{Cheese and Beans}

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This weekend most of our collective families assembled from the four corners of the globe to celebrate the marriage of my cousin Charlotte, and her fiancé Jacob. The wedding took place at the Trafalgar Tavern, in Greenwich, London on Sunday afternoon. The photos that follow are a small selection of many more on Flickr – enjoy…

At some point tomorrow morning we will pack ourselves and the children into the car and travel to London, where we will be staying over the weekend to witness the marriage of my cousin from San Francisco to the fantastic guy she met over here a couple of years ago. They now live in Marin, just north of the San Francisco Bay, but are “coming home” to tie the knot.

I say “coming home” because my cousin’s Dad is English, and her Mom’s family were English too – through various accidents of fate, they ended up in San Francisco in the late 1970s (it’s a great story that I will try and get my Uncle to tell one day – he was in the merchant navy and missed his ship – the girl he met the night before drove him hundreds of miles to catch it again).

It will be our children’s first chance to meet a lot of the extended family – my brother, his wife, several uncles and aunts, several of my cousins… In some ways I’m a little nervous for the children; over dinner this evening our eldest (8 years old) who has been excited all week about the wedding, suddenly piped up that she was scared. The girls are going to be “flower girls” at the wedding, and she is terrified that everybody will be watching her.

Wendy reassured her – “Don’t worry – everybody will be looking at the bride.”

“Why?”

“Because weddings are all about the girl really – it’s her big day, isn’t that right Dad?”

I added my two penneth – “Yep – blokes just go along with it all really” (I grinned)

Wendy kicked me under the table.

In reality, I too am nervous about tomorrow – hoping everybody will like the kids, and give them a little of their time. While it’s easy to forget the journey we have been on for the last few years, at times you do remember that the girls are far more insecure than other children; we defeat it most of the time by being there to catch them, or alongside them, holding their hands. This weekend will be the first time they have been thrust forward into trusted hands a little more on their own.

There will of course be family there who they have met – my parents (“Nan and Grandad at the seaside!”), my nephew, who our 5 year old idolised last summer and will do so again this summer. There will be the excitement of staying in a hotel for the first time ever tomorrow night. There will be the nerves of wearing the pristine white dresses flown in from America, along with new socks and never worn shoes for their walk behind the bride on Sunday…

We have been dreading getting through the last week with none of the girls face-planting, ripping their knees open, or otherwise injuring themselves ahead of the big day. Last weekend I recoiled in horror when our 4 year old arrived in the kitchen with what looked like a huge black eye… it was purple makeup.

During my final hour this afternoon in the London office I have commuted to for the last two years, I handed in my security swipe card, my laptop, and shook hands with the IT manager.

Instead of casually holding my pass to the door, I had to ask the reception staff to let me exit the building. No longer a contractor at the company. A nobody.

It felt strange – walking towards the station for the final time – heading into the London underground. I sat on the train and took a little more notice than usual of those surrounding me. The mix of cultures and races struck me – Asian, Indian, South American, German, Russian and English people all sharing a train carriage far below the streets of London. It’s easy to forget just how multicultural our society is in comparison to many other countries.

Nothing annoyed me today. Not even the career girl that tried repeatedly to trip me with her trolley bag thing. I became fascinated with the clip-clopping of her shoes on the tiled floors instead, and wondered quite how she managed to move her feet quickly enough to keep such a rhythm.

Following an uneventful trundle home aboard the mainline trains, I walked the final minutes in the cold winter air towards home with Thomas Dolby in my ears. The last line of “Slough” by John Betjeman came to mind…

The earth exhales…

While counting down the last couple of days working in London, I remembered to take a camera with me today to record some of the sights that have become so familiar to me over the last couple of years;