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There was a slight change of venue... instead of the Travel Inn, we were staying the rather plusher surroundings of the Lancaster House Hotel (at extra cost). Excellent for three of the party, though, as the hotel is right next door to Lancaster Uni, where they all met up (groom, best man James, and another lad called Tom). I guess I ought to do a roll call of the weekend, as those reading this won't know who I'm talking about otherwise!
Adam: The Stag, a work colleague of mine.
James: The Best Man, and also a Torquay United supporter - therefore beyone reproach, utterly.
Tom: The third Old Lancastrian.
Brian: Adam's dad.
Tony: Adam's uncle.
Simon: Another work colleague.
Alex: ...and another work colleague.
The train up was a smooth enough ride, though due to a minor oversight on my part, I'd booked my ticket for Thursday rather than Friday. Whilst my travel ticket was valid for Friday (not that anyone managed to get around to inspecting it!), my reserved seat wasn't. Luckily the seat next to Alex was available, so I sat there. We were in the "quiet" carriage, so that meant the following:
Obligatory Mr Annoying Ringtone sat behind us.
The bunch of lads having a very raucous party in the standing bit at the end of the carriage. They had several bottles of beer, and there was an empty slab of Fosters lying on the floor when we got off the train!
A dog that kept on barking.
Cab to the hotel, meet up with everyone else... except:
Nigel: Another work colleague, this time from one of our clients where Adam spent a good deal of time. He was due to be flying Adam and James up in a private 'plane, but the day before he allegedly put his foot down a rabbit hole while walking in the New Forest, and the doctor told him not to put any weight on it for 48 hours.
Andy: Another guy from the same client, the last we heard of him he was driving up to his parents' in Rotherham on Thursday night and then... nothing. Zip. Nada. MIA.
Of course we had 5 rooms booked, and deposits paid, but because we didn't know where Andy was and if/when he was going to arrive, we couldn't drop one of the rooms, and we ended up with two people going single in a twin room - I was one of them, Tom the other. Made it a bit more expensive than anticipated, especially with the change of hotel, which was due to some booking error or other (I didn't enquire).
Drinks in the hotel bar, then into town for more, followed by a chinese meal (excellent it was too), a couple more drinks, and back to the hotel. We didn't go too heavy on the Friday, because of the following day's planned events.
After breakfast, we were picked up by a minibus for the drive up to an activity centre in the middle of nowhere, where we split into two groups and partook in clay pigeon shooting, and quad biking. I did okay at the shooting, coming out with 7/14 (only Brian did better with 10, and Adam was the only one to score 0). The quad biking was brilliant, you really get an idea of how fast 30mph actually is when zipping along the top of a hill in Lancashire wearing no more protection than a helmet, jeans, and t-shirt. It was a fantastic day - warm, sunny, not a cloud in the sky, the views were brilliant, right across to the Lake District, and the cows and sheep totally ambivalent to the six guys whizzing past on noisy quad bikes!
We got back to the hotel at about 5 (after a slight detour when the road was blocked by a broken-down tractor!), changed, and headed out in to town. Grabbed something to eat at a Wetherspoon's, then carried on drinking the night away. We started the drinking games in the final pub, at which point things got very very silly. Alex, who'd been generally moping about all weekend due to a friend of his losing a court case and him being constantly on the 'phone to her, perked up and, well, wouldn't shut up. We decided we were going to try and crash the wedding party going on back at the hotel (which wasn't as good as the one the night before, mind!) but the groom dissuaded us from doing so.
Suitably hungover, we dragged ourselves our separate ways home on Sunday morning, though Simon and I cut it a bit fine when the cab we'd booked for 11.45 didn't turn up until 12.10 and we just about made the 12.24 train we were booked on.
Goodness, that was a bit of an epic.
Adam: The Stag, a work colleague of mine.
James: The Best Man, and also a Torquay United supporter - therefore beyone reproach, utterly.
Tom: The third Old Lancastrian.
Brian: Adam's dad.
Tony: Adam's uncle.
Simon: Another work colleague.
Alex: ...and another work colleague.
The train up was a smooth enough ride, though due to a minor oversight on my part, I'd booked my ticket for Thursday rather than Friday. Whilst my travel ticket was valid for Friday (not that anyone managed to get around to inspecting it!), my reserved seat wasn't. Luckily the seat next to Alex was available, so I sat there. We were in the "quiet" carriage, so that meant the following:
Obligatory Mr Annoying Ringtone sat behind us.
The bunch of lads having a very raucous party in the standing bit at the end of the carriage. They had several bottles of beer, and there was an empty slab of Fosters lying on the floor when we got off the train!
A dog that kept on barking.
Cab to the hotel, meet up with everyone else... except:
Nigel: Another work colleague, this time from one of our clients where Adam spent a good deal of time. He was due to be flying Adam and James up in a private 'plane, but the day before he allegedly put his foot down a rabbit hole while walking in the New Forest, and the doctor told him not to put any weight on it for 48 hours.
Andy: Another guy from the same client, the last we heard of him he was driving up to his parents' in Rotherham on Thursday night and then... nothing. Zip. Nada. MIA.
Of course we had 5 rooms booked, and deposits paid, but because we didn't know where Andy was and if/when he was going to arrive, we couldn't drop one of the rooms, and we ended up with two people going single in a twin room - I was one of them, Tom the other. Made it a bit more expensive than anticipated, especially with the change of hotel, which was due to some booking error or other (I didn't enquire).
Drinks in the hotel bar, then into town for more, followed by a chinese meal (excellent it was too), a couple more drinks, and back to the hotel. We didn't go too heavy on the Friday, because of the following day's planned events.
After breakfast, we were picked up by a minibus for the drive up to an activity centre in the middle of nowhere, where we split into two groups and partook in clay pigeon shooting, and quad biking. I did okay at the shooting, coming out with 7/14 (only Brian did better with 10, and Adam was the only one to score 0). The quad biking was brilliant, you really get an idea of how fast 30mph actually is when zipping along the top of a hill in Lancashire wearing no more protection than a helmet, jeans, and t-shirt. It was a fantastic day - warm, sunny, not a cloud in the sky, the views were brilliant, right across to the Lake District, and the cows and sheep totally ambivalent to the six guys whizzing past on noisy quad bikes!
We got back to the hotel at about 5 (after a slight detour when the road was blocked by a broken-down tractor!), changed, and headed out in to town. Grabbed something to eat at a Wetherspoon's, then carried on drinking the night away. We started the drinking games in the final pub, at which point things got very very silly. Alex, who'd been generally moping about all weekend due to a friend of his losing a court case and him being constantly on the 'phone to her, perked up and, well, wouldn't shut up. We decided we were going to try and crash the wedding party going on back at the hotel (which wasn't as good as the one the night before, mind!) but the groom dissuaded us from doing so.
Suitably hungover, we dragged ourselves our separate ways home on Sunday morning, though Simon and I cut it a bit fine when the cab we'd booked for 11.45 didn't turn up until 12.10 and we just about made the 12.24 train we were booked on.
Goodness, that was a bit of an epic.