Engagement

Engagement
Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

I have some rather exciting news. On New Year's Day, at about 10:00pm Florida-time, I asked Naomi to marry me.

The photo above is about an hour later that evening.

(People keep asking me if she said "yes", which apart from being mildly insulting, is a bit of a daft question! Maybe I should start replying "no, she refused because she hates me. That's why I'm relating the story to you, because I like to embarass myself". I probably won't end up saying this to anyone because, let's face it, I've not been sarcastic enough to pull this sort of thing off since I left my teens)

It'd be a massive understatement to say that I'm pretty bloody pleased we're getting married (planned for Summer 2007) and it's probably about the most important thing I've written about in this blog. I've toyed with the idea of writing the evening out in full, but I think it's something too sacred to cover here, so I'm going to move on to the rest of the holiday.

Amber and Andrew's wedding, the reason we were in Florida in the first place, was a wonderful occasion. Andrew has succeeded in being the first one of our group of friends at Oxford to get married, which is some achievement seeing as he wasn't even going out with anyone at Christmas 2004. He's managed to meet a wonderful woman, moved fast, and their happiness is evident to everyone who's seen them together. I'm so glad that we were able to be there for the wedding, and very grateful to Andrew's parents for kindly covering our accommodation.

Wierdly enough, Orlando was also the setting for getting a decent number of Magdalen friends together in one place, finally. Because obviously we couldn't manage that in the UK. Most of the time Jack, Naomi and I hung out together, and Jack very kindly did all of the driving, in his beloved hired Trans Am. The weather was pretty much perfect (and warm enough that we were able to spend a day basking on Cocoa Beach, near Cape Canaveral). We didn't go to Gatorland this year (nor did we go to the slightly-freakish Holy Land Experience) but the week was a blast nonetheless, quite apart from getting engaged. It was great to see Thurston and his wife, Jamie, and we went with him to Park Avenue Records, possibly the best record shop I've ever been to. Oh yes, and a few days earlier we got upgraded to business class on the flight out. 3 course meal, 3 glasses of champagne, corvoisier. Get in.

Anyway, I'm back at work now until 13th February. That gives me a month and a day from today to find myself a job. I'll write more about this soon enough.

Over and out, for now.