Fri 6 Jul and Sat 7 Jul

On Friday morning we set off at 11am towards Roses (northern Barcelona, near the French boarder) for the wedding. We had contemplated sailing the boat up on Thursday but with very little wind we were faced with a 15 hour motor which when compared with a 2 hour drive didn’t sound at all appealing! In my pre-living-on-a-boat life figuring out what to wear to a wedding was always quite involved, and often meant a trip to the shops to buy a new dress, shoes and the obligatory matching bag. Nowadays it’s somewhat easier as I have just one outfit, as does Tom so once they were retrieved from the locker under our bed and packed together with the travel iron (an absolute necessity!) we were good to go.

We checked in to our cheap and cheerful guest house and went for some lunch, a Menu del Dia and a huge glass of wine, just my sort of establishment. Tom set to work ironing months of creases out of his clothes, which came out a treat!

Showered and changed we drove the few kilometres to the venue, a stunning old castle set in beautiful lush green grounds. Being in the countryside made for a really nice change of scenery and the air is very different somehow than what you get at sea. As we were driving up the lane towards the castle we looked around and realised it was strangely deserted, where was everyone? We checked the invitation email again which said 5:00pm reception, 6:00pm ceremony. It was 4:45pm so yes, we were a little early but not crazily so. We had a wander around, nodding politely to the people in the early stages of getting everything setup, and went back to the car, still somewhat confused. Within a few minutes one of the brides friends came trotting over, and after the hello’s and exchanges about it being a perfect day for a wedding we asked, “Are we a little early?”. Turns out we were 1 hour and 45 minutes early, as in the follow-up email (which we’d completely missed) the time had changed to 6:30pm. Oh well, there are worse places to hang around. We found ourselves a sofa in the shade, sat, relaxed and waited for the guests to arrive.

The wedding itself was lovely. We talked, we ate, we drank and we danced until 3:00am then called it a day and retired to bed; beds which weren’t moving – such luxury!

Saturday was very slow to say the least. We drove back in the morning and on the way tried to pick up new oil, fuel and diesel fliers for the engine. Predictably though the shop wasn’t open over the weekend. It was roasting hot and completely airless in the marina, so we gave up on the idea of doing boat jobs and had a very lazy afternoon.