T -55 days: Lists of people and presents

When I was a much younger man, I got married. A variety of circumstances and choices meant that I invited less than half of my extended family, *and* chose not to invite any children.  Everything’s easier with hindsight, isn’t it?

So, this time the invitation list is going the other way.

Family – My parents have been good enough to pull together the extended family list, *with* all the kids invited. And when you’re 38 your cousins have a lot more kids than they did 15 years earlier. Most of them I’ve hardly ever met but BDMs (as the newspaper guys call them) are the significant points where families get a good excuse to come together.

Friends – Of course, the other thing about being 38 is that you have a lot of good friends you’ve built up over the years. What with the entire Ayers/Curran extended family and the Clough clan there’s a pressure on numbers. We did think of hiring the O2 centre, but thought that we’d just have to draw a line somewhere. So we’ll be welcoming everyone we can for a good knees-up and obviously, if you don’t get an invite, then it just means we don’t like you enough.

Formal invitations – will be coming out in a couple of weeks.

Catching up – Let’s be honest, the day I’m getting married isn’t the best time for having any kind of decent conversation with all the people I haven’t seen for a year, two.. five or, in some cases people that I’ve hardly ever met. So I shall be taking the regal approach – introducing the FMA and looking forward to talking properly another time. Forgive me (us) if we don’t get much time to catch up.

In the meantime, this week has been one for another kind of list:

Gift List – If you feel that you’d like to give us a gift, that’s lovely and you’ll find all the details on the Wedding Info page (also on the tab at the top of this page). If you think we’re too old to be getting gifts, or you want to give it to your favourite charity, then that’s wonderful too.

We’ve already got two houses worth of stuff to fit into one and you know what I’m like about trying not to buy loads of new things, recycling etc etc … so at the moment we’ve got a few larger items from John Lewis in mind (the HD projector is the best idea yet) to which you could make a voucher contribution if you wished. The other list we’ve set up is for Highbury Vintners (that way we’ve got an excuse to open some good stuff when you come and visit). Of course, the FMA would love it if you bought a lifetime supply of golf stuff for me too. Titleist pro v1s, since you ask.

And finally, as this has been such a dry update. Here’s something from Dara O’Briain to lighten the mood:

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Gulliver’s disinfected boots

A very long day… I got up on Tuesday morning, went out to Valparaiso on the Chilean coast and looked out across the pacific towards NZ. When I got back to Santiago, just had time to pack and have a beer with the expats before getting in a taxi to the airport.

It’s now 0600 on Thursday morning and I’m on the same day. Grabbed a few hours of sleep on the LAN  flight (decent food, good service, nice seat, nice neighbour… shame about the film selection. Hellboy 2 the stand out, del Toro is outstanding, can’t wait for his Hobbit) and now am standing at the Samsung shop’s online terminal watching israelis opposite me do web searches for hotels to stay in Auckland. Boots may have lava damage, but are now v clean after BioSecurity clean-up.

I have the luck of staying with the lovely Kate Marshall today/tonight and then rendezvousing with the equally lovely Adrian Law tomorrow (better golf, worse legs) … it’s so nice to have such welcoming friends.

Immediate observation on the Auckland Airport inhabitants: I have switched from a Mayan land of miniature, round faced people, to a Polynesian land of supersized roundfaced people.  One flight has turned the gulliver experience on its head.