Africa

First, we got married. We arrived in Cape Town on 26th April. On 9th May, at 6 in the evening, we collapsed into our rented sofa, having hastily prepared everything for the wedding the following day. I took out the list of wedding jobs to marvel at what we'd accomplished. Family, check. Flowers, check. Pastor, check. Photographers, check. Rings, check. Vows, check. Venue, check. Car, check. Catering, check. Wedding permit, che ... oh dear. An hour later I staggered back through the door, sweaty and exhausted but with crumpled wedding permit held defiantly aloft. It had cost me some groveling and a crate of beer but it was on, we were getting married in the morning.

And we did. On Windmill Beach just next to Simons Town. We made our vows and Fay took particular and not altogether unsinister delight in the 'for the reeeest of your liiiife' line. We were banned from going onto Boulders Beach, home of a huge Jackass penguin colony, presumably for being too underdressed for the penguins, but apart from that the day was mostly seamless. Things could of gone awry when we took everyone for fish and chips for lunch at Kalk Bay. One of the waitresses took a shine to the new groom, that being me. The waitress in question was about 60, very short, with few teeth, the calves of Jonah Lomo and was utterly, and undeniably insane. There was talk of a second wife and of knives but it was all in reasonably, if slightly tense, good humour, and we all got out alive and I managed to avoid two weddings in one day. And that was it! We were married, for the reeeesssst of our liiiiiiives.

my nearly second wife