Friday April 16, 1982

 Sunshine. Up at 7:30. Full-English breakfast. We are always nervous before weddings. I recall Ally shaking before Jill and Tim's nuptials, and yet we didn't take fright at our own joining. To Leeds at 10:30. The YP building told us it was 60 degrees F.

The bride.

It was my first experience of a register office wedding. Like a cross between a crematorium and a cinema. Piped music. __________. A conveyor belt of ceremonies. One bride queueing, middle-aged and surrounded by offspring, was drawing heavily on a cigarette, and blowing the smoke through the wedding veil covering her face. Sarah arrived at about 11 in Richard's Rolls-Royce. The bride was in a cream suit. Delia exclaimed that my black velvet jacket looked as though I'd slept in it.

To the Roman Gardens Restaurant in Horsforth. A curious table seating plan saw Ally and I on different tables for lunch. I sat facing Eileen Robertshaw. _____________.Back to the the Collis pile. Tea was offered, but I only drink alcohol at weddings. We left Delia's at 6:30 and drove straight to Starbotton, where we sat the bar of the Fox & Hounds drinking like fish. We looked ridiculous sitting in a Dales inn dressed in our wedding 'finery'. Mrs Heap, a scatty Lancashire woman, took us to our bedroom. We didn't dwell long before returning to the bar. 

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