Weddings and Wiggins: A Busy Summer

I write that heading after being sat in my green egg chair for the last hour watching the Olympics! With the exception of this week (forever remembered as the time the Olympics stole my life), we’ve had a busy time of it of late. No change there then. Sports and weddings appear to be the big themes of the Summer for us, along with the now customary DIY and baby stuff purchasing… Honestly, I think I am keeping the second hand baby clothing market on Ebay alive single-handed.

The Tour de France kept us excited for a few weeks, especially Aidan. We even managed to get a few friends on board one evening for a TDF special:

How to support the TDF when you live in Britain…

Those retro cycling tops were brought out a few weeks later at the Olympic Road Race at Box Hill. More on that later.

We attended beautiful wedding of our friends Katie and Mike at Styal Mill, a National Trust site near to Wilmslow.

Styal Mill wedding

The guests were transported from the church to the reception at the Mill aboard a vintage bus:

Vintage wedding bus

It certainly got a few smiles from other drivers and pedestrians along our journey. It was a lovely idea and a beautiful day overall. That’s wedding two of six for this year! We’re going to another one in Southport this weekend and then have three in December, one after the other!

Last weekend we went to watch the Olympic Road Race at Box Hill. Despite the lack of a GB win, it was a fantastic day. The lads wore their retro cycling jerseys to watch the race:

Retro cycling jerseys

You probably can’t see it from this picture, but Deiniol’s jersey (the pink one on the right) is sponsored by a company called ‘Donna Panty’ and features a hair follicle in its logo. You can imagine the fun we’ve had with that this weekend… I spent the day hiding in the shade reading before popping out to watch the cyclists flash past. At one point, a small deer got rather confused and ran amongst the spectators; I was oblivious to what I thought was a dog that had nearly trampled my head!

We were staying in a campsite nearish to the venue and the boys decided to create their own version of the Olympic torch:

Campfire equivalent of the Olympic Torch

We watched the women’s Road Race on the side of a road in a tiny village somewhere; I cannot remember the name of it. It was quite exciting still, despite only seeing them zoom past once compared to the nine times circuit of the men’s race the day before.

This week has been slightly more relaxing, for me at least. Aidan is back at work after a lovely week off; I, however, have spent this week mostly watching the Olympics and forcing myself to do jobs every now and then. Yesterday, my friend Rachel and I took advantage of The Sun and the Mirror to adorn ourselves – and Rachel’s pet, Betty the Three Legged Wonder Cat – in Wiggo sideburns and placards, cheering on Wiggins and Froome in the time trial. It’s amazing how much fun you can have with newspaper, cardboard and men on bikes.

Betty says, “Here Wiggo!”

Next week we’re having a damp course put in downstairs, which I’m not looking forward to at all. That means I’ll be hibernating upstairs away from the mess and rubble. Oh no, it also means I won’t be able to spend the entire week watching the Olympics! Hmmm. Maybe this means I might actually leave the house for a few days… now there’s a thought.