Okay, in response to Rob's blog I admit that possibly I did do some ganging up with Rob against Mark and with Mark against Rob yes, I may have neglected to mention that in my earlier recollection of events. However, I am pretty sure that they ganged up on me before I went to get the jug. I seem to remember that it was a combined effort that removed the reservoir from my water pistol. I guess though, if I'm being completely honest, that it's true to say that I can't remember the details completely, and may have some of the events confused in my mind. I do remember two of them having hold of my arms though, and I was just trying to be helpful and give Rob some peas, he doesn't eat vegetables, I was worried about his health, so I thought some frozen peas would be good :-)

Okay, I confess that I don't like surrendering, it could have all been over, they disarmed me and would have called it quits, but that would have left me in the losing position, so I had to get some kind of revenge didn't I? Surely it's only right? Hence upping the weaponry. I realise now though that water was a bad idea (but maintain that it was Rob's fault since he gave me the supersoaker and anyway getting Mark drenched was highly entertaining), possibly the shaving foam was unwise, but not too much of a mess, water was possibly dangerous though with all the work and electrical appliances around, sorry Helen. Oh and in case you're wondering, Helen wasn't entirely innocent in this whole thing, she took her usual place as stirrer and goader, taking whichever side took her fancy at the time (not that I was averse to doing that) and making comments about how someone had wet her so that someone else would leap to her defence.

All in all we had a very sensible adult celebration of Helen's birthday yesterday, with the Thomas and Friends steam trains and the fighting.

For some reason one of my old posts isn't showing up in my archives at all. It was the post about Harriet and Will's wedding and since that was the wedding of the century I've decided to repost it. I don't understand why it isn't showing up, it appears when I search for posts from June 29th that I wrote, but isn't on the corresponding archive page. Weird, anyway, I'll just put it here again so that it isn't lost:

Well, I just wrote a long description of Harriet and Will's wedding that Helen and I went to yesterday. I was just publishing it when explorer crashed, d'oh. So now I have to do it all again, but I don't know if I can be bothered. It's boring to write it again. I'd even found links to all the songs that we sang in the ceremony. I suppose it shouldn't take as long this time. Hmm. I don' t know, you could just read Helen's blog she said all about it. I'll say some bits though.

Right, the ceremony was at The All Nations Centre on Frog Island, not exactly the most Picturesque of locations for a wedding, being on the A50, but nevermind. It was a very lively service, with a loud band playing some excellent worship songs, all fairly new ones. One of my favourites because of the fantastic lyrics: Blessed be Your name (Matt Redman) another very lively song with great lyrics, by Paul Oakley: Unashamed a Hillsongs United one (they're always good) Free And Holy, a Vineyard song.

The instructions given for when the bridal party left were:

"Please stand for the bridal party and cheer loudly, as though England has just won the Ashes or the World cup or the gold medal for curling at the Winter Olympics or all three at once." Which is great.

The reception was at a farm belonging to some friends of Will and Harriet, in the afternoon we all congregated in the garden where there were tables and chairs and snack food being passed round on trays, large bowls of strawberries were good :-)

At about 5 the speeches began, they were excellent, Will was so funny. I had to get up to go and accept a present during Will's speech, they had presents for about a million people, okay, maybe not quite that many, but anyway they were thanking me for running the wedding list and helping out with stuff, thankfully I turned my camcorder off when they made me go up instead of letting someone film me, I don't like being filmed, but it would have been even worse as on returning with my present I managed to slip, turn my foot over and break my shoe. I'm not entirely sure how it happened, the ground was uneven, but I wasn't wearing heels or anything (and no, I hadn't been drinking, I don't drink) I was just wearing flat sandal type things, but the side broke, I think it may have broken before I slipped it felt like that was why I slipped, but I could be wrong, fortunately I had spare shoes in the car. Oh, my present was very cool, a magnetic dry wipe board with "Captain Memo" on and a cool in a really appallingly tacky way light switch cover of Mr T!

I had been kind of nervous on Will's behalf of his best men's speech, (he had 2 best men) what with one of them writing for Graham Norton, but they weren't too bad. Mainly the speech consisted a lot of one of them telling embarrassing stories such as the time he did such and such with that woman, then the other one pointing out that that wasn't Will. They did do a fairly embarrassing "guide to sex" thing, having discussed the fact that Harriet and Will were Christians and so had waited for their wedding night, but it was quite funny really.

We moved to the barn for the evening meal and stuff. The food was really good and they even had an ice-cream van with free ice-creams, how amazing is that? It was great, unlike any other wedding that I've been to. There was a bouncy castle, which was cool, but a combination of me having eaten too much and wearing a dress meant that I didn't go on it. Yes, I did wear the dress as promised, I even got a mention in the order of service in the list of Thank You's at the back: "Ali Yates for being Ali Yates and the computer genius contained within, and for wearing a dress" I dispute the middle comment particularly after last week's "incident" but the first and last points are correct.

The band that played was great, I really loved the music and for once actually wished that I could dance, it was the kind of music that I would like to be able to dance to. That never normally happens, I'm usually firmly rooted at the edge not having any desire to dance.

Sadly my camera battery ran out during Harriet and Will's dance, I would have liked to get all of that filmed. I managed to find a plug socket though, so I charged my battery up a little more, which meant that I was able to film them leaving in style and what style it was. It was a great idea to have them leave in the scoop of a digger, it looked so cool, particularly when it was raised up so they were up above everyone, though they looked a little like they might fall off when it jerked a bit.

Basically I think the wedding was very stylish, it really kind of went with their personalities and was very moemorable. I'm certainly glad I was there, mind you I'd have been glad to see them married anywhere, they're both great people and I'm really pleased they've tied the knot, it's not everyone I wear a dress for. You know, I even felt nervous for them when I got up yesterday, how odd, and the whole time we were sat in the church I had butterflies as if I was doing something, how weird. Do other people get nervous for friends or is it just me?

By the way, I haven't mentioned, the Hullabaloo Summer holiday club went really well, I had a great time and so did the kids, or at least they seemed to. We had between 20 and 25 each day, which worked quite well, there were enough for the small groups and everything and they all joined in. Then on Sunday morning we did a family service, so I got to do some of the stuff in the main meeting, which was a bit scary, but fun. I got the adults cheering and joining in Wotsit-face, my favourite game.

My top 10 British sitcoms ever:

2 Point 4 Children
Absolutely Fabulous
Blackadder
The Brittas Empire
Drop the Dead Donkey
Father Ted
Men Behaving Badly
Red Dwarf
Spaced
Waiting for God

Vote for your own selection at http://www.bbc.co.uk/sitcom/

Scarily similar to Helen's, except I have The Brittas Empire and not Fawlty Towers, which I hated.

Well, it's 1:30am, I should be sleeping, but I seem to be a little adrenaline-fired, possibly to do with a wrestling bout that I had with Mark which finished 1t 12:45, I believe it went on for approximately 2 hours. I don't know how it started really, initially he and I were fighting with bubbles and water, Rob got involved, well actually he helped it to escalate by arming me, I wasn't really doing anything until Rob gave me the water pistol. I didn't do so well with the water fighting, mainly because they ganged up on me, which is unfair, at least Helen took my side a bit. Anyway, we got rid of weapons (after I'd unleashed some shaving foam - from Hullabaloo, which is why I've been so silent lately, I've been preparing and then carrying out Hullabaloo, that's been very tiring, shaving foam is used to make custard pies and for the game "wotsit-face" - put shaving foam on 2 leaders' faces, children throw wotsits at them, the one to get the most wotsits stuck wins - and some frozen peas) and resorted to just physical contact, I have the weight and low centre of gravity advantage and kept getting Mark pinned in the corner, he said it was because he'd started trapped, so I challenged him to a standing start. In the beginning I was loads better and if we'd stopped after 5 or 6 matches I would have won, I think we were at 6:3 at one point, but in the end we drew 8 all, we were going to first to 10, but suddenly realised how late it was. I'm not sure if it's because Mark had more stamina than me, or because he's better at adapting and working out how to counter my moves, which are a bit predictable.

Anyway, we shall have to have a rematch and since I have his phone (that was my main reason to blog, to say I have your phone Mark, I could email, but where's the fun?) he'll have to return!

The fighting took my mind of something that I hadn't liked that happened today, which I'll mention briefly, but try to gloss over, I had my first car crash, it was very minor, but my fault, so I was feeling a little shaky, so I'm glad I got to muck around and be silly this evening as now I don't care at all about the crash, so what? I crashed, it happens, the people in the other car were pretty good about it really and are even going to get a quote for me first to see if I can pay for it without going through the insurance company, so that's good, it's only the headlights and bumpers that are damaged really. My lights still work completely, even the indicator works, it just lost the glass off the top. Will duct taped the broken bumper for me so it's not sharp. It was good having someone in the car who'd crashed before, because he knew exactly what to do.

So there, right, I think the adrenaline's wearing off, so I'll sleep now. I will try to blog on a more regular basis, but I won't promise anything.