The real title of this post should be: "My son gets married". I tried to suggest to him that marriage is a bad idea but the fact that I have myself been married four times put me in a very weak position to argue that.
But his bride is a fine woman so my prophecy is that they will stay together -- unlikely though that is in the modern world. She is a woman of sterling character and my son admires that in her even though they have different musical tastes and she tends towards the political Left. She is quite open to reason however so that is the main thing. She is a friendly and sociable person so that helps a lot too. She and my son met when he approached her in a university cafeteria while she was eating a banana! One imagines he thought she did it well!
She has a first degree in psychology and expects to enter a higher degree soon. Her most amazing exploit has been to get a job in psychology. She wrote around 200 applications before she got that job so that showed dogged determination. Only a minority of psychology graduates ever get a job in it.
The wedding was on Saturday at her parents' property South of Canberra. Anne and I flew into Canberra on a Friday Tiger Air flight as I liked their departure times around midday. We flew on a crowded A320 is an all-economy configuration. And the Tiger Air configuration is what one might call a Japanese configuration -- only comfortable for very short people. I had noticed however that they have some "bulkhead" seats that offer more legroom so booked them.
When I arrived however I was booted out of those seats and given seats where my knees were against the seat in front. One of my knees is a bit gammy so I was pretty annoyed about that. Nobody had told me that bulkhead seats were for the young and fit and I am undoubtedly decrepit. People in bulkhead seats on Tiger have to be able to help other passengers escape during any emergency. Had I known of that restriction, I would have flown on another airline that had more varied options.
Anyhow the flight from Brisbane to Canberra was only 100 minutes so I survived in a very grumpy mood.
We were picked up at the airport by the mother of the bride, which was very kind of her as she lives quite a long way out of town. Accommodation had been arranged for us at a place I had never heard of -- a satellite city to Canberra called Tuggeranong. It was about a 20 minute drive South of Canberra. We stayed at an apartment hotel there, which was very high quality.
We arrived at the hotel a bit after lunchtime seeking a late lunch as we had shied away from Tiger food. Most places seemed to have gone into siesta mode by that time however but good old Coffee Club was open and we both ordered the unusual "Bacon & Avo Flat Grill" there, which was surprisingly good and served promptly. Coffee Clubs are all franchises, however, so other outlets will be different.
Our Friday night stay was comfortable assisted by some TV and some gin. We had twin beds as Anne and I have different sleeping times.
We didn't stray far on Saturday morning -- wedding day -- as we were due to be picked up at 11 by a kindly local couple. So we again hit the Coffee Club and were lucky to get a seat. An elderly couple got up from their seat especially to give it to us. We both had the Big Breakfast menu option which was excellent. Neither of us got through it all
We arrived at the wedding venue rather early so had a good opportunity for chats. I was particularly pleased to have some chats with Von. She and I have always been pretty much on the same wavelength but I don't see her so much now she lives in the Shaky Isles. She looked after me in some ways on the wedding day as I don't get around very easily these days.
We all eventually ended up outdoors where the wedding was to be held. Von had kindly set up a seat for me under a tree as my skin cancer gives me a great aversion to direct sunlight. Ken arrived after a while and we ended up chatting a lot while we waited, which we often do.
The actual wedding was reasonably formal in that the celebrant had arranged some very romantic wedding vows, which the bride giggled at on one occasion -- possibly out of nervousness. Now here is an odd thing: I liked the bride's makeup! Brides often do great things with makeup but this was a modest affair as the bride has generally good skin and features anyway. So what this makeup did was to accentuate the bride's brilliant blue eyes.
I am definitely a fan of blue eyes. Before political correctness set in, Germans used to say that blue eyes are treu, and I think there is something in that, but mainly I just think blue eyes are beautiful -- like blue gems in a face. So I married four blue-eyed women. But all my family are blue-eyed so maybe I an entitled to that eccentricity. Some people close to me have brown eyes, I might add.
There was lots of photography going on -- many amateur efforts supplementing professional efforts. And that is when we come to the vanishing neck! Look at the photo below. Anne has a perfectly normal neck but I have no neck at all! Where has it gone? If anybody has a suggestion about where it might be, please let me know.
And my geriatric self with my youthful son
The happy couple
At one stage she did something characteristic of her loving heart. The dinner was a buffet but she was seated next to Ken when she brought her plate back to the table. Ken saw that she had bread as part of her dinner and asked where she found it. She told him and he went to get up and find it. Suz, however, immediately put her piece of bread on Ken's plate so he would not have to get up, which he didn't! What a good daughter she is to him!
I also managed to have a good chat to Simon, which I often do. He has just got a Masters degree in defence studies so we discussed his dissertation. It emerged that his thinking on self-interest versus morality led him to a conclusion of which one of Mr Trump's policies is an example. I announced a little loudly that Simon agrees with Mr Trump, which was potentially embarrassing to him -- but my sense of humour sometimes gets away from me. He took it in good part however. With a smile he said that he had been called many things in his life but that was the lowest yet. I suspect that he does see some virtue in Mr Trump. Mr Trump is an endless source of entertainment to me.
And after the dinner came the bridal dance. My son had heroically learnt how to do a version of it. It was not quite a Floral Dance but it fulfilled custom. It started to rain as the dance wound up so maybe that said something.
Anyway, another kind lady drove us home to our hotel and I was able to introduce Anne that night to Tanqueray gin plus Cascade tonic water. The water was a sophisticated one with a lot more than quinine in it so it enables a very good cold and fizzy highball. Anne is always suspicious of my food and drinking explorations but liked that one.
Next morning, Sunday, Tuggeranong was as silent as the grave but we found a Chinese cafe opening at 8am nearby called the Milligram. I had a Reuben sandwich and Anne had basic bacon and eggs. And both were good
There was a bus station right next to our hotel so we then got a bus into Canberra and another bus to the airport, The seating in the bus was again "Japanese". The flight home departed a bit late but was otherwise uneventful.
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