Richard Wright

A productive weekend, if I do say so. First, a meeting at One Devonshire Gardens, where I’ll be getting married in a month and a half. They really are making things about as easy as it’s possible for a wedding to be, helped enormously by the fact that we’re not inviting many people. I’m really starting to look forward to it, especially having now chosen the menu, which I’m expecting to be a highlight of the day (marriage itself aside!). Screw the small talk and bring on the main course. We grabbed a dress for Eva to wear too, and Kirsty already has her wedding dress. I’m hiring a kilt ensemble, having decided that never having worn a skirt for formal occasions, the best time to start will be an already massively stressful day, but I’m booked in for measurements in a couple of weeks. All smooth, so far.

Just as well, as it occurs to me that two months from right now, we’ll be married, and on a plane to India. Our worldly goods will either be packed up in UK storage, or following us by slow coach (we could be without it for three months or so, apparently), depending what it is. We’ll be gone, baby. I still can’t quite believe it. Not too long ago, time was crawling by. Now it seems determined to bolt like a frightened horse.

We’re just about keeping up, I reckon. On Friday, we had the first set of vaccinations, meaning my blood is currently a lethal soup of diptheria, polio, tetanus, typhoid, meningitis, japanese encephalitis, and hepatitis A. It was, as ever with jabs, hardly the horror I had built up in my head. As Kirsty says, the good thing about going to a private travel clinic where the nurse does nothing but give injections all day, is that they’re reallygood at it. Quick and easy, though we couldn’t really raise our arms above our heads for the next twenty-four hours or so. Thankfully, as I mentioned elsewhere, I almost never need to do that. Eva was particularly brave, no histrionics at all (in fact, she was looking forward to it), which makes me suspect she may have been possessed by the wraith of a much older person. She’s only five. She’s supposed to be terrified of needles, not hurrying us along the street to be injected.

Anyway, we have another two visits to finish off the courses, then we’re functionally immortal.

Or something like that.

Finally, you may recall that later this year I have a story called ‘Hermanesha’ in Withersin magazine. To help you figure out whether the magazine might be for you, they’ve released their out of print debut issue Birth as a free PDF download. You can check it out here.