Today is the 1st of October… we have officially entered the month in which Dom and I will be married! The trouble is, with little time remaining until the wedding it appears that we still haven’t broken the curse that plagues all attempts for Dom and I make at doing normal, “coupley” things! In the past the curse has sabotaged Valentines efforts, cancelled family get-togethers, prevented me from proposing and generally getting in the way as much as possible. At which point one of us upset a lady with a pointy hat and a broomstick I don’t recall, but their vengeance has been severe (if a little bizarre!)
And so, with mere weeks remaining until the most important day of our lives, once again the curse has struck on another important date… this weekend, in a plot line that I wouldn’t have made up in even my wildest musings, my own Stag Weekend was very nearly Stagless!
On Wednesday evening I met up with my brother (and best man) Martin to talk through the teams, work out who should share rooms and have a think about any bars we wanted to hit. Having had some (but not all) of the plans revealed to me I was massively looking forward to it. On Friday afternoon we spoke again on the phone and Mart told me that another mate that I hadn’t thought was going to make it had called to say he’d be there… everything was set for a staggerlicious weekend!
At 6pm I said goodbye to one of my stag mates until the next day, left work a little tired from a long, frustrating day, and headed home to ready myself for the weekend ahead. Having spent a while stuck in traffic I decided to divert via the Designer Outlet to pick up one of our last remaining items of clothing only to find it closed. Still, my optimism for the weekend remained firm and I was keen to get home and get a good night’s sleep ready for a weekend unlikely to be remembered for its lengthy kips!
As I joined the dual carriageway I started to feel, quite suddenly, very tired. Realising I would need to pull over for a moment I began to look out for a stopping point when I felt my stomach do some sort of backflip. Moments after bringing the car to a halt I found myself lying on the back seat of the car, shivering wildly and clutching my stomach. It was a good hour or so before I again felt well enough to move on, wondering what the heck had just happened and taking it very steadily on the road stretching ahead of me. 30 minutes down the road it happened again and I was left parked up at a petrol station again laid out in the car completely incapacitated just 15 minutes from home. It was there that I eventually fell asleep for the next two hours, awoken only by a phone call to question why a 1 hour journey had so far taken more than three hours to not quite complete.
As the evening wore on I became steadily worse, sweating and shivering simultaneously, writhing in agony, unable to sleep and upon standing was consistently forced to complete an activity that, for the purpose of Monday morning reading we will describe merely as the opening of a tin of sweetcorn. Let me tell you, it’s not great having to ask someone to ring your best man hours before the stag party he’s been arranging at great effort for several months to tell him that the stag may, in fact, not be coming due to a sudden and unexpected fondness for sweetcorn!
Let me put this into context. While suffering from a bout of flu or a 24 hour dose of Mad cow disease or something, those close to me have often turned their anger towards me with the phrase “Matt why the hell are you never ill?! It’s not fair!!!” Indeed I can’t remember ever having missed a day of work through illness and (apart from in self-inflicted circumstances) can’t really recall a time I was genuinely incapacitated through illness in the last 10 years. Although I don’t believe in superstitious nonsense surely this timing couldn’t merely be bad luck – someone, presumably looking on through a swirling cauldron or evil crystal ball, had to be finding this very amusing!
All we could do at this stage was pray that I was well enough to at the very least get out of the bed and stand up without sweetcorn issues (I do apologise to anyone thinking of eating sweetcorn with their evening meal by the way) by the time I had to leave the following morning. With friends coming from all across the UK with train tickets already booked, hotel rooms and activities already paid for and this being the only weekend possible for everyone to get together, there was no cancelling now.
The following morning, having managed to grab maybe an hour’s sleep I actually felt… DREADFUL!!! After half an hour or so of writhing around trying to force myself up I achieved my task… standing for four seconds without feeling the need to share my new love of sweetcorn. I triumphantly staggered downstairs, duvet in tow, and got as far as the sofa. Ok I was still mostly horizontal but at least I’d moved. After a long period of TV watching and general discomfort I finally stood once more. This was a victory, though not necessarily a happy one… much as I was desperate to make it to the Stag, the fact that I could stand definitely meant I was going however terrible I felt which was certainly something of a mixed bag.
After a shower I felt a little better, there was going to be no way I could drink (and I could predict how that would go down with the lads!) but at least I wouldn’t be leaving my brother to lead a series of my friends (that he mostly hadn’t met) around York without me. I arrived with my bravest face in situ, and set off for the first challenge… Go Karting… basically being thrown around tight corners at very high speed… this was going to be a long day!
I’ll fill you in on a few Stag stories in the wedding diaries, but for now all you need to know is that somehow, and against all the odds, I survived, even really enjoyed myself. With a sweepstake now in place as to at what point I would drop, it was time to face the next hurdle… as predicted my consumption of alcohol was NOT optional!
I decided to start with a gentle pint, a weak lager to ease me gently into it. Having been informed I could pay for nothing I put my order in with one of my mates. Now, little advice for you, if you’re ever in a similar situation never place the beer kitty in the hands of the man with the mischievous grin known simply as “The Hobbit”. Upon my table the lager did arrive…alongside an extra large Jägerbomb. As the man holding the 3 o’clock sweepstake ticket looked on I went for it and… survived!
The day wore on with many more, sorry, many many many more drinks (and even a whisky tasting) and still I was standing… in fact, as it turns out, Whisky, a liquid used through history as a primitive anaesthetic, appeared to have killed the bacteria! Either that or the copious quantity had killed off the related organs, but either way I was alive! I even started to feel better! So, I think you’ll find that the scores are officially:
Matt & Dom 1 – 2498 Curse
we’re gaining! Now, just no-one mention to anyone in pointy hats that it hasn’t rained in La Palma for over a year ok!
