Our family is not like other families.  Most children abhor the idea of spending time with their parents, let alone uncles and aunties they hardly ever see, and anything family-related at Christmas time is definitely out.  Not in our family.  Every year (if we can) we all meet up shortly after Christmas for “Draisey Day”.  We usually descent on my uncle and auntie’s house in Woking, spending the whole day eating, playing silly games, playing music, and generally catching up on the past year or so.  And it’s one of the highlights of my year.

This year was no exception, not least because we brought with us a portable people-magnet – a little baby boy.  More than that, Samuel is the first of the new generation, which makes him even more significant.  I’m pleased to report that he lived up to the hype, and thrilled everyone the whole time we were there.  He was passed from person to person, he fed when he had the opportunity, he slept very little, and he kept everyone amused without doing a single thing.  What a gift it is to be a baby.  Shame he’s too young to realise it.

We drove up to Woking in the morning and arrived around lunchtime, just in time to be fed, which is always a good bit of timing.  Uncle Mark brought out his traditional array of party games, all of which were cringe-worthy and unnecessary, but we did them anyway and thoroughly enjoyed it all.  By mid-afternoon I was lagging a bit, so I went and got some sleep for a couple of hours – that’s not something I would have been able to do before Samuel was born!  Sleep?  In the middle of the day?  When there are lots of things happening and lots of people making lots of noise?  In an unfamiliar bed?  In jeans?  But apparently I was tired enough to overcome all those obstacles.  That’s what a baby does to you.

Another part of the Draisey Day tradition is the music.  With a family of musicians, we’re not too dissimilar to the Von Trapp family.  Pretty much everyone plays something.  And if they can’t play, they can certainly sing along.  Most years we have a Christmas carol sing-along, where we take turns on the various instruments (because we’re all multi-talented) and muddle our way through whatever carol gets mentioned next.  This year it was a bit different, because our musical contribution took the form of a jazzed up jam session.  At first it was just Peter and I on the piano, but soon everyone else joined in too.  We had a minimum of two people on the piano, a keyboard providing a drum backing, a viola, an alto sax, a couple of guitars, and even a little hand drum.  And everyone else watched and danced and listened and recorded it on camcorders.  It’s possibly one of the most fun jam sessions I’ve ever been part of.

Overnight it was rather cold, on account of the heating system playing up.  Samuel took a little persuasion to get to sleep, but we managed.  And in the morning we headed back home to get some rest.  It’s not exactly been a quiet Christmas, and we’ve not been endowed with sleep and energy, but we wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

When we were at camp just over a week ago my wife gave one of the talks, which was loosely based around the story of King Ahab and the vineyard – Ahab wanted it, the owner refused to sell it, Ahab sulked, his wife had the owner murdered and Ahab claimed the vineyard.  The point of the talk was that sin by association is still sin; God still condemned Ahab for his actions, even though it was Jezebel actually doing the deed.  He didn’t object to the sin, and benefited from it, so was held culpable by God.  Ellie used the illustration that “sharing” music is effectively the same thing – sure, someone else has ripped the music off the CD, but we’ve still accepted the MP3 files and are therefore benefiting from it.  So in God’s eyes, as well as the law’s, we are guilty.

Of course, I sat there and immediately thought about how difficult that message would be for some people, and it came as a shock and surprise when I realised that actually I ought to be applying it to myself as well.  I don’t have huge quantities of downloaded music, but it’s still there, trying to look innocent in the corner, trying not to be noticed by my conscience.  A few I have downloaded, some from the authors’ web sites (though probably still not legally), a few from ’sharing’ web sites and links, and quite a number that I have ‘borrowed’ from friends and family over the years.  Sure, it’s outweighed by the amount of music I do own, but that’s beside the point.  I have illegal music on my computer.  And I’m now doing something about it.

I’ve opted for a two-stage approach to my music cleansing.  The first step was to open iTunes and untick all the songs I don’t own; that means the MP3 files are still there, but iTunes won’t play them.  The idea behind that is that I’ll be able to more easily see how many songs I don’t own, and be able to judge which I can live without.  I don’t miss them, they can go.  If I do, I’ll add them to the list of albums or music to buy.  The second stage will be actually physically deleting the files.  And getting rid of the backup CDs I have containing those illegal files.  Painful, but necessary.

It does raise an interesting question about ownership though, which I’m still undecided on.  You see, I have music on my computer that belongs to the family.  When the original CD was purchased (legally, I might add), I was living at home and the CD was purchased for the benefit of the entire household.  By that definition, I (at least in part) owned that music, and therefore have every right to have a copy of it on my computer.  However, although I am still part of the family, I am no longer living at home.  So can I still claim ownership of that music?  Is ownership restricted to your physical location?  Or, to put it another way, is the family unit a strong enough bond to permit the bending of the rules?  Where do you draw the line?

I never thought I would find myself in this situation.  I was always happy with the music I had, and had no qualms about having music even though I hadn’t paid for it.  I also thought that getting rid of my illegal music would be a really difficult and painful operation, but I’ve also found it quite liberating – I’ve got a really good feeling from cleaning out the closet of all those cobwebs, owning up to my transgressions and turning over a shiny new leaf.  It also gives me more pleasure in the music I do own.  I’m currently listening to an a cappella group called Glad, from a CD I’ve had for several years – being legal is far more comfortable than teetering on the edge of guilt.

Many of you will know that I am a keen musician.  I blame this partly on my parents, who insisted on taking me to a brass band concert before I was even born.  I didn’t stand a chance.  Church helps too, there’s always music there.  And so it was that I started taking up musical instruments left right and centre, starting with the piano, moving on to cello, and not stopping thereafter.  The list isn’t exactly endless, but it’s fairly sizeable.  The main problem with this, though, is being able to afford the instruments themselves, which don’t come cheap, especially if you want something decent.  So for many years I have had to get by without certain things, in some cases just the accessories, but in some cases the instruments themselves.  I’ve never owned a saxophone, for instance, much as I’d love to.

My first bass guitar was a pink (probably used to be red, but faded in the sun) Squier with a warped neck, which made playing anything but open strings uncomfortable and bone-jarringly out of tune.  Still, for £100 it wasn’t bad, considering it came with a whopping 80 watt amp.  The bass was replaced several years ago, thankfully, with a wood body Aria (I’d give the actual model, but since it’s a “Research and Development” model I think it’s more of a one-off, so comparing it to the mass-produced model that resulted from it might not actually be particularly useful).  The Aria is a dream to play, and has a lovely warm tone to it.  The amp, however, was always pretty ropey, so it wasn’t a huge tragedy when it stopped working.  It was something electric, I know that much, and it just played a very loud humming noise while it was turned on.  So I left it turned off, gathering dust in the garage.  Until just before we moved, when I took it to the dump.  Sad, but somehow very therapeutic at the same time.

Imagine my joy, then, now that I have a working bass amp again.  After much research and reading of reviews, I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a Laney RB2.  It’s only 30 watts, so it’s by far the smallest and least powerful bass amp I’ve ever used, but it should serve my purposes.  To be honest, I’ve always thought it odd that whenever I’ve played bass it’s been using a 60 or 80 watt amp, and never needed to turn it up beyond 2 or 3 on the volume dial.  Always seemed a waste to me.  So, a 30 watt amp it is, and it’ll be used properly too.  Sure, it’s not the most powerful box in the world, but it’s got a DI out so it can be plugged into a PA system, so it only really needs to be loud enough for me to hear myself on stage over the drums and the rest of the band.

The real test will come at the end of this month, when I take the amp to camp.  It’ll only be used in a relatively small theatre, seating around 80 people, so hopefully 30 watts should be enough.  We’ll see.  It sounds promising in the lounge at least, which is encouraging.  It’s got a fairly good tone to it, assuming you whack the gain knob up a bit, and while the built-in compressor isn’t quite as powerful as it could be it does work and gives a nice bit of punch to the sound.  The EQ controls are good too, and allow me to play around with sounds and tones a bit more, which is very nice indeed.

So, that’s the amp.  There is more though.  I may be in demand again as a musician, now that we’ve settled on a church.  Yes, that’s right, after several weeks of ‘church hunting’ my wife and I have finally decided that St Paul’s Shepton Mallet will be our church.  On Sunday we ended up going to three services, confirming our choice.  First up was the 9:25 Parish Communion service, which was fairly traditional (includes sung liturgy and a procession and everything).  Not quite my usual worship style, but that’s no bad thing – variety in worship is always a good thing in my opinion.  After a quick tea break we were off to the 11am service, which was very relaxed and informal, and featured a few worship songs, a ’sharing’ time where people talked about what had been going on that week, and then a group discussion time.  Very different indeed.  But quite similar in feel to some of the Anglican Chaplaincy services we did, so not entirely unfamiliar.  Then in the evening we went to the 6pm youth service, which was led by the young people.  Apparently they do that every month, and thoroughly enjoy it.  It’s amazing, it’s an evening service that actually works, and people want to come!  How refreshing.  The music was good, and the sermon (preached by an 11-year-old) was surprisingly inspiring.

Discussions after each of those services inevitably revealed my collection of music instruments, and Ellie’s drama background, and we were both pleased to hear that they were in need of what we could offer.  Eyes widened in excitement when I said I could play drums and guitar, and Ellie’s dramatic heritage was greeted by one person physically jumping up and down.  I think they like us.  We certainly like them.  We’ve already been invited to a birthday party, so that’s got to be a good thing.

Finally, I would like to announce that I’ve finally got myself onto Second Life.  Yes, yes, I know, that’s so last year, but it always takes me a year or two to accept new technology, which is why everyone else was on Facebook before me.  I’m still trying to get to grips with how it works, and while I’ve found some interesting places I’ve yet to actually get into a conversation with anyone.  Not least because I’ve struggled to find anyone there at all.  Maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places.  Or maybe it’s because everyone who plays is in America and is therefore asleep when I’m online.  Anyway, if you happen to be on Second Life, let me know and maybe we can meet up and laugh at each other’s avatars.

On sale now – only £5!!

Rooted is a band I set up at Orchard Baptist Church a couple of years ago, mostly playing completely original songs written by members of the band.  After almost a year and a half in the making, our debut album is now finished and available for you to buy.  At the moment there are limited copies available, so get your bookings in now to ensure you don’t miss out!

In the beginning features 7 songs, including one bonus track at the end, and covers a range of musical styles, from rock to reflective, with the aim of stimulating worship in a variety of ways.  From the loud and rocky “Father God you reign” to the softer “I draw near” featuring a cello trio, there is something for everyone in this concise album of original Christian music.

To buy your copy of In the beginning, contact Matthew either in person or by e-mail.

Track listing:

1. Father God you reign
2. In the beginning
3. God will always be there
4. Beautiful Lord
5. I draw near
6. O Lord my God
7. Do I need riches (bonus)

Band members:

• Matthew Dawkins (guitars, vocals, additional instruments)
• Berkeley Young (acoustic guitar)
• Paula Stubbs (vocals)
• Rachel Paterson (bass)
• Luke Knight (percussion)
• Anna Lane (keyboard)
• James Green (drums)

A big thank you to Orchard Baptist Church for allowing us to use the church for recording, and for the use of your microphones.  And a big shout out to Rachel and Luke, both of whom are off at uni at the moment.

Introduction

This year Ellie and I were both leaders on a Christian youth camp (a CYFA Ventures camp) for 14-18 year olds, at a boarding school near Southampton called Stanbridge Earls.  We’ve both been before, but this was the first time we’d been as a married couple, so that was a nice novelty!

Our week was actually started off a few days earlier than everyone else, as we went to Southampton University for my brother’s graduation.  It was lovely to see him, and all our family, and generally hang out in Soton for a bit.  Photos will be up on a gallery somewhere in due course I expect.  Ellie and I then stayed a couple of nights at a guest house in Soton, visiting the New Forest on the Friday before going off to camp on the Saturday morning.

Saturday

We arrived at Stanbridge Earls with plenty of time to spare.  In fact, that’s a bit of an understatement – we got there a full half an hour before we were technically allowed on site.  So we drove around for a bit before venturing through the gates to find a couple of the other leaders who had already arrived.  All the leaders met up at around 10am, had a quick business meeting and a catch-up, and then promptly got to work setting up the site for our camp.  Ellie and I were both hard at work in the theatre, which is where the morning and evening meetings were held throughout the week (like mini church services).  Ellie was up in the lighting box finding her way around all the knobs and buttons, and I was generally setting up the stage with a few other people, placing instruments and helping plug various cables in the right places.

It was actually really nice to be back on camp again.  Wandering around the site it was all so familiar, even though it’s been 2 years since I was last there.  It was as if I’d never been away.  Camp is a bubble, completely cut off and separate from the rest of reality.  And it’s quite a nice bubble, too.

We had a good number of kids this year, around 50 in total, which meant that there was a chance of getting to know most of them over the course of the week.  They arrived in dribs and drabs and congregated in the dining hall, and mid-morning we were given our first activity – the Members’ Challenge.  It was essentially a quiz that we had to do in our dorm groups that took us all over the site to retrieve various things, answer certain questions, or have our photos taken in various poses.  It was good fun, and helped us bond with our dorm right from the start.

Then after dinner we had our evening meeting, for which Sam led worship on guitar, I played my funky electric guitar, Tom played bass, and Sarah played drums.  There were some people singing too, but they varied through the week and I can’t remember who sang when, so I’ll just thank them all and assume that someone was singing!  The music was good and loud this year, with both Sam and I having pretty solid guitar setups – Sam had brought his new electric guitar as well as his acoustic, and was using a Line6 Spider II amp with a pedal box, and I was using my Line6 Variax guitar (that essentially gives me around 26 guitars in one) plugged into my Line6 Spider III amp.  It was a bit mushy that first night, with both of us trying to find a good balance between who was playing and with what level of distortion.  The kids seemed really into it right from the start, which was good.

The evening was rounded off with a quiz that Richard had sorted out.  And then bed.  And it was surprising just how much we needed it after just one day.

Sunday

Somehow I was too busy to notice that it was Sunday and I should have been at church.  Then again, every day that week felt a little bit like a Sunday, with all the God-centred stuff and worship twice a day.  Good stuff.  Sam and I alternated leading worship this year, so Sunday was my turn to lead both morning and evening sessions.  I don’t think I did a huge amount else that day, apart from sorting out music and stuff.  I should really have been socialising with my dorm, but there was just far too much other stuff that needed doing.  Ah well, we live and learn.

In the evening we had a “Night Hike and Campfire”, which was essentially a crowd of 80 people stumbling through the darkness, through the trees and bushes (at least I think that’s what they were), and eventually finding ourselves at the big camp fire where the ALs had hot chocolate prepared.  Oh, I ought to mention what the ALs are – Assistant Leaders.  Lucy and Anna (twins) and Laura were members last year, but were old enough this year to be ALs instead, and did a fantastic job of doing all those jobs that no one else wanted to do, like cleaning and serving hot chocolate and typing up songs at short notice and generally doing loads of stuff behind the scenes.  They were a fantastic team, their matching T-shirts were awesome, and they really helped make the week a success.  Hats off to you girls.

Monday

The major activity on Monday was so big it had to be split into two parts, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  The Mini-Olympics basically involved a whole series of games that we did in our Bible study groups (which was half of one dorm group combined with half of another of the opposite gender).  My team was stunningly average, and despite some heroic triumphs and some embarrassing defeats we actually ended up coming somewhere smack bang in the middle.  Can’t complain.

It was the evening that really saw things come alive though, with the Murder Mystery that PJ had created.  Yes, created, not an off-the-shelf jobbie.  Completely engineered himself.  And it was awesome.  Set at the turn of the century, the plot revolved around a young lady who had been bitten by a vampire, and the teams had to run around the site interacting with various members of the household to try and find out who the vampire was and how to stop him.  I was a butler called Hinton, and spent all my time in the dining room polishing cutlery and polishing my shoes.  Others weren’t so lucky – Will was a crazed madman running around in the woods smelling people and shouting random things in the darkness, in the pouring rain.  It was really well received though, and all the members pulled together and enjoyed it greatly.

Tuesday

Tuesday I played a lot of music.  And I mean a serious amount of music.  I was leading worship in the morning, then the morning activity I was leading the members’ band, in the afternoon we did Junk Funk and then I was leading worship again in the evening.

Okay, let’s just explain what some of those are, because unless you were there you’re unlikely to understand the significance.  The members’ band is where we get all the members who play instruments and try and get them co-ordinated into a band, with the aim of having them lead the worship for the Thursday evening meeting.  My job was to organise them all, which turned out to be a job and a half, simply because there were 6 drummers, at least 5 guitarists, and a whole gaggle of singers.  We managed to make some sense of it all eventually though, and played through a couple of songs.  I decided it was best to leave the final decisions until the next rehearsal, and just whet everyone’s toes for now.

Junk Funk was a joint leadership thing between myself and Sarah, who is a trained and very talented percussionist (she can play pretty much anything that you hit).  The idea was to get a whole load of junk, give it to the members and get them to play as a percussion band in some form.  A bit like Stomp, if you’ve heard them.  Now, Sarah and I come from very different percussion backgrounds – Sarah is very highly trained, and has a passion for Brazillian and Latin rhythms, and is very organised.  I have no training whatsoever, a general appreciation for anything rhythmical, and prefer planned spontenaity to prescriptive pre-planning.  In actual fact the combination of those two approaches worked out really well.  We had a huge number of kids come along, most of whom were very rhythmic (which made our job a lot easier).  Sarah started off by teaching people a few call and response things from her Samba training, which we used at various points during the session to control everyone.  Everyone seemed to pick these up quickly, so I then led the planned spontenaity (which I don’t think Sarah had come across before), which basically involved starting everyone off with a beat and told them to get creative with it.  Before very long there was a multitude of beats going on, all very musical, and all I did to control it was wave my hands around to tell people to get quieter or louder, or which section should be playing at any given time.  It was lots of fun, and they made a wonderful sound!  The only problem was that in some ways they were a little over-enthusiastic – there were a couple of kitchen items that got a little bashed out of shape over the course of the session, and by the time we eventually finished everyone’s ears were ringing!  All good fun though, and definitely one to do next year.

The evening meeting on Tuesday was argubly one of the more powerful ones of the week, with a really stirring talk by Jennie followed by some quite touching worship afterwards.  There were a number of people in tears by the end of the meeting.  That’s by no means a bad thing, of course, and showed a good level of maturity from the members to be able to take on board the tough message.  All in all it was quite a draining day – musically, emotionally and spiritually.

Wednesday

Half way through the week, and by this point most of us were running low on energy.  In the morning Sam, Sarah and I led a Worship Workshop, which actually only attracted 4 members, but we had a good session talking about how to play effectively as a band, what constituted worship, and how to lead worship.  It was a bit of a fly-past tour of the topic rather than an in-depth study, but I think it was enough to at least whet the appetites of those who attended.  Judging by the musical ability of some of the peeps in the members’ band and the spiritual and emotional maturity already demonstrated, I can see there being a whole new generation of worship leaders just waiting to be put on stage!  With God’s annointing I am sure they will go far.

The afternoon I think I managed to take some time out to relax a bit.  At least, I think that’s what I did.  It’s all so long ago (already) and the week was so packed with stuff that figuring out what I did when is a bit of a challenge.  Thankfully though I managed to pace myself better this year – two years ago when I last came I pushed myself a little too hard and crashed quite spectacularly on the Thursday.  This year I managed to alay my guilt and spend some quality time sitting on a sofa doing very little.  Not wasting time, savouring it.

That evening we had the formal meal, for which everyone dressed up in black and white – and bling – and had a lovely meal.  For a change, all the members were served by the leaders (rather than the job being assigned to specific dorm groups).  The food, it has to be said, was lovely, just as it had been the whole week – hats off to the cooks!  After the meal we all headed down to the theatre for the Stanbridge Earls version of “Britain’s Got Talent”; there were a number of acts, though many of them (including the Monty Python sketch Ellie and I had rehearsed) were cut short due to lack of time and lack of talent.  A little frustrating for those groups who had been rehearsing for hours, but never mind.

Thursday

Another relatively easy start to the day, with nothing specific planned for the morning except leading worship.  It was the afternoon and evening, though, that got my pulse racing again, with the second of the two afternoon activity sessions (the one just before dinner, which was followed immediately by the evening meeting) being the second members’ band rehearsal.  Everyone managed to make it to that rehearsal (the previous time several people had been on an off-site activity so couldn’t make it), so there were a lot of people to try to co-ordinate.  Rather than dictating to them what they were going to play and how, I had decided to let them have a say in it all, so the first part of the session involved everyone discussing which songs we wanted to do, taking into account the theme of the talk that night, and then the complicated task of working out who was going to play at what point.  I think there was a little disappointment by some of the drummers, all of whom really wanted to play but not all of whom could play at once!  We finally managed to get that all sorted though, and managed to go through the songs a couple of times.  The main problem I had was keeping a tight reign on their enthusiasm – there were three fantastic guitarists all playing at the same time, and I kept having to tell them to scale it down and not all play at once!  It was quite heavy and stodgy at times.  Thankfully I think the message got through eventually and they managed to put their egos aside for the meeting, and it all worked really well.

Oh, and the evening session saw all the boys camped out in the theatre watching Finding Nemo.  Quality.

Friday

Aahh!!  Our last full day of camp!  Where has the week gone??!  It was a bit of a shock to the system actually, realising that camp was nearly over.  We had grown so used to functioning on no energy, relying on God’s strength to get us through the day, and it felt quite odd to be thinking about going back into the real world again.

In the morning I helped with the scone-making, and in the afternoon we all ate them with jam and clotted cream in our dorm groups (a traditional Friday activity on camp), before a leaders vs. members game of rounders.  Which the leaders won.  Regardless of the score, which attested otherwise.

The evening meeting’s talk was given by Rachel, who I’m not sure had actually been to camp before this year, but who really got stuck in and active, despite having had both her legs broken in a car accident only a few months ago.  Her talk was one of the best of the week, touched on some really tough issues, had some funny moments and some tear-jerkers.  It’s been a while since a talk aimed at young people has brought me to tears.  It seemed to have a big impact on others too, so it was definitely well received by all.

After that our dorm had an extended time of Bible study.  Earlier in the week we had looked at the topic of relationships and going out, which our dorm group really got into and had more to say – the hour session we had just wasn’t long enough, so we scheduled this additional discussion to run through any more questions they had.  It was really encouraging to find that they all had so many questions, and how maturely and sensibly they discussed the issues, especially given they were the youngest age group at camp.  We all talked long into the night, going over a whole load of tough issues, and there were a fair few challenges that we all had to address, both leaders and members.  It was well worth doing though, and everyone seemed to get a lot out of it (we even had members of someone else’s dorm joining in).  It meant a late night for them all, but I think it was worth it.  There is no substitute for thinking.

Saturday

Yes, it finally came, the last morning of camp.  Everyone packed up and had breakfast, and after the morning meeting everyone dispersed and went home, some by car, some by train, some by boat.  It was sad to say all those goodbyes, and there were many tears shed and e-mail addresses exchanged.  Then, once all the members were dealt with, we leaders set to work taking everything down again, ready for the next group who were arriving that afternoon.  I spent most of my time in the theatre again, packing up instruments, folding up microphone stands, boxing up speakers, loading up cars, coiling up cables.  As with setting up at the beginning of camp, it was surprising how the big things were the easy ones to get set up and put away again – it was all the small things that caused the problems.  There were boxes that just wouldn’t contain another small item, there were odd bits and pieces here and there that just wouldn’t fit into people’s cars again, there were missing items, excess items that shouldn’t have been there, and a lot of tidying up to do everywhere.  We managed to get it all done though, and finally managed to get all the leaders off-site to meet up at the pub down the road for lunch and a fond farewell.

In conclusion

Wow, what an awesome week.  God was really present with us the whole time, for which we were all very grateful, and lots of fun was had too in the various activities we all endulged in.  My electric guitar has never seen so much use in all the time I’ve had it, but it stood up to the punishment admirably.  I managed to lose my Bible (and other bits and pieces) several times during the week, but Ellie was always there to find them for me (and put me to shame in the process).  We all went home very tired, but also very satisfied that God had been at work through us all in teaching and inspiring the members who came.  Unfortunately I didn’t have time to take any photos, but people on Facebook will probably already have seen the photos put up by various people who did manage to get snappy.

And next year?  Well, Ellie and I will definitely be going back as leaders, and since Sam plans to abscond to Australia I shall probably (it has yet to be confirmed for definite) end up co-ordinating all the music next year.  That means I’ll need an assistant, so that I’m not leading every meeting.  I’ll also need to think about songs to take with us, and equipment that we’ve so far relied on Sam bringing, like projectors and computers and cables and stuff.  All good fun!  Roll on SE09!!

For a slightly more complete description of the above title, allow me to elucidate.  This weekend started on Friday, which was a little odd, with Phil and Esther’s wedding.  That was followed by a fairly taxing drive back home, and very little sleep that night on account of my cold.  On a lighter note, I picked up my new computer on Saturday (on which I am writing this very post), and in the evening I had a house full of people to watch the final of I’d Do Anything, Doctor Who and Pushing Daisies.  All in all, quite a busy weekend, and most of that happened without my wife – Ellie was helping out at a church weekend away, so I haven’t actually seen her since Friday afternoon.

Phil and Esther’s wedding

This one has been a long time coming.  Phil and Esther got engaged way back when they were both at uni, so it was such a delight to be able to be at their wedding on Friday.  It was in Cromer, which is north Norfolk, in the big Anglican church there.  You can’t miss it, in fact.  As you come into the town, down the hill, it’s right there looming over the rest of the small seaside town, visible from pretty much everywhere.  Unsurprisingly, we didn’t get lost, and as far as I know no one else did either.

What was most amazing though was how ‘them’ the service was.  Phil wasn’t dressed up to the nines like a traditional groom, he was just wearing a suit.  His shirt wasn’t even tucked in all day.  Very him.  I think he would have felt uncomfortable if it had been any other way.  The entrance music was an odd choice, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, a very moody, tense, almost sinister piece of organ music.  Still, it seemed to work, just about, and set the tone for a totally untraditional wedding.  There wasn’t much in the way of liturgy, there were only three hymns, but it was all very relaxed and friendly, and there was even a bit of cheesy music played over the PA while they were signing the register.

The two funnies moments were both down to Phil, no surprise there.  The first was when the vicar said “Phil, will you take Esther to be your wife…” and Phil jumped in with “I will” before the vicar could finish the rest of the passage!  Hilarious.  The vicar, poor chap, couldn’t keep a straight face through that whole section.  The other funny bit was when the vicar asked Phil and Esther to hold each others’ right hands, at which point Phil held up both and looked at them to try and work out which was his right hand.  Again, typical Phil.

The reception was held at a hotel down the road, which was very pleasant.  After a photo session and the throwing of confetti we were all ushered into a conservatory where we were served cups of tea and the wedding cake.  Yes, going against all the traditions once again, we had the wedding cake before the meal.  It worked well though, giving us something to do while we waited for stuff to happen.  And the cake came in three flavours (fruit, sponge and chocolate), and was adorned with dolly mixtures.  Nice touch.

The meal was in a big tent (posher than it sounds), and was very nice.  Not overly complicated, nothing fancy or wild, just something simple to keep us happy.  Pie and chips was an interesting choice for a main course, but it seemed to go down well.  After that came the speeches, which in Phil’s case was more like stand-up comedy.  It’s been a while since I’ve heard Phil talking in public – I’d forgotten just how funny he is.

I have plenty of photos, which I shall no doubt put online in due course.  [EDIT: photos are now online, see Media page or log onto Facebook]

More miles on the clock

Unfortunately we couldn’t stay too long into the evening, as we had a long journey back to Colchester.  Having left Ellie to go off to look after someone else’s church’s creche for the weekend, I was given the task of taking PhilB (yes, another Phil) to his parents’ house in Norwich.  That added on an extra hour to our journey time, what with the detour and a short break and a cup of tea.  Under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been a problem, but unfortunately the driving was made harder by the fact that I had a cold.

Now, I’m not one for succumbing to the so-called “man flu”.  I don’t say I’m ill unless I really am, or at least until it’s causing me problems.  I wouldn’t have said anything on Friday were it not for the fact that it was making me unusually tired, which clearly isn’t good when you’re driving any sort of distance along unfamiliar roads.  Thankfully the tea provided by Phil’s mum was much appreciated, and kept me going a little longer, and Anne-Marie (who I was also transporting back to Colchester) kept talking to me to keep me awake.  Not that you can really fall asleep in a Mini, bouncing along the road, but it helped to keep me alert.  Thankfully we all got home safely, after a 200 mile round trip, and I was in bed by about 1:30am.

No time for dreams

Unfortunately, sleep didn’t come easily that night.  With a blocked up nose I found that I couldn’t actually breath, which caused significant problems.  In order to maintain a steady air flow I was forced to breathe through my mouth instead of my nose, which for some reason doesn’t come naturally to me.  As such, the effort of keeping my mouth open kept me awake.  The moment I relaxed and was about to fall asleep my mouth would close, and then I would be wide awake again to avoid suffocation.  Not good.  If I got 2 hours sleep that night I would be impressed.

I got up at 5:30am to get a drink to whet my dried out mouth, and at 6:30 I gave up on the idea of sleep entirely and just got up.  Somehow I managed to get through the rest of the day on very little rest.

Welcoming the heavyweight

A consequence of being in Norfolk yesterday was that I wasn’t at home to take delivery of my new computer, so I had to go and pick it up from the DHL depot on Saturday morning.  I wasn’t expecting it to be anywhere near as heavy as it was, so that was my first surprise.  Other than a little cosmetic damage (it’s second hand) it looks in fine condition.  I lugged it upstairs to the study and plugged it in, and it booted into Mac OS X Leopard – lots of fun!  Actually it doesn’t look hugely different to my old Mac as far as the desktop goes.  Sure, there are some differences, like the funky dock and the semi-transparent menu bar, but on the whole it’s still the same operating system.  Just a lot more polished and significantly faster.

First impressions are good though.  The dock reflections are cool, even if they are an unnecessary bit of bling, but I expect the novelty will wear off eventually.  The stacks are pretty neat too, visually, though they don’t really provide any additional functionality that is going to change the way I work; I could easily live without that feature, but I’m not complaining now it’s there.

I did spend some time trying to get online though, but that wasn’t the fault of the computer, I just forgot the password for our wireless network.  And it’s not like I could find out what the password was by looking at the other computers, because they wouldn’t tell me – security, eh!  I remembered in the end, thankfully, so all’s well.

I’ll probably do a proper review at some point.

I’d do anything with a Doctor who brings people back to life

In the evening I had loads of people round to watch my TV, in light of Anne-Marie having family round and hence her living room having had a prior booking.  The final of I’d Do Anything was in two parts; at the end of the first the votes were counted and three were taken down to two.  Then there was a gap of a few hours before the final votes were counted and the winner declared.  I’m not saying who the winner was just in case anyone recorded it and has yet to see it for themselves, but let’s just say I was pleased with the result.  I was also pleased that the winner was the only one to pronounce the final three words of “As long as he needs me” with the right vowel sound.  All the others – without exception – sang something more akin to “As long as hay nayds may”, which always got on my nerves.  Well done to *the winner* for being able to sing a loud and clear note without having to show off her tonsils to everyone!

Also on TV that night was Doctor Who, in the library, with a packed lunch.  Suitably random.  I’m not going to bother with a full synopsis or write-up, as Anne-Marie will no doubt do a far better job than me!  Oh, and Pushing Daisies was also good.  As always.  Good clean fun.  As long as you don’t mind the dead bodies.

In conclusion

Yes… erm… I think that’s everything.  Apologies for the longevity of this post.  I won’t apologise for the length, because I’ll no doubt write equally long posts in the future at some point.  Still, if you’ve got time to read all of this then you’ve clearly not got any work to do right now, so reading a massive blog post will give you something to do, so don’t feel too guilty.  Unless of course you have actually got work to do and have just spent far longer than you should have done reading my blog, in which case… err… thanks.  I think.

It was a superb day, bathed in glorious sunshine and with not a hitch in sight. Other than that of Ian and Lucy, of course. Getting hitched, I mean. The service at St Botolph’s church in Colchester was lovely, with plenty of warmth and a sense of the usual level of excellence that tends to follow Ian around. Everything had been intricately planned and was well executed from start to finish. Ian and his two best men looked very smart, though respectfully upstaged by Lucy’s gorgeous wedding dress, and the bridesmaids’ dresses were sumptuous too.

I actually sang in the choir too, which was good fun. In the invitation to the wedding Ian and Lucy had asked whether anyone would like to sing in the service as part of the choir, and following my offer I was sent music for the two pieces we were to sing during the communion and signing of the register. They were both beautiful pieces, though both unknown to me. Thankfully my voice was in good nick that day, and despite not sight-singing anything for years I managed to get to grips with both by singing along to YouTube the day before. The acoustics in the church are fantastic, so the choir sounded superb.

After the service we went outside on the bit of green next to the church for photos, and after that piled into cars or the coach Ian and Lucy had laid on and drove to the reception, Kersey Mill, about half an hour’s drive away in Suffolk. For those who don’t know that part of the country particularly well, it’s in the middle of nowhere, so you’re unlikely to find it unless you’re lost. Still, it’s a lovely place to get lost in, lots of windy country roads and little sign of civilisation… Anyway, I digress. The reception was very smart, and we were constantly topped up with an assortment of beverages, in varying degrees of alcoholicness.

After a while stood in the foyer we were eventually ushered upstairs to the hall, where the tables and chairs had been laid out for the wedding breakfast. And yes, they did actually refer to it as the ‘wedding breakfast’, which we thought was quite fun. The food was all very posh and tasted lovely, though there was the traditional hour’s wait between courses, which was my only complain. Then again, it wasn’t the sort of meal, or occasion, that needed to be rushed through. The food was there to be savoured, not devoured, and although there wasn’t masses of food it did adequately fill a space, especially the incredibly rich chocolate pot we had for pudding, served in a shot glass.

Then came the speeches, cake, toasts, and more chit-chat, before we were encouraged downstairs while the staff rearranged the room into a dance hall for the rest of the evening. They had a live band playing for most of the evening, playing a mix of modern and more classic hits. About half way through the band took a break and Mr Phill took over on the decks; I desperately wanted to sit down and rest my tired feet, but the tunes he brought out were just so infectious I just couldn’t stop dancing! Nice one Phill. After about 25 minutes the band got back up and started playing, and Ellie and I decided it was time to call it a night.

Oh, and we had Andy C sleeping on our floor too, which I think he appreciated. He was back off to Germany this morning though, so it was just a flying visit. It was good to see people at the wedding, although most I either didn’t know at all or saw fairly regularly anyway. The only exception there was Katie, who I shared a house with for two years and haven’t been in touch with since! It was good to see her too, though we didn’t get much chance to catch up properly.

Photos of the day are now online, so check them out if you’re interested.