well, i'm ready :)

Picked up the rings today.
Handed to me in one of those terribly expensive looking dainty "mug me" bags advertising the fact that i was carrying a pair of, probably valuable, rings. I had to nip into Boots just to get an alternative bag.

I now have a licence to marry and i have the rings to marry with, and i have a suit to be married in and a woman to be married to - what on earth am i waiting for?

Here's the blue slip that licences me to marry a particular young lady called Maria, and the ring box - i'm not about to show you the actual rings now am i.



The thing with the licence is that it's tied to one person, so if Maria fails to arrive on the day i can't just grab someone else so not to waste the honeymoon.

Had a fantastic first band rehearsal with Trev and Pete last night. I can't quite believe how well it went - we're as good now as i thought we might get to after half a dozen rehearsals. Pete had completely nailed half the set and had a good go at the rest, and Trev was as solid as he always is. It was me having a bit of trouble singing and playing the right part of guitar all at once - something i need to practice dead bad. It all sounded fabulous, we just sort of jumped straight in and it all worked - nice. Going to have a jam with Fletch next week (he's going to do the fiddly guitar bits and look cool while i do the easy bits and look scared) and then we'll all get together on the 30th and make an afternoon of it over a few beers. My only concern is my voice. Now i can sing a bit, or at least i think so and i certainly have done so over the years, however, my voice gets a great deal better after half an hour of screaming my heart out and about 20 fags. So for the first run through i sounded a bit weak and timid, but by the second time through, soaring in confidence, i was rock personified, even without the smoking. By the third time i was a wheezing Keith Richards with aching fingers and a dodgy knee brought on by my wide "rock" stance. So for the night itself i'm going to have to gauge it quite carefully. Having a bit of a sing in the service will help to warm me up but i'll probably have to disappear outside for a good scream before we go on just to gravel-up my vocal chords.

This evening we had the first installment of out marriage preparation course - don't laugh, it's not as silly as you might think. In fact it's a fantastic thing! The basic idea is to go through the whole idea of marriage, what it means, what we expect and what to do about it along with what god and bible says about it all. This is such a valuable thing to do and has already raised a lot of interesting points that we'll be discussing and facing up to over the next few weeks. Your reaction may be that you wouldn't need such a thing but why on earth not? Take advantage of such help i say - this is what a good church is all about, offering real "life" training, for free. The one thing that struck me this evening more than anything was the fact that what we're doing is a spiritual thing. We're obeying a fundamental biblical teaching. God designed marriage as the perfect, exclusive, union of two people, to love and support each other and honour god together for the rest of their lives - and that's what we're doing. The fulfillment of this is so much more than a piece of legal stationary, it's a spiritually blessed act of worship - don't i sound all holy! We believe this to be real, and we plan to take and revel in all that god has got for us. It's going to be one exciting day, as is each one after that (awwwwwwww).