The Day of the Wedding.

Thush got married! Thush got married! Hooray! Hooray!

It was a gloomy Thursday morning in Belgium and it looked like it was going to rain – what a day for a wedding. The gentleman proprietor (who lived with his life-partner) of Villa Christina (the lovely little house that had been rented for us) assured us that he had lit a candle the previous night and that the weather would clear up.

Having woken up about 7.30am to a rather quiet house, and having duly completed the morning rituals I found my way to the living room, put on a little bit of light music and decided to pick up my book of Sudoku. I thought it rather strange that a house full of 10 people (my self included) could be so quiet, especially on the morning of a wedding. The wedding was due to take place at around 15:15hrs and we were due to leave Villa Christina at 14:30hrs. I guess 7.30am was still rather early – and I guessed right.

5mins later, Udayi appeared in the living room wanting to know if I wanted a cup of Tea. It made me chuckle. Udayi and I shared a flat for two years while we were at university and he asked me the same question every morning to which he got the same polite answer “No Thankyou”. What you need to understand is that Udayi used to drink at least 4 or 5 cups of tea every day and when he got the munchies, he would open the fridge and nibble away at a raw green chilli. How or why he did this, I had no idea, but he seemed to enjoy it !

The rest of my housemates started to appear one by one and within 30mins of me having started my sudoku puzzle in the calm of the morning, the house was a buzz with all of us awake apart from Chaminda … and I had only got as far as getting two numbers in my puzzle.

Breakfast was at 8:30 (I think) and there wasn’t much of a variety of food. It had been a while since I had sat down with more than 3 people for breakfast, and it was made especially nice that some of the people were friends that I hadn’t seen in a while. The people round the table were :

• Thushara The lady of the moment; the bride to be; usually known as Thush.
  
  
• Uncle Lloyd - Father of the bride.
• Aunty Chithra - Mother of the bride.
• Chaminda - He was a friend of the family who I think I’ve met once before.
  
• Kanika - also known as Kan – uni mate, mother of two.
• Kugan - another uni mate – quiet, reserved but also very nice.
• Udayi -chillie eating, tea drinking mate; ex-partner in crime.
• Isabel - Thush’s ex housemate; Nurse; recently returned after spending quite a few weeks in SriLanka doing Nurse-type things.
• Harriet - Hairdresser from Guilford – quite petite and pretty – flown in specially for the occasion.
• Daksha – Beautician.
• Laxman – Beautician’s boyfriend.

After breakfast, we retired back to the house where everyone began to prepare themselves for the wedding. The house was busy with the 9 people fighting for the 3 showers and one ironing board which there was access to.

We didn’t need to be ready until 2.30pm and it was still only ten fifteen. Seeing all the commotion I decided to chill out and finish my sudoku. I had ironed my penguin suit the previous night so all I had to do was to have a shower, shave, answer the call of nature, and get dressed. By my estimation, this would have taken approx 22mins, but given that I had to be extra careful not to slaughter my face while shaving, half an hour was plenty of time.


By 1.30pm, the house was really buzzing – it felt like something out of big brother where the housemates had been set the task of getting ready before everyone else. I was still in the living room sudoku-ing, while being constantly reminded what the time was by everyone that passed through – it was better than the speaking clock !


Thinking about the events of the day ahead, it dawned on me that I probably wasn’t going to see any food between now and the champagne reception after the wedding. Would there even be any food at the champagne reception (wedding cake perhaps, but there’s only so much wedding cake one can eat) or would I have to wait until the sit down dinner at 7pm. The thought of not having anything to eat until the evening made go to the kitchen and make myself a sandwich. This gave me a bit of a dilemma. My mum told me that I should never eat before going swimming. I think she also said the same of having a shower. Would I take the risk of eating my sandwich before having a shower and suffering the consequences (what every they may be) or would I be better off leaving the sandwich and coming back for it after my shower (the risk being that my chilli eating ex-partner in crime might come across it while making a cup of tea and that would be the end of my carefully crafted sandwich). Experience suggests that mum was always right and at the risk of never seeing my sandwich again, I went upstairs for my shower, but not before wrapping it up and hiding it in the fridge so should anyone (being careful not to mention any names here) look in the fridge, it will not be that noticeable.

Having had my shower and shave I returned to the kitchen to be reunited with my sandwich – luckily for me, it was still there and my chilli eating, tea drinking friend hadn't noticed its presence. Sandwich eaten, penguin suit on and I was ready to go. We stepped out side and guess what – Glorious sunshine – the gay hotel owners candle lighting trick really did work !!!!