Katy and I drove up to Manchester this past Friday to go visit Anna and Rho, who were (finally) getting hitched. Google says it's a bit less than 200 miles, which should take about 4.5 hours. That is, of course, when it's not snowing and raining cats and dogs. The drive up north was fine until we hit the M56 coming into Manchester. Because of road works, poor visibility and truly appalling lack of signage, we completely missed our exit and ended up on the M60. Not too much of a problem, because we had directions on how to get to the hotel from the M60 ring road, so all good.
We were at junction 5. Our hotel was at junction 23. We just needed to drive a bit more and we'd get there eventually, right? That's what we thought, until we mysteriously ended up on the M62 headed for God know's where. We stopped at some services to get some tea and directions and finally got back on the motorway and get to our destination. The hotel was in sight!! But then we took a wrong turn and ended up halfway to Anna's before we found the way to the sodding hotel parking lot. Katy was drived-out by that time, so we took a cab to Anna and Rho's.
We had a bit of a chat/rant while I cooked some curry*, ate some and went back to our hotel for some sleep. We took the bus into town the next morning and had a bit of a pootle in the city center before meeting up with everybody in a pub before the registry office ceremony. The ceremony itself was nice and simple and quiet and cute, then everybody cabbed it back to Anna and Rho's house for a post-wedding party. I'd brought some food over the night before so that I'd have something allergy-friendly to eat for the party but, due to crossed wires, most of it god used to make sandwiches. Luckily, I was able to find lots of goodies here and there, so it worked out in the end.
I have to say, I'm getting old. I don't like large crowds where everybody has to shout to get heard over the music and everybody is trying their best to drink everything in sight. Give me a quiet dinner with a nice bottle of wine anytime. Like I said, I'm old and I'm proud of it. Now get off my lawn!!! We still had a nice time talking to people in small gatherings, so that was good. Saw Rita and Tim, which we hadn't seen since the wedding.
One thing I have to ask members of the sisterhood who read my blog. What the hell is the deal with lesbians and big leather bracelets and short, spiky haircuts???
Driving back home was an altogether completely different experience. It was nice and sunny on the way home and, just as we were nearing the M6/M1/A14 junction, we decided to surprise Katy's parents and drop in unexpectedly for dinner, causing a mild panic but it all turned out nicely. That was a fun way to end the weekend and we made our way home to Cambs to face the beasties and get ready for another week.
* We'd planned on inviting Anna and Rho to dinner on Friday night, but they had company coming and would be ordering up from a curry house. I proposed to cook dinner for them and had bought enough supplies to feed 8 people. However, because it took too long to get to Manchester, they had to order in anyway so the mountain of curry I made – though highly acclaimed – was relegated to tupperware in the fridge :(