Sebastian

Day 4: Prague Castle and St Vitus Cathedral

The next morning we went back to Prague Castle, this time arriving fresh and full of energy. We started by going round the Old Royal Palace, which included the site of the Second Defenestration of Prague, which Ramesh had been disappointed not to see on our first visit to the city. There was quite a lot of interesting information about the legal history of the city, and some cool interior design, but the audio guide and the maps didn't seem to quite link up, so some of the tour was a bit confusing. Wandering around the grounds there was more history and some really stunning architecture. The Cathedral was my favourite bit, with lots of blingy tat and some beautiful stained glass windows.( Read more... )

I've left it longer than I would have liked to start writing this, so I've already forgotten too many details, but I took an uncharacteristically large number of photos, and annotated most of them, so I hope they're going to help jog my memory enough to put together a decent narrative. It was a wonderful holiday, so I do want to be able to remember as much of it as possible. It's without a doubt the longest that Ramesh & I have spent together without the responsibilities of real life or other people to distract us, and that felt like a really good way to start our married life together.

Day one: mostly travel
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The London wedding was very different from the Inverness one - both were magical, but London was more stressful. There were so many people, which was wonderful, and made me feel very loved and supported, but I hadn't realised the extent to which it would mean hardly getting to talk to most people.

Once again, the morning was made slightly ridiculous by my determination to do parkrun, plus some last minute logistics involved in getting fizzy wine and glasses to the church. My plan wasn't quite as ridiculous as themidnightgirl's, who joined me along with atreic, robert_jones and my sister, but then went all the way back to Brixton to change before the service. After a brisk and bracing run Robert and I went back home to do most of my personal getting ready, and then off to church for the choir rehearsal (which again, I might be slightly ridiculous for insisting on singing in, but we were short on tenors). After we'd done the anthem I ducked out of the rest of the rehearsal and spent a while flitting around, making sure everything was ready, speaking to obandsoller's family, greeting people as they arrived, and trying not to get too overwhelmed with nerves. About ten minutes before the service started I hid myself away and got into the gown ready to come down the aisle.( Read more... )

The morning after the wedding we got up reasonably early to have breakfast with people who were getting the mid-morning train south, but we ourselves weren't leaving until a bit later, so after saying our goodbyes I took the opportunity to sit in the hottub in our bedroom for a while. After that we went to Mass at the Cathedral, which gave me a chance to thank the servers and the organist, and then set off back to London, arriving home a little before midnight.

In the spirit of ridiculous optimism, I had thought that inbetween a few appointments, actually spending time with Ramesh, and doing the last few bits of planning and admin for the London wedding, that I might even have time to get some work done that week. That was not to be, as some of the last few 'tiny' bits of admin were less tiny than I'd thought, plus I made my usual mistake of thinking that on days when I had plans for part of the day I'd be able to fit things in around them, which rarely actually works out without rigorous scheduling. Still, I got a lot of other stuff done.

On the Wednesday evening there was an exciting surprise "birthday and handing-in-her-masters-dissertation" party for kerrypolka which I was very pleased to be part of. I didn't stay long, both because I was feeling under time pressure for wedding stuff, and because my ability to enjoy socialising in large groups gets ever closer to zero as I get older, but it felt important to mark the occasion.

On Thursday afternoon I went to see the Barbershop Chronicles at the Roundhouse, a play about the communities that build up around black barbershops, in London, in Africa, and in the Carribean, as well as being about families of birth and choice, and racism and colonialism and how we respond to them. It was more a series of interlinked vignettes than one continuous narrative, but had enough plot that I didn't find it difficult. I really liked it, and although the run has finished, it's now touring, so worth looking out for if it comes near you.

Earlier that day I also had the outcome appointment which concluded the autism diagnostic process, and recieved a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. I hadn't realised that the label was still in use since it's been taken out of the DSM 5, but apparently the UK is slightly behind the curve, although it sounded as though they'd be moving in line with the DSM in the not too distant future. As well as informing me of the diagnosis, and giving me a report with rather more detail as to why they came to that conclusion, they let me know about various resources that would be available to me. I've been sufficiently busy getting married and such since then that I haven't done anything with that information, but it's fairly high on the to-do list. I don't expect this diagnosis to make nearly as much difference to my life as the ADHD one, but who knows. I'll probably write more about it later.

Between Sarah's wedding and our first one I went back to work for a couple of days, and then we travelled up to Inverness gradually as a mini holiday. We were in Edinburgh for just an afternoon, but still managed four festival shows and lunch with my old friend bastard. The shows were "Blood and Gold" - a one woman show about colonialism and the legacy of slavery but also about the power of stories and the experience of being from two different cultures; Comedy of Errors - performed in a garden, which was fine, a bit rough and ready, hampered by a missing cast member, and not one of Shakespeare's stronger plays, but the acting was good; Frisky & Mannish - they were a really good cabaret duo, doing mash-ups and filks of pop music. I would have enjoyed it even more if I were more familiar with source material, but I very much appreciated their skill and Ramesh really liked them; and Cruel Intentions: The 90s Musical - I loved it, but I adore the film and know it backwards. The spoken text was heavily cut but otherwise lifted word-for-word from the film, and the songs were all 90s pop - It's quite tricky doing a jukebox musical with an existing script, and sometimes that showed in the songs not quite fitting the plot. This bothered Ramesh, but I was more willing to suspend disbelief.) We stayed just outside Edinburgh in Inverkeithing to minimise the impact of the festival crowds and ramped up accommodation prices. The guesthouse was basic but fine, and I enjoyed some spectacular views when I went for a run along the coast in the morning.

There was a slight mishap with trains which meant we travelled to Dundee via going back to Edinburgh, but we weren't in a particular rush so it was fine. We checked into our hotel there which was much nicer than expected, and then I went to church for the Assumption. They'd transferred it to the Sunday, so it was just their usual daily Eucharist, and the priest was away so it was by extension, but I think that still fulfilled my obligation. Then we had lunch at a pancake place, and made the mistake of thinking we should have some savoury food first, so only managed about half of the ridiculous pile of pancakes - I must remember that being a grown-up means we can just have pudding if we want to. Then we went on to the V&A for the videogame exhibition (which Ramesh had missed in London despite two attempts to get tickets and was the reason we'd come to Dundee). We both enjoyed it, unsuprisingly Ramesh more than me. We also enjoyed different bits - the first room had a lot of detail about the process of making a handful of particular games, which I found a bit repetitive and too detailed but Ramesh really liked. The second room, about socialogical development in the gaming industry was really interesting to me, but he found most of it too basic and stuff he already knew. We'd not left quite enough time so had to rush throug the 3rd and 4th rooms, but it looked as though there was plenty of interesting stuff there.

We made a last minute decision to go out for fancy food in the evening, which was a good one. We went to the Newport - where we had a nice tasting menu, looking out over beautiful views. I didn't get to enjoy those views again in the morning, because it was raining, so tried running inside at the hotel gym. Man, treadmills are boring - next time I will brave the rain. After breakfast we headed on to Inverness and checked in at the first night's hotel (which unfortuntately was not the same as the hotel we were having the wedding reception in, because I was too disorganised to book it before it sold out), and went out to try and find lunch. After a certain amount of faff trying to find somewhere that had nice veggie options I realised time was running a bit short, so left Ramesh to find food by himself and went to the registry office - I got a slightly concerned phonecall from them a few minutes later, making sure that I did know I had to be there in person, but reassured them I was on my way and picked up the licence. By then it was about time for evensong so I went to the Cathedral and met the proctor afterwards, then headed back to the hotel to meet Ramesh and go out for dinner with those of our wedding guests who were already in town.

Gosh, it's been a while since I made an update here. I very much appreciated the various helpful comments and conversations about lay readership and vocation after my last post. There are avenues I intend to pursue once I'm back from honeymoon, but like almost everything else non-wedding related in my life, it's pretty much shelved until then.

Last weekend I went away for my pre-wedding party, aka stag do without all the oogy connotations that term invokes. It was organised with loving care and characteristic eptitude by my wonderful best people themidnightgirl and robert_jones. Along with leonato, emperor, atreic, cm, cuddlyviking and bunnypip, we stayed in a charming and only slightly eccentric cottage in Aysgarth, a village in the Yorkshire Dales. We were slightly unlucky with the weather, managing to pick the weekend of torrential rain immediately following a heatwave, which put a mild crimp in our plans for a long walk, but after a pub lunch on the Saturday we grabbed the couple of hours of only mild drizzle to go and see the extraordinarily beautiful Aysgarth Falls, and some of the more foolhardy amongst us even went for a swim in one of the pools. That evening we had a glorious feast, along similar lines to Easter, with everyone cooking a course - all were delicious, but emperor won the spectacle competition, because when you cook his "Apples in a Lake of Fire" recipe for nine people, you get a lot of fire :)

On Sunday we went to Mass in the nearby town of Leyburn, which was charming and welcoming, and whilst I felt a slight pang of missing hjdoom's baptism, which was happening half way across the country, it was good to be worshipping at the same time and sending prayers of welcome. We stayed for coffee afterwards and chatted to people, which is a thing I find difficult, but I was quite proud of myself for managing to engage with someone who seemed pretty shy, and after a few slightly faltering starts he came out of his shell a bit and told me about his rather fascinating years volunteering for an organisation, Mercy Ships, who deliver free healthcare to some of the poorest countries in the world.

Whilst we were at church the atheists had been hard at work preparing a delicious brunch, which we then followed with a readthrough of "An Ideal Husband". Much like the "A Woman of No Importance" we did for my birthday, the good thing about readthroughs at parties where one is the guest of honour is that you get to play the Oscar Wilde insert, which is of course tremendous fun, especially when it includes kissing atreic! And inbetween all this activity there was still plenty of time for lots of sitting in the hot tub, enjoying the company of some of my most beloved and wonderful friends.

After such a lovely weekend getting up at Ugh o'clock in the morning to catch a train was a bit challenging, but significantly ameliorated by the fact that said train was taking me to Northampton to attend Mass with hjdoom. I'm not even going to try and find words for what it meant to share communion with him. After Mass we went for a gentle walk to and around a nearby park, talking long about life and faith and many other things. A little later vyvyan joined us and we went out for dinner, before I took my leave back to Huddersfield.

This weekend has unsurprisingly been full of wedding preparations. We had the final fitting of our wedding outfits and they were perfect and I can't wait for everyone to see us. We're going to look so stunning. So stunning. We also went through everything that's left on the to-do list, and it although there's a fair amount to do, I actually feel as though we're pretty much entirely on top of it, which is a weird feeling. I keep expecting it to get stressful, but so far it hasn't really. I'm just really excited and happy.