Diary of an old cheeser

Hi there! Like other blogs, this is my chance to wax lyrical (some might say talk utter cr*p) about a) what's happening in my life b) all of my pet obsessions in particular music, tv, movies, books and other generally connected things, quite often of the retro, old and "cheesy" variety. Hence the title of my blog. Feel free to leave a comment if the mood takes you. There's nothing like a good chinwag about one's favourite topics and besides I love to meet new people! Cheers, Simon

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Weekend

I've had bit of a cold/cough the last few days which has left me feeling rather under the weather. Ugh! Hopefully that's my dose of flu done with for the whole winter. Generally I have good health and don't get flu bugs very often. I am also having a flu immunisation jab in a week or so at work, which will undoubtedly help. Although I don't like needles very much, big sissy that I am.

My hubbie is feeling slightly run down too, having worked nearly two weeks without a day off from work - poor guy. So we've been mainly taking it easy this weekend.

Yesterday we went to my Sikh friend's wedding (the one whose stag night I went on the weekend before). It was great to be there but one heck of a journey for us i.e. he was getting married at a temple in Colindale in North London and we live in the South, near the end of the Northern Line, so it was a long haul. You might think that doesn't sound bad, as surely it's common for relatives and friends to travel long distances for a wedding. However it's traditional for Sikh weddings to be held in the morning and this one was at 9.30am!! Hence we had to drag ourselves out of bed at some un-godly hour, which was as bad as getting up for work during the week. And I cherish my weekends, having the chance for a lie-in.

Then once we got there, my friend and his bride arrived about an hour late!! Pah! Okay, I am starting to sound like a real whinging ninny now, so I will cease ... Anyway, it was very interesting to witness a wedding from a different culture. My friend and his bride looked amazing, dressed in traditional Indian attire. The bride was especially gorgeous in a red, sequinned dress with bangles and hennae tattoos - lovely. The ceremony itself was spoken almost entirely in an Indian dialect (Punjabi I think) which meant it was virtually impossible to understand what was being said / going on. A shame no translations were provided as I would have loved to have known and to half the people there it must have been a bit meaningless. At a rough guess much of the ceremony involved the normal exchange of wedding vows. There was also a rather groovy trio of Sikh gentlemen playing accompanying Indian music with bongos etc. Afterwards we all partook of Langar, Indian food.

There was no evening reception but a few of us were keen to find a pub. We treked to Kingsbury and found somewhere there, which turned out to be a bit of a dive, full of sour-faced and obese people - yuk. Gustavo and I had a couple of drinks and then made our excuses and headed home.

The rest of the weekend we've been veging at home - although we went out for a walk to the local park today for a breath of fresh air. It was slightly chilly but nice and sunny - I love that kind of crisp, Autumnal weather, although best not to stay out for too long when one has a cold ... Anyhow, we'll probably watch a couple more episodes of the US version of "Queer as Folk" tonight - we're currently viewing the Third series - it's good stuff!! Just as well, as weekend TV is really cr*p and limited at the moment - naff game shows etc - what happened to decent movies / comedies / dramas? I'm not imagining this am I? I think I'm going to buy a digital box soon as they're not expensive and terrestial TV seems so rubbish. One must widen one's scope!

Hope you're all having a pleasant weekend - what's left of it anyway!

Incidentally I don't have any pictures of the wedding available yet, but I will put some online as soon as they've been developed (along with some stag night ones - carefully edited of course!!)

OC xx

2 Comments:

  • At 11:41 am , Blogger Samarcand said...

    I want to see the pictures! The brides dress sounds gorgeous and you know what a sucker I am for pretty dresses - and Indian style ones are just utterly delicious!

    The whole language thing is frustrating isn't it? I went to a wedding in Portugal a couple of years ago and the whole ceremony was (obviously) in Portuguese. And I speak absolutely none of the language. With Spanish I can at least recognise a few words that are kind of similar to French but Portuguese, whilst appearing on paper to have similarities, sounds completely different so there is no help from other languages there. And then I got severe food poisoning. So it was a fun time, as I'm sure you can imagine...

     
  • At 8:39 pm , Blogger Old Cheeser said...

    Yep, the bride was a bit of a stunner - both the outfit and the lady herself. Brides seem to have so much more choice when it comes to dressing up for weddings - in fact women do in general when it comes to clothers I reckon. As a male, all you can really wear is a smart suit, or smart jacket and trousers, smart waiscoat ... I still think Gustavo and I looked good for our wedding but I do believe girls have it better. But then again, look at Elton John - he wore a full-on frock for his civil partnership, didn't he? Maybe I am just imposing narrow and restricting labels upon myself...

    And yes, the language thing is rather a barrier. Although if you know the meaning of "Eo amor voce" that's a good start if you're speaking Portuguese (my hubbie can speak the lingo, you know - and naturally I've learnt a few phrases along the way, not all of them polite, ahem). Why can't we all be fitted with a universal translator like Dr Who? Life would be so much easier.

     

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