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My big fat Greek wedding

My big fat Greek wedding

Wednesday 13th July 2016

Last week the New Zealand car had a long run; we went to Southgate to collect a bride and take her to the Greek Orthodox Church at Brookmans Park before heading off to the reception at Sopwell House in St Albans. It was about 50 miles in total.
Luckily I allowed plenty of time to get to Southgate as the traffic at Cockfosters was awful; no roadworks or accidents, just sheer volume of cars. It was a sunny day and the temperature gauge did start to rise whilst I was inching my way through the queue, but these old Austins do seem to handle the heat quite well and we were never in danger of boiling over.
I had never driven at a Greek wedding before and wasn't quite sure what to expect. In fact it was all fairly normal. However, the Church itself was a new experience. It seemed to be an old Church of England building which had been acquired by the Greek Orthodox Church and re-named. It was a standard stone-built affair, all very traditional. But peeking inside, I was amazed to see every square inch of the walls had been covered with religious murals and huge bouquets of flowers were hung everywhere. It was a stunning sight. I have seen remains of old wall-paintings in St Albans Abbey but they were faint, scratchy things which were clearly just a shadow of the original work. The walls of the Greek Church were painted in bright, vivid colours. It was a striking contrast to the plain whitewashed walls of our Churches.