Married

Posted by Mark on Oct 31, 2008 | 14 Comments

Today – that today being Halloween of 2008 and not any other today which may be considerably later depending on when you read this or considerably earlier depending on when my Time Machine comes out of private beta – I shall be departing the world of singletons and landing upon the fair shores of married life. That is to say, I’m getting married today. This will be followed – after a rest period of a couple of days – with one of those there honeymoon things.

Marriage brings with it changes. As far as you’re concerned the major change will be that I won’t be updating the site for a few weeks, I won’t be dropping by Entrecard users’ sites for a few weeks, I won’t be advertising on Entrecard sites or accepting adverts from Entrecard users, and anybody who leaves a comment that goes into moderation won’t get it approved until I get back. I won’t be visiting your sites or reading your latest updates through my RSS reader. I’ll miss you at first but I’ll get over it quite quickly because I’m an adaptable sort of chap.

The wedding will be a small affair and you’re not invited. It won’t be religious because I think we all know my views on that whole crock of crap. It will be short; perfunctory. We are not getting married out of love (we know how we feel about one another and some ceremony doesn’t make a jot of difference) or for tax reasons (because the bastards in government removed those particular benefits many moons ago) but because we’d like to justify the cost of the engagement ring to our relatives and have a bloody good holiday for the first time in over twelve years of living together.

There will be no reception but there will be a meal for family. Again, that’s not you so you’ll have to make your own arrangements.

On Monday we go abroad together for the first time since a day trip to France about a decade ago. We are nervously excited about this honeymoon; the wedding … not so much. Gushingly emotional, we ain’t.

We shall be visiting Beijing, Shanghai, Okinawa, Taipei, Hong Kong, Nha Trang, Ho Chi Minh City, Singapore, and Bangkok.

We shall be travelling by cruiseship – the enticingly gay-sounding Diamond Princess – and not submarine as I suspect you assumed. Sadly, I was unable to procure a cyan tuxedo with ruffled shirt and shall be wearing a conventional black ensemble for the formal evenings. It will be our first cruise and we hope it won’t be our last. That’s because we hope it’ll be good and not because we hope we won’t die after getting attacked by pirates or sailing into one of those low-level clouds that melt ships and people with equal ferocity. Although it is because of that too now I come to think of it.

There will be plenty of photos – I’m taking just under 60 GB of camera memory for my DSLR, plus another smaller camera with its own 8 GB, plus an HD digital camcorder with 8 GB – but don’t expect to see any of me or Marie; we’re terribly shy. Also, not photogenic; not even close to photogenic. The opposite of photogenic even. All of which tends to make one even more reluctant to be snapped. Admittedly, that doesn’t seem to stop other people who really should have restraining orders from camera lenses the world over, but we’re special and on this special day we’d like you to know that we care enough about you and your breakfast to not subject you to such terror.

So, to all the unmarrieds out there: so long suckers! And to all the happily marrieds out there: hello suckers!