Our wonderful son marries.

 Our wonderful son marries. 

It isn't every day that your son or daughter gets married but the last couple of days have truly been the most memorable yours truly, his wife and lovingly supportive family have known since their parents got married and their families were married. The whole concept of being a father in law may take a considerable amount of time to sink in. But the fact of the matter is that our wonderful son Sam married the lovely Lucy last Thursday and as parents my wife Bev and I can hardly hold back our pride, love and sheer delight for the happy married couple. 

It hardly seems like yesterday when you found yourself splashing water over a baby's face in the bath as your son winced with horror, clearly dissatisfied with the sight of his dad trying desperately to wash his son in the bath. The image of soapy water and suds dripping from a sodden baby's body still endures to the present day. Parents can never know when the day will arrive but we privately knew that one day Sam would have to achieve independence, setting out his own in the big, wide world but marriage seemed many decades into the future. 

The mother and father do their utmost to spend as much time nurturing your first child with the tenderness and care that seemed to come naturally. You sterilise your baby's bottles late night because that's your overwhelming duty, a responsibility that can never be relinquished until that child is ready to strike out on their own as a fully functioning adolescent, a grown up adult. You do your best, your utmost to lavish as much attention as possible on him but you always feel contented with your whole hearted endeavours because everything feels so right and always will. 

Then you wake up one day and discover that the baby you'd so protectively fed and watered, is now 20 something, a strong, powerful man with very fixed ideas, standards and values, opinions about everything from Covid 19 to Brexit, the carbon human footprint, matters of environment and the political shenanigans in every part of the world where controversy will always exist. So you have nothing but unqualified admiration for your son's superior knowledge to yours and you smile when he smiles into his wife's adoring face and declares his undying love.

But you can't help but look back to those first formative years of your son's life and reflect fondly since this is your prerogative and you have every right to remember how it all started for your wonderful son. You remember that first session of changing nappies, taking him for long walks in his pushchair, the local park expeditions, and then the first, tentative shuffle and crawl as he attempted to make sense of those daunting challenges ahead. You watch him levering himself up to his tiny feet and wondering what on earth evolution was all about. He drags his arms forward, stares at you with utter bemusement and then heads for the kitchen or the chest of drawers, somewhere or anywhere that resembles an adventure. 

You think back to those glorious moments when he makes for the fridge and becomes besotted with the contents of that fridge. When he's found his way to his feet gingerly he'll then have a go at opening up that fridge repeatedly. He may think he's found something entirely new and intriguing but then you realise that he just wants to find out much more about the world around him. He wants to reach for the family photos on the mantelpiece, the ornaments perched delicately on the shelves, the dangerous glass and those forbidden objects he thinks are toys.

So you gather him towards you and guide him, coax him, persuade him, cajole him into making the right choices at the right times. It was never easy because how could it be anything else? Your precious child wants to develop very quickly, he's naturally inquisitive and he just wants to quite literally run before he can walk. He'll giggle at you when you do something wrong or just hold you in awe when the teasing begins, chuckling at  the peek a boo sessions, the time for bed routines and then the reading of stories. It is now that the lifelong parental relationship and bond establishes itself and takes root.

Now the building blocks are laid down, the foundations are set. Before you know it he's up on his feet, trotting around, moving at some speed, racing around your living rooms and then flopping back down on his backside in one comical but loveable heap. You laugh and he laughs. Your wife laughs and you join in again. This is our son, the next generation, a bundle of love and sweet joy. You've bonded immediately forever more, he's an essential part of you, your flesh and blood and nothing will stop you from loving him, encouraging and inspiring him for as long as he lives. The kinship and affinity is always there and held together permanently. You're ours Sam and always will be. 

After a richly rewarding, joyously uplifting weekend which began on Thursday evening, families and friends, babies, children and teenagers galore, we all abandoned ourselves to wild bacchanalia, a sparkling spectacle of rejoicing, happiness and laughter. Our Sam, our son looked handsome, dashing, a model of sartorial elegance, grey suited, smartness personified, hair brushed with meticulous attention to detail. For the best part of four days he found himself the centre of attention, constantly rushing around, scurrying and scampering in all manner of directions, intent on making sure that everything went just right. Which it did. 

Our hotel, although an architectural wonder, left a lot to desire. In fact internally it looked as if the last 18 months had taken its toll on the whole infrastructure of the building. There were problems wherever you looked. For the purposes of confidentiality the name of the hotel will remain nameless. But the undeniable faults and technical gremlins were self evident from day one. Maybe Covid 19 had ensured that access to the hotel may have been more problematic than we might have thought. 

So here were the list of blunders and clangers or things that wouldn't work when the issues should have been addressed throughout the global pandemic. The bathroom sink taps seemed to be rebelling, a slow trickle of water that needn't have bothered to go any further than it did. The beds, although luxurious, looked unsightly. There were one or two pieces of furniture missing in the bedrooms and on the final night of our stay the wretched fire alarm went. The bedrooms had the most unseemly stains on the sheets but apart from those minor considerations, it was all ship shape.

But then the first day of the celebrations commenced. In front of a traditionally robust and Victorian town hall, guests, family and friends all gathered. We walked down corridors, past a gallery of local mayors portraits on the wall and then moved into the registrar's office for the ceremony. Our son Sam and our lovely daughter in law Lucy were side by side, glowing and radiant. A gentleman read a short homage about Lucy and Sam, extolling their virtues as a now married couple and amusing the audience in moderate doses but then it became hilarious. 

The following day was the ultimate party of all time. After another brief affirmation in front of beautifully knotted white curtains and an eye catching marquee we all headed for the dance floor. On the first day of our stay there was an elaborate looking end of term school prom. Hundreds of teenagers were milling around like proud peacocks unfurling their plumage and gratifying disco music thumped out across the land. The men looked like junior bank clerks on their first day while the women were all white taffeta and roses, silky outfits that shimmered exotically. 

Then for the wedding party in all its splendour, a magnificent fusion of disco dance music, tables and chairs scattered around a large, glamorous room, doughnuts at the entrance and a whole variety of cakes and sweets to tickle the taste buds. We were relaxed, at perfect ease and ready to trip the light fantastic. The dancing seemed to go on until well into the early hours of Monday morning and the rest of the guests were trooping off to bed for a pleasant night sleep. The new Mr and Mrs Morris left the hotel at amid a flurry of congratulatory handshakes and well wishing goodwill. Mum and Dad were delighted and deeply proud of their Sam and Lucy. Family and friends had also had a ball. Oh what a weekend. Mazzeltov Sam and Lucy.