The pane itself had collected a number of dead bugs above it, so today I took it down to clean it. When I did, I discovered the reason both for the low light, and the bugs.

It seems there is something stuck to the glass…

Yes, yes there is.

It’s the guarantee information for the window, left on for posterity after some moron thought “I’ll just put this window in and take that off later.”

Trouble is, that light well is about 8m high. Taking it off later is not exactly practical. Also, a closer inspection reveals that the window is not fully closed, which accounts for all the bugs getting in, as well as the cold draft I noticed after taking the bottom pane out.

How the hell does someone whose job (presumably) regularly involves putting in windows find this so hard to figure out?

To send him off we started off the night somewhat curiously at the house of our Deputy Head, who laid on a barbecue and drinks for the entire IT support team, as well as Pete, (Graphics teacher), and Janet (Assistant Head of IT) and her husband. The whole evening became strange not only due to the fact that Chris has a giant trampoline in the back garden, but that he’s not the only one…

Minutes after arriving at Chris' house, Mat gets the evening off to a flying start

Chris: “We got ours after Janet got hers…” Me: “Is this some Senior Management initiation thing? You’re not allowed in the Senior Management Team until you’ve got a trampoline?”

As the night wore on, the bizarreness only grew. We soon learned that over the summer, Chris’ daughter Kat had been so bored that at the age of 25 she had decided to learn the recorder. We immediately demanded a recital, and eventually got one:

Later into the night, there’s an unplanned arrival in the form of Patrick, one of the History teachers. After a 2-hour trip home on public transport because his wife had taken the car to Liverpool on a conference, in his football kit because he’d been playing in a match after school, he arrived at his front door to find he’d left his keys at school. He phoned Chris, who has a reputation for late nights and could have still been in his school office (although he wasn’t), and was instructed to make his way to Chris’ house while he fetches Patrick’s keys from the school. Patrick then arrived in the middle of the mayhem known as “late-night trampolining”.

At about 9.45pm we finally decided to make a move and spent the rest of the evening in a couple of pubs in Amersham, before walking back to JD’s house through the woods in the middle of the night and falling asleep on his giant Budda Bag.

]]> http://www.schlackman.org/2006/09/toms-leaving-do/feed/ 0 http://www.schlackman.org/2006/08/lauras-18th-birthday-party/ http://www.schlackman.org/2006/08/lauras-18th-birthday-party/#comments Sat, 26 Aug 2006 20:42:54 +0000 Jay http://www.schlackman.org/?p=511 Today Elizabeth and I travelled to sunny slightly damp Kent for a barbecue for my cousin Laura’s 18th birthday. Depite taking the secret back route out of Reading to avoid all the Reading Festival traffic, we were late, which we blamed on the subtly different but equally congesting Bank Holiday traffic (this weekend is historically the busiest weekend of the year for travel). It was, however, partly due to having to make a detour to Bluewater shopping centre to buy gift certificates.

Anyway, we arrived, chatted, drank, marvelled at my mother’s ability to locate cocktails, and ate well-cooked food – aside from the potatoes which we later discovered had only been cooked for 2 minutes instead of the required 7 due to an ongoing dispute between my aunt Dawn and the cooking instructions on the back of the packet. There was also much cake.

Found out from my aunt Jackie, who is a career teacher, that both of my second cousins are now qualified teachers. It seems the family profession, which was once the postal service, is slowly veering towards the education sector. My aunt Alison is progressing with her medical training, and can now diagnose most problems between the neck and groin, with some exceptions; as she put it, “no arms, no legs, no head – male genitalia only.”

Right, enough of that – on with the photos!

Elizabeth Anne Cole and James Paul Schlackman were married at St Mary’s Church, Over, Cambridgeshire, England, at 2pm on the 17^th April 2004.

After a Christmas engagement and a subsequent 4½ months’ planning, we were married in Over, the village where I lived until I was 18. Read on for the story of the day Elizabeth made an honest man of me, and the day Elizabeth Anne Cole became Elizabeth Cole Schlackman…

St Mary’s Church in Over dates back to 1254, making part of the church almost 750 years old on our wedding day. We were able to be married there even though my family had moved to the next parish, as the parish church there was closed for roof repairs.

A gorgeous Elizabeth arrived at the church as Dan and I frantically set up the video camera inside the church; it had only arrived 10 minutes before the wedding was to begin!

Order of Service

[PDF]

• Processional – Bridal March by Wagner
• Welcome
• Hymn – “Lord of the Dance”
• The Declarations
• Reading – The Book of Ruth 1:1-17
• Address
• The Marriage
• Hymn – “Ode to Joy”
• Prayers and Blessing
• Hymn – “Immortal, Invisible”
• Registration of the Marriage
• Recessional – Handel’s Water Music

45 minutes, and a lot of poor singing later, we were married!

When watching the video later, we noticed that not only were we both very nervous (especially me), but that Matthew Kitson, who was operating the camera, displayed an excellent knowledge of the hymns by singing all of them without a hymn book.

Elizabeth’s sister and maid of honour Susan looked even smaller than usual next to Dan’s 6′ 4? frame.

Our car for the day was a chauffeured vintage 1948 3.5 litre Jaguar Saloon. We got more beeps and waves on the way to the reception than we will probably have in the rest of our lifetimes.

After everybody had stuffed themselves silly, Dan and I proceeded with our speeches after an introduction by Elizabeth’s dad.

Halfway through the reception my youngest cousin Francis managed to lose his Spiderman toy on the roof, and so my step-father Steve was tasked with rescuing it. Being from Newcastle, we knew he’d have no trouble scaling drainpipes, and were not disappointed.

Elizabeth throws her bouquet, and everybody misses, despite the best efforts of Kate, who was in fact the only person who put any more effort in than waiting for it to fall in their hands.

On the second attempt it was eventually caught by Susan, which was met with a resounding “Oh, no!” from Susan and Elizabeth’s dad.

The end of the day arrived, and we drove off into the sunset, after a titanic struggle to fit all of Elizabeth’s dress into our car. The excitement was obviously too much for the car as it terminally broke down 3 weeks later and narrowly avoided being scrapped.

The highlight of Daisy Chain is of course the daisy chain itself. Accompanied by a lot of singing, possibly the world’s longest daisy chain is paraded around for about half an hour. This small section is carried by Clare Marie, Addela, Elizabeth, and Ali.

Stacia’s Guinness Hat dominated her costume, while Ann looked like she would fit in better at Ascot than in some crazy graduation ritual.

After 4 years, Elizabeth and Susan prepare for their imminent graduation ceremony. Elizabeth received a BA in International Studies and Susan received a BA in Classical Languages.

Somebody please remind me to buy Elizabeth some sort of blotter for her lipstick…