I have to say that the next time I receive an invitation to a wedding (unless it happens to be from one of my children) I will certainly be aiming for the recycling bin rather than the RSVP option.
On Saturday a long standing friend got married to her fiance. They had known each other for a few years and having shared a few beers with him on a couple of occasions I knew he was a sound sort of bloke. Imagine my surprise when he, a self confessed Liverpool fan, agreed to having his wedding in the middle of the football season, even worse for someone operating at grass roots level of football like myself, it was District Cup weekend!
The invitation to the wedding in Cornwall was, in itself, very welcome but the tale of disaster which unfolded at the weekend is the real reason for my future refusals. The journey was planned for a few weeks with both my wife and I taking time off work to ensure we could collect our son and set off directly from school at 15.15 on Friday. As matters transpired, we ended up actually hitting the M1 around 15.30 but we were on our way.
The journey was relatively uneventful until we reached the tail end of the M42 south of Birmingham where we encountered slow moving traffic and covered 9 miles in just over 30 minutes, but we were still on course for a 21.45 arrival. As we approached Bristol, traffic lightened up but so did the oil warning light on the dashboard, so a short stop saw 1L of high grade engine oil purchased and introduced into our gasping engine.
We continued on but the oil light was still lit when the rev counter dropped below 2.5K so early the next morning I was to purchase more oil. We arrived at our destination at 21.55 and after unpacking the car, set up a DVD for our son to watch, with the intention that he would drift off to sleep. No such luck as first I and then my wife collapsed on the bed while he sat, absolutely entranced, watching Charlie and the Chocolate factory (starring Johnny Depp).
So early on Saturday I bought and poured 3L of oil, leaving 2L in reserve and took my son to a nearby town to get a pre-wedding haircut. After arriving back at our hotel, I was noticed that the oil light was still on. So I added the last of the oil, before heading into the hotel where I was surprised and pleased to see that my wife was nearly ready and within 30 minutes, at 12.30, we were underway.
At 12.31, disaster struck as the engine began over-revving and clouds of white/grey smoke began pouring out of the exhaust and vents, so we jumped out of the car, moved away from it, as the clouds billowed up to a height of 15m and were so thick that visibility was less than a metre.
A passing motorist stopped to offer help but I had already begun phoning the emergency services. The engine kept on revving, even with the key removed from the ignition and I knew than that we were unlikely to be attending the wedding and were facing a long journey home the next day. My son had been awarded the stewardship of Barnaby Bear to care for at the weekend after being well behaved all week at school. He was more concerned about the prospect of Barnaby being damaged, than me being blown up by the still smouldering car and I was sent to rescue Barnaby. The fire brigade arrived as the smoke began to dissipate and the engine burnt itself out.
The firemen towed the car to the nearby service station with their crew chief running at the front of the engine to clear traffic. Meanwhile my son had calmed down and was very happy to be riding along in the fire engine cab (as was my wife!). AA patrolman Mike Rose arrived shortly afterwards and pronounced that the car was dead. Mike was great trying to arrange a hire car and vehicle recovery but we managed to contact some of the other guests and a car was sent to collect us.
We made it to the wedding some 2 hours after we originally planned. We missed the wedding ceremony and the photographs but were able to enjoy the wedding breakfast and the speeches. The rest of the evening consisted of toasting the health of the happy couple and dancing to cheesy dance music. Something from the buffet disagreed with both my wife and I, so we each spent some of the evening tucked away in the loos!
A taxi back to the hotel cost £30 including tip and we somewhat blearily got up at 8.30 the next morning to plan our trip home. AA patrolman Gary arrived around 12 and made sure we were all ready to go. We travelled to Membury services on the M4 before being handed over to Sonny who took us to my wife's parents. We left the dead car there until a friend of the family can go and assess the damage. My father in law is considering having it repaired and then selling it on. He was kind enough to bring us up the M1 and we arrived home at 22.30.
So the planned idyllic weekend in Cornwall celebrating our friend's nuptials went more than a little wrong and we now face the prospect of searching for a replacement car, just a couple of months before Christmas - no fun!
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