Planes and Marriage
Hockey wasn’t great last wednesday, the game was too hit and rush and all about lots of people crowding round the ball. afterwards : Hardy’s.
Thursday
Worked from home and then went around to sarah’s in the evening.
Friday
Sarah moved house!
I helped her shift a load of stuff downstairs before her brother came to stick it all in a van. Before you knew it all the stuff had been shifted and we were eating lunch in the bistro place in West Didsbury - Mixed Meze and cake.
Afterwards we were swiftly down to St. Helens to stay at Sarah’s parents house. A quick pasta dinner followed by Frazier and Air Force One.
Saturday
The reason we were in St. Helens was because we had to catch the 7am flight to Northern Ireland in the morning.
We arrived at the airport with a bit of time to spare (as we’d already checked in online) and made our way to security where we were greeted by the longest queue in humanity.
Due to the new security procedures everyone had to remove their shoes and leave behind all liquids etc… of course some people had been oblivious to these being p ut into place and the amount of stuff that had been consficated (even by that early time) was quite frightening.
We reached the front of the queue by 7am (which is when the flight was supposed to take off) but then we discovered that our on-line check in had expired !!!!
We had to go back to the main hall to get replacement boarding passes, by which time it was way after take off time - so we had to be phoned through as late passengers - at which point we found out that 42 people were yet to board because of the delays!
Anyway, to cut a long story short, we finally got on board around 745, and took off at about 8.
Landing in Belfast we got our hire car and I drove it to Cookstown via a stop off at a tesco’s to get a few this + that items. We were early so we drove around the backroads for a bit to check out a bit of the province.
We went in at around 130pm or so, and met a load of people I don’t know.
The bride to be was Sarah’s ex-next door neighbour, so neither of us knew many of the people there, but we found several people to talk to (including me meeting the groom in the toilets) and the wedding then took place in a medieval hall setting.
It was a civil ceremony so it was very quick, but very nice. We got a few pictures.
The afternoon was spent talking to various people as the major players had their photo’s taken for two hours.
We then were in a race against time… we had to leave the do at 7pm (latest) to make our flight back in Dublin - with the 5 course meal starting at 530pm we made it through 4 lovely courses (sat on a table with lots of other couples who knew not many people there) before having to skip dessert and moseying on out of there.
The whole do was very nice indeed, and the meal was such that you could have as much food\wine as you wanted - all in all a very classy ceremony and day.
Anyway, Sarah drove us back to belfast and went to get changed in the toilets (back into her travelling clothes) meanwhile I waited outside with our stuff and noticed that the flights board had changed…
our flights were cancelled!
we went to find out what was going on and were informed that we’d have to be put on the seven o’clock flight on Sunday.
AM? we asked…
PM… was the response!
they offered a hotel room, but both of us had stuff to do on the Sunday, so Sarah had a brainwave and went to talk to the car hire people, who we managed to get a decent quote off, and then to the easy jet people who said that if we keep the reciepts they’d pay for the car hire, and then the check in people who put us on the flight to Luton (which had been delayed itself).
So we flew to Luton!
on the flight this other fella, based in Liverpool, asked if he could accompany us on the way back, we said that’d be fine…
there followed a very late night trip from Luton to Liverpool. Sarah did the most driving as the most lucid of all of us, whilst I chipped in with an hours worth before I got too tired… We arrived at Liverpool airport some time after three and then had to sort out the car park fees, since we were now trying to leave a day later than that that we had booked!
Finally all sorted, we left and arrived back in St. Helens at 4am - a 22.5 hour day!
Very tiring, but my over-riding memory is of a very nice day spent with Sarah…
Sunday
Got up late and headed over to Sarah’s house to sort out a leaver, then back to Manchester where rosy cooked up a feast.
Monday
Football then poker than a trip down to the pub with sarah and her (newly) ex-housemates.
Tuesday
Went round and cooked for the girl - made a lovely lamb stew. Very Nice.
Wednesday
Today.
