Sunday 30 March 2008

For once, I was speechless...

Most who know me will agree it's very unusual for me to keep quiet. But a badly timed bout of laryngitis certainly made Theo's and my wedding a more physically demanding occasion than I'd expected. Getting the declarations, assents and vows out took some determination but there was no way I was going to let a small thing like near-dumbness get in the way of such an incredible and life-affirming experience. Or, most importantly, stop me from saying out loud and in front of the dearest people in my life just how much I love Theo and want to be with him forever.

Theo didn't really need to hear me say those words - I am sure he could see my feelings shining in my eyes and beaming out of the wideness of my smile. But I felt like shouting it so everyone could hear, in the back of the dining room of Manor Hall and beyond. This is the man I love and the man I want to be with for the rest of my life!

An incredible, overwhelming, extraordinarily moving occasion and no doubt we will both reflect some more about the details when the confetti has settled and we've finished moving out of our flat and stopped being quite so busy. But if I ever had any doubts about the generosity of the human spirit and the way love can send out ripples of the purest joy, they were laid to rest at our beautiful, magical wedding.

Shame I had planned to sing my speech. Good job I had my fabulous Hot Flush acapella group to provide the music while I mimed to the sound of their voices.

I just wish I had had a series of Bob Dylan Subterranean Homesick Blues placards with me for all the people who asked when we're leaving on our travels; where we're going; for how long; can we get our jobs back and where should they deposit the tray of egg sandwiches they brought with them for the buffet?

So I croaked, husked, squeaked and whispered my way through my wedding to Theo. But I don't think anybody was left in any doubt about the depth of my conviction and love. I think that came through loud and clear.

We did it!!!

WOW

That was incredible. Yesterday Kate and I got married. Yesterday I married the woman of my dreams. Yesterday I married the love of my life. Yesterday I became Mr Kate Salisbury. Yesterday was absolutely immense.

We had such a lovely day yesterday; illness and miserable weather couldn't put a dampener on our spirits which were soaring so high all day and couldn't stop the smiles beaming throughout. We'll both be writing more about the day and there will be photos to come too, as well as news on our honeymoon. But I just had to quickly say...

Thank you!

We are both absolutely overwhelmed by the generosity of our friends and families; it staggers us how much you all put into making our wedding day so wondrously special. It was, it really was. Thank you all so much.

love,

Mr Kate Salisbury x

Thursday 27 March 2008

(insert snippy title here)

Two momentous events have occurred today.

Firstly, I had my haircut. Not counting Kate's efforts during the summer, I'm pretty sure this was my first haircut since Lulu shaved it off with her clippers 4 years ago. I was completely undecided about what to do with it; advice had been coming in thick and fast from all sides; my sister lobbying for short hair, S (our cake maker) saying I should keep it, and so on. My mother even sent me pictures of Joseph Fiennes with a foppish side parting (er.... I think not) while some of the young people I work with wrote a song about how great my long hair was (thanks guys!), although they did throw in cane row plaits as a leftfield entry.

In the end - after calling Kate for advice on my mobile while the hairdressers scissors were poised above my head - I decided to keep it long. After all, I reasoned, if it was a mistake it would be far easier to reverse than if I cut it all off. Besides I've had long hair for the whole time I've known Kate so it would have a felt a little odd. So I just had a trim and had it thinned out, plus I've now discovered the joy of straighteners, and Kate and I are very pleased with the results.

The second momentous event to occur today was that I finally left work.

I was meant to finish (at REMIX) yesterday but I couldn't quite get everything done in time so I had to go in for a few hours to tie up some financial admin stuff. Fun. Still I got a very lovely farewell gift from my colleagues - travel guides and phrasebooks - while the night before the young people I work with had thrown a surprising surprise party complete with teeth rotting confectionery and a massive cake with my picture on (complete with graffiti mustache). There were songs and unexpected guests and it was all very lovely. If only I hadn't been so tired by the time we got to the pub afterwards I would have enjoyed it even more!! It's been a very stressful few days trying to get everything sorted out before I left; my problem was that I was responsible for about 20 freelancers for whom new contracts needed to be issued and several projects which needed to be wrapped up and so on. So while I'm sad to go - I started at REMIX 4.5 years ago as a volunteer and have had loads of fun working for them over the years - I'm kind of relieved too, and I'm now at least fairly comfortable that whoever comes into my post wont be totally confused by what they find!

Much love to any REMIXers reading this and my very best wishes for the future! Thanks for all the fun and music...

Monday 24 March 2008

Happiness is a girl called Kate...

... well that's how I feel, anyway.

Just a few days to go until our wedding and things are being to take on a slightly surreal tinge, as if our life for the next few days was being scripted by Herman Hesse. Things just seem to float along and we find ourselves having strange encounters with the past and the future - like Kate reading a book about a broadcaster who quit her job to go travelling around Europe with her husband, me finding a bin bag of old toys in my parents attic, or the strange emptiness of our flat without all or stuff in it and its echo of last August when we first moved in. We've walked through building sites to find a mini-club/cinema hidden away like Aladdin's cave, or gone accidentally off-roading in Sheena (who held up very well), and all the while we know full well these strange experiences will soon pale in comparison to the amazing adventure we are about to embark on.

We've booked our ferry from Poole to Cherbourg at 8am on April 2nd. We're going to kick around Brittany for a few days before catching Crippled Black Phoenix in Nantes on the 7th, where we are going to stay with a total stranger called Gina who we made contact with through Global Freeloaders. Then it's on to Kate's mother's near Cahors via La Rochelle. After that Europe (and beyond?) is our destination, going as far as Sheena will carry us. The future is one of strange vistas, new cities, new sights, new smells, fresh tastes, problems, languages, music, barriers, friendships, and the uncanny familiarity of places and situations that are at once both brand new and so old. It's a crazy uncertain, future where nothing is certain for me.

Except Kate. Always Kate.

Sunday 16 March 2008

First, cajole your camper van...

It seems we misjudged our camper van in a way that has led to consequences costing around three hundred pounds in repairs.

The van is obviously not a him, it is a her. And taking the mickey by naming her Flash or Slick because of any supposed uncoolness was clearly the height of bad manners. I don't think the situation was helped by our friends commenting that the number plate basically reads, "PISSED". Pissed in the American sense is exactly what she became and she made her feelings known in no uncertain terms by squirting out her power steering fluid all over the road.

So I have consulted my friend Titania Hardie, a celebrated white witch, on the subject of recalcitrant camper vans and how we can get over the unfortunate beginning to our relationship.

You may be dubious about the powers of a white witch, but I can definitely vouch for Titania's abilities, as can all those associated with Frome FC. You see, I met Titania when, as a reporter for BBC Radio Bristol, I contacted her about a story we'd heard concerning Frome's home ground, Badger Hill. The team had the best away record in their league and the worst at home. Because of that, fans had started talking about the "Badger Hill Hoodoo". Who better to have a crack at beating the hoodoo than a white witch, I reasoned? And Titania was immediately up for the challenge.

She was amazing. I went with her to watch a home match and she even did the team talk before the first half - during which they played pretty well. In the second half they fell apart and chalked up yet another home loss. But Titania was determined to get to the bottom of the problem and after applying herself to the problem, she came up with the answer. The hoodoo wasn't on the pitch, it was on the home team's changing room.

A visit to the changing room confirmed her opinion. It was painted red (terrible colour for motivating a team) and had the most extraordinary depressing atmosphere.

Despite the lively scepticism of Frome FC's Chairman (who told Titania he would eat his hat if she managed to turn things round) she enlisted her husband, got a local DIY store to donate paint and before you could say "Badger Hill", had redecorated the changing room in hues of aqua and pink (yes, pink), hung up some crystals, said some incantations and left some of her own aromatic shower gel to get the team looking, feeling and smelling right.

And boy, it worked. That season, Frome FC won every home game after and finished right up the top of their league. The club was so grateful, the chairman (the sceptical chairman) invited her to their end of season meal and presented her with a huge bouquet of flowers to say thank you.

So I have great respect for Titania's views on such matters. Thus, I am taking her very seriously when she tells us our van is a she and that we need to go and toast her arrival then ask her nicely to transfer her mind to ours away from her former owner. Plus - and this is very important - we should hang up a spring of rosemary inside.

Once she's back from the garage (where she's currently awaiting parts) we shall follow Titania's advice to the letter. And we're rechristening the van - not "Flash" or "Slick" but, I think, Sheena.

Here's to you, Sheena. Long and happily may we ride with you.

Thursday 13 March 2008

YOU DO WHAT...??!

I blame Watchdog.

It has to be the reason broadcasters are regarded as such stratospheric insurance risks, especially it seems, for camper vans.

When trying to get insurance for our new van there were two factors that continually told against us. Not being able to keep the vehicle off the public road was one. Understandable, perhaps. Although what you can do about that when you live in a flat in the middle of a city (without shelling out stupid amounts of money) is rather limited.

But when my profession was described as "broadcaster" we were turned down flat. Again and again. Why?

I explained that to all intents and purposes my job is an office job, but the office happens to have a microphone in it. I walk the eight minutes into work and have no plans to use the camper van in the course of my duties anyway. I'm on a staff contract and covered by statutory sick pay, so no expensive loss-of-earnings claims after an accident. I am not a celebrity. The closest I ever got to that was having a small profile piece in Venue Magazine, hardly A list. I wouldn't be using the camper van to ferry bona fide celebrities about because I wouldn't be using it for work reasons. And I don't move in starry social circles either, so would be unlikely to take Tom Cruise with us to any European campsites (not that I would particularly want to anyway). And I certainly wouldn't be using the van as an outside broadcast vehicle.

Do they think all that FM rots our brains and impedes our driving ability? That we might mistake the gearstick for a microphone and spontaneously read out the football results during an overtaking manoeuvre? Or feel impelled to try and record a quick soundbite every time we saw a blue flashing light? That we might mistake the red traffic signal for "Microphone Live"?

Nope, it must be because of Watchdog taking the industry to task once too often. But don't blame me - Nicky Campbell is hardly my fault.

In the end, I got a special type of insurance aimed at people wanting to tour Europe in a camper van. The nice man at Ensign didn't care about the Broadcasting or that the van is on the public highway (although technically it isn't because it's actually getting fixed in the garage at the moment) - as long as we get on continental roads pronto, we're insured. Fully comp, at less than £450.

Monday 10 March 2008

Van 2: Revenge of the Mazda

We have another van!

This time it's a blue Mazda conversion with all the kit - double bed, microwave, sink, grill, gas hobs, table, cupboards, CB radio, USB stereo, dashboard TV, even a mountain bike for those trips to the shop for milk!! Another ebay purchase, we drove over to RAF Brize Norton to pick it up on saturday. Was really nice to drive back actually - it wont go much above 55 mph but that's probably just as well with my driving; as a nice, final kick in the teeth from the last van fiasco I got done for doing 36 in a 30 mile zone driving back from Yeovil after the last van was consigned to the scraphead. So, yes, having a slow vehicle will probably help me stay on the right side of the law as well as the right side of the road, though this one is right hand drive.

Kate has christened it Flash - as it has a 'flash' (more of a grey stripe really) down the side and she thinks it's a bit of a try hard, an uncool vehicle trying to be cool, which I think is harsh. Anyway she really should have called it Slick - because that's what we found underneath it the next day. A load of oil leaking from somewhere onto the road.

Oh dear - we aren't having much luck are we?

Friday 7 March 2008

Oh my God!!!!

... it's just dawned on me that I've got to write a speech.

arghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Monday 3 March 2008

Love and marriage...

Did anyone read Hannah betts piece "Is this the beginning of the end for marriage?" in The Observer Magazine last weekend? No? Well nevermind. It really annoyed Kate though and she brought it my attention, hence the following piece which was written more as a writing excercise for myself (I need the practise) than a serious rebuttal - I hope it makes sense if you haven't read the original article.

"Dear Sir/Madam,

Hannah Betts makes an entertaining argument for marriage's lack of relevancy in today's world. She writes well and wittily, punctuating her prose with pop references in a way that is oh so now. But, rather like a promise of love that is never fullfilled, her argument lacks substance. Pathological fear and trite anecdotes of childhood nightmares aside, she lists four key objections to tying the knot: “atheism; feminism; a loathing of state and/or public intervention in matters I deem private; and something more oddball regarding the close-down of narrative possibility.”

Let's take them in turn.

Ms Betts presents an excellent argument against the intrusion of religion into love and the hypocrisy of non-believers making their vows in front of a God they do not believe in, without allowing any consideration for the validity of non-religious ceremonies.

Ditto feminism: as befits the sole male on my MSc course in Feminism, I was incensed to discover that the registrar wanted to know my father's profession in order to grant my betrothed and I a wedding license. What of my mother's profession, or of my partner's parents? Why is it even relevant? But that outmoded requirement on the statute book aside we've stripped our non-religious wedding of all gender bias, written our own vows, are keeping our own surnames and put women at the centre of the ceremony. We have a female celebrant, a best woman and my sister is making the rings (as she did the engagement ring, which most certainly didn't cost 3 months wages). Tradition dictates that weddings – though it spoils her argument that Ms Betts seems determined to equate the wedding with the marriage – are religious and patriarchal, but the law doesn't require it and it certainly makes the occasion no less romantic to design one's own celebration. For it is a celebration, and so what? Why can't a wedding, and a marriage, be both a celebration and a lifelong commitment? The two are not mutually exclusive; rather they are fairly complimentary.

Ms Betts is quite right to assert that the state has no business sticking its nose into the bond between two people, but if two people are so overjoyed with each other's company and the love they share together, then what better way to celebrate and affirm than in a romantic demonstration of love in front of friends and family?

I am trying desperate hard not to sound smug and patronised (though it is hard as I do feel very smug at being engaged to such a truly wonderful woman) but neither my partner or I were much enamoured by the concept of marriage before we met each other; a mere 18 months ago I would have had no quibble with Ms Betts article. Yet after some wild adventures and huge life-changes in a very short space of time we can think of nothing we would rather do than to get married to each other and express our joy in a public demonstration of our love, before heading off for more wild adventures on a 12 month European honeymoon. So maybe it is just a case of finding 'the one'.

Yours faithfully,

Theo Berry"