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The next line of the song goes "and we got typhoid and dysentery" - luckily THAT is only a song.
I won't bore you with the exact details of which pictures I took of Caroline at the picturesque mill. I won't even say exactly which courses we ate at the eight course meal which was laid on between 2pm and 8pm, except to say that the food was excellent, with the exception of some giant prawns, which I don't like anyway. The important thing about the reception, apart from it being the first hours of David's married life, was that the food and drink were excellent AND there was plenty to go round.
Before we all sat down, there was a light buffet, which included the opportunity to chip off a chunk of Parmesan cheese from the huge block laid on the buffet table. One did this with the trowel provided and then gorged on the hard chunks which were salty. My overpowering memory of Parmesan from my childhood, was that it smelt of sick. This is due entirely to the amateur and abominable treatment that said cheese receives when ground and dried for UK consumption. The real thing is not in the least like sick, and I would have welcomed the use of a spade to dig at it instead of the delicate little trowel provided.
Once sat down, we were treated well - the waiters and waitresses only needed to see an empty bottle or glass and it was replaced. We were sitting on the British table and had been asked to keep drunkenness down to a minimum until later. This was difficult for some to achieve, the backlog of glasses of wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages was mounting due to the pre-emptive tactics of the waiting staff.
Following the meal, the music and dancing started. When the Waltz came on, I took the floor with Steve, one of David's friends who I'd not managed to talk to yet. After a few staggered steps, he turned out to be a computer programmer and so we left the dance floor to talk about the ins and outs of Windows NT.
The bar was open (free of course) and we were told that there would be three buses back to Crema - the 10 o'clock for the old and weak, the 12 o'clock for the sensible and weak and the 2 am for the party animals. However, the best laid plans of party mice and men… well, it didn't work out that way. The bar staff all disappeared around 11 and the bus driver refused to do more than one trip. So, it was about 11.30 when we left to return to the hotel for the last night in Crema - the last night in Italy for many of the party goers.
The problem was that we'd been primed to be reserved and quiet and not loutish (until after 11) and we'd been expecting a late late finish. What can you do? Well, you can take a bus full of drunk Brits and turn it into a travelling sing song. Yep, we had 'em rolling in the aisles with yours truly's repertoire of Rolf Harris hits and the repertoire of favourites remembered by David's uncle (also called David) - the coach driver must have thought we'd all lost it! Unfortunately, I proved myself too sober when I managed to render, faultlessly, the line
"Now the fascinating witches, who put the scintillating stitches in the britches of the boys who put the powder on the noses of the faces of the ladies of the Harem of the court of King Caractacus, were just passing by… altogether now!"
But no-one else was sober enough to complain!
Our arrival at the hotel marked the end of "I know an Old Lady", but also the end of the wedding party. We said our goodbyes in the reception of the hotel and went to bed, expecting that when we woke up, the rest of the mad Brits would be long gone and then we'd be on our own. Admittedly, we'd not be on our own for long - we'd arranged to meet Debbie and Steve, and also Amber and John (another couple going to Florence) at 8pm on the Tuesday outside the front of Il Duomo in Florence - so we could go out for a meal together.
As it turned out, we had not quite seen the last of the others. Caroline was woken by the sound of the coach boot slamming and waved them off the following morning as I lay vaguely unconscious on the bed, in which I'd first lain unconscious on Italian soil.
Written: May 1998
Posted: 06 November 2001
Ashley Frieze