This is entirely fictional…. of course

Am woken to cheery singing from postie with yet more deliveries for First Born. Feeling dusty as I answer door (yesterday’s Shiraz not as good quality as I thought) decide said singing is aural equivalent of cactus enema and suggest alternative career for postie, viz guinea pig for bacterial warfare. As I’m fighting postie to stop said deliveries being dumped on top of favourite dahlia, invading army, viz groom’s parents and grandmother, etc. arrive (with fewer tanks but more shoes). He runs a vape emporium in Hemel Hempstead (‘my cardamom lung crusher won an award’), she is a former county standard shot putt champion who makes erotic sculptures out of repurposed bedsteads. Granny is a former debutante with piercing blue eyes, the straightest back I’ve ever seen and a rather disturbing habit of kissing me on the lips while she squeezes my doodah. She also has a laugh that suggests she didn’t take up vaping any time too soon. After awkward two hours of dodging the snog-grope combo while emptying their trailer of gift sculpture (‘it’s a homage to the three graces only with penises’) and forty-one shoe boxes, adjourn to pub for ‘sharpener’ with him and granny. First of Her Name happy to spend hour or so helping choose right shoes (‘my speciality’). Granny has dubbonet and lemon and spends happy hour grappling the various manhoods present at the Crown and Concubine; he describes how vaping has saved his marriage.  Reflect on fact that we don’t get a say in who joins the family in these days of love rather than strategy deciding a life partner. Granny is now teaching an itinerant bull inseminator the Charleston while he is explaining his vaping journey to a couple of teenagers, clearly hoping to cadge some free samples. Realise if First of Her Name had arranged the marriage, I would have had to give up on the pub and wear formal attire for dinner so maybe accepting the lottery of First Born’s choices isn’t so bad after all.