But can we dance into the fire
Sep. 4th, 2008 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaAt the weeked, I headed off up to Leicestershire to make sure that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oxfordgirl and mejoff got married properly. They did, and are now thoroughly handfasted.
The wedding invitation and the instructions-for-the-day promised "feasting" after the ceremony. It's interesting the different connotations conjured up by the word "feasting" rather than "eating" or "a meal".
Pausing on the way up to buy an alcoholic contribution, I mused over what one drinks at a feast. I figured feasting suggests quaffing, preferably from a tankard, and quaffing really requires something in the mead or cider department. In the end I settled for a bunch of bottled ciders (and was unsure whether to be flattered or gobsmacked when the nice lady on the till ID'd me to buy it).
Anyway, the feast lived up to its name, having as its central theme a roast hog. Mmm... hogroast. Although I believe there was something provided for the lettuce-eaters, there's something inherently celebratory about a huge roast.
The instructions-for-the-day promised that after the feasting there would be "songs and stories", and invited anyone who had such a thing to bring them along. This is the kind of plan I could forsee going horribly wrong, as lots of people revealed themselves as far too embarassed to get up and do such things in company.
I should have known better, really - and OxfordGirl and MeJoff clearly know their friends well enough to know that that was never going to be an issue. The assembled company was full of amazingly able singers, musicians, story-tellers, fire-wranglers and entertainers of all stripes.
Once the formal parts of the proceedings were over, the company broke up into groups and I sat with a bunch of people, singing in the dark. Folk songs and bits of filk, parodies and people's own songs; songs originally by Monty Python, Del Amitri, Van Morrison...
I can't think of a better way to celebrate a union, and send my best wishes to MeJoff and OxfordGirl for a continuing happy life.
In fact the only downside was that, waking on Sunday morning, I discovered that every single flying insecty creature in the county had bitten me. I'm still somewhat lumpy and blotchy. Did they do this to everyone there present, or was it a special effort just for me ?
oxfordgirl and mejoff got married properly. They did, and are now thoroughly handfasted.The wedding invitation and the instructions-for-the-day promised "feasting" after the ceremony. It's interesting the different connotations conjured up by the word "feasting" rather than "eating" or "a meal".
Pausing on the way up to buy an alcoholic contribution, I mused over what one drinks at a feast. I figured feasting suggests quaffing, preferably from a tankard, and quaffing really requires something in the mead or cider department. In the end I settled for a bunch of bottled ciders (and was unsure whether to be flattered or gobsmacked when the nice lady on the till ID'd me to buy it).
Anyway, the feast lived up to its name, having as its central theme a roast hog. Mmm... hogroast. Although I believe there was something provided for the lettuce-eaters, there's something inherently celebratory about a huge roast.
The instructions-for-the-day promised that after the feasting there would be "songs and stories", and invited anyone who had such a thing to bring them along. This is the kind of plan I could forsee going horribly wrong, as lots of people revealed themselves as far too embarassed to get up and do such things in company.
I should have known better, really - and OxfordGirl and MeJoff clearly know their friends well enough to know that that was never going to be an issue. The assembled company was full of amazingly able singers, musicians, story-tellers, fire-wranglers and entertainers of all stripes.
Once the formal parts of the proceedings were over, the company broke up into groups and I sat with a bunch of people, singing in the dark. Folk songs and bits of filk, parodies and people's own songs; songs originally by Monty Python, Del Amitri, Van Morrison...
I can't think of a better way to celebrate a union, and send my best wishes to MeJoff and OxfordGirl for a continuing happy life.
In fact the only downside was that, waking on Sunday morning, I discovered that every single flying insecty creature in the county had bitten me. I'm still somewhat lumpy and blotchy. Did they do this to everyone there present, or was it a special effort just for me ?
