Naquada

Well tomorrow is the day.. I’m now sat here alone, my wife to be is safely tucked away at her parents, and its just me and the cats and a jacket potato.

I’ve done my final trip down to our venue for tomorrow.. Everything is delivered, the cake made it across finally, and the place is full of our stuff.

The marquee itself looks gorgeous, far better than we’d ever imagined it could look, even the venue were impressed!!!

It’s now just waiting, my best men (both of them!) will be with me tomorrow.. apparently I’m being got up early to go collect and deliver flowers..

But in all of this rush and excitement, my soul feels calm. I am not nervous, I am not scared. I am excited, and happy..

Michelle will be tomorrow, my wife, and I will finally be married to the women I love.. There is a message inside our wedding rings, that we both believe in.. and that we know will always be true..

I am so lucky to have found Michelle, and so lucky that I get to spend the rest of my life with her..

Today, and almost exactly 24 hours before the Wedding, I got a phone call..

As you may have known a few weeks ago I took my Magic Circle exam, for entry into one of the worlds most exclusive clubs..

It was actually possibly one of the nerve wracking moments yet (I’ve yet to find out if I’ll be as nervous tomorrow!).

My routine consisted of a opening coin effect (commonly known to most as a three fly), an ambitious card routine with some twists, and a closing mentalism effect..

In total four of us took our examinations to become MMC (Members of The Magic Circle), and three took their AIMC (Associate of the Inner Magic Circle), unfortunately it was judged that none of the AIMC’s were are at required level to pass to that level, but the phone call I received was to tell em that I and all four of us at MMC level had passed. Joining the ranks of the 1,500 other Magicians Worldwide that are members of The Magic Circle.

I can now officially say that I am a ‘Member of The Magic Circle’, use the letters MMC, and logo, and of course head up to London to the HQ on Monday nights. In all it’s actually more a confidence thing as well, saying that I am of the level required to be a member, and because its an examined process, involving three judges, a marking scheme, and discussion with The Magic Circle Council, I feel very honored, and proud to have been accepted into The Magic Circle..

It seems that before you can actually get married…

You have to have a practice go at it first..

Last night was our wedding rehearsal for this weekend, and it’s not just a quick five minutes of pointers, its the whole ceremony.

Although the whole event was slightly confusing as we had to say.. ‘On Saturday I take you…’ and ‘On Saturday I will promise…’, instead of the traditional ‘I will‘ and ‘I take you…‘ which for my simple brain might throw me out at the weekend!!!

But the whole wedding party (which is actually quite big) plus other halves turned up at a very cold, wet church for the evening rehearsal.. It was wonderful to see the inside of the church from the view that we’ll have Saturday, and at least now we sort of know what we are meant to be doing…

Now there are a number of things that you shouldn’t do at a wedding rehearsal… and I think that possibly one of the most important things is not to hit the vicars Ford KA with your big Audi A6.. Ford KA’s seem to dent very easily!!! But yes… after the rehearsal, yours truly, slightly tired and cold.. managed to reverse into the vicars car, although as one of my best men did say… The Vicar did park quite close, i.e, the same car park…

Now I was an honest soul, and went back into the church to let the vicar know, and I’ve offered to pay for the repairs… We’ll see on Saturday if he’s still willing to marry us!!!

It’s strange that I still don’t feel nerveous, or even worried about the weekend.. I feel very relaxed, I guess because it all feels right… lets see if I’m any more nerveous on Saturday…

With only a few days now until we get married, it was wonderful to get invited on a river dinner cruise by friends.

We cruised up the Thames at Reading for a few hours, enjoying a fantastic meal and drinks with friends.

The boat only takes approximately 12-15, so our small group had it exclusively.

After dinner we stood up on deck listening to music as we cruised down the river..

The ‘Candlelight‘ is a lovely boat, and something we’d definitely look at doing again, and is also extremely cheap when you have a number of people going.. They also do a curry dinner cruise!!!

It was also nice to see friends just before the big day…

Again all photos on my flickr set..

So Friday was my stag do, and wow what a do.. I’d gone through all the normal ideas and as I mentioned previously Michelle suggested a Magic Night up at Simon Drake’s House of Magic.

Simon of course brought the wonderful and now cult following ‘The Secret Cabaret‘ show to Channel Four in the 1990’s and started up a venue in London a number of years ago to perform him gothic, horror and stage act for corporates, before starting to open it up for public.. This was the perfect venue!!!

We headed up, Simon had been kind enough to sort out us with some special tickets..

The House of Magic, is a full evenings entertainment, entering through the enchanted garden you start off with tours of the haunted cellar, fortune telling from the whispering chair, and some lazying about in the drawing room, and red room, before some excellent food is served, alongside in our case champagne (lots!)

The evening show is something very special. Simon’s turned the entire Victorian pub into the theatre space, using not just the stage, but also the surroundings into his performance space. The opening act ‘amateur transplants’ was hillarious, a surgeon sining some dark parody songs..

Following this Simon put on his full evening show, a mix of his signature dark horror magic, along with some of his classic routines as well (so it’s not all gore).. I wont go into what he did, as that will spoil it for those of you that should go and see it.. except to say it’s possible one of the best magic shows I’ve seen for some time.. and it will stay with me as a very special show..

After the show, Simon went out of his way to make me and my party feel so welcome.. even taking us up into his flat and personal living space.. We even got to see the Captains Cabin, and spent some time of top of the building looking over london in a strange ‘Mary Poppins’ type experience (Us, Simon Drake and Chimneys!).. you can see my flickr set for some more photos, or check out the gallery on The House Of Magic site

Simon Drake’s House of Magic is somewhere you HAVE to go if you are in London… full details on his site

I’ve now been officially ‘told off’ by friends and followers for not updating my blog for some time… of course this is down to the fact of getting married, honeymoon, magic circle things and more…

So… I’ll be queuing up some posts to cover the gaps, now they have happened over the next few days…

Normal service will be resuming..

Well tonight is my stag do, and we’re off for quite a fitting evening at Simon Drakes House of Magic in London.

Simon of course brought the wonderful and now cult following ‘The Secret Cabaret‘ show to Channel Four in the 1990’s…

The show was excellent, and featured a huge number of fantastic names, for years it was only possible to watch the series on tape if you’d recorded it, but last year Simon managed to negotiate the rights to his portions of the show to create a DVD of the two series.

The bad news is that for a number of reasons the license for this is coming to an end..

So again the Secret Cabaret will vanish, as mysteriously as it appeared.. However there is a plus point though… Simon will be selling the remaining stock of the DVD’s at half price (£12.50+p&p) from his website.

Tonight’s going to be great.. my friends.. Magic, Simon Drake and a few drinks.. I’ve never been to the House of Magic, but heard great things, and when I spoke with Simon he was all up for letting me have my stag do there, and have go out of his way to help us and be the ‘ultimate host’…

..you can’t ask for much more!!!!

Well we’ve been very very busy with the wedding and stuff and its amazing that we only now have about 9 days left.. so the titme of this article in today’s Reading Chronicle seems very fitting!!

We are featured in an article about Spice the society and activities group…

For the non keen of eye… that’s me and Michelle in the bottom left of the article.. It’s a fantastic group, and whatever it is you want to do.. from the simple to and just plain out of this world crazy.. They’ll probably do it…

The best events for us have been the weekends away.. The Halloween Ball at Clearwell Caves, or Invading Center Parcs.. If you do a search on the blog you’ll find my previous posts about these.. But their list of events cover everything from walks, special access to Stonehenge, Tank driving, sports, dinners, helicopter training, you name it.. they probably do it.. They also run the club UK wide.. so even if your not in the Thames Valley and Solent area, and you want to get a life… they can point you in the right direction..

You can click here for a full size image of the article..

The Berkshire Magicians are again holding a Magic Show – ‘An Evening of Comedy Magic. Illusion and Mind Reading‘, this time at Loddon Hall, in Twyford. Berkshire. You may remember we ran one of these events back in January this year..

The doors open at 5:30pm for close-up magic in the bar, and the show starts 7pm sharp.

Simon Alexander will introduce international Illusionists ‘The Molins‘, Simon Williams will present Comedy Magic, and Ian Souch will demonstrate his awe inspiring Mind Reading.

Clive Winterton and Robert Bone will provide additional closeup magic before the show and during the interval.

Tickets are £10 and full details and maps can be found at www.berkshiremagicians.co.uk

A clever way of getting your brand across.. and as I mentioned before.. It’s nice to see magic in demand for stuff like this..