A Weddin'

Left to right, Em-J, Mr S, R, Mrs S, M and J-M. 

Regular readers will know of the 'Silverwoods', the Sis-in-Law and 'Mr Silverwood' whom you may have assumed were a married couple but who (I never did work out when you should use 'whom' and when 'who' was acceptable) have actually been keeping their gunpowder dry these last 16 years or so. Well, now they are. The 'Knot' was finally tied this afternoon down in Silverwoodland and we were down to do the official 'witness' thing for them. I am hoping some nice pics were taken of Liz and I by one of the many i-phone weilding guests, who seemed to be tagging and posting to Facebook even as we did our bit. If there are any, I will post them in a future blog-post - we actually looked quite presentable in the new suit and the new dress.

M (8 years old) was Best Man; he even
had a speech to deliver!

It had snowed some more overnight, so we were all primped up and "looking in our prime" as we set out driving very carefully over the compacted snow, but that cleared up in the bright sunshine, so that by the time we hit Ballymoe the roads were clear. Our instructions were to drive right by the Registry Office and on for another half hour to Silverwood, to take some "casual" pics of everyone getting ready (which we did), and then to re-trace steps to the venue for the actual signing, before re-re-tracing past Silverwood and on to the Hotel for the 'breakfast'. My best information as I write this, has Liz still 'down' there doing it for the both of us.

Em-J plays Mum in to the ceremony with Ed Sheeran's latest
song, "Thinking Out Loud"

'We' of course have our fox issue. In a previous post, I mentioned that I had spotted a 2nd fox on the evening of our shooting of Fox #1, who I have named the '10 pm fox'. We think this may be the vixen, wife of our Late Chum. Yesterday lunchtime, I walked round the garden and spotted Buff-Orp feathers on the grass by the pond and a few floating like little sailing boats on the water; I rushed to count the young Buffs and , yes, we are now down to six, so soon after I had learned to call them the 'Magnificent Seven'. A fox which I assume is my '10 pm' fox has snatched another one and we are back to square one, contacting our shooter and asking for more help.

All legal now, Mr S signs on the dotted line.

We had already engaged Charlotte of the Mini Horses to close up the livestock on the big day, with the ceremony being at 14:30, there was no way I'd get back in daylight. Bless Her, she'd offered to stay the night here so we could both enjoy the evening, but we all knew I'd be twitching to get home and now, after that ambush, doubly so. If I wasn't panicking to get Liz home in the evening, I'd have been making her life a misery first thing next morning. I decided to go down to do the official bit but then head home and leave Liz to 'cover' the breakfast, which is how we now stand.

The good joke at the end of the Best Man's speech.
He is only 8.

I also sought advice from Mayo Liz about the lamb. If it was me, she said, she'd keep the lamb indoors at night if she KNEW there was a fox. So, the sheep and lamb were brought in last night and then kept in today so that Charlotte would not have the worry of trying to round up 3 sheep, who wouldn't know her, this evening. Well, as it all happened, everybody co-operated with Charlotte and she reported back to me that everyone was in bed, safe and accounted for; I could have spent the night at the Wedding after all, but by then I was half way home. It's just the anxious, livestock-keeper way of me. Laugh if you like.

In other news, we found ourselves trying the 'Taste of Success' winner from the recent Lidl supermarket/TV competition, an "Irish beef short rib with pancetta and cider sauce". We don't normally do ready meals, far less supermarket ones, but this one had pipped our Pig Mentor (Alfie McCaffrey)'s entry (he'd done a pork-burger from his organic pigs) in the comp, so we were curious. Well, I have to say it was impressive - tender, succulent, flavousome meat in a lovely sauce. We had it between 2 of us but you could have easily stretched it to 4 with the addition of a few more spuds and maybe some buttered carrots. Nice one, 'Lidl'. We may never buy it again but we are happy to reccommend it to 'them as do ready meals'.

A toast to the Happy Couple

Tonight, then, let me just sit back and drink a toast to the Happy Couple, now officially Mr and Mrs Silverwood. We had a lovely time and I hope you had an enjoyable afternoon and evening. All the best for the future.

Sláinte