This Ordinary Life

I mentioned in my last entry that I attended my first proper English wedding last weekend near Bicester. As usual there is a story to tell...

A ex-colleague of mine with whom I was good friends with at the time, who then became a recruiter and found me my current job and with whom I have kept in touch got married last weekend. I received the invitation a couple months ago to attend both the ceremony and the evening reception as well as the Stag Doo, which was to be held in Edinburgh.

Well, for reasons that I'd rather not get into I decided to skip the ceremony and only go to the evening reception as that's when you have the dinner, speaches and dancing. Or so I thought...

As I am training for next year's Etape, the Tour de France stage that gets opening to the public, I decided that it would be good training to cycle up to my home for the night, the Biscester Cherwell Valley Travel Lodge just off the M40. Of course, because I was on my bicycle I wouldn't be able to cycle the M40 and instead cycled up the A41.

Before I set off I carefully packed everything into my rucksack. Suit (folded carefully), tie (folded carefully), shirt (folded carefully) and underwear (folded haphazardly) all went into a spacebag and then joined my toilettries, shoes, socks and cycling spares. Three and a half hours later (average speed of 30kph!) and I arrived at my destination.

I purposely didn't eat anything when I arrived because I didn't want to spoil my appetite. My invite said that the reception started at 7pm and as it was only 5pm, I killed some time by slowly getting showered, ironing my shirt and watching some television. Some other friends of mine who were also just attending the reception picked me up at 6:30pm and we made it to the venue at shortly after 7.

Now this is where a cultural paradigm came into effect. The bride and groom were both there looking stunning and working the room. There was an open bar and people were milling about in a pre-dinner manner. However, many of the people there weren't really dressed the way I would expect when attending a wedding dinner. Some even were wearing jean! This is when I realised that something had gone terribly wrong...

Turns out that in the UK, it's the ceremony invite that includes the dinner and not the reception. The reception is for the second class citizens that you didn't want to spend money on for dinner, but still want to get gifts off of. As to food, there were a few scraps to be had. I gorged myself on three plates of cheese, crackers, celery sticks and pate... shame I'd missed out on my seat at the dinner table that I would easily have been able to attend timewise.

With my metabolism racing, before I knew it I had consumed 10 pints which had no real effect other than to make me want to dance. Together with my mate's Northern Irish wife, I ended up tearing up the dancefloor and sweating up a storm for the next 3 hours. Very classy indeed!

So, the lesson of the day is that the English generally do things differently than the rest of the world, so if you are doing something for the first time in England, it is well worth getting details of exactly what will happen and is expected of you. Otherwise, you might cycle 100kms, miss dinner and then have the groom ask you why you're so dressed up. Embarassing, disappointing and hilarious all at the same time.

Posted by this ordinary life at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, apologies for my absence... Going to India ended up being a very different experience to that that I was expecting. So much so that when I got back to the UK, I pretty much didn't stop doing stuff until now...

Whereas I though India was all about inflections and finding peace, it actually ended up being a place to charge my batteries, be awe struck by the interaction of Buddhism and the Ladakhi people and to realise that I need to get on with my life in a serious way. But let's look at each one briefly in isolation.

Charging my batteries - Now the last 12 months of my life have been a roller coaster. From self image issues to family concerns to other stuff, I have been through it all. I realised in Indi that it had been several years since the last time that I was on holiday for two full weeks. I had been so focused on travelling the way that other people wanted to, that I forgot what I love about travelling most, it's different from normal life. What I mean by that is that I live quite a priveldged life. I drink when I want to (sometime even expensive foreign beers, yum!), my flat is clean and modern (a little bit characterless at the moment) and I live in one of the most modern and cosmopolitan cities in the world. When I go on holiday, I want something different. During my India trip, I slept on dirt floors, didn't wash properly for a week while trekking, slept in a hotel room with a ceiling covered with mold, ate the oddest things and was among a people who could tell that I didn't belong there from a mile away. All of these things would probably have bothered me in London, but on holiday it was all part of the adventure. This different charged my batteries alongside the absolutely spectacular beauty of the place.

Awestruck by the interaction of Buddhism and the Ladakhi people - The Ladakhi people are a Buddhist mountain people that form part of the Tibetan culture. Under the rules of Buddhism (which is a life philosophy and not a religion), you are not to want more than you need and therefore you end up living in harmony with your surroundings. Well, the Ladakhi people discovered this balanced state about 500 years ago and haven't changed very much since. Most of their lives consist of planting, tending and harvesting crops like barley by hand together with herding livestock for six months of the year and then spending the other 6 months doing nothing but socialising, drinking chang (homemade barley beer) and surviving the winter. It blew me away to see this culture in statis.

That was until Westerners decided that they wanted to enjoy the beauty of the mountains and flocked there to go trekking. I now hear that up to 30,000 people trek the Markha Valley (the main valley for trekking) and have reeked havoc on the place. As most trekkers are accompanies by horses to carry all of the gear and food, I have dubbed the trail the "Marka Valley Trekking Superhighway of Manure". There is so much manure on the trail that you can't drink the water from the rivers, but if you ever get lost in the dark, all you have to do is follow the smell. Not only are we causing serious environmental degradation, we have also introduced some of our materialistic necessities. For instance, at one home I stayed at, they had no running water, a car battery charged by solar panels powering the lights, they slept in their clothes and washed their clothes in the same stream they drank from, but the had satellite TV! We in the West have a lot to answer for and I don't think the Ladakhi culture will ever be the same.

Realising that I need to get on with my life in a serious way - I am now 31 and have a list of things that I want to do in my life that is so long that I haven't even written it yet. This is directly linked to what I realised, I used to make lists of things to do, but then got so frustrated that I wasn't doing any of them that I stopped. I didn't do many of the things on my list for many reasons, most of them to do with my inane ability to procrastinate, but for whatever reason I am starting to write lists again. It is amazing what you achieve when you put your mind to it. Last weekend, I was invited to a friends wedding in Biscester, about 60 miles from London. What did I do, I cycled there. Why? Because I thought I could and I did. This philosphy is also creeping back into my professional life. I spent so much time waiting for other people to tell me what I should be doing that to a certain extent I lost the motivation and creativeness that makes me me. Since India, I seem to have this back and can already see the positive benefits.

So I went to India thinking that it would change my life. It didn't... because we are who we are and can't fundamentally change. We are prisoners of our own limitations. But what India did do is change my life perspective. This means that I now have a perspective that allows me to make the most of what I can do rather than be limited by what I can't. It might sound a bit strange but its working for me. I just hope next time I don't have to spend 8 days trekking only with a guide and a horseman who both choose not to speak to me and prefer to talk to each other and our evening hosts in Ladakhi creating a bizarre sensation of isolation in me, to maintain this perspective...

Posted by this ordinary life at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)