding was spectacular; and "er
indoors TM"
and the other ladies had busied about all morning making it even more pretty. I
had a gin and tonic to steady my nerves, and suddenly Cheryl was there. She
looks lovely anyway, but she was *so* beautiful. I must admit that I’d
been a tad sceptical about having the wedding in Turkey, but at that moment I was
so glad that we had done so. With my sunglasses on, no one could see how much I
was crying.
The
ceremony went well. It was quick and didn’t drag on like some weddings do. We
had the wedding cake right then (was this a Turkish thing?) and
champagne. We spent a little while posing for photos; I’m told I was in
everyone’s way (sorry!). We then went back to the balcony bar for
drinks. And drinks. And more drinks. After a bottle of white wine, two lagers
and some Malibu (that was just me!) we went into the wedding meal. Again
it was a rather good venue that the ladies had made super-special. We scoffed,
we laughed and joked. The speeches went well. For me the whole thing was
something of a blur. I’m reliably informed that there will be videos of the speeches;
I’m looking forward to seeing them.
As I smoked my (rather
epic) cigar so the thunderstorm hit. Turkish thunderstorms
are rather impressive.
I eventually fell into bed about half past one.
I
took a lot of photos today…
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