Meeting the Family in Wales August 5, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Overseas Travel , trackbackFriday morning I awoke to find two stubbornly stupid devil-horns popping out of my head. I’d lazily decided that I didn’t need a haircut during my last week in Bangkok but today realized that I was going to look pretty silly without one. My traditional 3 pound Bangkok haircut cost me 10 pounds here but made me look at least 11 pounds more handsome so it was worth the investment.
It must be fun being a barber. The man responsible for de-horning me had his cutthroat razor poised at my neck as he used his clippers with the other hand. He spouted off his philosophy of life, prosperity and hair cutting as a perfect soliloquay for the 20 minute procedure. Nonetheless it was quite refreshing to be meeting new people oncemore.
We took a coach from Heathrow to Chepstow today to meet with Mum, Dad and Lisa. They were meeting us by car to take us to my cousins wedding. Stuart and Jo were to be wed in a castle on the Saturday.
I was a little startled at the number of police within Heathrow with large semi-automatic guns and made me wonder just how this will prevent suicide-fanatics placing bombs in their bags. We bought ourselves a few snacks for the coach and was even more startled as to how expensive 2 packs of crisps, a couple of candy bars and 2 drinks came to. I felt quite stupid handing over two pounds when the actual cost was nearer 5. How the times they are a changing!
We arrived a little earlier than Mum, Dad and Lisa but it wasn’t long before we’d got our stuff into the car, got a hearty lunch in an English pub and arrived in the hotel.
We were booked for 3 nights at the hotel. I’d love to give you the hotel’s name or a website link, but quite honestly nobody I know can remember it. Anyway … the hotel boasts some incredibly difficult spiral staircases, and hosts about 40 rooms. Our extended family dominated much of the hotel for the 3 days.
Our family meal was already booked for us early that evening. Despite having eaten earlier we cleaned our plates of some very well-prepared food and got an early night.
It was good to get the cliched conversations out of the way early. All our side of the family were delighted to meet with Jo’s family for the first time. It didn’t take long for the wine to flow and for the Rosenblatt family and the Vigilate familes to merge into one. Meeting my new uncle-in-laws, aunty-in-laws and cousin-in-laws was wonderful and it is uplifting to know that the family gene pool will soon evolve for the better.
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