At the risk of sounding like a line from that Beatles song it was twenty years ago today … that Lexi and I got married and so I thought it would be quite fun to compare some moments from this day in 1996 to today and see how things have changed.
My day in 1996 9Lexi was getting ready elsewhere as tradition dictates) began with a leisurely cup of tea and bowl of cereal at my best man’s house at around 8.30am, following a couple of beers the night before. All very relaxing and pleasant. I can’t recall the exact cereal make, but I am certain that it was wholesome and nourishing. By 8.30am today I had done loads. Today began three hours earlier with a 5.30am alarm followed by ten minutes of denial thanks to the snooze button. Seeing as I am full of cold today i uttered a few snot filled grunts, staggered sleepily upstairs to wake snoozing boys and a snoozing girl before shaving and showering.
Children were dressed by the time I descended to the lounge and set about a bowl of muesli in the company of four sleepy faces and The Archers’ Podcast. Jill rowed with Pip about flapjack while all Lawrence’s munched.
By the time 8.30am arrived at school today I had tweaked my lesson plan for a year seven class, answered countless emails, drunk a cup of coffee, cursed that I left my water bottle at home, registered my year seven form, read out loads of notices and taught my year nine class all about the intricacies of Beatrice and Benedick, plus Claudio and Hero. Between 8.30 and 9.05 I moved on to how Shakespeare showed hiding on stage while 20 years earlier I had drunk a second cup of tea and chattered amicably with chums.
Break time came and went in whirr of coffee and toilets (no connection) and then it was time to teach year seven that characters can be created through movement all thanks to Mr Meyerhold and Mr Laban, as an alternative to the relaxing bath and shave that I had in 1996. I must point out that I have had multiple washes and shaves since then.
More chatting and preparation took place after this in 1996 while today I enjoyed a few minutes in my non-contact lesson reading the newspaper on line (Trump, May and Brexit, Saudi’s cutting each others heads off and millionaires kicking balls around.) But this could not last of too long as I had to meet with a colleague to draw up a list of loads of things to do for the school show, set about preparations for a rehearsal later in the day, send yet more emails and then rush back to register my form at 1240. At some point I managed to eat some lunch and enjoy a honey lemon tea with my colleague (she insisted that it should be a wedding anniversary present.)
By 1240 in 1996 I had driven Lexi and I’s vehicle of choice, a 1983 campervan, to Stourbridge and then started a leisurely stroll from our then house towards the chosen church. My best man, accompanying friends and I stopped on the way for a meat pie, a great preparation for any wedding, especially your own, and then arrived in good time for a 2.00pm kick off. I remember that it was lovely to see so many people arrive.
2.20pm was the end of my teaching day today and it was a team taught lesson, which i led, based around Brecht’s famously untranslatable verfremdungseffekt, defamiliarisation and links to Much Ado About Nothing, I have arranged for a performance to take place in school on Friday morning, and so wanted all my students to be as knowledgeable about the play’s key issues as possible.
Right around the time when Lexi and I plighted our troths and said that we would was 20 years before I made a round of hot milos for my department colleagues and then started a two hour rehearsal for the school show, which ended at 4.30pm (followed by lots of questions from the cast). At that time in 1996 Lexi and I, now Mr and Mrs Lawrence, were eating a great curry as a wedding breakfast and getting ready for a speech or two. I had also asked the venue to write down the important football scores from the afternoon’s matches (games involving Bristol City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Ipswich, I seem to remember.) which I announced as part of my speech. The wedding feast and speeches done it was on the next part of the day.
Today though, with rehearsals done it was time to meet up with Lexi, Edwin and Trixie to wait for Rupert to finish scouts. We passed our time having a celebration drink from that purveyor of fine drinks, 7-11, putting their newly installed seats and tables to good use. The children’s milos went down well, as did Lexi’s juice. My green, frozen slush was horrible.
I linked the two days together by phoning my best man up for a surprise natter to reminisce about the day and catch up on news while waiting for Rupert to come out of his scout meeting and then we made our tired way home, unlike the move from wedding breakfast venue to evening barn dance venue, 20 years earlier. The mighty Five Bar Gait played and called for us and our guests that evening while we ate and danced and socialised for many hours. I remember giving a speech thanking the many fine people who had laid on another feast for the evening and being dragged off to the bar by an elderly relative intent on plying me with strong brews. So as to enjoy the festivities as much as we both could Lexi and I decided very early on to drink as little alcohol as possible on the day and I just about managed to escape after a pint and a whisky from the relative’s clutches. And so the fine evening went on.
Tonight all five Lawrences strolled over to a nearby restaurant to eat a celebratory meal with a sunsetting view across the nearby lake. Our various plates of good grub slipped own well, as did the slices of celebratory cake that followed, before we took the children home for showers, stories and bed by 9.00pm.
Our wedding barn dance finished at 11.45pm and a very kind guest drove us back to Lexi and I’s pre-marital and post marital rented home. But the night was yet young. It was half-term from school and we had a honeymoon and romantic first night of wedded bliss to get on with, well almost. Thanks to a very early flight the following morning from Gatwick Airport Lexi and I were destined to spend our night together fast asleep on a FlightLink Coach from Wolverhampton to Gatwick, via picking up our travel bags (kindly filled with bricks by other kind relatives) and via eating a dodgy chicken burger from Wolverhampton Bus Station. None of us have any plans to do any overnight travel 20 years to the day.