April 2013 – Is This Thing On?

For our wedding we asked our good friend Jim, who sadly wasn’t able to make it over from the UK, if he might happen to have something we could use as a reading. And he wrote us this rather wonderful poem.

For the benefit of anyone who might not have got all the references (and for everyone who wouldn’t have seen it written down to appreciate its full double acrostic glory), I present Matt n’ Sally, Married — with footnotes.

Matt n’ Sally, Married

by James Peake

You chose London, Sal, and a handsome pom
Looming above the D.F., ^[1] loitering by the P.A. ^[2]
Looking back at you. The End. ^[3] The night you met.
And from that instant spark, that fun-loving start,
Secret garden picnics ^[4] or Glasto ^[5] under English sun, ^[6]
Not a moment wasted, at galleries or plays, down Dr Who caves, ^[7]
Trading jokes and gossip over cocktails or Corona ^[8]
Then detouring for a doner. Matt, a Woody Grill. ^[9]
And daily a photo for your Flickr project or Facebook wall; ^[10]
Melbourne’s gain London’s loss, but two hemispheres can now toast, Matt n’ Sally.

[1] D.F. The dancefloor. The scene of many of our greatest moments…

[2] I’m not sure if I actually was loitering by the P.A., but I’ll let that one pass…

[3] The End nightclub, in London’s West End, owned by Mr C off of the Shamen, where we met all those years ago.

[4] The Secret Garden, our favourite little hidden spot in Regent’s Park: tucked away down an unmarked passage lies a beautiful little manicured garden that we got to treat as our own when we lived nearby.

[5] Glastonbury Festival. We were there together in 2007, and 2005, and 2004 and an apparently unphotographed 2003…

[6] I assume the idea of English Sun at Glasto must be some kind of joke…

[7] That would be these caves that we day tripped to in 2008.

[8] No explanation needed, but sort of appropriate given our Mexico plans…

[9] The Woody Grill in Camden. Without question my favourite London Kebab shop. A place so good that I once saw a man drop his kebab on the dirty Camden pavement and then pick it right back up again and carry on eating… **

[10] My Photo Of The Day project. Now, unbelievably in its seventh year.

** This was not me. Honest.

After two languid days in Valladolid, it is time to move on again. We rise early and eat our breakfast of huevos rancheros under the shade of the trees in the little garden out the back of the shop. Then we hit the speed bump filled road to Chichen Itza, hoping to arrive early enough to beat the crowds of tour groups that descend on the site in the late morning.

There are a handful of tourists wandering around the site when we arrive, but it is quiet enough for us to take photos of the ruins without anyone getting in the way. On the recommendation of Susanna from Coqui Coqui, we hire a guide to show us around. Most of what he tells us, we later discover, is nonsense, but it is entertaining nonetheless.

(As a case in point he tells us that the reason that no one is allowed to climb the ruins is because 5 oversized American tourists rolled down to their deaths a few years ago, even though my subsequent internet research proves that this was not exactly what happened. Still, even though he couldn’t get something from 2006 right, I’m sure his comments on things that happened thousands of years ago are just fine…)

After a pleasant few hours wandering the site, we jump back in the car, grab a quick lunch of salbutes in the nearby town of Pisté and hit the road across the Yucatan to the colonial town of Mérida.