Categories: general, greenbelt
Date: 23 August 2009 17:27:56
Is basically what we're doing for 10 days... Well, no - this afternoon we've returned home after one nights camping, and tomorrow Mr B departs for 8 days camping, and I join him on Tuesday. You might imagine it's been a slight logistical nightmare, but I quite enjoy organisational marathrons like that, so it's been fine.
Yesterday we went to a wedding of two friends of ours. The ceremony was beautiful, tearful and popular, although it had too many smells and bells for my liking. I'd never been to a wedding with communion before. It was lovely in a way, to see the bride and groom share communion together, but giving it out to the 150+ guests meant the service was very long. Afterwards we went over the road to the chaplaincy gardens where we enjoyed bubbly and photos, before all of the guests made the 30 mile journey to the reception location. The reception was in a lovely, large house which is owned and lived in by a family, but it's so massive they also rent it out to wedding parties! They had a large garden which we utilised a lot - there was a yurt in it which was decorated with rugs, cushions and lights which was a brilliant chill out space. On the lawn there were large garden games set out for people to play, chairs and tables and a gazebo with the cake (a fairy tale castle cake!) underneath. When we arrived to the reception there was tea and cake for everyone to enjoy, then the speeches were delieved out on the lawn, after which the cake was cut, and then dinner commenced. Dinner was a bring and share arrangement - on their wedding site beforehand there were about 10 different receipes that people were invited to make and bring. It worked very well - we were definitely not short of food! Once you'd collected your dinner you could choose which room of the house or garden you ate in - there was a large dining room but not everyone could fit in it! After dinner there was the first dance, and everyone continued dancing till the early hours.
As the reception was so far away, the invitation gave you details of local B&Bs or gave you the option of camping at the reception. At the back of the house was a field owned by the house owners, which they allowed guests to camp in overnight for free. It was very odd - as soon as we'd parked the car at the reception, we got the tents out and proceeded to put them up. In our wedding suits and dresses... It made for some amusing photographs! I was wearing a dress for the wedding, but had a hoodie for camping - so whilst assembling the tent I simply put my 'Swansea Uni' hoodie on over my posh frock! I almost wished I could have kept it on - it was more than a little chilly being outside for so much of the evening. I should have bought a smarter, warm jumper that I could have worn - I ended up borrowing Mr B's jacket!
Anyway, we decided that as we were camping so much, we might as well do it properly. We'd had to get out all the camping stuff for Mr B leaving for Greenbelt tomorrow anyway, so we just picked out the bits we wanted at the wedding. This included chairs, stove and eggs and bacon for breakfast. Everyone else had thrown a tent in as a last minute thought, and it was lovely to be able to share our bacon and eggs with our friends this morning.
If you're planning to come to Greenbelt, I will see you there. I will be playing 'Spot Jen's Bunting'.