Fri Sept 1, 2000 - 9:30am

6 HOURS LATER....
OK so where the fuck are we?  I'm getting really really fed up now as I've now been driving for the past 4 hours in what seems to be like reaching one end of Wales to the other..And these country lanes are driving me nuts now, all I want to do is floor this piece of crap and get us somewhere fast but I keep getting stuck behind tractors or live-stock lorries.....friggin country bumpkins, hate the lot of them....    So much for a nice drive in the country eh?

So we've just realised that the instructions that our wonderful soon to be dead friend Carl gave us are toss.  You see he mentions a place called Llandevor quite a few times, so we've been heading for there, but in fact he's just telling us to watch out for the SIGNS to Llandevor and take a turn off before there.  So basically we've driven an extra 25 miles to get to this place, realise it's wrong and are now driving back to the original town that we came from.

LAKE COUNTY MANOR
Ok so we've just arrived at the manor after being on the road for 7 hours, we were supposed to meet Carl and Sumiko here at 4:15pm for the wedding rehearsal, it's now 5:30pm so you could say we're a bit fucking late.  Anyhow Tim the hotel porter, barman and anything else you can think of is now giving us directions to the church which is another 40 minutes away....now you could say I'm a little tired and anxious, but you know what.................
 

Sorry about that, felt the need to vent....

So we arrive at the church where we meet ALL of Sumiko's family which was really embarrassing because the pair of us were completely disheveled, I had no make-up on and looked like shit and we both had nasty looking expressions due to being completely knackered.  They were all very very nice and greeted us warmly, whereas Carl just laughed at us because we'd gotten lost.  I swear to god I could of smashed him but it's his weekend so I refrained.  Poor Sumiko looked really really stressed, she even swore in front of her family when Carl wouldn't reason with her about something or other...poor thing, the stresses of getting wed.  Do like we did, quick registry office, in and out in 10 minutes...sorted!!

So we quickly return to the church which by the way is absolutely beautiful, nestled in the valley, surrounded by beautiful green lawns and little diddy diddy houses, dead cute...the Americans are going to love this.

So another quick rehearsal for our benefit then off back to the manor where I was hoping for a little nap and a hot bath, however Sumiko loses it then (actually this is where the cursing happens) because she needs to get everyone up to the restaurant for the family meal and there isn't enough time, so the booking is going to be lost and it's way out (45 minute drive) and everyone is going to be late...ohy my god, blah blah blah.

So the nap isn't going to happen but I do manage to take a quick 10 minute bath where I laid back for 8 minutes and then scrubbed myself for 2, not very long but enough.

So then AGAIN we have to drive over to this friggin restaurant which is way out (is ANYTHING close by round here?) and meet up with ALL  of the family, which are fabulous down to earth, great people.  Carl's sister (Holly), her boyfriend and her son are at the table, so we sat opposite them, which was a great move because they were a blast.  The waitresses were really abrupt and very bossy so we couldn't help but wind them up a bit, much to their annoyance of course.  There was this one waitress who had a huge jaw and a long square face, also when she spoke she sounded like a man, in fact she sounded like Tommy Cooper (British comedian who had a heart attack on live tv and dropped dead)..."just like that".  Well John (Holly's boyfriend) commented that she looked and sounded like Toomy Cooper....I could barely breath I was laughing that hard, Morpheus was crying and the rest of the table were staring at us like we were mad.  Honestly I haven't laughed like that for ages.  Yeah all right you had to be there but it was really really funny, he's got a great sense of humor that John.

So after the long journey BACK to the hotel we managed one drink in the bar then hit the sack, I don't think I've fallen asleep so fast since I was a child.....