You're supposed to go Praguewards in matching shirts with nicknames on the back and spill yourselves into disaster. All that can fuck off. We nine opted for Peterborough ale festival, which from Leicester is a longer train ride than you'd think. We are not ale geeks, but it's safe to say we enjoy several drinks, and several drinks were enjoyed, local and less local. Hats were seen. Beards and burgers reviewed. A baffling amount of children, many of them not lost, bounced up and down on trampolines inbetween the bumper cars and the toilets.
We quaffed around and lost and found and lost each other. Some of the ale tasted like chocolate socks. Some of it was served by a sullen man in a glittering pink cowboy hat like he was doing you a massive favour. Volunteer bar staff. The two ale halls were massive, and before we'd got through the three hundred and fifty varieties on offer it was time to get the last train home and continue things elsewhere, which did happen, after the required Embarrasing Thing That Happens To The Groom On The Stag Do happened, on the train, and is easily explainable but unfit for family ears, so maybe the Best Man's speech will only hint at it, I haven't decided, because I'm writing it, because I'm Best Man.
One by one the group whooped more and numbered less, and there was music and a satisfying couch and a long walk home.
