Dom Davis (The Blog)

Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary. It was also the 3rd anniversary of us dating. We celebrated with a lazy morning, breakfast in bed and then a boat trip on the broads that The Zozo had organised for us. I was given control of a 7 man boat and we pootled along the river for a couple of hours. As we cruised along we enjoyed a small picnic and watched the sights as the rolled by. We were even lucky enough to see a kingfisher and an otter. The latter, being very rare, made The Zozos day.

The day was topped off with dinner at Cley Windmill where we had been married a year before. The was only one other couple having dinner so we were able to enjoy a quiet time together and have a chat with the chef who had also done our wedding meal.

Despite being out for dinner, we weren’t home too late but the day must have worn me out because this morning I slept through the alarm with The Zozo gently nudging me awake. It was Monday. It was windy. It was dark. Unlike a year ago we weren’t going on a two week adventure of a lifetime. Instead I had to get ready for work. My phone is running on fumes which means the music playing duties may have to be offloaded to the iPad and I really just want to snuggle up to my wife and fall asleep again. Sometimes I just hate mondays.

5 years ago today I quit smoking. I remember it very well. I’d been reading Alan Carrs “The Only Way To Stop Smoking” which, despite being fantastically annoying to read, did seem to work. I was walking back from a hospital appointment in London and decided “I don’t need to do this any more”. Now you hear stories of people just deciding they would stop smoking and do so and, up until then, I found the stories fantastically annoying. Prior to this I’d tried to quit some 4 billion times and would often manage no more than a few hours. There’s no way it was going to be as easy as just deciding not to do it any more… except it was.

That one act was the first step in making some pretty big changes in my life, changes which culminated 2 years and one day later when I was called into a meeting room and informed that I needed to go home, get paid for doing nothing for 2 and a half months then get 10 months pay in one go, almost tax free. Redundancy for me was a happy time. It’s when I met The Zozo, which lead to the final big change in my life… leaving London, getting married and starting a family… and I can pin it all down to putting out a freshly lit fag on Cromwell road, just before lunch 5 years ago.

I know, hard to believe isn’t it Especially when you consider how gorgeous she is! We’re all married and it’s legally difficult for her to leave me. I like this. Anyway, pictures, in depth description of our rather perfect wedding day, and possibly even video evidence of me getting a little emotional when doing my lines may or may not be forthcoming when we get back. In the mean time I’ve got a honeymoon to get ready for with my wife

~/o I’m getting married in the morning¹! / Ding dong! The bells are gonna chime² / Pull out the stopper³! / Let’s have a whopper⁴! / But get me to the church⁵ on time⁶! o/~

So yes, hideously inaccurate ditty, but I do, indeed get married in a about 28 hours.

When we booked everything we figured that, since the wedding was in the afternoon, and given we were there for two nights, we’d have time for relaxing walks around Cley (it’s a beautiful area), few photographs and a bit of exploring the area. The day before and I think we’ve realised the reality will not allow for said walks. It’ll be dark by the time we get there tonight, tomorrow will be a tad busy from start to finish (it would appear weddings are a bit more involved than pitch up), Sunday we have to check out by 10, finish packing and drive to London.

That’s not to say we’ll be rushing about like headless chickens. The wedding preparation has been remarkably stress free and The Zozo hasn’t turned into bridezilla once. I think it helps that she hasn’t been planning this since the age of 11. As far as I’m concerned all that really matters is we’re both there. Everything else is just a bonus.

I am also a little amused that tradition dictates that people wish us luck. Every time someone says “good luck” I’m put in mind of me telling the story of the marriage some years down the line and saying “so, I just happened to be stood in Cley Windmill one day with a registrar when in walks Zo, which was a stroke of luck because we were able to get married” Enormously grateful as we are for the luck I think we’ll save that for getting a free upgrade on our flight and instead rely on planning for the wedding

Anyway, I’ve got a days work to get through. Blogging may or may not happen for the next 2 weeks. I’d assume not. In the interim can I recommend xkcd for your funnies and TV Tropes to pass the time. Be warned, TV tropes can lead you on wiki walks that can last hours, if not days

¹ Afternoon actually
² No bells
³ Cork. We are not heathens here, spade’s a spade and all that.
⁴ Actually a canapé reception with a small, informal sit-down meal afterwards. No idea where the nearest Burger King is, so no whoppers, not even a double bacon cheese whopper
⁵ No church
⁶ We’re staying at the venue the night before so arriving late will be a feat

Today it’s beginning to sink in that there are only a couple of days until everything kicks off. Tonight I started packing (well, I took a load of new clothes that I’d bought for the holiday from the bags on the floor and put them into the suitcase along with a few other clothes) which is always a good sign that you’re about to go away. Tomorrow, I have been reliably informed, will involve cleaning the house. I will, of course, help¹, but will probably mostly get underfoot. Friday we’re off to the Windmill and then it’s all go. There will be a period of time between returning from the Windmill on Sunday and leaving for our salubrious² overnight accommodation before being packaged into a pressurised cylinder and shot half way round the world³ which can be used for finishing up the packing but I thought it might be useful to get the drop on it.

I’ve also packed my camera. This is not as simple as it sounds as it’s not just the camera that needs to be packed. There are lenses, flashes, chargers, cable releases, cleaning items, tripod mounts, tripod heads, filters, batteries, and God knows what else in the three (yes, 3) camera bags I have. Every single piece of equipment I take will need to be carried, all day in the heat and humidity, on my back which means that I had to take everything out and decide what I really wanted to take and what I wanted to leave.

I also had to consider which camera bag to take. The choices were my trusty backpack which I usually use and my new slingshot. Not a simple decision as I had to weigh up size, ease of access to the camera, weight distribution and comfort. After parading round the bedroom with the fully loaded bags on my back I opted for the slingshot. I hope this isn’t a decision I regret 1 hour into a 3 hour hike into the jungle

Sunday will now be a question of get back home, check the passports, pack the clothes that are currently in the wash, check the passports, transpose the toiletries from the Windmill bag to the holiday back, check the passports, check the tickets are packed, check the passports, double check the hotel is actually at the airport we’re flying from, check the passports, double check we’ve got all the holiday information, check the passports, program the satnav, check the passports, check the tickets are packed, check the passports, load the car up, check the tickets have been packed, check the passports, check all the holiday details are packed, check the passports, head off to Heathrow, possibly stopping along the way to check the passports. Nervous? Me?

¹ For a given value of ‘help’

² For a given value of ‘salubrious’, it is, after all, a hotel next to Heathrow so my expectations are set low

³ This will be the longest flight I’ve ever done. While I used to love flying when I was younger the older I get the more I dislike it. I spend the entire flight just waiting for the thing to drop out of the sky which is not conducive to relaxing. Anyway, I have my happy pills, which help, and I have 5 longish flights under my belt from the engagement holiday so hopefully it wont quite be the terrifying ordeal that it perhaps would have been a few years ago.

On my incredibly long¹ wedding to-do list was ‘get haircut’. Seeing as how Larry, my barber, had said I should get my hair cut two weeks before the wedding to allow the hair to settle and, seeing as how it is two weeks until the wedding, I decided I should toddle into town and get said task completed. There were a few other things I needed to do in town too so it seemed the sensible thing to do.

Getting my hair done these days is a quick and cheap affair. It’s your traditional barbers insofar as you pitch up, wait your turn, have a quick chat while your hair is trimmed, pay, leave. Job done. Hair done I needed to tick another item off my list³ so I ventured further into town, only to remember that Cromer during the off season doesn’t really open until 10 (or 11 in some cases) meaning I needed to kill a bit of time until the shops I wanted opened.

Whilst wondering about I passed, on a couple of occasions, a man who has some form of physical disability which required him to walk with a stick. The disability was such that he has to walk slightly sideways and with a swagger which was reminiscent of the type of walk effected by African American pimps in the 1970′s. All he needed was a white suit, platforms and an ivory cane and no one would know it wasn’t being put on.

Another errand to run was the posting of something for one of my many many step mothers. Said something was in a padded A4 envelope and contained a slimline CD jewel case as well as some A4 bits of paper which, under the Post Offices new simplified pricing system, was obviously going to require me to get it weighed and measured to work out the postage. The Post Office clerk applied the measuring tool to ensure it fit within the dimensions of a Large Letter, weighed the item, checked it’s destination and added these and countless other factors into a pricing algorithm that determined how much I was going to pay. After payment was made a new king size type of stamp was then put into the printer, the information printed onto it and the stamp applied to the letter. It makes you wonder how we used to cope when we had to find and fish out a first class stamp and apply it to the letter at home and then take it to a post box.

Errands done it was time to head home. The weather was such by this point that I could simply relax and have the wind blow me home. There were a couple of occasions where sudden gusts caught me unawares and my bags nearly felled other pedestrians or swiped cars. I think I managed to get everything home in one piece.

¹ and by incredibly long we, of course mean short, and by short I mean now has 3 items² on it
² and one of those items is ‘turn up’
³ I can’t tell you what this item is as it’s a surprise for The Zozo which will no doubt drive her nuts as it’s sitting (wrapped and concealed) in the bedroom ready to taunt her for 2 weeks until she can open it

People keep asking me if I’m nervous/scared/worried/otherwise concerned about my impending so called removal of freedom.

The answer is a steadfast no. It’s nearly two years after we started dating and I still rush to get the train home in the vain hope that it will somehow get me home to The Zozo faster. Besides, we both gave up this so called ‘freedom’ two years ago when we started dating. I’m not giving up anything, I’m making it legally more difficult for the current state if affairs to change. Something I’m all for.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have a station to rush to and a Zozo to get home to; something I’m very excited about

So the astute among you will gave spotted we’re getting married on the 9th of October 2010, or 09/10/10. This is a Saturday. Why, I hear you ask, didn’t we wait one day and have our wedding on 10/10/10? After all, these memorable dates are all the rage at the moment.

Ordinarily I’d agree with you. I love numbers and number patterns, so much so that I tried to have 15/12/09 as our engagement day (3 numbers, 15-3=12, 12-3=9)… that was the plan anyway. Due to a monumental cockup on my part to do with being on holiday and completely losing track of the date it ended up being the 16th :S so why 09/10/10 instead of 10/10/10? The answer is simple, and nothing to do with me cocking the date up, or making up for being a day late by being a day early. 09/10/10 will mark the second anniversary since we started dating. It was The Zozos idea and I think it’s great

I get married in a month. This is a pretty huge thing for me and, if you’ll excuse the slightly philosophical post, I shall tell you for why.

I don’t really come from your average family, it’s less 2.4 children and more 2.4 marriages¹ which makes for a complex family structure. If we consider immediate family (parents, siblings, step siblings and husbands of ex-step-mothers²) I think we average about 0.8 divorces each. Take the kids out of the equation and it’s 1.3³!

Now, one could by cynical here and say that marriage these days is less about until death do us part and more about until infidelity, differences and constant rowing do us part but I like to be slightly more pragmatic about things. After all, not every marriage is doomed to failure. No, I prefer the view that you don’t always get it right the first time. It’s why I spent 10 years living with someone without once popping the question. I wasn’t sure I’d got it right⁴.

I’m also not some huge romantic who believes Miss perfect will come along, you get married and live happily ever after in perfect bliss. Having seen where my parents started and where they ended up I know it’s much more about finding someone you’re happy with and who will put up with your shit (and, yes, that you can put up with theirs, although The Zozo has the bum end of the stick with that deal ). It certainly helps that I think The Zozo is achingly beautiful but I’m willing to bet that in 50 years time, when were both old and wrinkly, that I’ll still want to be with her. I’d not be marrying her otherwise. After all, in one months time I am rather betting that, this time, I’ve got it right. I give me good odds

¹ Not joking. It’s 2.5 marriages if you’re talking about immediate parents, if such a term exists!
² Told you it wasn’t your average family
³ That I’m sure of. It could even be over 1.6!
⁴ I hadn’t.

So as a coda to the stag do, which is handily happening on a Saturday evening in London, I decided I’d go to Slimelight one last time. As previously mentioned this is going to require some planning, but I think I’ve covered all angles.

Getting to London won’t be an issue as I’ll be there already for the stag.

Organisation of people is easy. The Best man has been informed (with YouTube examples) of the type of music, the dress code (there is one, and it’s quite strict) and the fact that this is not part of the official stag do. People can either come, or not. Their choice. I plan to be there all night.

Which leads us to the big question mark. Will I last all night? I’ve got this covered too. Since I now have the body of a professional sportsman¹ I’ve moved out of the ‘fat burning zone’ and into the ‘cardio training zone’² at the gym. Still, even with my training regime general fatigue and tiredness may be my undoing, bedtime is 9pm these days after all. Should the land of nod beckon then there is a hotel room booked where I can crash and die.

Even the problem of will I be needing a train a club chuck out time or hotel checkout time had been solved, although using brute force over ignorance. Booking the train well in advance means it’s l not hugely expensive so I can afford to have seats booked on two trains.

Not quite as simple (or cheap) as when I lived in Colchester but as a one off I think it’s a pretty fool proof plan. Be interesting to see how well it holds out on the day

¹ Darts player
² No, I don’t have a clue the difference is either, I just assume one makes you thinner quicker and the other helps you get used to going for longer.