Memories Of Scenes From A Wedding
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
A few years ago I was fiddling around with the idea of coming out with a third book of columns called A Mind Half-Empty. But that was just around the time the scoundrels at PostMedia decided to close some eighty odd papers in one swell foop. In the confusion I put the book idea on the back burner and like everything else I plan I never got back to it.
You might remember back in 2013 I considered putting my name forward as the new Pope and as usual my plans went nowhere and fast. Perhaps you remember that column Never Bite a Catholic on a Friday. I wasn’t even shortlisted. I could have been the first heathen leader of a major religion. But that’s all holy water under the bridge as they say.
Do you remember this one from 2005?
Dining With Royalty And Other Disasters
Well I’m back from the royal wedding. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to tell you my invitation finally arrived. It showed up on Friday afternoon a day before the happy young couple was scheduled to tie the garter as the Royals say. (The ‘garter’ tying has to do with the knighthood thing. You wouldn’t understand.)
As you can imagine, the next 24 hours is a blur. There was a passport to arrange, and of course, the vaccinations (the black plague happened centuries ago, but the Brits are a cautious lot)
Then there was the inevitable line up at customs. (I strongly objected to a security official running a wand between my legs. But once I got over the embarrassment I rather enjoyed it
However, I got to the reception with minutes to spare. Chris, from next door, works at the Oro-Medonte Airport and managed to finagle a ticket on the Labatt’s balloon on its way to Munich for the weekly beer festival. Hitchhiking back was a problem – standing on a high building waiting for a passing balloon. Except for a minor dust-up with a gaggle of Canada geese over Newfoundland, the trip was reasonably pleasant – if you don’t mind standing knee-high in goose poop for a thousand miles.
To be honest, had I known I was going to be seated at the children’ table during the reception, I would have sent my regrets. Where I was placed must have been an oversight on Camilla’s part in her pre-wedding panic, or Charles was still upset about my reference to his ears when I wrote about the danger of cousins marrying cousins. Regardless of who was to blame I was so far away from the head table I was in another time zone.
The little royal brats I was seated with were obnoxious.
There were seven of us around a card table on folding chairs borrowed from a funeral home down the street. On one side was the Earl of Cacklebury, a precocious seven-year old, the Duchess of Doonesbury, a lovely young lady of five, and Viscount Stokely-VanCamp, a sickly hooligan of four whose nose ran continually. By the time dinner was over, his left sleeve weighed more than he did.
Beside me was Crown Prince Rupert of Romania, a victim of inbreeding who delighted in winging at the head table anything that upset his cultured palate. Since we were 200 yards plus from the joyous couple, most of his offerings were plastered to the back of the Prime Minister. Blair thought I did it. When I got back home, the City of Orillia had been carpet-bombed. All that remained of the Sunshine City was Samuel de Champlain standing in Couchiching Park looking confused and somewhat lonely. (Even he’s gone now)
The Marquis de Mont-Jolie, the bastard great-great grandson of Henri de Toulouse Lautrec and a woman of no fixed address sat on my right. On the corner straddling a leg, was little Lady Anne Bridgewater. A delightful child except for a gas problem, quite rare I expect for someone so young. She said she was six, but much older I would say from the stench.
Needless to say, the kiddies really got into the tinkling glass business when Charles laid a lip-lock on his new missus. There were glass shards as far as the eye could see – the eyes that weren’t bleeding.
I believe it was then that Prince Rupert hurled the snail at me. I don’t mean an escargot. I mean an actual snail his Royal Nastiness smuggled to the table along with some fresh horse manure and a tomato worm he later stuffed up his nose. Lady Anne threw up her breakfast in adoration. It was quite a sight really. Her pre-digested porridge cleared the table and levelled a waiter passing by with a round of gin and tonics. The tray landed on the Sir Archibald Spiffy who felt it necessary to make aspersions on everyone within earshot, including a representative of Red China. Within an hour every bottle of soy sauce in England exploded. A riot ensued.
I never even got to kiss the bride — which is just as well. I would have been too much for her.
(Image Supplied)
