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I've just got back from the beautiful Greek island of Andros where my friends Simon and Ciska not only got married but where they hosted an utterly magical week of holiday and wedding based activities.
I can honestly say, on returning, that the only person of the very large group there that I found annoying was myself (mosquitoes aren't people) - for getting too drunk to perform my best man duties properly. I can honestly say I'd like to thank everybody on the island for a wonderful week. The Moran and Faulkner families, friends old and new, the owners of the apartment I stayed in:- Maria and Antonio, and all of the friendly and hospitable Andros islanders.
I've kicked this blog off with a few pictures of Si and Cis over the years, either alone, together, or with assorted other friends and then it goes into some stories and thoughts about the week. There were so many photos to fish through that they're not in strict chronological order and nor is my account. Hopefully it'll give a feel of the week (admittedly from my perspective, I can't write from anyone else's) and make some recompense for my drunken bumbling and shambling.
I've known Simon for about thirty years. Introduced to me first by Ian Stocks he soon became an integral part of both our friendship group and, in fact, our group. A talented, beyond belief, guitarist at such a young age, we were soon having fun writing songs like Bullous Napkin Rash, Hoover Groover, and Getting Out at Gateshead.
They were fun times, silly times, but great friendships were forged and it was good to see so many of that gang in Andros:- Tony Higgins, Ian Fuller, Collette, Mike Down, Chris Pugmire to name but five.
Years later I gradually lost touch with Simon and then one day I bumped into him in the Dublin Castle in Camden where we got back in touch, meeting ever more regularly and developing a closer and firmer bond than before - as well as making up stories about talking potatoes, reversing Reverends, and 'bad' magicians!
One night in 2006, I was in Birmingham with our friend Rob Horrocks (sadly an absentee on Andros) when Simon rang to ask if I could meet up. I told him I couldn't but he should ring Mike who was having a party that night. Luckily for him he did just that because that's the night he met Ciska who, as you can see in the below photo was, and very much still is, gorgeous.
Like all couples they had their ups and downs but soon Simon realised that, just as when playing guitar, solos are fun but songs, and love, work much better when you're working together towards a shared goal. So when he announced to me in January this year, just before attending a SELFS talk about David Bowie, that he was getting married I was thrilled for the both of them.
When he asked me to his best man I was touched - and terrified. When he told me the wedding would be in Greece I soon became very excited. It ended up being a tough few months for me in the interim, another one of my best and most valued friends Bugsy passed away from cancer aged just fifty-one, so I was so excited to be celebrating some positive news (more came from my friends Ian and Miriam too) that I could barely wait to get on the plane to Athens.
So that's what I'm blaming it on! I woke in the morning, took a series of tubes to West Hampstead Thameslink, had a coffee in Costa, and met Ian Fuller and Collette before we took the train to Luton and there, our first drop - a Lisa lager - airport rules, was downed.
The flight took us to Athens with ease and we grabbed a cab to the port of Rafina, stopping to drop off Ian and Collette's luggage at their hotel along the way. I couldn't help thinking a sign reading 'Collette Winter's Flower Garden' looked like something from the Urban Dictionary!
We settled in Hunky Dory bar in Rafina for food and a few Fix beers and I turned into my AirBnB pretty late that night. I woke just in time to walk to the port in time for the ferry but there we struck a problem. We could not locate the ticket office. As we tried to do this we heard the ferry loudly announce its departure.
We hung round Rafina for a bit, had a few beers, some food, and got a much later (eight hours!) ferry across to Gavrio in Andros. It was exciting to be on my first ever Greek ferry and I chatted to a couple from Boston, Massachusetts on their way to another wedding in Mykonos. The sea, the landscape, and the sight of Andros coming in to port all looked stunning. The wind in my hair felt great.
On Andros it was a whirl of meet and greets, pool parties, swimming in the sea, Fix beer, cheese pies, beans, and the not insubstantial matter of a wedding.
The island was stunning. I was genuinely taken aback by its beauty. Up on the hill where our apartment was situated the wind was fierce which gave the illusion that one would not tan (as if!) and the sound of cicadas was so prominent it was at first overbearing. We all soon learned to tune them out! I'm even missing them now!
Maria and Antonio ran a lovely place. So friendly, so helpful, and, with Antonio's catchphrase "swimming and beer", so apt! He made me a super strong coffee and even let me have a strum on his bouzouki (not a euphemism) which I, of course, mistook for an oud and then pretended to play not realising it was upside down.
Me, Ian, and Collette were sharing with Tony and Michelle and we all had lovely spacious apartments with comfy beds, fridges, kitchens, and balconies overlooking a landscape as verdant as, but warmer than, the north of Wales. The five of us were also sharing a car. Michelle did the lionesses share of the driving but Collette chipped in with a bit too. I was glad I didn't have to. I've not driven for some years and the hairy hairpin turns on the unpaved mountain roads, not to mention the occasional sheer drop, looked pretty damned scary. No place for a motorist who's not match fit.
Fellos beach was stunning. A short walk from our apartment and with no facilities except one taverna a few hundred metres inland. There was nothing to do but get in the water and swim. It was cold for all of second until you get your shoulders under and then it was intensely lovely, utterly spellbinding.
Some of the guests were staying at the glorious Fellos Beach House with its large yard, a stone circle for reasons we never ascertained, and a selection of hammocks to swing in in the mid afternoon sun. I got nipped by the fishes a couple of times but, like my copious mosquito bites, no harm was done.
The day of the wedding I woke up with the groom in my bed (such an old fashioned sweetie he didn't want to see the bride until the day) and he drove me, Ian F, and Tony down to Zorgos - a place that managed to be even more beautiful than Fellos.
Greek musicians played and when enough guests had arrived Simon went to Ciska's apartment and told, rather than asked, her dad he intended to marry her. With musicians and guests all in line we walked to a cliff edge with views of the azure Aegean behind us and Alex Panayatou, an incredible lady, oversaw a ceremony with the assistance of the deputy mayor of Andros, several beautiful bridesmaids, and me stood there with the rings in my pocket, paranoid I'd lose them!
Luckily I did not, and once they were handed out and Simon's dad had made a speech about Myfanwy and Meg Roberts (!) the service was done. Short - but very very sweet!
We had a few drinks and eventually made our way down to the beach for a swim. It was amazing and quite weird to see so many friends, some I've known for twenty/thirty years (honorary shout to Chris Barnett here, so nice to meet Alexis), and even some of their kids (Peter and Poppy, as ever, on top form - what Peter said to me is possibly unsuitable for this blog about romance and love) swimming in the sea together. Owen and Annasivia had come all the way from Los Angeles for the event and it was fantastic to see them. I was really pleased they got to meet, and got on with, many of my other best friends who they were not so familiar with beforehand.
The next couple of evenings were given over to the reception and the pool party, as well as a lovely little afternoon drive with Annasivia and Owen. The British and Dutch contingents competed for control of the record decks (ELO's Don't Bring Me Down being a particular winner for the Brits), Ian, Collette, Simon, and Nick performed a wonderful set (Nick did a solo rendition of Free's All Right Now), there was interpretative dance (I'm not joking), me and Owen wore the same shirt (though Chris Pugmire's wedding outfit knocked both of our looks into a cocked hat), I drank too much and ate too little, and I laughed hard and long into the night - each and every night.
My speech was due very late at night and due to a combination of booze, nerves, emotion, and not having the phone I'd actually prepared the thing on (but, let's be honest, mainly booze) I struggled and failed. I'd managed one at a funeral just two months earlier and perhaps had mistakenly thought a wedding would be easier. Word of advice:they're not - and certainly not if you're drunk.
Luckily, others stood in. Particular thanks to Nick Moran and Ian Stocks who covered my whole sorry arse for this regretful and embarrassing episode which I really hope didn't ruin Simon and Ciska's big day too much.
There was some passport related shenanigans where I was supposed to go to the town hall so Simon and Ciska could be married 'officially'. It involved Simon and I going on a bit of a wild goose chase round coastguard offices, shops, and travel agents - all to no avail. I'm still not 100% sure if that's sorted yet but it did make me wonder why the deputy mayor, up on the mountain, couldn't sort that?
The last evening, Saturday just gone, there was to be a big meal in Gavrio. I'd spent the day swimming on Fellos beach and relaxing in a hammock and none of my party wanted to drive so we stayed in the local taverna and made jokes about a fictional character called Dennis Pastry (I found this way funnier than I should have done). The barmaid was about six years old and was utterly adorable as she took our bottles of Mythos away. Her brother had been less amenable earlier in the week when he appeared ready to stab Owen.
On the way back, by foot, that night we caught up with Mike and Chris P stargazing and hugged goodbye. Which meant, of course, that we saw them again early next morning as we all gathered in Gavrio to depart for Rafina, Athens, and finally home.
A meal of beans in Gavrio (Michelle's offer of one last can of beer was rejected - by my body, if not my mind) and it was time to hop the ferry. It wasn't much fun in the stow where cars and motorbikes revved their engines but with the breeze in my hair and a tube of Pringles on deck it was great. A few of us, under the aegis of the affable and organised Mark Hasler, had a meal in the port of Rafina and then it was a taxi to Eleftherios Venizelos where eventually I met up again with Ian F and Collette and, after one last cheese pie, we took our delayed flight back to Luton.
I'd ended up with the same two people I'd started with giving the whole week a kind of circularity. It was about 1am when I arrived in Luton and the trains were no longer running. A coach to Victoria and two night buses across London got home for 0348am on Monday morning. I spent the next couple of days pretty knackered but it had been worth it. More than worth it. I hope everyone else agrees.
Thanks to Adam Orton for the photos I nicked from his Facebook page, thanks to Annasivia, Michelle, and Collette for the lifts, thanks to Owen for the Tadley t-shirts that got a good airing, and thanks to the Faulkner and Moran families - but thanks mostly to Ciska and Simon for their kindness, their generosity, for putting up with a bunch of wrong 'uns, and for treating us all to a little bit of paradise. Not just in the form of the beautiful island of Andros but in showing how important love and friendship is in life.
Yamas!
