WED MOSEYING PAPYRUS: August 2024

Ahem

Ella and Sam were formally wed on 24^th August in Wadhurst Castle in East Sussex, a glorious culmination of many months of diligence and planning by the couple, aided by close friends and sisters. They designed and organised most of the event themselves after choosing the venue and catering. It was also the confirmation of a relationship that had been going strong for more than 12 years, since they met first as freshpeople at Loughborough. Alli and I were grateful that we had little to do with the organisation of the event. Wedding planning is decidedly not one of our collective skill sets, although Alli assisted with some of Ella’s bridal preliminaries, including the bridal shower, the choice of the gown and the bridal hairstyle. I just had the ‘father of the bride’ speech to make. Moreover, I was privileged and proud to accompany my beautiful daughter down the aisle, stepping only once or twice on her satin dress.

The weather did not allow an outdoor ceremony but it mattered not a jot. The wedding and celebration throughout the day seemed utterly appropriate, timely, and harmonious, a sign of the very high quality of preparation that had gone into it. After the elegant civil ceremony, a drinks reception took place during which Ella spoke briefly and memorably, paying tribute to all the helpers and especially remembering her late and much loved grandpa Laurie. The afternoon featured a lunch reception with several speeches. Ella’s sisters (also bridesmaids), Jessie and Gwen, spoke with gentle passion about their sister, and Sam’s parents spoke of the experience of parenting in Sam’s early years. The gist was that he had lost none of the competitiveness he showed as a toddler. Various informal group photos were taken once the sun chased away the clouds, and the evening featured some epic carousing, dancing and even more food, including Gwen’s famous vegan brownies. All finished neatly in the castle at 11.30pm. Except that it didn’t, since an after-hours party naturally occurred nearby for a few more hours, judging from the steady stream of unsteady people wandering around the next morning looking for coffee, partners, and painkillers.

Wadhurst was close enough for Alli and I to take taxis to and from Uckfield, and we returned the next day for the bridal brunch and an afternoon barbecue expertly cooked by Sam. We played boules in the picturesque garden of a rented house that seemed perfect for the purpose of a lazy and languid post-wedding Sunday, unwinding in the excellent company of new family and new friends. The new Mr and Mrs Chislett left the next day for a minimoon: a few days of self-pampering and hiking in the Highlands of Scotland. 

In early August during the last days of my Malawi visit with Julia, we drove to Liwonde with our guests Mike and Sue to stay on the banks of the Shire River. Heavy-jowelled and stubborn, the river’s forward mass is created from the momentum of the huge Lake Malawi, and is remorselessly purposeful, an enormous and elemental force of nature, vital for the region’s economy and society as it flows into the Indian Ocean via the Zambezi. In the morning, we drove across the river and old rice fields to the Kutchiri Lodge, set within Liwonde National Park, a free-roaming home of big game. On arrival we saw the rear end of a huge bull elephant moseying slowly around the huts and car park. We also saw some thieving monkeys and a show of precision diving by colourful kingfishers into the tributary that wriggled through the lodge grounds.

The plane journey back to the UK was long and sleepless. I felt like a collapsed pack of cards for a couple of days, but recovered enough to drive Gwen to her new flat in Earlsfield, London with several bags and boxes of her belongings and books, and to oversee the creation and installation of some solid bookshelves in the loftice of our house. Alli and I had lunch at the Griffin Hotel in Fletching with our friends the Cravens. Later, I met my daughters in Brighton for dinner and went to the Pipeline, where my nephew Ol’s band Perpetual Paradox played a tight and energetic set, with Ol showing his considerable guitar skills. The audience was rocking hard while I stayed seated, nodding my head gently as all around me banged theirs. A few days later Ella stayed the night with us after a pre-wedding-related appointment in Crowborough. Alli cooked a salmon and asparagus quiche and we visited the Alma Arms with Max, who thoroughly enjoys the olfactory sensations of the short walk to the pub and has also become partial to plain crisps.

The end of the month saw me take on a Herculean labour involving the single-handed clearance and preparation of 100 square metres of emergent woodland, namely an allotment, unattended for two years, on the bright side of BirdinEye Hill, a stone’s throw from the house. I have started to pull out hundreds of bunchfuls of clustered, sticky, and prickly weeds (spurge, bindweed, chickweed) multiplied by a major infestation of teasel, blooming lifelessly after months of neglect. Progress is manual and slow, but this year’s Augean objective is to weed everything and cover with tarpaulins before New Year’s Eve. So far I have uncovered two tarps, a small solar cell and battery, a big black plastic bowl, a large pile of broken glass; and in the shed some broken tools, a full tin of biscuits, a gas grill, a spade, a strimmer, and a papyrus plant (which I rescued for our eclectic pond).

A coincidental feature of the golden period around Ella and Sam’s wedding was the news of the revival of Britain’s second-best band, Oasis, and of concert dates next year. It all started when (because) Sara Cox played Champagne Supernova for the happy couple as Gwen’s confident oral request on Radio 2 on the Friday afternoon Request Show before the wedding. Most British radio stations are now playing wall-to-wonderwall Oasis songs, and especially Live for Ever, a firm favourite with the happy couple, who, one suspects, somehow really might. They even secured their London concert tickets while on their minimoon. Radio X has now become Radio Oasis; and the headliner for next year’s Glastonbury is nailed on.

You heard it here first.

Lionel