We Brits love a good wedding. It’s a chance for otherwise sane and respectable people to act like lunatics for a day and your aunt to convince herself that she really could make the Strictly finals with a bit more disco in her.
My cousin Shaun (“Cus”) was getting married again – God loves a trier – this time to the beautiful Polish Ella; if all Poles looked like Ella we would never have heard of UKIP.
The wedding was taking place at the stunning Dumbleton Hall estate near Cheltenham in a village that just oozed cash. It made Bradford look like the Bronx; then again most places do.
A midday start meant it was up with the larks, shaking off the previous night’s “sensible” beers with an icy blast of water to the face and off to pick up the old folks as official help the aged chauffeur for the weekend.
Once cocooned in the car they were chattering like two budgies freed from a cage.
We aqua-planed down the M1 as my Dad pointed out every landmark he had helped save during his national service in the 1950s; the fact that Hitler had been dead ten years seemed irrelevant.
The Mansion On The Hill
Dumbleton Hall is spectacular and actually owned by the Post Office; the entrance looked like something from Brideshead Revisted. It even had a beautiful cricket ground and if the promised coach load of Polish sisters rolled up, then I had truly found Heaven.
Cus was nervously wandering about in reception as we arrived but kindly introduced Ella’s oldest sister with a cordial “…this is Steve…watch him!”
Bit harsh I thought.
One of the unique traits of we Brits is a compulsion to steal anything not screwed down in a hotel room. The logic seems to be we’ve paid for it, so it’s going home. Millions have bathrooms full of crap hotel shampoos that can strip your skin in an instant.
Unserviced when we arrived, we were free to use our rooms if we could find a towel or bar of soap. The choc-chip cookies had long gone and so too, bizarrely, had the bog-roll.
If Anybody In This Room Knows Any Good Reason.
Eventually, with my stomach as empty as the bathroom, it was time to make the short trip to the bewitching ancient church of St Peters. The rain had abated and all we needed was a bride.
As she came come through the door the room was silenced in an instant by her beauty.
The advent of the smart-phone has turned us Brits into amateur paparazzi and so it was, that as the bride and groom stood at the altar, there looked like there might be a fight breaking out between England and Poland for filming rights.
The priest was a jolly old fellow greeting us all like a game show host as the choir – average age 80 – shuffled into position and cranked up their deaf aids.
And in no time at all, Ella became the second Mrs Wolstenholme as every bloke in the church wished Cus well with a hearty “…you lucky bastard!”
Party Time
There always follows a dangerous waiting period between the kiss the bride bit and actually getting what most of us have really come for…the food of course.
It is now that you can clearly pick out those that will be wasted long before the evening DJ is dusting off his Wham cds.
Ale flows like a torrent despite harsh looks from wives knowing the futility of it all and grateful that they have brought the ear-plugs and blow-up pillow for the bath.
My mum had made new friends and was cheerily introducing me as “my eldest…would not wish him on my worst enemy!”
As we sat down at last, sister Julie obviously doubted her newly betrothed brother’s largesse and so instructed husband Paul to convert to Rose for the day.
“Just in case she’s not filling these glasses back up!” she whispered and quickly knocked back the first glass before the waitress had withdrawn the bottle. If only we all knew what was to come.
Nazdrovia!
In keeping with EU harmony out came the spirit, an icy bottle of a liquid I had never seen in my life before, a Polish vodka called Zubrowka. It had a long strand of grass lingering in the bottle; this did not look like a health drink.
The blurb on the bottle claimed that the substance, which most have been borderline legal, was from the last remaining area in Europe where bison are bred providing the lush green meadow grass with its unique flavour; in short we were drinking bison piss.
Cus bravely attempted a speech in Polish which I am reliably advised translated into “you Brits will be on your arses in no time drinking this shit!”
And so we had a procession of endless toasts from the obvious to, as the bottles refused to drain, the less-so including the bloke who cleaned the carpets for the day.
As the shots were downed it looked like I would not be able to drive home till Wednesday.
There were clear cultural differences. The Poles offered a hearty “Nasdrovia”, necked it and sat back down to chat, drink water and keep eating.
The Brits, gasping for breath and unable to speak apart from muffled “***ing ‘ell!” used pints of lager to soothe burning throats and chased roast spuds around their plates, using forks like spears with so little success they starved even more.
Game for anything by now the old folks were gunning back the bosun piss and gleefully discussing blowing my inheritance on twin Ferraris even though my mum can’t drive.
With every sip even Ella’s mum looked like a potential target for the last dance; it was time for a siesta.
Carnage On The Dancefloor
When I returned a few hours later it looked like the guests had been assaulted by nerve gas; bodies were strewn throughout the lounge and the old folks were nowhere to be seen. Had they really sloped off to the Ferrari dealer?
Aunt Lill had last been seen walking off into the woods, whilst one previously distinguished gentleman could only make it across the room by collapsing from chair to chair.
They laid him out on the patio and were it not for darkness you would have thought he was sunbathing.
Cus had been taking secret dancing lessons – there ain’t no black in our family – to impress his gorgeous bride. Unfortunately, he had also been on the bosun piss all afternoon.
The moment of the first dance arrived for the newlyweds as the room hushed. Cus staggered to the floor, stopped, was steadied by Ella and led gamely around making a tango look like an assisted hokey-cokey for the elderly.
The judges were hard pressed to offer Cus any hope of progress as he vanished in search of more bison piss.
The Second Coming
Finally the old folks surfaced as did Aunt Lill with a few branches clinging to her hair and a bewildered look. My mum casually remarked that she had just collapsed on the bed which I thought was pretty cool for seventy and counting.
More cultural differences were there on the dance floor.
The Poles adapted each song to graceful and very skilful dancing whilst the Brits offered Dad Dancing and bodies wobbling like skittles with the impression that someone would chuck up at any point.
Aunt Lill had invented a new dance – the Downhill Tango – as she looked like a skier and was oblivious to all even after three hours on soda water.
It was time to call it a day and only pray that Cus could do England proud. With a loving look and a mother’s pride, my Mum turned to me one last time.
“Please don’t do this…I would never wish you on my worst enemy!”
Nasdrovia!
Christine says
hey ! Don’t knock the Zubrowka it’s a lovely smooth vodka. We used to drink it at home with dad.
Stu says
Oh I don’t know. I sneaked a bottle out and it’s shifted some paint that copious litres of nitromors couldn’t shift …!