MeNoFearNoHaka

So its 45 minutes until New Zealand comes up against the rugby might of Scotland at Murrayfield. The beers in the fridge, the snacks on the table and Rosa's got her Kiwigirl t-shirt so it's game on and time for another sporting prediction from Garry.

We're going to stuff the All Blacks!

Some of you may think this unlikely but mark my words we can do it and once we do it'll be onwards to Scotland being crowned champions of the World!

Did that sound convincing?

Sometimes I go out by myself and I look across the water...

And whilst contemplating the silvery Tay I think to myself in a Michael Caine accent, "Self, what's it all about?". I stand there as the Sun goes down pondering the imponderables such as is there truth without beauty, what lies beyond the veil of death and can somebody be both a Dundee fan and a decent person. Eventually as the last misting of twilight hits the water I think fuck that for a game of soldiers and go to the pub to argue about last nights episode of Heroes with Irish Paul. Let's face it when push comes to shove, at the end of the day and when alls said and done it's not about whether the pint's half empty or full it's about who's on the next round.

The plane the plane!

What Graham needs.

Wedding photies!

I've been getting a lot of hassle about photies for the whole wedding type affair so here's a link to the photobucket. A'body who took photies will be updated on how to add your pictures so we expect quite a few updates in the next couple of months,

Wedding Photies

The boy done good!

So I went and got married to Rosa a couple of weeks ago. OK so that's perhaps the weirdest sentence I've ever typed and I never thought I would be typing it but there you go you can't account for stuff happening can you?

Anyway we had a few days of before the event so we could spend some time with the Mendes family and various mates that were arriving early and much fun was had by all as Marieke marvelled at the sheer quantity of pubs in Dundee, Ed became addicted to a table tennis on the XBox and Sarah and Rosa ran around liked demented 5 year olds shouting Kath & Kim quotes at each other. Through all this teetotal Irish athlete Ruairi was an oasis of calm-like stuff being competent at everything, the wee man even fixed my bike!

Rosa's auld dears arrived on Thursday and whilst Teresa was just as fantastic as expected Anibal was the most surprising. After three years of worrying what the scary Portuguese Catholic father would be like he turned out to be a sweet, interesting and fun guy, just the type of person you would expect to be Rosa and Eds father really so that was a lot of pointless worrying.

Anyway I woke up at 6am on Saturday the 18th of August and lay in bed for three hours in a weird kind of panic that continued for most of the morning. I wasn't worried about marrying Rosa, that's never been in doubt, but I was really nervous about going up in front of a'body and letting her down. Luckily my mates and Rosa's mates Brigite and Mike were great throughout the morning even if they did complain about my relentless pacing. The worst moment came when I went for a quick haircut after our greasy spoon breakfast. In a fit of bravado I decided to dive across the road and try out the new Polish barbers. The very nice middle-aged women seemed to know only two words of English 'scissors' and 'clippers' but it seemed impolite to suddenly run out the door so I sat with a deep feeling of dread as she combed my hair into a side parting. Now this something that hasn't been inflicted on my hair since 1985 and though I'm sure it's a hairstyle all the cool kids in Poland are wearing to whatever horrific death metal band is popular there right now the thought of turning up to my wedding sporting such a hairstyle made me finally realise that the phrase 'turned my bowels to water' actually refers to an actual physical feeling. This wasn't helped by suddenly wanting to vomit as well but being British I couldn't say anything to the woman let alone do a runner with half a haircut. Luckily she brushed it back at the end but not before I had visions of Rosa breaking my legs in front of a'body.

The rest of the getting ready wasn't quite as bad though we were running late due to helping my Dad get ready and there was a minor panic when the CD for Rosa coming up the aisle didn't play but then she came and everything was alright. Rosa was absolutely stunning and having her there completely relaxed, this and Reverend Bobs fantastic service made sure everything went great. Bobs reading was incredibly touching and he managed to get across how serious the ceremony was whilst keeping a sense of fun.

As to the reception it was simply the best party I have ever thrown with everybody getting on brilliantly and no fistfights much to Sarah's disgust as she believes every wedding should have one. I think this was helped by Rosa and I making fools of ourselves in the first dance as can be seen here and here.

To be honest I always figured the actual wedding would be something to get through but whilst stuff like posing for pictures was a pussy it actually turned out to be the best day of my life EVAH!

Go figure.