The ramblings of Keane Ingram

I went to Glasgow a couple of weeks ago for a friend's wedding. I had spent the weeks leading up to this in various states of anxiety. I'm not entirely sure why but going away leads to me being worried over every tiny detail. To start with I needed a new suit as my old suit was eaten by moths. I probably spent more time researching suits than I did planning my own wedding! I even learned about pocket squares (and bought one too). I had the honour of being an usher, and more through luck than judgement the other two ushers had similar colour suits and shirts.

Then I had the practical things to worry about. I was flying up on my own and meeting friends at Glasgow Airport, then we were hiring a car and driving to our accommodation. We were all flying from different airports which meant I was going to arrive in Glasgow at 8.50am whilst the others would get there at 5.30pm. So I spent a lot of time researching things to do in Glasgow, how the buses and metro system worked, bike hire, luggage storage, etc.

In the end all of that was for nothing. I turned up for my 7.30am flight at 5.45am only to see that my flight had been cancelled. I hadn't slept particularly well so I was pretty tired and grumpy - why didn't they text or email to let me know the flight was cancelled? It would have saved a lot of hassle. I managed to book myself a seat on the same afternoon flight as my friends (from a different airport), then went home and tried unsuccessfully to have a nap. I woke up and was just getting ready to leave when I got a text to tell me that the second flight was cancelled!

At least this time everyone else was in the same boat, so we transferred to another flight from yet another airport. We got there for 3.30pm (the flight was scheduled for 5.30pm), only for the flight to be delayed until 8pm. I was pretty tired by this time and was alternating between coke and coffee to stay awake. We finally got on board just after 8 and made it out of Glasgow Airport at 9.59pm.

It turns out that in Scotland you are unable to buy alcohol off-licence after 10pm, which we found out when picking up the rental car. Most of us had been looking forward to a drink after this very long day so were not best pleased. In desperation someone tried calling a number we'd found on a dodgy website to try and get some alcohol delivered, but language issues meant this didn't go particularly well.

We eventually got to our accommodation just after midnight, after a stop at Asda to stock up on the essentials. We were staying in a converted church in Minishant which used to be an Indian restaurant. It was amazing! We had big rooms, a table tennis table up on the top floor, a record deck with large selection of vinyl and all the Indian restaurant plates we could eat (I guess they were part of the restaurant sale). But the most amazing thing was that the Airbnb host had left us a few beers in the fridge. It was like manna from heaven! So we were able to chill out and have a few games of table tennis, and I finally went to sleep at around 2.30am after being awake for 22 hours.

Five hours later I was awake - I had been dimly aware that there was a skylight in my room when I went to bed, but I got woken up by the sun shining right in my face. I eventually figured out how to close it and managed to get another couple of hours sleep but was still not quite with it.

We had a fairly relaxed day on the Friday, we went for a trip to Ayr (after another supermarket trip to stock up on booze!) The beach is really nice but it was remarkably quiet and calm. We went for a quick drink then headed home as the ladies in the group had a pampering session booked. The men prepared some food ("picky bits") and played poker (using Scrabble tiles as chips), listened to records and drank. We also had quite a few games of table tennis with one player being referred to as "Little Miss Spinny Bitch"!

The big day arrived - the ladies had more pampering booked so the men got themselves ready. I was a little nervous about my usher duties but I also was looking forward to being able to attend a wedding without parental responsibilities!

The wedding was at Sorn Castle which was very pretty. The ushers needed to make sure that people didn't park in front of the castle and then direct them where to sit (which wasn't too complicated!) The ceremony itself was lovely, it was a humanist wedding which involved literally tying the knot. There was also a naming ceremony for the happy couple's daughter straight after. The wedding breakfast was in a marquee adjoining the castle. The speeches were excellent and then the merriment began.

Sitting on a table with some people who don't drink, and knowing people on another table with kids, lead to plenty of free wine and champagne. Someone then decided that drinking Malibu would be a good idea, which led to us finishing all of the Malibu behind the bar. After that I spent a lot of time on the dance floor and ended up with my tie around my head (the bride approved!) The band were really good and played all manner of music, I think they played Reach by S Club 7 but my memory is a little hazy.

The next morning was not pretty. Despite figuring out the skylight I still didn't get much sleep, and I couldn't really eat or drink much. Once we got to Glasgow and after a quick toilet trip I felt a bit better. Some of us had a few hours to explore Glasgow before our flights, so we had a quick look around the cathedral and necropolis and then had a late lunch before getting to the airport. Luckily my flight was on time (my friends had to wait a couple of hours unfortunately) and I was back home by 10.30pm. I slept very well that night!

Overall it was a fantastic weekend, spending time with friends and temporarily having no parental responsibility was great and the bride and groom had a lovely day.