A Winter Wedding

This weekend was spent down in the South West, at Paul and Nadine's wedding, and a fine weekend it was.

I worked with Paul from 2002 until early this year, he was my supervisor and we became friends through long, hard hours designing process and organisation in the most unglamorous of locations. Having to travel all over the UK for work, he eventually left the firm to train as a teacher and settle down with Nadine.

Opening highlight was the drive down. The fact that I left London to drive down to Somerset at 6pm on Friday meant that it was a night drive. Beyond a long stretch of traffic heading out of the city, the darkness turned what was a forbidding 4-hour journey into an atmospheric night time drive on asphalt, the cats eyes glowing and arcing into the distance. The last half hour of the journey was spent bombing down winding country lanes in the pitch darkness, hi-beams on, ground giving and rising unpredictably - thoroughly exhilarating, and reminded me of my LA-San Fran drive up the coastal highway a few years back. Niamh arrived before me and phoned my mobile when I was supposed to be about ten minutes away, yet such was my entrancement with the roads that I double backed a couple of times and took twice that time to get there. All in all, it took just over 4 hours, and I arrived at the manor house in time to hook up for a drink with Paul and his posse before the bar closed.

I stocked up on good sounds for the drive, and it was smooth grooves all the way. In the discreet warmth of the cockpit, I sang aloud. R Kelly's "Happy People" got put on "repeat 1" for about 20 minutes(!)

It must have been strange for Paul - the two years working on those projects was a bizarre time for all of us. As I remember, we were all doing 14+ hour days and he missed Nadine, and we weren't getting much success with the project, but it struck me that the people attending the wedding from that time hit it off immediately. We'd all "come through" it, so it made things seem distant and safe. Some of them had ditched their high salaries and left the horrific pressure behind them. They're living lives where financial precarity is balanced out with love and family. The cliché that absence makes the heart grow fonder is not without basis. Not having seen some of the peeps for such a long time, I was moved to see them now in their new states of parenthood, marital bliss, homely satisfaction. I find it somewhat redemptive, rediscovering affection for friends you don't see but who you have always liked because they're, well, just decent people by nature and that's not something that changes. It's an affirmation of the human capacity for good things.

I abandoned my camera in the suit pocket for most of the evening, but I recovered attention sufficiently to take a few snatched shots. I've posted a couple below, just for the hell of it...

Note: For the unknowing, and despite the pair theme, I'd point out that none of the below are couples - Chris is married and has a kid, Niamh's currently single, as am I, and Clodagh (my ex-boss) is most definitely already attached!