Stag Party

The first thing that I need to say is that I didn’t take my camera out on the stag do. I wasn’t going to take the risk of losing any of my photos, and I would probably have broken the camera, so if you are expecting to see results, I’m afraid I will have to disappoint. The Wedding is a different story but I’ll get to that later. I will, however, try and furnish you with a description of the evening!

The plan was simple- meet up at the bike shop at 6, rent beach cruisers and head to the first bar! This we did and drew many stares as the cavalcade of twelve men on cruisers pedaled amiably up the beach round, round the corner and towards Culhane’s Irish bar, with Bobo pulling ridiculous and surprisingly successful barspins and bunny hops. For those who don’t know, beach cruisers are the bicycle equivalent of Chopper’s. Definitely not stunt bikes!

Actually, before I continue, allow me to introduce some of the players:

- Chuck- the Groom, born Texas and has lived in Jax & England

- Brandon- the best man, has known Chuck many years now and is in charge

- Matt- Brandon calls him ‘Brother’. Has a silver tongue!

- Lee- a great friend of Chuck’s, a red n white Brit who has been in Jax some 13 years now

- Jono- Gem’s older bro, lives in Australia, hang around him long enough and things happen

- Bobbo- Gem’s younger bro, a talented musician, writer and producer

- Nathan- Gem’s sister’s fiancée, and a talented rapper/backing dancer!

- Manu- a French gentleman, has lived in England 14 years, and survives thanks to his beautiful accent!

- Fabian- another French gentleman, of sharp wit and easy friendship

- Mark- a true northerner who tells it how it is

- Thomas- a Dane, and a great one! Recently introduced to myself and ready for action

- Don- the detective

- Myself- if you followed the blog this far, that’ll do…

So to Culhane’s and some food, with the waitress Matt was very nice too. As Brandon pointed out, she needn’t worry as he was already married. Matt has a filter but when it comes off, the mouth runs with a wicked sense of humor, a wit that could skewer any adversary and is accompanied by a heart of gold. We got on straight away.

Pedaling onwards the convoy arrived at Fly’s Tie. Quickly organizing beers to maximize drinking time, and then sitting outside round a giant table. This for me was the best point of the evening. Although the entertainment ramped up later, here were 13 blokes, who had only Chuck in common. In truth almost none of us had met each other before, yet the conversation was easy and the mood great. It’s a lot less easy to find a bunch of guys who all get along than you would have believed from this night, yet we managed bonding consummately (*novel turn of phrase there Phil!), greasing the gears of banter with Guinness and Jagermeister! Well done fella’s!

After this we headed for Chuck’s favorite…Pete’s bar. More drinks and then we gathered around the foozball and ping pong tables. After heated competition in which Matt and I almost staged a comeback having been 5-0 down, we still lost and wept into our pints. Sort of. Anyway, misery had to take a back seat as all 13 of us attempted with reasonable success to play a round robin of ping pong- swatting at the ball with hands or paddles- whilst running around the table!

After this I forget a bit, apparently we went to Ritz, I was denied entry and the hens were flagging so we agreed to meet back at Pete’s. Jono went via a hotel lobby, on his beach cruiser, and we made it back to Pete’s and celebrated into the night.

Although not intentional, pedaling round the stag do was a neat accompaniment to my journey. The pedal home was less successful, involving multiple crashes and cycling over Atlantic Bridge on the wrong side of the 3 lane road. Foolish but funny too. Bear in mind that for the start and end of this evening, Brandon and then Chuck were cycling whilst carrying another bike over a shoulder! Chuck less successfully because he was doing it on the way home, after a skinfull, and for 4 miles! That about sums up the night.

The following day was largely hungover and involved a big ole BBQ for 27 mouths. The shopping list Gemma sent me was incredible, and Nina, Fiona and myself did the shopping inc 120 sausages without Chuck, having left him sleeping off the Stag party on a table in Costco’s café area! The celebrations didn’t end either. Gemma and Chuck always insisted that they required no gifts, and were more than happy just to have everyone who made it out celebrate with them, and in true G+C style, not only arethey having another party when they get back to England for those who couldn’t be there, they also refused to let Jono’s or Manu's birthday's, and Don + Fiona’s 30^th wedding anniversary pass by unnoticed. Cakes all round! It’s these things that gather such a group of wonderful folk around them.