Melissa and I woke up around 9:00. I just sort of laid around in the bed while
Melis worked on the computer and answered some emails. We thought the breakfast provided by Donnington
went until 10:00, but around 9:45 we realized that the note slipped under our
door the night before said that it only went until 10:00. We rushed down and arrived in the hotel
restaurant in time to have a hurried breakfast.
There was a taxi waiting to take me to the nearby golf
course, and at 10:25 I went to the lobby where we were supposed to meet. The other guys stayed up the night before
extremely late, drinking at the hotel bar, and were also meeting there, albeit
groggily. We finally left the hotel at
10:45, and with a 5 minute cab ride, got to the golf course embarrassingly late
for our tee time. And we were the first
guys there. I don’t know exactly when
wee teed off, but the staff had to put us off the back 9, which had less water,
but more trees and hills than the front.
The three foursomes each ended up playing a sort of best-ball round, but
we ended up quitting after 7, 7, and 5 holes respectively, due to the cold
temperatures, rain, and lateness for the scheduled luncheon (I say this in my
head in a very English manner, you
know shhhejuled…)
The steak sandwich that I ordered in the course bar was
excellent, the Guinness on tap sat a little flat on my palate (but still good)
and we had a great time all getting to know the rest of us a bit better. Melissa’s brothers and I took a taxi back to
Donnington while the groomsmen went with Siraj to the wedding rehearsal at
Highclere castle.
I began to feel a little weird, almost like I ate something
bad and felt a bit sick to my stomach. I
laid around until Melis came into the room before the dinner.
Meanwhile…
Melissa met up with the other girls and went downstairs to
the Donnington hotel spa. Each of them
got back, neck, and shoulder massages.
The girls staying at the Vineyard hotel went back, Melissa got ready for
the rehearsal upstairs, and she then took a taxi with Melanie to the
Vineyard. A van took Melissa and the
wedding party to Highclere for the rehearsal.
After the rehearsal, the van took everyone back to
Donnington for the rehearsal dinner.
We both came down to the hotel restaurant again for the
dinner, my rather reluctantly, and after some table shuffling ended up sitting
next to Adam and Devin. Melissa probably
has more to say about the dinner other than “the food was good” but it’s not
really her blog, its mine, so I’ll just say that the food is good. I was continuing to feel sick more and more
throughout dinner, and just as the servers brought out dessert, I reached the
threshold of my tolerance. I excused myself
from the table, said a quick word to Malorie and Siraj, and headed to my
room. I only had one close-call in the
hallway, but I got to the room and laid down on the couch. For the next 5 hours.
Melissa came up, packed some stuff, and went with Malorie to
the Vineyard for the night. As the
matron-of-honor I gave her my permission to abandon me for the night, and off
she went. I was alone with my sickness.
I eventually fell asleep around 1am, once my
stomach finally left me alone for a while.
I felt sure that Melissa made a good decision to comfort the
bride-to-be. And there was nothing she
could have done for me anyway, other than listen to me gripe and groan. I just hope Malorie appreciated my sacrifice…
No comments:
Post a Comment