Haggis wedding

I am almost always tired out on Friday night, which is why I try to take it easy then with a view to being useful on Saturday. If you start the weekend tired, it seems all but impossible to recover. For some reason (I think because it meant not having to rush home from work), I had booked flights that weren't until 2200. Hire car was an automatic silver 5 door Hyundai Getz. I wonder if it was auto because lots of americans think they're irish? Mercifully its only an hour down to Ashford from Dublin, and it was late o'clock so we made good time. Found the place we were staying and after having rung Michelle to find out which cottage we were in (waking her up - in the car on the way to the ferry - fully disasterous journey for those two) found our way to bed.

Devil's Glen (where we were staying) is a collection of holiday cottages attached to some kind of horse training centre. All the properties (as far as I know) were occupied by wedding party people, it was a nice morning and there looked to be the chance of better weather in the afternoon. After the obligatory fannying around drinking coffee we set off for Glendalough. The others had already gone and we needed shopping. By the time we'd got some provisions, parked in the wrong place, walked the wrong way and so on we would have had 20 minutes climbing time. Decided not to bother and to lie in the sun instead. Everyone arrived back just after three and started getting ready for the wedding which was at 5. I shouldnt imagine I will see my climbing friends so well dressed until there is another wedding to which we are all invited - everyone looked great. The wedding itself was up at a central building onsite at devil's glen - and that was one of the genius bits about the choice of venue - if you so desired, you could pop back to your house and have a moment, get changed - whatever. Very good. Ushering us to our seats best men Roy and Busby :

Soon after five everyone leapt from their seats as Shiv started her walk through the car park :

And then the ceremony. We were sat outside, and although as you can see the sun was out, it was really windy and quite cool. Ceremony was over in a flash - here are the happy couple regaling the party with their favorite sequences on staminaband :

And then, inside for the meal and drinks. Delightfully Mr Fullwood had been asked for beer recommendations, so we had Kelham island best and easy rider on draught. Next, the speeches... I can't remember the order people spoke in, but there was some real heartfelt emotion going on here. Looking down the line of hard outdoors extreme sports heros (and our table too), the girls were all in bits, Rob Smith, the Sausage and I were concentrating furiously on our breathing and only Nige and Jon looked unaffected. Very touching. Some food later and everyone was ready for the two shifty types to tell some jokes :

A best man's speech has to be all about sailing close to the wind without crossing the line. At points it appeared they werent so much as going to cross the line as ride a motorbike over it, but they didnt - a very well executed slightly risque speech that went down a storm. The evening finished with the compulsory wedding disco. Everyone had a great time - some more than others :

When Andy met Shiv, it was in the toilets at the Kendal Film festival. He wooed her by drinking a pint whilst doing a handstand, I mean - who could possibly resist such a feat? not shiv obviously. He got coerced into repeating the stunt :

Got to crack on - been writing this for ages! so the night continued, we all had a great time and everyone was well oiled. Other personal highlights - Joe dancing inappropriately with a wooden pig, Vicky telling everyone she was a rough as owt (!), and Mr Harris asking us all to cheer when a picture of him in the bath rotated past on the slideshow. The girls were hilarious and far out danced the boys. All tapered off around 2am.

Sunday started slowly, but I had restrained myself and felt pretty sparky. Couldnt muster much enthusiasm from the group for the boulders, but managed to get out eventually. The monster felt ropey! Glendalough is a very beautiful mountain setting for climbing, and as you approach it appears there is absolutely loads of rock, but when you get close to it much of it is knee high - in short, quite disappointing. What climbing there is is good, lovely granite and ok landings, and presumably theres much more than I saw in one short afternoon, but the general impression I got was that most of the blocs aren't actually climbable.

Once back at the house, we went out for our tea and then all piled round to one of the other houses to hang out and finish the beer off. A very funny evening ensued. Those who were on the ferry had been told that the middle of the day ferry was cancelled and were all getting up at daft o clock to get the 8am ferry home, so that put paid to any staying up late ideas. We werent flying until 2000, so we had all day to kill the next day, and thankfully Andy and Shiv were hanging about too. Come Monday morning we drove up to Shiv's mums house for a cuppa, and then on into Dublin to roam about for a few hours. Had lovely fish and chips at Howte courtesy of mr and mrs Harris and then a mooch around town - very nice. Back home to sheff tired but happy. A good weekend.