(This entry was mainly written on a mobile terminal, but has had to be entered via a PC as I’ve not yet finished the EPOC client…)
Well, this is what mobile technology is all about… We’re driving across north france to a wedding just north of paris….
The ferry was quick and the food awful. The rest of the journey quite slick.
Its good to see Dave and Caroline again, i dont get to see them often enough.
Why is photo messaging so useless? I’ve had this phone for months and haven’t yet succeeded in sending a photo message.
Sunday afternoon now and we’re on our way home…
The photo message succeeded eventually but was totally unenthralling, just being recieved as a url and a pass code.
We had some time to kill before the wedding at 4 so we went to the stables and chateau at Chantilly.
The stables are really rather grand, built with the style of princely house. I’m not heavily into horsey things but it was nice to see such a building still being used for its original purpose.
The chateau itself is quite odd as it is triangular so doesn’t really have any symmetry no matter which side you approach it from. Inside it was a celebration of deer hunting, with stag heads everywhere. Something i find spooky and upsetting. The spirit of the place was lightened by the library, which is one of the finest rooms i’ve ever seen.
The grounds were lovely to walk around too, even if we couldn’t get an ice cream. No matter, we ate lunch and wonderful sorbet by the most dangerous road junction in Chantilly…made no safer by the presence of a Renault 5 containing a huge fluffy sheepdog.
(now returned home, writing from memory now…)
On to the wedding – the point of our visit. The weather was lovely when we turned up at the church/registry office…where there was a small crowd gathering awaiting the arrival of Laurence and Philippe.
The signing of the register was held in the town hall, followed by a blessing at the quaint old church over the road. Neither of these ceremonies made much sense to me as my grasp of French extends only as far as nearly understanding half of the questions waiters ask. No matter, the atmosphere seemed to reflect much happiness and hope in those present.
We went on to the hotel for the reception, where there were the usual photographs (except we were all positioned such that the sun was shining right in our eyes so everyone will be squinting a little).
The reception itself consisted of drinks on the terraces of the hotel, a wonderful many-course meal (which my fussy tastebuds were not appreciating as much as everybody else was…I don’t deal well with expensive food, preferring good simple food), then a disco.
We seemed to be the only English people there, but that was not a problem as some of Laurences friends seemed quite happy to join us and speak English. It turns out that one of them, Helene, spent a year in Tunbridge Wells, near where my parents live.
The disco was quite incredible, the dancefloor was full from the first record and only emptied when the last was finished (and briefly while desert was served). The music was nothing spectacular, consisting mainly of cheesy 70s disco classics and strange europop. Everyone was in a good mood and up for enjoying the evening, so I suspect the actual content of the music didn’t matter that much.
On the way home yesterday we passed what appeared to be a gnome market – I’m sure they were selling other things there, but there were a number of stalls next to the road dedicated to gnomes…we didn’t think we had time to stop and look more closely, though we did end up catching an earlier ferry than the one we were booked on.
And that was my weekend.